He's My Real Brother, Duke

“Well, the baby is sick. He’s a little better because of my treatment, so… my friend only left him temporarily.”

Jenny, who’s only watching from behind as a maid, was silent, she carefully opened her mouth to speak because there were immediate blood relatives of the four major families.

“It’s her friend’s child, but the baby and Astel look a little similar, don’t they?”

Jenny’s face darkened plainly. Astel tilted her head and glanced at the baby.

“Does he look like me?”

I scanned the baby’s features one by one. Come to think of it, if I put him next to me and check each feature, it seemed that we were somewhat similar.

But in hindsight, such hair and eye colors were very common in the Empire.

Blonde was the most common hair color, and green was also the most common eye color.

The color was just beautiful because it looked like my brother.

As I scanned the baby’s face thoroughly, the baby also met my gaze and lifted the corners of his lips, and smiled.

“Moㅡ”

“Yes?”

“Mommy!”

Satisfied with the baby’s chattering appearance, I shook my head nonetheless.

Mommy? Anyway, I heard that the first thing babies say when they talk was mommy.

Seeing him say it over and over again, I wonder if he misses his mother’s affection without knowing it.

I carefully reached out my hand and tapped the baby’s head sitting on Ricardo’s lap.

“I’m not your mother, you fool.”

“…Mom.”

The baby’s head tilted and then he shook his head.

“Astel! My mom!”

Clink!

A few seconds after the baby finished speaking, the tea pot fell from Sally’s hand.

Astel was a little startled and her eyes opened roundly.

But, except for me and the baby, everyone in the room was frozen.

“What’s wrong?”

Bell clenched his fist and shook his head.

“No, it’s not!”

“Your lips are bleeding, Bell.”

“…Hic, hiccup. No it’s not!”

What’s wrong with him all of a sudden?

“Let’s call it a day.”

Ricardo, who looked a little more tired than before, muttered bluntly.

Bell, on the other hand, raised his hand and shouted.

“Iㅡ, I want to go to Astel’s room and play!”

“Yes, please come!”

So the tea time of the day ended comfortably.

✾

“Thi-this!!”

Bell dropped the potion bottle on the table.

Soon, with a loud noise from the broken bottle, liquid was scattered everywhere.

“I’ll clean it up, leave it as it is.”

“…Yes!”

Astel started clearing the table, and Bell and the baby were seated side by side on the bed in the bedroom.

Bell glared as he looked at the baby’s wriggling hands.

“You.”

“Huh? Berry?”

(T/N: R/L are ㄹ in Korean so bell can both be spelled as bell and berr. And the baby can’t pronounce it correctly.)

“Did you say Bell? My name?”

“Uh! Berry!”

Then Bell, who had no younger brother, puff his chest and spoke arrogantly.

“I’ll give you a chance to call me big brother.”

In fact, Bell wanted a younger brother very much. Bell brazenly tucked his chest, shamelessly raising his chin.

“Try it, say big brother!”

“Bi-bother?”

“…Sheesh. You’re still a baby, so I don’t know if it’s just your tongue is short… You can’t even say ‘big brother’ well.”

Bell pouted. In the meantime, the child was carefully imitating the words ‘brother.’ Bell, who was staring at the baby, uttered the words he wanted to say from the tea time earlier.

“Anyway. You and your mom were separated, right?”

“Huh?”

“Who raised you?”

“Teacher.”

“…Teacher?”

“Uh!”

Conversation got more and more outrageous.

The child’s eyes were twinkling as if Bell looked cool and amazing, and continued hard to say the word ‘brother’.

However, Bell, the ‘big brother,’ was in serious agony.

‘How would I know if this child is Astel’s child or not?’

Bell glanced over the bedroom and towards the table.

Fortunately, Astel was still moving around and cleaning the table.

“Do you know what a mom is?”

“Someone, takes… care and raise me.”

“That’s right, a person who gave birth to you and takes care of you, that’s good.”

At that time, Astel’s gaze turned toward the bedroom. She seemed to be making sure the baby was playing well.

“Then who’s your mom?” Bell whispered in a hurry.

The baby tilted his head out like a baby turtle and turned his head outside the bedroom. And then he put out his index finger, pointed it to Astel.

“Astel!” 

“…Oh, it’s Astel? The Astel over there? The super cute, kind, and smart Astel?”

Without realizing that his true intentions had been revealed, Bell hurriedly listened to his next words.

Perhaps he was proud that his ‘brother’ was listening to him, the baby nodded its head very and shouted.

“That’s right!”

Bell felt frustrated as the baby nodded and spoke loudly that his ears, the size of an adult’s fingernails, shook.

In despair, Bell knelt down, falling outside of the bed.

At that moment, Bell’s body changed into that of a silver fox.

“Hiing…”

For such Bell, the baby was sentenced to death in effect.

“Right, our Mom!” The baby shouted once again.

At those words, Bell hurriedly returned to his human form, and climbed onto the bed, his eyes shone as he whispered softly.

“Then, who’s your dad?”

Then the baby shrugged its shoulders.

His chubby fingers, as small as an acorn, wiggled on his lap.

“…None.”

There was a face that vaguely came to mind in the child’s head. He used to call himself ‘Cassian’.

However, he couldn’t remember what he looked like, perhaps because he was in so much pain.

Besides, his memory of him had long since faded since he came here. Soon the child whispered softly in a dismayed voice.

“Baby, abandoned…”

Bell clenched his fists.

So to sum it up, this kid was Astel’s son, and the father ran away?

There’s no way a little baby who couldn’t speak properly would confess a lie to a handsome older brother like himself.

‘I don’t know what humans are like, but when we turn three, all beasts have some logic.’ Bell thought deeply.

Therefore, it’s unlikely that his words were false, Bell took them seriously.

“How dare he throw you away?”

The baby nodded his head vigorously. First of all, he seemed to have gained confidence.

“Throw away!” The baby mimicked Bell’s words.

“That bastard, the fox will eat him!”

Bell grunted, gritting his teeth and said the worst thing in the world.

“No, it’s a mistake. Anyway, I can’t say such things in front of young children.”

Although he was tall for a baby, Bell was still a full-bodied child.

Unaware of the fact, Bell inflated and shrugged in front of the child.

And just then, Astel, who had cleaned the broken glass of potion, approached the two of them and whispered.

“Are you two having fun? What did you talk about?”

“Mom!”

The baby screamed, hanging around near Astel’s leg.

Bell’s eyes were teary staring at it. As Bell felt his tears welling up, he turned his head.

So, the stupid sister Astel… Was she caught by the bad guy, as the maids guessed?

“Can’t the world be kind…?”

“Yes? What’s going on, Bell?”

Seeing Astel’s innocent eyes, suddenly his anguish deepened thinking about her life, and it seemed that the milk he had earlier was turning in his stomach.

Bell turned his head again, pressing down on his nose.

“…No, nothing.”

Bell, who had added confidence to the reasoning that ‘the baby was the son of Astel,’ let out a shallow sigh.

✾

Meanwhile, in the mansion of the Duke of Anais in the capital.

The Duke planted several people in the capital who could gather information about Cassian Gray.

The beasts soon brought rumours about him in a small image sphere.

The Duke, who received this, clenched the image sphere in his hand as if it was about to burst, then turned it on.

-Cassian, has his face become paler and slimmer?

-Well, he must have a new lover, right?

A man with a scar on his face in the round sphere gritted his teeth.

-Anyway, he’s very promiscuous… And it’s obvious that he’ll go bankrupt if he makes fun of his bottom like that.

Maybe it’s because, unlike Cassian, he wasn’t chosen by the opposite sex? Even at first glance, he looked young with a sense of inferiority.

But his words seemed to be half true.

Not only that, but in other spheres, they always say that Cassian was promiscuous.

‘How dare he look at her with such dirty eyes.’

To Astel, with that impure body like him…

The Duke gradually accumulated hatred and disgust toward Cassian.