Only with Your Heart

Luklov hugged the thousand cranes again, first in her earlobes, and slowly crawled her lips down, mouthing them like they would eventually suck on the neck muscles peeking through the collar of the dress.

"Hmm......"

Chizuru shuddered her shoulder as she had sores like being stabbed with a needle.

When Ruklov gave a similar stimulus around the clavicle of the thousand cranes, he let go of his face, much satisfied. He then runs a broken finger and slightly raises the edge of his mouth to the skin of a thousand cranes that he himself has left an engraving on. ─ ─ I don't mind calling it a smile, but it was, indeed, a look somewhat close to it.

Chizuru's body is completely lit by fire, his breath rises and his feet become unstoppable. Had it not been supported by Lucrov's arms, he might not have been able to stand.

I can't confirm it because it's not where I can see it myself, but I'm sure it's Kismark that Lecroff left it on Chizuru's skin... a sign that Chizuru belongs to him. It's like a baking mark.

The collar of the dress was boldly open, so I'm sure it's a much more obvious indication of intent than loudly speaking out and declaring. With all the embarrassment and joy, Chizuru looked up at Ruklov as he blushed.

Luklov also looks down at Chizuru with a serene expression unusual after hitting him until recently.

"It's been a while since I've seen you lift your hair."

And, Ruklov whispered emotionally. "It suits me...... but I don't mind showing it to other guys"

"So you marked them both?

Touching the neck muscles with his fingers, which still had sweet pain, Ruklov sounded ridiculously like that, humming his nose.

"Two? Look, there's only two. If you're going to show any more love to men everywhere tonight, I'm going to increase it every time."

Half of them were threats, and half of them were ruklov tones like they were just teasing. Of course, if such a threat, Chizuru stands happy to receive it. More than that, this kind of interaction even warmed Chizuru's heart with the illusion that he was back in his lover years.

"Don't worry, I belong to Ruklov. Earlier the loan just tried to prank me..."

"No matter what you think, there are as many men who lose me in front of the woman of their choice. I've never been cautious."

Luklov took one of her hands instead as he loosened his arm holding the thousand cranes.

"Have you seen the training ground and walked? There would have been many tents set up by merchants"

"Yeah, with Alde. It was so lively and funny."

The two walked out next door.

There was no desire to hide clouds in a room where there was no one for the two of us as it were, but Ruklov is the organizer of this feast. I guess we can't leave this place, at least until the feast gets cranky.

Several merchants, townsmen and knights finally greeted Luklov as he pulled the hand of Thousand Cranes into the bustling festival noise. Ruklov returns a short but accurate greeting to each and every one of them, showing off his brilliant lordship.

Even in the meantime, Ruklov's hand was always touching somewhere in Chizuru's body, and that tickled him. Hands that are subtly turned to the hips...... My fingertips teasing Chizuru's hair sometimes seem bored when the merchant story stretches......

Chizuru, who noticed a tendency for his skinship to get thicker, especially when his opponent was a young man, wanted to reassure him and sneaked up on him when he was alone in a place with few people.

"You don't have to do that, 'cause there's no one nicer here than Luklov"

Ruklov faintly raised his manly stretched brow to show that he did not fully agree with Chizuru's words.

"Lots of young people"

"So?"

"... I'm a little too old for you"

Answering blurry, Ruklov had a blurry view somewhere halfway between the night sky and the burning fire.

Chizuru suddenly noticed one of Luklov's worries and became angry.

The side of a former hero, illuminated by a swinging flame of burning fire, does not already belong to a 22-year-old vigorous young man, but to an adult man who knows all about his life. A shallow wrinkle commensurate with the year had been carved into his eyeballs and only a few but white ones had begun to mix in his hair.

But Chizuru, I'm sure, is almost nothing different from those days.

I spent a year in different worlds during the summer month of my third year of high school, so I was only nineteen years old on Japanese domestic registry, although I guess I could physically call it twenty. Sixteen or seven years will have elapsed since Ruklov. Maybe in this world, the difference in age isn't so strange when it comes to parent-child friendship.

Of course I had noticed that all the time, but Chizuru didn't care.

But... for Ruklov, maybe it wasn't.

Especially on nights like this.

That young knight Bal, maybe twenty-two years old, was about the same age as Luklov when he fell in love with Thousand Cranes.

Ruklov is strong - strong, temperamental, and always full of force that outweighs others. So there are a number of things that you don't easily notice.

There are a number of delicate parts in his mind. And Chizuru always falls in love with this complex man even deeper each time he finds such a fine and beautiful scale.

It was the same now.

"Luklov"

Chizuru stretched out his back and kissed Ruklov's cheek as he stared at the tip of the flame with a gentle touch. Ruklov lowers his gaze gently without moving his neck and looks down at Chizuru.

Those pitch-black eyes were dancing with a slight curiosity.

"Even if Luklov is a fifty year old uncle, I should be chasing you around the same way."

Ruklov raised the edge of his mouth in a much more self-derisive manner.

I don't know.

"I wish I could have come back to you sooner...... but that doesn't matter how old I am and that way I could have loved you longer"

And because maybe Zain and Edina were alive, too.

Those words accidentally spoke, but swallowed them on the verge. I don't need to bother to say it. We both know better than to hate it.

Ruklov glanced back at the burning fire and stared at the flames that illuminated the darkness for a while.

Now if I glance into his mind, what emotions are swirling? Is it something as intense as a sea of wild storms, or like a quiet, cold surface of water floating in the darkness named Giving Up? Either way, Chizuru stood next to Ruklov, who was standing there alone, wanting to comfort him.

I wanted to think that I still had the right to do so too......

"Did you get anything?

Suddenly, that's what Luklov has heard.

Thoughts were interrupted, and Chizuru somehow blinked his eyes.

"Yeah...... Alde told me that you can buy as many rucrofts as you like... I'm sorry, were you okay?

He turned straight back to Chizuru as Chizuru narrowed his shoulders and was anxious for Ruklov's reaction to rise.

"You can buy whatever you want. Some pedestrians around here don't come every day like that. Whether it's clothes, shoes or jewelry, keep whatever you want."

"Ugh, um..."

"You bought it, didn't you?

"Uh, uh, I did shop. Food, though."

"Food"

Ruklov looked puzzled and unpleasant as if Chizuru had confessed that he had squirted his child round from three heads. For some reason I suddenly feel like I've done something wrong.

Since there is as much food and other things offered free of charge, do you mean don't buy one at a time?

"Sorry...... I just bought a little over ten candies...... could it have been expensive"

The wrinkles between Ruklov's eyebrows deepened further, and at last the signs that things (things) seemed to be a big problem became darker. Instinct and experience were telling him that he would soon be scolded - because of the candy. Chizuru feels like crying.

The suggestion was that Lucrov's low and suppressed voice approached Thousand Cranes' ears and whispered softly.

"Chizul, you don't know where you stand."

"Oh, I'm sorry..."

Chizuru apologized, getting as small as possible.

Of course there's nothing Lecroff can forgive for that. When he took one hand of Chizuru, he quickly carried it to his shapely mouth, making a noise and mouthing.

-Muttering?

"Er... Luklov?

Ruklov slowly repeated, separating words by word.

"You know where you stand, you're not. If you didn't buy anything, there would be a bunch of merchants and craftsmen who would fall short of expectations and cry. I am the lord of this castle, and you are mine..."

Chizuru.

Luklov's.

Luklov's...?

To an unexpected development, Chizuru was blinking at everything again.

Thousand cranes waited to hear the rest, but Ruklov doesn't quite open his mouth. He himself had such a puzzled face that he did not know what he had spoken of.

"Anyway."

Ruklov had a short cough once.

"You're not in a good position to buy ten candies and end up with it. Come on, pick something quick. Prove to me I'm not a snug guy."

"Huh? Yes"

Thousands of cranes nodded with their hands drawn, but not because they understood the meaning of his words, but because it was not a very objectionable atmosphere.

Luklov takes Chizuru back to the center of the training ground where the tents are gathered. Many people have looked back at the two and lovingly greeted them with wine turning and glowing their reddish faces.

And in front of the crowd of tents the merchant was putting out, Luklov suddenly stopped to fit and looked back at the thousand cranes.

"By the way, why did you need to buy ten bottles?

"It's..."

Explaining to the children that he had given them, Ruklov looked frightened and played Chizuru's forehead with his index finger.

I guess he handed it off, but it hurts so much to take it from a hundred warriors of warfare and smell. When Chizuru let his lips crouch like a shin, Ruklov just momentarily... though it was about a moment between blinking... he narrowed his eyes with pleasure and smiled.

You smiled at me, I felt it.