Bermuda

“Ugh...”

A refreshing morning burst through the thin chiffon curtains. Dust floating in the old lodging sparkled in the air like a mobile as it caught the light. As it was an island where few people resided, only rustling leaves and birdsong whispered him awake from his deep sleep.

It was a pleasant morning moment when white noise tickled his ears.

Leonardo, who had fallen asleep in this peaceful place, groaned with his eyes closed. His eyelids, which had been twitching for a while, contorted before slowly opening.

The golden eyes, not yet having regained their sharpness, stared at the ceiling, heavy with drowsiness.

‘...Heavy.’

Fighting consciousness that was trying to fade to black, he barely moved one arm, feeling as if he were being crushed by a log.

However, it wouldn’t lift, as if something like an iron weight had been placed on it. Feeling strange, Leonardo rolled his eyes down toward his chest.

Someone’s thick forearm lay across him. Then a snoring sound and warm breath brushed his left ear. When he turned his head, wondering what it was, he saw a face swollen from alcohol.

“Ah... this bastard...”

The source of today’s nightmare was neither blood-soaked evil spirits nor their curses. It was none other than Nero’s limbs clinging to his body.

Because the creaking bed frame had been so annoying that he’d slept like the dead, the shameless body had half-climbed on top of him, pinning both his upper and lower body.

Leonardo, who had suddenly become Nero’s attachment doll, tensed his shoulders and shook off the log-like forearm. The arm that had grown thick without him noticing flew up with a whoosh and flopped to the other side. Having passed out after drinking beer heavily last night, the body felt particularly heavy.

“Hah...”

Leonardo barely raised his swaying upper body to sit up and ran his fingers through hair that had become a magpie’s nest.

He’d encountered an urgent situation where he had to escape in his dream, and he’d just woken up after struggling while being buried under collapsing debris. The identity of the debris seemed to be this guy.

Though it wasn’t exactly a refreshing wake-up, he did a dry face wash, relief making his head droop. Only then did the room—too cramped for two men to live in—come into view.

On the wooden table placed between the fluttering curtains, traces of yesterday remained intact: overturned beer glasses, chip crumbs, bread pieces that had substituted for cake, an empty peanut butter jar scraped clean to the bottom with a knife, and so on.

Among them, he saw a flare with its wick half-burned lying on the floor. Leonardo let out a small laugh, rubbing his eyes. Yesterday had been quite a scene because of that thing. Saying a release celebration cake should properly have candles, Nero had taken out that flare while searching for something candle-like.

Hadn’t he said it wouldn’t launch if the fire was put out within five seconds? Then he’d applied heat to the wick and simply stuck the flare into the bread. It had been an eccentric act committed while completely drunk—and too much. Thanks to Leonardo coming to his senses, kicking Nero away, and quickly extinguishing the flame, the incident had been settled.

They’d almost blown up one of the few buildings on Solia Island. If he’d been sober, he would’ve broken his neck, but yesterday he’d been drunk too, so he’d just laughed and joked along, treating it as light mischief while calling him crazy.

It had been startling, but fun. Even now, it made him laugh at how absurd it was.

Leonardo chuckled, the sound deflating. On the other hand, he thought it was fortunate he’d met Nero right after being released.

A celebration cake made of five slices of bread stacked with peanut butter. That small, ridiculous party of their own had made him feel, if only for a very brief moment, that he had someone completely on his side in this world.

So although he was sorry to Nero, it was right to leave each other’s side like this. A moment would surely come when being together became dangerous. To protect precious people, he had to keep his distance for a while.

Leonardo, who had been quietly staring at the extinguished flare, moved his fingertip to place dangerous items like the fork that had fallen to the floor onto the table. Then he turned his head to Nero, who was sleeping beside him, oblivious to the world. While he had slept wearing a turtleneck due to his circumstances, Nero was in his underwear, having thrown off not only his top but even his pants, saying he was hot from the alcohol.

Though his body had grown uncomfortably large, his snoring remained the same. Leonardo watched Nero’s sleeping face and stroked his red hair with an affectionate touch. Then he caressed Nero’s abdomen, yellowed with bruises from when he’d kicked him last night.

‘Did I kick too hard?’

As he gently rubbed with his palm, feeling sorry, the clear six-pack and obliques at the side twitched as if ticklish.

After carefully withdrawing his hand, thinking he should leave before Nero woke up, he slowly pulled back the blanket. Then he barely lifted the thigh-like noose pressing down on his thighs. But something hard touched his pubic bone.

When he unconsciously turned his gaze to check what it was, his face scrunched in displeasure.

“...Fuck.”

Perhaps because he’d drunk so much beer, it was an especially robust morning greeting. Even a field tent erected with sturdy poles couldn’t be pitched as tautly as that.

“Damn healthy.”

He threw Nero’s leg away irritably and got up from the bed, making all sorts of disgusted faces. Nero, whose lower body had been suddenly turned, merely stirred, still wandering in dreamland holding hands with the Captain.

*****

After leaving a simple note and placing it under the flare, he put on the cemetery caretaker’s clothes Nero had been wearing when they reunited. Instead, he placed the clothes he had come wearing on the bedside table by Nero’s head. He stuffed the artifact and Armsilver ring Nero had given him into the pocket along with a few bills.

It took less than five minutes to pack his things and sneak out. The place Leonardo walked to alone after leaving the lodging was the cemetery they had visited yesterday.

Walking through the grass where sunlight shattered down, he scanned the names written on the tombstones one by one. Then he stopped abruptly in front of “Ian.” Naturally bending his knees to sit, he removed the flowers that had withered overnight and placed new ones.

“Good morning.”

Leonardo stroked the rounded top of the tombstone with his palm as if caressing someone’s face.

“You know, right? I did everything I could to get out of the peninsula on time.”

He had depleted his mana from forcefully taking down monsters, and because of that, he’d had the embarrassing experience of falling to the bottom of a valley. Though there were various reasons he’d tried his hardest to finish things quickly on the peninsula, wanting to keep the anniversary date was probably the biggest.

“Since I couldn’t make it for this year’s anniversary, I’ll come again soon. When I do, appear in my dreams just once. I might forget your face if I don’t look at the photo.”

Leonardo, who had been speaking, propped his chin with the hand holding the withered flowers as he crouched in front of the tombstone. Though Ian had a gentle personality, he was good at saying embarrassing things, so when he was alive, he would make Leonardo’s skin crawl by saying he couldn’t tell who was the flower when seeing this sight.

Whenever that happened, Leonardo would severely punish him for daring to call the Captain a flower, but whenever he came here, he thought he should’ve just laughed it off.

Complex emotions tangled in the golden eyes looking at the subordinate who gave no response. Soon after, when the wind came and shook his head once, he took it as a signal, got up, and moved on.

He walked about thirteen more steps along the same line. The place he arrived at was in front of “Halid’s” tombstone. Honestly, it had been so long since he’d seen him that it felt awkward to speak naturally, the way he did with Ian.

But Leonardo plopped down in front of it anyway. Similarly, he removed the withered flowers and, this time, placed several expensive minerals he had dug up from the peninsula.

Among them was etaide with a blue tint. After considering, he put the etaide back, worried it might explode unnecessarily if heated in the sunlight.

The deceased he knew would prefer these over flowers. Halid, an old mercenary and soldier from when they first met, didn’t discriminate between things if they were valuable, because his living conditions weren’t good. Even when Leonardo had come back with severely swollen legs after messing around trying to catch a two-headed snake in the village’s back mountain, Halid was the kind of person who took care of the dying double-headed snake first, saying Leonardo was more precious.

Sometimes Leonardo had felt hurt by his consistent indifference and humanity, but there was no denying that the occasional warmth he showed had kept Leonardo alive and breathing on this land.

Leonardo stared intently at the name engraved on the tombstone. His gaze fell on the last name below it, worn from being scratched so much.

Staring at the first letter that looked like it could be F, P, or B, he read aloud the part only he could recognize.

“Blaine.”

The wind that °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° came at just the right time roughly tousled his golden hair as it passed. It was a sudden yet nostalgic touch that could be mistaken for his rough, callused hand.

Leonardo, who had been having a staring contest with the tombstone, left his hair to the wind and closed his eyes for a moment. It wasn’t just because it was a high place where he could look down clearly at the world that he liked this place. A more plausible reason was that he couldn’t help but love it because it was where the family he held in his heart—their bonds and their shared memories—coexisted.

After a while, the sunlight and wind brushing his skin became gentler. Leonardo slowly separated his interlocked lashes. Finally, he got up from his spot and muttered as he dusted off his dirt-covered pants:

“You thought I was tenacious, right? I know, too, that I’m tenacious.”

He took out rubber bands he’d prepared in his pocket beforehand and tied his sleeves and pant legs so they wouldn’t flutter.

“With how much I have to do, how could I die in a place like the peninsula? Knowing how many kids live only for me, how could you not help even once?”

The small backpack full of precious items was safely stored in the interdimensional space opened by twisting the ruby ring, lest he lose it somehow.

Leonardo, having tidied his clothes for activity, stuck his hands in his pockets and planted one leg with a sulky expression. It was a posture as if throwing a tantrum.

“So help this matter be resolved well. Not just for me, but for that person too.”

As he was about to head down the sloped cemetery, he suddenly turned back, feeling lingering attachment. Soon, a faint smile hung on his red lips.

“I’ll come again, Father.”

As if the burden that had weighed on his mind all along had finally cleared, Leonardo’s steps became lighter than ever.