TGBAP 54

Piyoooo-

In the vast sky, a dignified eagle circled.

When Lucian whistled with his fingers, the eagle swooped down in a glide. Then it perched lightly on his arm.

When he stroked its feathers, the eagle let out a cry as if it felt good.

“Didn’t it take me a long time to tame Aither too? Aren’t you doing it too easily?”

Leopold, watching from the side, made a sulky face.

At that, Aither fluttered over and climbed onto Leopold’s shoulder. When it rubbed its head against him, Leopold’s expression eased a little.

“Back then, it probably wasn’t trained yet. Now it’s well trained, so it learns quickly.”

“It’s not a training issue. Aither follows you without any resistance.”

“So what?”

“Eagles usually only follow their owner. That’s why, even when it came to me in a somewhat trained state, it still took quite a long time before it truly followed me. But you’ve known it for less than a week and it’s already following you well.”

“Hm, is that so.”

It’s true he’d never felt any wariness from it.

Could it be that Aither knows he and Leopold are brothers?

Lucian stared quietly into Aither’s yellow eyes, then turned his head away.

Whenever his relationship with Leopold suddenly surfaced like this, his mood sank.

‘Calm down. It’s nothing.’

Lucian secretly took a deep breath and recalled the conversation he’d had with Ria two weeks ago.

Over the past two weeks, there had been several crises. Leopold, who had never once brought up the imperial family all that time, started mentioning things little by little after that last outing.

Whenever he heard those stories, he pictured Leopold, who had grown up loved by the imperial family unlike himself, and he felt miserable.

Even though he too had received a great deal of love from Ria and Kaiser, he still found himself comparing, and he felt endlessly small.

Especially whenever the Emperor and Empress came up, his sense of defeat only deepened.

Each time a crisis came, Ria would come to his side, squeeze his hand tight, and cover his ears, so he could endure—but without even realizing it, feelings had been slowly piling up in his chest.

“Lucian, my birthday’s in ten days?”

Just as he had barely calmed himself, Leopold’s words began to grate on him again.

Leopold’s birthday meant his own birthday.

“I was studying abroad, you know. For nearly two years I had to spend my birthday overseas. So Abama-ma says this time he’ll make it grand. He’s even inviting foreign envoys.”

“……Yeah?”

“It’ll be filled with everything I like! The food, the music, the gifts, all of it! Especially the fireworks at night are incredible, you know?”

With every word Leopold said, memories of when he lived in the imperial palace rose up.

The time when he received no one’s love and stupidly kept hoping his family would come to find him.

In those gloomy days, the day he looked forward to most was his birthday. Because he ate better food than other days, and ended the day with dazzling fireworks.

But listening to Leopold now, he realized that all along, he had only been receiving the scraps of what Leopold enjoyed.

And stupidly believing that day was the happiest.

“So, about that, I want to invite Dio and you. I’ll talk to Harry properly, so you can dress up like a noble and come. You can’t wear a hat, but don’t worry. This birthday, we’re holding a masquerade ball. Then no one will realize your face is the same as mine.”

The lump of emotions that had piled up began to slowly show its presence.

Realizing he couldn’t control it, Lucian hurriedly tried to look for Ria, but Leopold spoke faster.

“Especially you, Lucian—I really want to introduce you to Abama-ma and Eomama-ma. Because you’re my closest friend!”

In that moment, he heard something inside his head snap—

“Friend?”

Lucian couldn’t think of Ria’s advice or anything at all, and he glared at Leopold.

“Yeah, friend! But…… why are you like that?”

Only then did Leopold notice something was wrong and tilt his head.

“Ha, I want to introduce me to the Emperor and Empress? With what, exactly, are you going to introduce me?”

At the sneer dripping with malice, Leopold frowned.

“You’re going to say, ‘There’s a doppelgänger who looks exactly like me. He’s even the same age, and has the same birthday. Isn’t that strange?’ Is that what you’re going to say?”

“What are you saying…… wait, same birthday?”

“Do you really think us looking exactly alike is just a coincidence? Even if you resemble someone, there are limits. This is like putting a mirror in front of you. Isn’t it?”

Leopold, who had been about to snap back at Lucian’s irritation, felt something was off.

“Lucian, what’s wrong with you. Why are you suddenly angry…….”

“It’s not sudden. I’ve been like this since the moment I first saw you. I was abandoned the moment I was born, and I grew up alone without ever seeing my parents’ faces even once. Then, when I was eight, they said I had to soothe the ghost here, and they disguised me as an orphan and offered me as a sacrifice.”

Faced with information with no beginning or end, Leopold looked confused.

“For the first two weeks after I came here, no one took care of me, and no one cooked for me. In the end, I had to fill my stomach with nothing but potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, things like that. If it weren’t for Ria, I would’ve died long ago. No—maybe they threw me here in the first place so I would die.”

“…….”

“You wondering why I’m telling you this?”

Lucian let out a scoff and took off the necklace he was wearing. Seeing his hair and eyes slowly change, Leopold’s eyes widened.

“Well? Do I still look like a doppelgänger?”

“A-at, what is this…….”

As Leopold paled and staggered back, Lucian’s heart throbbed. Yet contrary to his heart, the corner of his mouth curled up crookedly.

“Hello, hyung. I’m the little brother you wanted so badly.”

Leopold’s face filled with shock.

After singing about wanting a little brother so much, what is that expression supposed to be?

So he didn’t want a twin little brother after all?

Or does my existence feel ominous to him?

‘Now, I don’t care what it is.’

He was tired. Whenever he looked at Leopold, who had grown up happily unlike him, he felt shabby and miserable and couldn’t stand it.

“Yes, you…… you’re my little brother? Then twins…….”

“Yeah, fucking twins. You know too, don’t you, what twins mean in the empire.”

“That’s a lie! That can’t be! If I had a little brother, Abama-ma and Eomama-ma would……!”

He shouted, then froze when he saw Lucian’s wounded expression.

It was only a split second. Lucian had already erased his expression again, staring with an emotionless gaze that was frightening.

“Twins alone are an ominous symbol, so they had no choice but to erase one existence. While you lived happily, receiving your parents’ love and other people’s welcome, I grew up as someone who didn’t exist in this world. Ha, you say your parents are kind? What kind parent can abandon a child and live without a care?”

“…….”

Seeing Leopold frozen, unable to say a word, Lucian felt the last shred of expectation he had left completely vanish.

“I resent you. No, I hate you and your parents and your blood family. If it was going to be like this, you should’ve just killed me. Then I wouldn’t have been this miserable.”

A single line of tears flowed from Lucian’s eyes. At the same time, Leopold’s face twisted.

Lucian couldn’t tell whether it was contempt, rage, or sorrow.

Lucian rotated his mana circle. Before long, one more circle was formed, and he became the owner of a fourth circle.

“Don’t ever appear before my eyes again.”

As ominous mana rose around Lucian, Leopold snapped back to his senses.

“W-wait……! Lucian……!”

But before Leopold’s words could continue, Lucian used magic to drive Leopold far away, to where the imperial palace was.

“……It was fun meeting you, hyung.”

A hollow remark no one could hear.

Now that Leopold knew the truth, he would never come here again.

To think he once believed he could live like friends with him—he felt like an idiot.

“In the end, it was always going to be like this…….”

The time he spent with him felt like a mirage.

[Lucian!]

From far away, he heard Ria’s urgent voice. It seemed she’d heard the commotion.

Ria, who had been flying over, paused when she saw Lucian’s face stained with tears.

“Ria, it’s all over now.”

His vision blurred. His cheeks kept growing wet. He didn’t know why he was like this.

He’d revealed the truth, it should feel relieving, he’d vomited out every last knot inside him—so why did his chest feel like it was tearing apart?

[Lucian, it’s okay. I’m here, it’s okay.]

At some point, Ria hugged him tightly. Lucian, without resisting, leaned his head on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her slender waist.

A strange sensation, like touching the wind, with no body heat at all. Yet this felt more familiar than touching a person.

That familiarity felt like it was starkly showing his situation—being unable to be loved by people—and it made him sad.

* * *

Wheeeeee-!

Leopold, pushed out to the forest near the imperial palace by Lucian’s magic, fell into the underbrush.

More than being dizzy from the spell just now, his head hurt from the overwhelming flood of information.

“……Lucian is my little brother?”

The moment Lucian’s ordinary brown hair and eyes turned into the exact same colors as his, instinct screamed.

Lucian wasn’t simply someone who looked exactly like him—he was a hidden sibling.

“Who’s playing a joke on me right now?”

He tried to deny the unreal situation, but the more he did, the more clearly Lucian’s tearful face rose up.

And the days he’d spent meeting Lucian swept past like a panorama. Before he knew it, his memories reached their very first meeting.

“……Lucian knew who I was.”

Lucian’s odd behaviors he hadn’t understood at first.

If Lucian had known his identity, it was obvious why he’d acted that way.

‘I’m the idiot for expecting anything…….’

Lucian’s words, spoken as if in passing, stabbed at his chest.

His hands and feet trembled. Even though he’d sung about wanting a little brother so much, he regretted being so stupid that he couldn’t recognize his own little brother right in front of him.

An indescribable guilt and pain tightened around his throat. Then he recalled what Lucian had said as he burst out in resentment.

“……He said he was abandoned. And that at eight he was left there without even servants.”

While Lucian was craving people’s warmth and starving with hunger, what was he doing?

“Abama-ma and Eomama-ma knew this…….”

For a moment he thought he should tell the person he trusted most right away, but then he realized whose order it must have been that sent Lucian to the ghost manor.

“……Abama-ma.”

The fact that his proud parents had pushed his brother into a deadly place sent chills through him.

Thinking they must have given him love with smiling faces while never even sparing Lucian a glance made his parents feel like monsters.

Leopold clenched his trembling fist tightly.

What should he do now?

If he told someone this truth, what would happen to Lucian?

His mind was so tangled it felt like it would burst. Grinding his teeth as he stomped the ground, Leopold’s eyes flashed.

“Let’s investigate whether it’s true.”

He can’t rashly tell anyone else.

Twins are truly an ominous sign.

Most of the time, they erase the fact of twins by killing the child born second. In severe cases, they kill both.

It would be for that reason that Lucian was raised where no one knew, disguised as an orphan, and sent to that ghost manor.

At least it was a relief they didn’t kill Lucian, but…….

“Still, I can’t forgive it.”

What crime did Lucian commit? Being born a twin? Being born a few minutes later than him?

If Lucian had been born not here but in another country, he would never have been treated like this.

Leopold headed straight for the imperial palace.

He had to dig into everything—whether Lucian was truly his brother, and if so, why his parents hid that truth, and how a grim superstition about twins came to exist only in the empire.