The Affairs of Those Noble Brothers Chapter 6

Tibane, who had been dragged out by his hair, grabbed Irodel’s arm in turn and slammed him onto the bed. Undeterred, Irodel’s fist swung out and struck Tibane’s chin. Tibane, who had been woken up, rolled off the bed, had his hair grabbed, and taken a hit to the jaw, had veins bulging on his forehead. He subdued Irodel’s thrashing arms and legs, pinning him down as if to bury him into the mattress.

“You left me there and took off, and now you look like you fell into a vat of booze, huh? Had some fun with that gangly bastard earlier, did you?”

“Let go! Get lost!”

“Good, perfect timing. Let’s hear why you’re acting like this. Huh?”

“Shut up! Just die! Don’t ever show your face in front of me!”

“Just listen!”

A sharp sound rang out and his vision flashed. He’d been slapped again. The same spot as before. He’d thought he felt nothing now, but that wasn’t true. What surged up from within like lava was unmistakable rage.

“What kind of person are you? People don’t start with their hands. You’re worse than a dog, worse than a crushed bug underfoot. You’re not even worth a leg that’s fallen off a dead bug!”

“You don’t remember punching my jaw first?”

“Why would I remember anything about the likes of you? You’re not even human!”

“You…!”

Tibane’s temper flared and he raised his hand. His trained arm muscles quivered threateningly. But his fist drove into the bed instead of Irodel’s face. The springy mattress bounced, shaking both Irodel and Tibane. The creaking and shaking stopped, and silence fell for a moment. Tibane glared at Irodel as if catching his breath, then spoke.

“Why, exactly, do you act all proper and demure in front of our brother, but treat me like this? Did I ever do something to you?”

“You’re doing it right now. You uncivilized savage bastard.”

“One minute I’m a bug, the next I’m a person—make up your mind.”

“You’re filthy. A filthy bastard. You’re… a dog. A rutting male dog.”

“That’s enough!”

Tibane’s shout bounced off the ceiling and walls, piercing Irodel’s ears. His voice was filled with unmistakable hurt. And yet, just that made the corners of Irodel’s mouth tremble with delight. His body and mind felt so light he could fly. Whenever Tibane was wounded, it felt like one of his own wounds transferred over. It wasn’t visible, but since they were twins, maybe they really did transfer.

“You’re bringing up that incident again… It was a mistake. No, it wasn’t even a mistake—it was an accident. Why can’t you understand that?”

“You’re just…”

“Just shut your mouth.”

Tibane, looking thoroughly fed up, raised his hand and covered Irodel’s mouth. When Irodel opened his mouth to bite, the hand pressing against his lips applied more force. The large hand clamped over half his face like a shackle.

“I don’t care if that bastard was your first love or whatever, but if you drooled and went into heat the moment you saw an alpha, you saw all you needed to see. He was a slut. Got it?”

First love. Irodel’s first love had been his tutor. The story of a noble falling for their tutor was so common it didn’t even appear in pulp novels, but he’d fallen into that very cliché. He’d liked her gentle, downcast eyes and slender hands. That was, until those hands had gripped Tibane’s back.

“Just because he used an omega’s hole in heat doesn’t mean I deserve to be treated like this by you. You think our brother’s any different? You just don’t know—alphas are all the same. Not a single clean one among them. Father, mother, our brother, even that pathetic gangly bastard—you follow them all so eagerly, so why do you only treat me like this!”

“Urgh!”

The grip over Irodel’s mouth tightened. He groaned as his jaw felt like it would split, and Tibane, startled, let go. A savage. There was no way that thing was his brother. It was clear that, because he regretted being born a beta, he’d picked up some similar-looking creature somewhere and passed it off as his twin. As Irodel clutched his mouth and moaned, Tibane pushed his hand aside and examined his face.

“Let me see—see, this is why you keep running your mouth…”

“Get away! Don’t touch me!”

“Ugh, I said enough!”

Irodel started thrashing like a mad horse again, and Tibane took a hit to the chest. Finally reaching his limit of patience, Tibane flipped Irodel over and pinned him down from behind. Irodel flailed his arms about like a broken machine.

“Let go, you bastard! You’re not even my brother! You’re a rapist! A garbage, rutting rapist!”

“Shut up! Damn it, what’s so special about that to make you act like this toward me? Did you want me to smile sweetly at you like I do for our brother? What did I ever do? Just don’t act like a crazy person!”

“Don’t give me orders, you rapist! I’ll report you!”

“What nonsense are you— I’m an idiot for even putting up with a drunkard’s rambling!”

Tibane subdued the struggling Irodel and pulled his jacket off from behind. He seemed intent on restraining his arms. Irodel fought back with all his might, but when his strength proved useless, he tired himself out and began to sniffle. Tibane lifted his head as if to ask what this was all about, then froze, dumbfounded.

“What, what is it? What did I do to make you cry?”

“You bad pershon… just die. Because of you, I, I…”

“So, what did I do!”

“Because of you, I can’t get it up anymore…”

Tibane’s eyes blinked stupidly. Irodel’s sobs grew louder, laden with grief. He’d never intended to tell anyone. In fact, it was such a trivial matter that he sometimes even forgot about it. He had plenty of other reasons to hate Tibane, and he’d thought this was just a tiny tip of the iceberg, not even worth addressing. But apparently not. Once he’d let it out, the grief wouldn’t stop.

“Ever since I saw that, I can’t.”

“What…”

“With the tutor, in there, you, that thing, ugh… I, I was so scared…”

‘Scared’ didn’t even begin to cover it. It was horrifying. So terrifying it haunted his nightmares for a while. That enormous, red thing, and that thing stretched out as if it would tear, were seared into his brain so disturbingly that from that day on, just looking at his own sent chills down his spine and made him break out in cold sweat. Never mind touching it—even imagining himself doing that to someone else made his brain crawl with horror.

“It’s all your fault. You bastard. Rapist. Dickhead.”

“Dick— hey! Where did you learn such weird words! This is why I should never have let you go to that academy full of commoners!”

“Don’t yell, you rapist!”

“You want to keep calling me rapist?”

“Savage bastard. Uncivilized brute. Bug leg.”

“Unbelievable.”

Tibane let out a hollow laugh of disbelief, then stripped off Irodel’s jacket entirely. Then he lifted Irodel, who had exhausted all his strength from thrashing about, and tucked him into the sheets. Irodel clutched the sheet and kept sniffling.

“Stop crying. I get the gist of your story, but that’s not my fault, is it?”

“It is your fault.”

“And… no one else checked besides you, right? You might be mistaken about something.”

“It doesn’t work. It’s your fault.”

“What? Don’t tell me… there’s someone who checked for you? Was it our brother!?”

Tibane scrunched up his face like a demon and pulled the sheet away. Irodel, who’d had his grip torn away, stared blankly with his mouth open, then kicked Tibane as he suddenly tried to pull down his pants. Had he ever seen such a madman? Genuinely shocked to the point that even his remaining tears vanished, Irodel sprang up and retreated to the head of the bed. Just then, something rolled across the sheet and stopped in front of Tibane.

“What’s this?”

It was a small brown glass bottle. It looked vaguely familiar, yet not. Irodel stared blankly at it in Tibane’s hand, and his face went pale in an instant. Like a swift swallow, he flew at Tibane and snatched the glass bottle from his hand. This was what Orbon had been carrying. Why was it here?