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Chapter 13
At the unusually hesitant question, I burst out laughing before I could stop myself.
“Ahaha!”
“…Roel.”
“If you want to be friends with me again, you’ll have to get at least four or five years younger than that.”
I clutched my stomach and laughed loudly, and a quiet sigh reached my ears.
At the same time, magic stirred once more.
“…Too small.”
A voice even closer to that of a young boy than before muttered slowly.
Wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes, I looked up and saw Isid frowning. His build now looked about the same as Werner’s.
“That should make it less awkward to look at each other, at least. Anyway, help me up.”
Still letting out bits of laughter I hadn’t fully contained, I reached out my hand. Isid strode over immediately and took it.
The hand that completely enveloped mine felt quite different from the one I knew so well. The bones and joints didn’t jut out as sharply, and his skin was softer. Even so, it was still larger than my hand.
“Ah…!”
As I put my weight into the slight tug and rose to my feet, I lost my balance just as I was about to stand properly and staggered. The headache I had forgotten about suddenly stabbed through my head.
Fortunately, Isid quickly caught me around the waist before I could crash to the ground.
“What’s wrong?”
Leaning limply against him, I mumbled,
“A headache… from spirit power…”
“…Spirit power?”
Repeating the words as if puzzled, Isid let out a short sigh of realization and immediately released his magic.
Magic flowing from Isid slowly seeped into my body.
I didn’t resist it. Instead, I accepted him comfortably. It was familiar.
Even the magic of Isid—so rough and fierce that even dragons avoided it—hid its thorns and gently filled my body with vitality. The splitting headache gradually faded as well.
“I can live again…”
As I muttered while practically melting against him, a shallow sigh brushed my ear.
“You overdid it.”
“Well… maybe a little?”
Even after saying it, I cautiously watched his reaction, and Isid frowned.
“Then why push yourself so hard with that tiny little body of yours? If something goes wrong with your body now, it’ll hurt way worse than before.”
Hm, even younger, that expression’s exactly the same.
Thinking that, I suddenly felt a little wronged by the flood of scolding.
Sure, I had overexerted myself, but I’d had no choice.
“And whose fault do you think it is that I overdid it…?”
Grumbling, I shot Isid a sharp glare.
“Who told you to hole yourself up in some mountain valley like this? You said you wanted to burn this entire place down. Do you know how shocked I was when traces of you finally showed up here after searching for years?”
“…”
“And earlier, you were showing signs of going berserk, you know? Your face was pale, your eyes looked dark. I could tell without even looking that you were all twisted up inside. After seeing you like that, how could I just sit still?!”
As I kept talking, my emotions gradually rose, and by the end I was practically shouting.
I think this might’ve been the first time I’d ever raised my voice like this.
“…”
I glared at the blinking, bewildered Isid, then bit my lip tightly and abruptly turned away. The image of him from earlier resurfaced, making my chest ache again.
“Seriously, you don’t even know how worried I was…”
Then Isid laughed quietly and lightly rested his forehead against my shoulder. From behind, he loosely wrapped his arms around me, and because he had shrunk himself to match my height, it didn’t feel overwhelming like before.
“Sorry.”
The soft apology was filled with the intent to comfort me.
“…”
My heart still hurt, and for a moment I wondered if I should push him away. But it remained only a thought.
After all, no matter what, I didn’t really want to push Isid away either.
Eventually, I let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“Anyway, I’ll be more careful too, so you should take care of yourself. At least I have the excuse of having a tiny body. You don’t even have that.”
“Okay.”
“You saw earlier, right? If I use that power even once now, I end up completely drained. So you really need to take care of yourself.”
I kept chattering out of habit, and then I caught the sound of faint laughter.
Turning my head, I saw deep satisfaction and amusement lingering at the corners of Isid’s eyes, even in his younger appearance.
“Why are you laughing?”
I asked sulkily, and he answered immediately.
“Because I like it.”
“…Like what?”
What was there to suddenly like…?
Tilting my head in confusion, I saw Isid smile wider.
“I like hearing you nag me. I used to hear it every day, and when I suddenly stopped hearing it, it felt really empty.”
My fingertips twitched slightly.
His words pierced straight into my heart, and at the same time, he seemed unbearably pitiful. The sincerity in his voice, the way he referred to that endless stretch of time as just “a little while”…
I moved my lips for a moment before deliberately sighing in a teasing manner and shaking my head.
“Back then, no matter how much I talked, you never listened.”
“I was young then.”
“What do you mean, young—”
Well, by dragon standards, maybe he was?
Caught wavering between dragon standards and human standards, I must’ve made a strange face because Isid snorted softly.
“What does the past matter? I can just listen well from now on.”
“You really will?”
“Yeah.”
“…You sure answer well.”
“You told me to answer properly.”
I almost blurted out, When did I ever— but the words disappeared as a memory suddenly surfaced.
A very long time ago, not long after I first met Isid, I had said exactly that to him. Back then, we hadn’t gotten along nearly as well as we did now…
For some reason, my palms felt strangely ticklish.
After that, we sat together on a nearby rock.
I felt a little guilty about sneaking out without telling my family, but I’d already confirmed they were all asleep, so a little bit of free time should be fine.
“…That’s basically what happened. I still don’t really understand how it happened, but it’s not like worrying about it will give me answers.”
After briefly explaining what had happened during my missing years, I suddenly remembered something I hadn’t told him yet and smiled softly.
Noticing the sound of my laughter, Isid looked at me, and I grinned mischievously.
“You know where my house is?”
“…Your house?”
“Yep. My family is the Valentine Ducal House. My dad is Duke Valentine.”
I whispered it like a secret, and Isid froze.
The dark look that had briefly crossed his face earlier was gone now, so maybe I’d imagined it.
“Valentine…”
Isid murmured slowly. Then he made a strange expression.
“Jin?”
At the awkwardly spoken name, I burst into laughter again. Maybe my expression had looked just like his when I first learned my surname was Valentine.
“…Seriously?”
As if he had realized from my laughing reaction, Isid asked again. Finally calming down a bit, I nodded.
“Yeah, seriously. Turns out I’m Jin’s descendant.”
“What kind of messed-up family tree is that…”
But at his muttered words, I started laughing all over again.
That phrase, messed-up family tree, was something I’d first learned from Kyle. Back then, the imperial family tree really had been a complete mess.
Then Isid studied my face closely.
“What?”
“…Just checking, in case.”
I didn’t even need to ask what he meant.
“I look nothing like Jin, okay? Humans reproduce way too fast for that. After just a few generations, people barely resemble their ancestors anymore, so there’s no way I’d resemble someone from five hundred years ago.”
I let out a disbelieving laugh as I said it, but Isid stubbornly examined every part of my face before finally pulling away.
Then he muttered something under his breath.
“…Maybe it’s a good thing you’re not that bastard’s descendant.”
“That bastard?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
That definitely didn’t sound like nothing…
His casual shake of the head looked suspicious, but since he said it was nothing, I let it go.
Then, cautiously, I spoke.
“…How have you been all this time?”
At my question, Isid paused.
Suppressing the strange heaviness in my chest, I asked quietly,
“Did you just keep sleeping? Waiting for the cycle to come again?”
Isid stared at me silently before slowly nodding.
I’d already guessed as much when no matter how much we searched, we couldn’t find any trace of him, but hearing it confirmed still didn’t feel good. I knew what Isid was like.
Dragons, whose lifespans stretched thousands of years—practically immortal from a human perspective—were naturally creatures that slept a lot.
Some dragons slept continuously for hundreds of years at a time. Sleep was simply the easiest way to pass endless, tedious time.
But Isid wasn’t like that.
At least, not the Isid I had known.
“You hated sleeping…”
I muttered gloomily, and Isid laughed softly like drifting wind.
“I was young then.”
“…If you’re going to say that, then you’re still young now.”
Without thinking, I blurted it out like a complaint, and quiet laughter drifted down.
Isid lightly tapped the back of my hand.
“A kid who’s not even ten is calling someone else young?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
His faintly teasing tone made me flare up instantly. I already hated being stuck in such a young body as it was!
“Geez. You know what I mean.”
“Sorry.”
When I snapped at him, Isid laughed aloud and ruffled my hair.
It was definitely a familiar gesture, but was it just my imagination that it somehow felt like he was treating me like a child?
“Anyway.”
As he watched me glare at him, a strange emotion surfaced on Isid’s face.
It looked lonely somehow. Maybe even sad…
“Things were just… boring.”
