HPV 114

Extra Story 2-10

The journey ended, and they returned to daily life. Parting with the group, they headed back to the place they called home.

Riarun looked up at the tall figure firmly holding his hand. A smile naturally curled on his lips, and in return, the other met him with eyes hotter than the sun.

Wasn’t it amazing? Even after the journey ended, Banwes was still by his side.

They returned to the mansion after being away for several weeks. The attendants who had kept the place tidy welcomed them warmly.

A clever and adorable child named Juna blushed upon seeing Riarun again after so long, and Banwes immediately scared the child off.

They unpacked themselves, and after bathing, Riarun wandered the house in a long nightgown.

Banwes had expected him to be tired from the long carriage ride and suggest a nap together, but Riarun looked wide awake.

“Shall we study letters again? It’s been a while.”

Banwes nodded obediently.

It would have been better if he had said, “Shall we lie together naked on the bed again?” But that wasn’t something he could say with a clear conscience. (And besides, it hadn’t even been that long ago.)

However, the moment the books and paper were laid out and pencils picked up, Banwes’s head began to throb. If the one sitting next to him hadn’t been Riarun, who leaned his platinum-blond head down, pointed to the letters with a finger, and clearly spelled them out, he would have quit on the spot.

‘Am I just stupid?’

Riarun picked up the skill of teaching faster than Banwes could grasp the writing system.

It was one of the many jobs he had wanted to try, being a teacher. And Riarun had the makings of one, whether Banwes liked it or not. (He didn’t like it, mostly because he didn’t want Riarun becoming a teacher and interacting with countless hot-blooded young men and women at a school.)

In contrast, Banwes was already thirty, an age when the mind had started to stiffen. Naturally, he struggled.

Even writing was extremely difficult. He only knew how to snap pencils. No matter how seriously he tried, his handwriting sprawled across the page like butchered meat.

When he had sent a threatening letter to the High Priest to drag him on the journey, it had been out of sheer necessity. But the more he looked at his own writing, the more he hated it. What if Riarun’s feelings for him faded because of these ugly letters?

Unconsciously, Banwes must have grimaced. Riarun noticed.

After a moment of contemplation, Riarun offered a suggestion.

“Try writing while imagining you’re touching me. Use that same hand movement.”

Banwes froze.

He wanted to check the expression on Riarun’s face after saying something like that, but Riarun had his head buried in the paper. With no choice, Banwes moved the pencil.

His handwriting softened remarkably. But perhaps because his mind wandered, the pencil often paused, and he struggled to focus.

“Focus!”

Suddenly, Riarun jumped up and moved far away from him, as if approaching him now would be dangerous.

That once-clueless kid, when it came to Banwes, had grown sharp enough to sense even the tiniest shifts. Now he could even tell when Banwes was, in his words, “giving off the smell of arousal.”

Though Banwes always seemed to be in that state, so Riarun’s claim couldn’t be taken entirely seriously.

Then again, Banwes himself could detect Riarun’s arousal like a hound, so perhaps it wasn’t that far-fetched.

An attendant knocked on the study door and handed Riarun a letter that had come from afar.

“It’s from Tilly.”

Immediately, Banwes’s eyes sharpened in suspicion as he fixed his gaze on the paper in Riarun’s hand. Before Riarun could even read it, Banwes snatched it away and read it first.

In moments like this, he was very glad he had learned to read, even if there were still plenty of words he couldn’t yet recognize.

“It’s a wedding invitation. The ceremony’s in two months.”

He had a hunch about what would come next.

Riarun’s cheeks were already flushed. He always tried to hide it, but whenever a new opportunity to travel arose, he jumped at it. That was just his nature, his longing.

So Banwes laughed lightly and spoke first.

“Shall our next trip be to that wedding?”

“Sounds good. I’ll need to check for ships heading to Jemanium. Maybe Tilly can help. I’ll write back first.”

In a good mood, Riarun, for once, let himself be guided and settled comfortably in Banwes’s lap. Before long, he reached up and gently touched Banwes’s neck.

“Should we visit the neighboring territory tomorrow morning?”

Banwes slyly avoided the question by nuzzling his face between Riarun’s cheek and jaw.

“Tomorrow, I want to go to the forest.”

The forest was where he had grown up, and where he wished to forget.

—Even if you want to try lots of jobs… I don’t want you to experience a time in your life that was painful.

When Banwes first suggested going to the forest, Riarun had shaken his head.

But Banwes was no longer bound to the forest. Riarun’s worry had been unfounded.

—I should have something to be proud of too, don’t you think?

He stripped off his shirt, gathered branches, and built a hut while showing off his muscular body. Riarun pretended not to care but couldn’t help secretly stealing glances.

Banwes proudly showed off a bucket of fish he’d caught—without even eating—just to let them go afterward.

“Is this because… you were embarrassed you couldn’t write pretty letters?”

Riarun finally found an opportunity to tease him and smiled brightly.

“I told you, it’s fine if no one can read it. Whether it’s written with your hands or feet, who cares? Let’s just say it’s a new language you invented.”

They were words that sounded deeply moving if you only listened… but Riarun’s eyes were clearly twinkling with mischief.

Though they bickered during the day, when the sun set and the deep blue night arrived, the mood between them changed.

Riarun stripped naked, nestled into Banwes’s arms, and spread his pale legs. The insects, the trees, and the blue sky bore silent witness to their lovemaking, and even the forest’s noises seemed to shy away from the lewd sounds of coupling.

Pale moonlight clung to Riarun’s white body, making him sparkle like a star. Banwes etched that moment deep into his heart, alongside so many others.

No amount of money could replace this air, the luminous glow of Riarun’s skin, or the sweat that clung like dew to grass, this pitiful and seductive moment was irreplaceable.

He wiped them down with a towel soaked in clean stream water. They lay together on a small blanket, both naked, under a sky overflowing with stars.

There was something mystical about feeling one with nature, yet something decadent too, as though they had cast off all worldly rules before the vastness of the natural world. As if they were people who’d never known clothes.

Sure, it wasn’t as clean as a proper bath with hot water and soap, their skin felt tacky, sticky underneath, but even that had its charm.

They kept rubbing against each other despite the stickiness, and at times had to force themselves to turn away just to calm their stirred desires.

Soon, Riarun began to nod off. He leaned against Banwes’s arm, not fully asleep, occasionally murmuring words.

“I’ve got a bad habit when I sleep.”

Since they married, Banwes had taken the chance to fix Riarun’s habit of curling up so much in his sleep.

His efforts paid off. The habit was fixed.

But a side effect emerged, Riarun now couldn’t sleep without Banwes. He had to be held, or at the very least, hugging his arm or using it as a pillow.

Banwes’s lips curved in a clear smile.

“It’s the right habit.”

Almost asleep, Riarun opened his eyes again. Groggily trying to make sense of those words, he suddenly looked up past Banwes’s chest.

“You mean you made me get used to it on purpose?”

“I did.”

Riarun’s smooth bare leg pressed against the thick muscle of Banwes’s body. Their ankles overlapped, one slim, one sturdy. Banwes gently ran a hand through Riarun’s golden hair with the arm he’d given him.

“I can’t sleep without you either. I’ll hold you until the day I die, so what’s there to worry about?”

Riarun would look only at him for the rest of his life, and there would never again be a moment when he didn’t find Riarun utterly lovable.

Without realizing, Banwes let the words rise from his heart and escape his lips.

“I wish it could be just the two of us in this world forever.”

The beat of Riarun’s heart, usually a steady flutter, now thundered violently. He pressed his lips to Banwes’s skin and whispered,

“I think that too.”

If life was a journey, then Riarun’s first trip, his escape from the Order, had marked the beginning of living. Meeting Banwes had begun his life.

And Banwes, from the moment he met Riarun, had already started his journey. Long before they were called a hero’s party.

Because the destination, the companion, and the end of the road were all one and the same person, an unchanging happiness awaited them both.

End of How to Play the Villain – Extra Stories.