As he stood shivering from the sudden drop in temperature, wrapping both arms around his shoulders, Cain went off to fetch a blanket, opening an umbrella.
While waiting for his personal attendant, Shushu stretched his hand out from beneath the awning to touch the rain.
Then, Callix—who had been issuing orders to the soldiers in the distance—strode over swiftly and caught his hand.
Shushu tilted his head in confusion at the man’s incomprehensible behavior.
Arriving so hurriedly that he had even dropped the umbrella he was holding, Callix gripped the tips of Shushu’s fingers.
“You stuck your hand out.”
“……I just wanted to touch the rain.”
Realizing it was a misunderstanding, Shushu expected him to let go now, but Callix simply stood there in the pouring rain, staring down at him.
Shushu looked up in surprise at Callix, whose sharp chin was pelted by raindrops streaming down his smooth cheeks, causing them to drip off rapidly.
His thoroughly soaked black hair was split into strands, revealing his clean, straight forehead.
Because he stared down at him for so long like a man with a hidden story, Shushu’s heart raced anxiously, wondering what weighty words were about to drop.
What if he said he knew Shushu was a Gem and started threatening him?
Having once believed that Callix cherished him only to be betrayed, Shushu couldn’t help but feel suspicious of him.
“Big Brother, you’re going to catch a cold. Please hurry inside the tent.”
“Shushu……. I should have been the very first one to call you by that pet name…….”
Watching him exhale a deep sigh as if carrying an immense regret, Shushu sensed the subtle shift occurring deep within Callix’s heart.
Though he didn’t know what it was, he desperately hoped it had changed for the better where he was concerned.
Because of the puddles scattered everywhere, Cain took a roundabout path back to the tent.
The gray-haired attendant draped a blanket over his young master’s head first.
Shushu pulled his hand away from the older brother who still wouldn’t let go. “You should go wash up too, Big Brother. If you keep this up, you really will catch a cold.”
Despite saying that, on that day, the one who actually caught a cold and spiked a burning fever was Shushu.
Even after taking the antipyretic prescribed by the doctor, the heat wouldn’t subside from his whole body.
As he tossed and turned in agony on the makeshift bed, Callix stepped inside the tent.
“How is his condition?”
The doctor worriedly stated that today would likely be the critical turning point.
High fevers were fatal to young children; if they didn’t subside even after taking medicine, it was common for them to suffer permanent disabilities or even die.
Yet giving him more fever reducer would only cause severe side effects without bringing the temperature down.
Callix grabbed Shushu’s hand, which felt like a ball of fire.
“Shushu, I told you I’d punish your nanny if you caught a cold.”
“No, no. Don’t punish Mom.”
Delirious with a blazing fever, Shushu begged earnestly without even knowing what he was saying—crying out that they mustn’t do it, pleading for his mother to be forgiven.
Feeling both a pang of pity that his younger brother—who had lived without parents—was clinging to his nanny as a mother figure, and a twinge of jealousy toward that nanny, Callix warned him, “If you don’t want that, get better quickly.”
“Bring some sugar water.”
He picked Shushu up in his arms, scooped up spoonfuls of sugar water, and trickled them past his lips.
After that, he pressed a handkerchief soaked in cool water against his forehead, replacing it with a freshly dampened cloth whenever it grew lukewarm.
Cain offered to take over nursing his master, but Callix stubbornly refused to let his younger brother out of his arms.
‘Please, please don’t die. Shushu. My jewel.’
The words he whispered by his ear acted like an ancient spell, pulling Shushu back up every time the fever dragged him down into the abyss.
Eventually, the wall of fire that had threatened to consume the small child faltered and retreated. Callix did not sleep a single wink as he tended to his Gem.
Fortunately, the rain that had poured all through the night finally ceased, and the sun rose with the morning.
As bright sunlight streamed into the tent, the younger brother—who had fallen asleep as if passing out—opened his eyes with a disheveled expression.
Bathed in the morning light as if he were the center of the universe, the child’s lovely face greeted him.
“Thank you, Big Brother, for nursing me all night.”
The moment he saw Damian looking up at him with a shy smile of gratitude, Callix felt an overwhelming surge of emotion.
Swept away by a wave of feeling akin to a tidal wave, he found himself utterly unable to speak.
Was this what sibling affection felt like?
Stirred by a deep fondness and preciousness toward another person for the very first time, Callix felt that he had truly come to cherish Damian as a genuine younger brother.
At first, he had kept him close pretending to be a gentle older brother simply because Damian was a Gem with a high matching rate, but now he no longer cared for the child for such simple reasons.
Even if Damian weren’t his Gem, he knew he would still take good care of his little brother now.
“I want to wash up.”
Shushu said this, lifting the lukewarm handkerchief off his forehead.
Cain, who had been nodding off while sitting on a chair, jumped to his feet and scurried out to prepare the bathwater.
Shushu slipped out from Callix’s arms—whose arms must have been completely numb from holding him in the exact same posture for so long—and stood up.
“Big Brother, did your arm fall asleep?”
Shushu looked back with concern at the boy who remained seated like a stone statue.
“Meow, meow!” He made a playful joke often used when hands went numb.
Callix let out a soft huff of laughter, shook his head, and walked out of the tent.
After washing in the bathwater prepared by Cain, Shushu changed into fresh clothes and stepped outside.
Due to the unceasing rain, the drainage ditches the soldiers had dug with shovels to keep the tents from flooding were clearly visible.
He figured everyone must have had a rough time.
“We will resume the hunt after breakfast.”
At Callix’s command, the knights lit fires with magic while the attendants prepared the ingredients.
Watching warm smoke billow up into the sky like a dragon, Shushu—who had barely escaped death—began his new day with vigor.
