I Want to Be More than Brothers

(Are you serious!? I really did that!?)

[Yup! (^o^) So when you wake up, Daniele is going to confront you. Better be ready!]

(But I didn't do it on purpose! I would have asked for consent! I'm not a tangyuan or black-bellied, I was just out of the loop!)

[Good luck explaining that to Daniele.]

Zhe Chouhen went red to the tip of his ears and covered his face with both hands. (Fucking hell, that was my first kiss and that was probably Daniele's too! And I took it without permission!)

[.... That was your first kiss?]

(Yeah!)

[You didn't even..... Accidentally kiss someone before or something?]

(This is my first accidental kiss! My lips are as virgin as my little brother! I didn't even have an indirect kiss with anyone through water bottles and stuff, I'm 100% inexperienced!)

[..... That's kinda sad, bro. Respect.]

Zhe Chouhen pulled at the ends of his hair. (What kind of response is that!? I'm having a breakdown here!)

[Well, you have to get over that breakdown soon because you're waking up in three.... Two.... One....]

(Wait, asdfghjkl—) And just like that, Zhe Chouhen who was happily eating watermelons got sucked out of the dream world like he did when he transmigrated in his computer.

---------------

"Leandro, you're awake."

Daniele's hypnotizing blue eyes were the first thing he see, comparable to the blue skies in his dream. His face contorted in both fear and worry to the person who's lying on his lap.

Zhe Chouhen blinked several times as 'Leandro' to get rid of the blurriness of his sight and rationalize what is going on.

"What.... happened....?" He said in a fake hoarse voice similar to those amnesia dramas.

"You have collapsed from the exhaustion of swimming. You have been sleeping for.... I don't know how long, but it felt like hours." Daniele checked the temperature of his forehead again. It was normal. "You.... Don't really remember anything?"

"I don't. Is there something I should remember?" 'Leandro' sat up and held Daniele's hand that was over his forehead.

[Scum Meter raised to 65%]

(Hey, I wasn't lying! I really don't remember it myself if you haven't told me about it.)

[But you're playing as Leandro now, right? And you are aware of it, but you still denied it.]

Zhe Chouhen grumbled mentally. (I gain Scum Meter yet didn't even raise Satisfaction or Love, tsk.)

Daniele's heart was threatening to burst out of his chest every time his skin touched with 'Leandro's', like a small electrocution.

He pulled his hand back and shifted farther away on the grass. "So you don't remember.... I see...."

Zhe Chouhen sighed in relief that Daniele let the wild non-consented kiss go, and he stood up, brushing the dust off his clothes.

He offered a hand to Daniele. "If it's not that important, let's now go to the next ring—"

"You kissed me, brother."

Zhe Chouhen almost had a cardiac arrest. He blinked dumbly as Leandro from the book would do and said: "Can you repeat that again?"

Daniele bit his lip, looking at the offered hand skeptically. "Brother, you kissed me. On the mouth, and pinned me to the ground. Why did you do that?"

(Fuck, he's not letting it go and pretending it didn't happen as I expected!)

"A-Ah, I see! It must have been unintentional because I was feeling rather feverish! I didn't mean anything by it, Daniele." He gave a lopsided, awkward smile. "I apologize for the distress it must have caused you."

Daniele frowned, like it was not the response that he wanted. He did not take the hand and stood up on his own. "Brother, what am I to you really? Why do I always feel like you're keeping secrets from me?"

Zhe Chouhen was nervous about how things have progressed so far, but he came up with an idea.

"Then can I ask the same question to you?"

He lifted Daniele's chin to only face him. "Am I only a brother to you, and nothing else? I said it was a kiss without meaning, but why are you insistent that it means something more? Could it be.... that you desire for it to mean something else to me?"

"H-How could I.... I mean, you're my brother after all—"

"But not through blood." He traced the small, fresh wound on Daniele's lower lip. "Not born of the same parents, nor spending most of our childhood together. We are more comparable to dwellers of the same household, are we not?"

He went closer and whispered to the blond boy's bright red ear. " And Daniele.... Have you heard me, even once, calling you 'brother'? It was only you who saw me that way from the start, and I just accepted it, but never did I reciprocate your familial love for me."

Daniele felt those words strike a chord in him, cutting off a thread that had started to thin from being stretched out.

He was left dumbstruck as they stood dangerously close on the grassy field, not knowing what to say, what to think, what to feel. Everything had become wrong.... But also perfectly right, like it was the way they should be.

'Leandro' let go of him with a half-lidded smirk, and his skin felt empty without the touch of this young man who never treated him as a brother. Without saying anything else, he walked on his way, letting Daniele decide whether to join him or not.

[This is a dangerous gamble you made. You're basically making your feelings clear to Daniele when it's not near the climax yet. Are you sure about this?]

(I was left with no choice. I don't even know why I kissed in him the first place, I must be really out of my head that time, it's like I was possessed.)

The two waited for how Daniele would react, who was just standing there with his single boot and tattered clothing in the grassy field. There was obviously a lot going on in his mind, but he knew he had to make a choice.

Just as Zhe Chouhen was about to leave the ring and enter the forest of suicides, he felt a light tug at his sleeve. "Leandro, wait for me. I'm.... sorry that I never considered whether you see me as a brother or not. Your true feelings.... you don't have to hide them anymore."

[Love Meter raised to 90%. He's basically in love with you now to the point of no return, bro. Wow, congrats.]

(Are you sincerely congratulating me or are you sarcastic? The vinegar* really stinks in here.)

[Shut up. Also, Scum Meter and Satisfaction Meter increases by 5% each. ]

(The time to lower them would soon come. I feel euphoric, like I have reached Nirvana.) Zhe Chouhen felt warm in his chest. (This ancestor had suffered for a long time and will soon reap the rewards of his efforts.)

[You're so overdramatic, I sometimes wonder if you're just joking or for real.]

The two traveling companions at hell, walked into a bleak and dreary forest, the trunks shaped irregularly and strangely like human bodies. Red sap flowed at gashes on them that seem to be made by a bird's beak, an eerie fog hanging in the air.

Daniele felt that this place instigated fear in him more than any forest he had been through, but something about it felt familiar.

That familiar thing was a man's voice.

"My name is Juliano.... My name is Juliano.... My name is Juliano...." A voice repeated over and over again.

"Juliano? Juliano Pietri?" Daniele tried to look for the sound of the voice. He backed away several steps until his back bumped into something and it whispered.

"That is me! My name is Juliano Pietri, not Francisco Iscaroti!"

"Ahhh!" Daniele shouted in surprise as he realized the tree was talking.

It had the face of his friend, Juliano Pietri, who committed suicide 4 years ago.

Zhe Chouhen already knows this character, but Leandro doesn't, so he went over to Daniele's side and asked. "Who is this?"

"A friend of mine, almost a teacher to me as well. He's Juliano Pietri, he's an apprentice of my art teacher, Maestro Francisco Iscaroti. " Daniele explained with a bittersweet expression. "Signore Juliano is a good artist and was like a big brother to us students."

"Later, he told us that Maestro Iscaroti has been using his artworks and claiming that it was his own. But he said he had agreed to it because Maestro Iscaroti is paying for his father's medical treatment anyway, in exchanging of his paintings."

Daniele blinked, confused. "He suddenly disappeared years ago but we did not know what happened to him. Why is he in hell?"

"Seeing that he's here, he must have secretly disliked his works being stolen in exchange for his father's treatment." 'Leandro' concluded.

"This is the forest of suicide, the ring of violence for people who committed violence to themselves. They have turned into trees because that's how they perceived themselves, helpless and stuck in place from the tortures of the world around them. Your friend must have ended his life because he could not handle being exploited by this 'maestro' anymore."

"T-Then... Oh, Juliano! You should have told us something!" Daniele fell forward and hugged the tree bark.

"Why did you end your life!? You could have been one of the greatest painters of our time! You could have told me that you didn't want your works to be under another person's name, and I would have convinced my father to support you!"

Daniele wept for his friend who had now turned into a tree, his tears falling down the roots and getting absorbed.

But Juliano did not speak to him again. His wooden mouth full of splinters just frowned sadly, and his eyes looked down at Daniele like they're trying to say something but were unable to, staying clear and white with no pupils.

"He's no longer bleeding." 'Leandro' explained to him. "They could only speak when they are bleeding. The red sap that you saw was blood from the River Phlegethon. If you want him to respond, we have to cut one of his branches again."

"I... I don't want to hurt Juliano." Daniele whimpered as he sobbed. "But I want to speak with him too."

Right on time to save them from this dilemma, a harpy came, a horrendous bird-like maiden who snapped off a twig at every tree of a suicide victim that it saw.

It perched on Juliano's spindly arms and shrieked at Daniele, making the blond boy fall backwards. "SCREEEEEEE!!!!"

'Leandro' held him protectively and made a shooing motion to the harpy while sending a telepathic command.

"Leave my person be, foul bird! Have your fill of bloody twigs and branches but if you dare put a single scratch on this man, I will rip your wings off your back!"

"SCREEEEE!!!! SCREEEEE!!"

The harpy was alarmed and pecked Juliano's twig on its beak instead of Daniele's face. It flew as far as it could from the scary protective sorcerer, warning its other ugly harpy pals to not disturb the two travelers if they want to keep their wings.

The encounter made Daniele's nerves jump.... but at least Juliano can speak now.

"Daniele..... Daniele Alighieri, wasn't it?"

For some reason, Zhe Chouhen did not like the way he said his companion's name.

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Ok, I'm getting desperate and pathetic so now I'm willing to accept bribes. I get jealous easily of other books that have a huge following and get sad everytime, thinking what's the point of writing if I feel like no one's reading/appreciate it.

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