I Became the Main Character’s Demon Sword

43

“You’ve grown taller.”

“Really?”

While adjusting an unbalanced brooch, Arpel casually mentioned what he had just noticed. Rohan’s eyes immediately lit up.

The eye level that had been slightly different until recently had truly become almost even. Rohan’s face was beaming throughout the preparations, and even right before leaving the room, seemingly pleased with the comment about his height.

“I’ll be in the back room again today.”

“Okay.”

On mornings when Rohan went to attend the service, Arpel would realize how much the once small child, who could be embraced with just one arm, had grown as he watched him dressed in his formal attire.

Thinking that the day he truly becomes an adult wasn’t far off made Arpel’s heart feel uneasy. Whether it was regret or lingering attachment, he swallowed the undefinable emotion.

“Hey, Arpel.”

Rohan, who seemed about to leave the room, turned back to face Arpel. His gaze trembled slightly.

“Why haven’t you been… stroking my head lately?”

“…Huh?”

Rohan seemed bothered by Arpel’s touch, which had only briefly held his hand before letting go without hesitation. There was a slightly hurt look in his eyes.

Didn’t he dislike being touched?

Although Rohan had quickly returned to normal, Arpel had attributed his sudden behavior to puberty.

Apart from the regret and lingering attachment, he had only thought that he should restrain himself from touching Rohan too much. He had consciously held back his hand from reaching for Rohan’s soft cheeks and smooth hair several times.

“I thought… you didn’t like it.”

That was all he could say. Though he had pretended not to notice, the moment Rohan first avoided his hand was clearly etched in his mind.

Because of that incident, hadn’t he decided to be content with staying by Rohan’s side for life, even if Rohan might one day give more of his heart to someone else?

However, Rohan’s eyes immediately furrowed upon hearing Arpel’s answer.

“Is it because I avoided you that time? That was really a mistake…”

The furrowed brow smoothed out, and this time his expression became close to tearful. As his fine, dark eyebrows curved downward, his handsome face exuded a forlorn air.

“I like being with you, Arpel, and I like it when you touch me. Really. So, can’t you… keep doing it?”

Rohan whispered, his face slightly flushed and eyes downcast.

His hands, now noticeably larger than when he was younger, could now lightly envelop Arpel’s. He grasped Arpel’s hand almost as if clinging to it.

Amidst the firmly intertwining sensation, even the calluses formed from holding a sword could be felt. Arpel thought that although the force at the fingertips of the hand holding his was weak, it was still solid enough that he couldn’t escape from it.

Not that Arpel had any intention of escaping from that hand in the first place.

“Alright. I understand.”

Amusingly, all his resolutions crumbled at those words. Arpel simply couldn’t ignore him or refuse his request.

Rohan, smiling broadly at those words, looked like he was straddling the boundary between adolescence and adulthood. This was even more apparent when he was dressed in his formal attire to participate in the temple’s schedule.

But the way he held Arpel’s hand and carefully leaned his head was no different from when he was 10 years old. This is why, whether it was back then when he was very young or now as he approached adulthood, Arpel couldn’t help but want to follow him.

“You should go now. There’s not much time left.”

“Okay. Will you wait for me?”

Unable to touch his neatly arranged hair, Arpel gently pressed his still soft cheek with his fingertips as he saw him off.

Arpel kept his gaze on Rohan’s retreating figure until it completely disappeared at the end of the corridor before finally turning away. He felt not unpleasant, as if the inexplicable heaviness that had been weighing on his heart had also lifted.

-Tap. Tap tap.

He closed the open window and finished adjusting his clothes. There was still quite some time before the service would end, so there was no need to hurry after him. It was then that he heard a light tapping on the window he had just closed.

There was a fairly large hawk outside the window. As he quietly watched it preening its black feathers while perched on the outer windowsill, he opened the window he had just closed.

It was his first time seeing a bird up close. Whether it was intelligent or not, it first put its leg through the open window gap and naturally came inside.

He untied the paper attached to its leg. From the texture, it seemed to be quite high-quality paper, the kind used in noble households.

“How have you been? Although the weather has been getting cooler lately, just like the day we first met, I think warm days must be continuing in the central temple area…”

He skipped over the flowery language at the beginning without reading further.

There was only one person who would suddenly send a hawk like this, and the writing style was frustratingly familiar.

The hawk’s brazen behavior clearly resembled its owner.

Meanwhile, the hawk, seemingly tempted by the leftover bread from breakfast, had settled on the table where leftover food was laid out and was sampling the food.

Glancing briefly at its behavior, Arpel turned his attention to the bottom line of the note. That’s where the main point would be.

“On the next day the temple opens, before the service begins, I will send someone to escort you.”

He quietly calculated the days since their last meeting. Since they had met in the same year he met Rohan, it was certainly 7 years ago without much thought. For someone who had said they would contact him if they found anything, this was a rather late communication.

‘The next service is…’

Roughly 8 days from now. As the central temple opened no more than five times a month, people flocked to any service day. If one didn’t want to be seen contacting someone, that day would be most suitable.

He opened the window wide, implying that the hawk should leave on its own after eating its fill. Even as Arpel left the room to go to where Rohan was, the hawk that had delivered the note was still busily pecking at the bread on the plate.

**

“Arpel!”

Due to his regular participation in the services, Rohan was well-known among the nobles as the blessed one of this generation.

There would always be people trying to catch him when the service ended, but Rohan always rushed to where Arpel was and greeted him enthusiastically.

Arpel, who had been staring at the door the whole time he was waiting, only shifted his blank gaze when Rohan entered.

Though he had only grown bigger, Rohan’s behavior was similar to when he was younger. Despite the spacious sofa being completely empty, he sat right next to Arpel, pressed close. Arpel didn’t say anything to Rohan, as he found his warmth equally welcome.

“Um, Lord Rohan…”

An unwelcome guest disrupted the cozy atmosphere. Rohan’s unfriendly gaze immediately fixed on whoever had opened the door and entered.

“What is it?”

“Well, there’s someone who wishes to see you, Lord Rohan…”

A suffocating silence followed. Rohan just stared intently at the priest who had spoken, and the one who had to meet that gaze turned deathly pale.

The exchange of gazes lasted longer than expected, though it was one-sidedly awkward for one party.

Arpel, who had been watching all this as a bystander, reached out and covered Rohan’s eyes. He just felt like doing so.

The covered eyes trembled slightly as if surprised. The long eyelashes tickling his palm several times made it clear.

“I don’t know since when the temple started bowing to nobles.”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“You may go now.”

The priest was clearly inexperienced, having just shed the trainee status. Most likely, a high-ranking noble had forced this easily intimidated person to deliver the message. This was easy to deduce with a bit of thought, but neither of the two cared about that fact.

“What’s wrong?”

Only after the unwelcome guest disappeared did Rohan carefully take hold of Arpel’s hand covering his eyes. The fact that he didn’t forcibly remove it seemed very much like Rohan.

“…Just. It felt unpleasant somehow.”

“Ah… Did I do something wrong?”

“No. It’s nothing. It’s fine now.”

As Arpel slightly removed his hand, Rohan’s eyelids opened, and his pale eyelashes fluttered. Arpel simply, quietly captured all of this clearly in his sight.

“Can I try it too?”

Cover your eyes? Sensing that Arpel was about to ask, Rohan slowly nodded.

Soon, Rohan’s hand covered Arpel’s eyes. In the sudden darkness, his eyes naturally blinked rapidly.

“Ah.”

“What?”

Then, a small exclamation escaped from beyond.

“…It tickles.”

Rohan’s voice as he answered sounded happier than expected. Somehow, it felt like he could feel the pulsing of his heartbeat through his palm.

When Rohan removed his hand shortly after, his expression wasn’t much different from usual. Even the slight tremor in his quiet voice had long since evaporated without a trace. Arpel, who had been quietly observing him, decided not to ask for the reason.

“Rohan, about the next service. I think I’ll need to go out for a while.”

“Where?”

Rohan’s gaze followed Arpel’s moving fingertips. Despite being intangible, the gaze felt so intense it was almost hot.

“Lexia called for me.”

“Ah, that guy… Why now?”

“Yeah.”

No one commented on the derogatory term ‘that guy’. Rather, the atmosphere seemed to accept it as natural.

“Why? You don’t like him, Arpel.”

“He asked for a favor.”

“…A favor?”

Rohan’s eyes narrowed. Feeling hurt that a favor had been exchanged without his knowledge, his emotions were clearly visible in his gaze. Arpel had to choose his words carefully for a moment.

“When you were young, I once went alone on a mission Lexia gave me. I asked him to investigate what I found then. I told you when you were asleep, so it’s understandable you don’t know.”

“Ah… I see. But that’s not the important part.”

Weren’t they just talking about Lexia’s favor? Arpel felt surprised by Rohan for the first time in a while.

“Are you going to leave me behind?”

“It’s a service day.”

“Nothing is more important than Arpel.”

It’s not like I enjoy it… Glancing at the clothes he was wearing, Rohan answered firmly.

Although it was sweet to hear him whisper that Arpel was more important than anything, Arpel’s attention was drawn more to something else at that moment.

“You don’t like the service?”

“It’s not that I like it.”

When Rohan first said he wanted to try the service, Arpel wasn’t actually very supportive. He disliked the idea of Rohan being tied to the temple. To be more honest, he disliked the fact that their time together would obviously decrease.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say no to the young Rohan who spoke with shining eyes about wanting to try it. Whatever it was, Arpel would never be able to refuse Rohan’s requests. He already knew this, but at that moment, he couldn’t help but realize it more acutely.

Since the service started that way, it was natural to think that Rohan liked it and wanted to do it. Given his inherently kind nature, he might have wanted to do it out of a sense of duty.

Although Arpel didn’t say anything, Rohan seemed to roughly understand what he was thinking. A slightly embarrassed smile spread across his face, which still retained faint traces of youthfulness.

“I’m doing it all at once.”

“…All at once?”

“Yes. Just… after everything is finished, I want to spend time alone with Arpel, like when I was younger. So I can leave more easily later.”

“…Ah.”

“Don’t you feel the same, Arpel?”

I do too.

After staring at Rohan for a moment, Arpel finally gave a slow response. Yet, he couldn’t deny the inexplicable sense of fullness rising in his chest.

“So it doesn’t matter if you don’t go. And, I don’t believe in gods. Unless it’s Arpel.”

“Even though you’re a priest.”

“Should I quit?”

He looked ready to quit right then and there if told to do so. Arpel answered by reaching out and gently pinching his straight nose.

“Can I go with you?”

“Sure. Just let me know in advance.”

Having finally gotten a satisfactory answer from Arpel, Rohan wore a broad smile. His light complexion already reminded one of a large puppy, and when he smiled so brightly, it felt as if the surroundings became brighter.