There stood an old man who looked like a cemetery caretaker. The moment he heard Leonardo's words, his expression instantly contorted. Along with it, the traces of age covering his skin wavered like a heat haze.
Beneath it, a youthful face was revealed.
"Brother─!"
As Nero, now certain, ran towards him with furrowed brows, Leonardo naturally spread his arms wide. However, when the grown boy threw himself with all his might into the embrace, the unexpected weight pushed him back two steps.
"Hey hey, you're heavy–"
"Why were you so late!"
The choked voice started nagging rudely right away. But the flame-like hair sprawled on Leonardo's shoulder as he rubbed his forehead against it. His arms tightly hugged Leonardo's waist and back as if afraid to let go. Though it was a bit embarrassing, Leonardo thought it was fine on a day like today, and patted Nero's back with a small laugh.
"Did I delay on purpose? The trial took a long time. But it ended well."
"Trial?"
Nero lifted his head suddenly and asked with wide eyes.
"What do you mean?"
The news of the press conference announced just an hour ago hadn't yet reached this remote floating island. Leonardo answered with a deliberate grin:
"I won't get caught by the Council anymore even if I walk around freely now. They promised they wouldn't chase me again."
"Really? Them? You're not lying?"
"With a verdict issued, they'll have to keep it if only to avoid embarrassment. I'm free now, officially."
Nero twisted his eyebrows and chewed on the Captain's words, seemingly unable to grasp the context. Moving his lips, he carefully added with a strange expectation:
"Then, that thing from three years ago too..."
"That's separate."
At Leonardo's sharp cut-off, Nero closed his mouth with a disappointed face.
However, he quickly composed his bitter expression. Instead, he responded with a face that sincerely congratulated him.
"That's great. Really great."
As family who understood the meaning contained in those words better than anyone else, the two people standing close together looked at each other while smiling. Their sharp expressions had gone somewhere, and their gracefully curved eyes whispered wordless joy and giggled. The corners of their mouths curled up enough to reveal their even teeth.
Leonardo continued in a pleasantly low voice:
"It's thanks to you."
Nero raised one eyebrow. Leonardo gently massaged his shoulder and the back of his neck, adding:
"I felt bad thinking I only scolded you then. Thank you for helping."
Though implicit, it was more explicit than any expression for the two of them. Nero, who had become blank-faced, uncharacteristically wrinkled his eyebrows and made a touched expression.
"Captain..."
He pushed out his lips and hugged Leonardo tightly again. Though it was clearly Nero who had done the hugging, it inevitably looked similar to being embraced. It must be because Leonardo, who had always been bigger in build, had been the one doing the hugging. Now they were about the same size, though the red hair seemed to rise a bit higher.
Anyway, perhaps still thinking he was an underdeveloped boy, Nero's hug was close to suffocating pressure that didn't consider the other person at all.
Leonardo gently hit Nero's sturdy bottom, saying to let him breathe. In the past, he would have freaked out if his brothers just touched him, but today, perhaps because he was so glad to see him, there was no particular reaction.
For someone who usually hated acting like the youngest, this behavior was both welcome to Leonardo and also such an intense show of affection that it made him want to say "What's wrong with you?"
However, Nero's touch, which had seemed like just a hug, gradually began feeling around his back and arms. If anything, it was Leonardo who was flustered by the increasingly intense touch.
"W-what are you doing, where are you touching?"
"Captain, why have you lost so much flesh and muscle?"
Nero, changing his stance, persistently kneaded as if scanning him. His actions were uninhibited, as if conducting a body search.
"I'll accept that your arm is injured, but your body has become like paper? Why are you in this state? It wasn't this bad even then?"
The touching and emotional reunion atmosphere quickly flew away.
"What, paper? Hey you, how dare you call your Captain paper–"
"Don't tell me that bastard didn't even feed you properly? After he took you? Ha, wow... he's really a bad bastard? Let me see, take off your clothes."
"Hey, no. Listen to me. And why would I take off clothes here? Are you talking about the Commander?"
"No, now that I look at it, your face has become half too..."
"I was just released thanks to that Commander–"
Just as their stubborn voices, each saying only their own words, became entangled, the red eyes scanned the Captain's jawline that had become sharp to the point of being delicate. Unable to grab the sunken cheeks out of concern, he just bit his lips, when suddenly something familiar yet irritating caught Nero's eye.
Instantly, the red eyes turned cold. He thrust his head toward the unknown piece of cloth hiding inside the collar of the Captain's beige shirt.
"This couldn't be..."
He recalled the horrible scene he had witnessed when he had infiltrated the cabin disguised as the Commander's adjutant. The image of the Captain lying there, thoroughly violated, his entire body wallpapered with that man's things...
"This son of a– This is that thing!"
Nero, almost having a fit, reached out as if to grab the collar. Leonardo flinched and stepped back while buttoning up his shirt.
"Why, what?"
It was because the marks left by His Excellency when he had been fiddling with his neck earlier hadn't yet faded. Afraid that Nero might have seen it, Leonardo desperately covered his handkerchief-wrapped neck while trying to appear composed.
However, Nero, who couldn't know this, felt like the sky was falling seeing the Captain seemingly treasuring "that bastard's" handkerchief. Soon transforming into someone possessed by an evil spirit, he roared like a beast puffing up its body, saying he would burn it right now if it wasn't removed.
"Give it to me right now! Why are you wearing that, Captain?"
"Well I can wear it if I want to, why not! More importantly, where do you get off being so–"
The two people arguing suddenly engaged in a chase in front of the tombstone. The death game of tag between two Armsilver members was quite intense, enough to deeply trample the lush grass.
Threats far from the peaceful scenery well-lit by sunlight were exchanged affectionately. They chased and were chased after each other over a single handkerchief, crossing between trees faster than the speed of sound.
The situation ended when Leonardo, whose stamina had decreased, twisted his foot causing a falling issue, and the startled Nero caught him.
* * *
The two people, now drenched in sweat, brushed back the hair stuck to their foreheads and cooled their heat in the cool breeze. Sitting side by side in front of the tombstone inscribed with 'Ian', they looked down at the scenery below the sloping floating island. Nero, sitting with his hands propped behind him, glanced at Leonardo's left shoulder and offered reconciliation first:
"Is your arm okay?"
In the end, Leonardo had removed the handkerchief and buttoned his shirt all the way up. He rotated his shoulder demonstratively.
"It's fine."
When he casually added that the herbs Nero had given him had helped, Nero's bridge of nose and shoulders rose high as if to pierce the sky. He was such a simple guy. A smile leaking out at the edge of his field of vision was visible.
"How long have you been here?"
Leonardo asked while cutting in half the sandwich he had brought from the inn last night. He handed half to Nero, still wrapped in paper. His gaze was fixed on the vast cityscape revealed below the clouds, beyond the cliff of the grass-covered island.
It was probably a spectacle that one should see at least once while living in this country. For Leonardo, who liked looking down at the land he had protected from high places, this was one of his favorite places where he could sit all day.
Looking at his profile that clearly showed such emotions, Nero warmed up the hardened cheese in the sandwich.
"After leaving the peninsula, I came in and out for about three or four days, and it's only been a day since I came back this time. Since there are only two times in half a year when you can comfortably cross from Celestia to Solia, I thought we might meet around this time."
"Hmm, you came at the right time."
"Actually, Senior Taylor came by a few days ago, and Brother Finder and Senior Kyle also visited. Other seniors probably dropped by occasionally too, though they didn't say anything? Taylor said she'd give you a punch when you came out, for making us worry."
"Really now, you've all become disrespectful as a group."
Though he said that, a gentle smile hung on Leonardo's lips. Hearing the names of people he wanted to see after so long made a corner of his heart tickle. It was a signal that appeared when he was in a good mood.
Adding Ian who was behind them, it felt as if the entire 11th Squad was gathered, at least in spirit.
As the cheese in the sandwich became gooey, Nero took a big bite and continued:
"We've gotten quite lax, haven't we? When you were captured. Honestly, at first there was even talk about whether we should do what we promised among ourselves now. If Senior Astrid hadn't stopped us, we really almost gathered the 11th Squad to raid the Council."
"..."
"Now that you're free, at least meet everyone secretly one by one to say hello. I'll pass on the place and time."
Leonardo, who had barely chewed and swallowed the dry bread, didn't answer Nero's words for a while. It was because he thought it wasn't realistically easy. He turned the direction of the conversation to a related topic.
"What happened to your surveillance network?"
"Ah that, it went over well. Though headquarters seems to have judged that the cause was internal..."
Leonardo turned to look at Nero with contracted pupils. As the atmosphere changed instantly, Nero, who was about to take another bite, waved his hands and added:
"Ah, don't worry, don't worry. They don't know we did it, it just got passed off as the administrator's responsibility."
"Then security will become stricter, how could I meet anyone else here? I'm already nervous to death just meeting you. Hey."
"You know, Captain, do you realize that while you do the scariest things, you're really unnecessarily scared about other things?"
He had felt it for a while, but Nero seemed to have grown not only in size but also in talking back. Leonardo looked at him with sullen eyes, but since it wasn't wrong, he just stuffed his mouth with bread for no reason.
As his munching appearance was both annoying and pretty as ever, Nero, who was glaring back the same way, shook his head. Then, while also wolfing down his sandwich, he carefully asked something that suddenly occurred to him:
"Um... was everything okay at the Council? Did the Commander notice anything..."
"You're slow to ask."
Leonardo answered with a thorny tone while looking into space. At that moment, Nero's shoulders noticeably flinched.
"Don't tell me... that bastard knows something? Did he threaten you, Captain?"
While asking this, Nero was cursing the Commander inside. Hadn't he acted like he would keep his existence a secret if he just left, saying it was for his comrade's sake? And yet that bastard had ended up revealing his existence to the Captain. He was worried that the Captain, who had been left alone in enemy territory, might have received improper demands from the Commander using him as leverage.
From before, there had been many worthless guys among the military executives who wanted to possess Leonardo Blaine as their own. Therefore, it wouldn't be strange if there was one more such guy. Usually, the guys with clean faces tended to be more rotten inside...
"No."
Leonardo quietly looked at the blue sky. Watching the passing clouds, he recalled that man who had covered everything up.
"He didn't say anything."
At the unexpected answer, Nero's eyes grew slightly larger. Leonardo turned to look at such a Nero and smirked.
Then he lightly punched his shoulder and admonished:
"Don't call him 'that bastard'. He's a good person."
Nero momentarily lost his words and gaped. In his eyes, he could only see his poor Captain who had fallen into Stockholm syndrome.