He wasn't sure what was worse—the fact that Nora had been in his room, or the fact that Ana had somehow turned it into a war crime.
She stood over him. Arms crossed. Eyes sharp. Delivering a lecture so thorough it could've been submitted as a thesis.
The topic: why a boy and a girl should never, under any circumstances, be alone in the same room.
He groaned internally.
'Ahhh. School all over again.'
He got it. He really did.
But he still didn't understand how it was his fault. He was asleep. Unconscious. Basically dead. Nora was the one who broke in like some blonde burglar with zero respect for boundaries.
But somehow they blamed the guy in his underwear.
If anything, he was the victim here. People just walked into his room like it was a public park. No knocking or warning.
The lack of basic human decency.
'I'm going to have to file a complaint to whoever runs this place.'
She kept going, and there were no signs of stopping. Her mouth moved. Words came out. Lots of them.
It actually made his brain check out. And go somewhere better, to a story Rei once told him that somehow mirrored his event.
Back to the night the voice had told him one of his adventure stories—the kind Rei only shared when Shiro would feel exhausted from his brutal training.
It was his way of reaching out.
And it happened more often than Shiro liked to admit.
And every time, it felt like a gift. A small, quiet gift wrapped in a ridiculous story. He enjoyed them. Every single one.
He just never showed it.
This one was similar to his, but cranked up 100 times worse. A girl with—in Rei's wise words—'two giant personalities.'
That was his term. For breasts. The man who'd survived monsters and things that didn't have names described a woman's chest like a twelve-year-old who'd just discovered puberty.
'And people called him a legend.'
He'd met her in a city called Noka. She was beautiful. Funny. Flirty. The kind of woman who made you forget you were supposed to be smart.
Before Rei could figure out the trap, the woman's husband—along with every friend the man had ever made—appeared out of nowhere. Surrounded him. Tied him to a tree.
And took everything.
His weapons. His pack. His boots. His shirt. His pants.
Everything. Along with his dignity.
'They left him with nothing?'
Nothing.
'Not even—'
But then—because Rei's life was written by someone with a sick sense of humor—the woman came back. In the middle of the night. Untied him. Looked him in the eye and told him she'd actually fallen for him.
Between the ambush, the robbery, and leaving him tied naked to a tree, she'd apparently caught feelings.
'Romantic.'
They spent the night together. Under the stars. Just the two of them.
He'd asked Rei once what happened that night. The full story. All the details.
Rei had gone quiet for a moment. Then—and Shiro could hear the grin in his voice even without a face—said, 'you're too young for that part, kid.'
'I'm still too young, apparently.'
When the sun rose, so did the husband.
But with an axe.
Rei called what followed the Run of Shame. And the name was earned. Because he sprinted through the woods, past a river, through an entire village—bare as the day he was born.
Just a naked legend, the morning sun on his back, and a very large man with a very sharp axe chasing him through the countryside.
He couldn't help it. A chuckle slipped out. Then another. The image of Rei—the great warrior, the voice in his head, the man who'd survived the impossible—sprinting bare-assed through a village at dawn was too much.
"You think it's funny?" Ana asked, voice sharp.
"Yes. Very."
The words left his mouth before his brain reconnected.
He blinked. Looked around. Ana was staring at him. Arms crossed. Eyes narrowed. The kind of look that said, 'choose your next words very carefully.'
He glanced at Nora. Her face was completely red. It wasn't her usual 'I'm going to kill you' kind.
It was definitely embarrassment red. Head down. Eyes on the floor. Like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.
'Wait. What did I just say yes to?'
He had no idea. He'd been so deep in Rei's story that he'd completely missed whatever Ana had been saying.
And seeing Nora like this only made him more nervous.
"You two are still kids. How are you going to take care of a child?" Ana muttered, rubbing her temples.
'A what now?'
"Nothing like that happened!" Nora snapped, her face somehow getting even redder.
And Shiro—bless his heart—still had absolutely no idea what was happening. So he did what he always did when confused.
He opened his mouth.
"She just hugged me. I don't see what the big deal is." He crossed his arms. "It's not like we held hands or anything. Specifically the left one."
The room went still.
Both of them turned to look at him. Slowly. The way you turn to look at someone who just said something so unbelievably stupid that your brain needs a moment to process it.
"…What?" Ana said.
He took their silence as interest. So he continued. With confidence.
"Well, when a man and a woman like each other a lot—" He held up his left hand for visual reference. "They get naked, hold left hands, and kiss. Lots of tongue. Very important step. And then nine months later, boom—a bird flies in with a baby."
He nodded. Satisfied with his explanation.
The silence that followed was so thick you could've drowned in it.
Ana stared at him. Nora stared at him. Neither blinked. Neither moved. Their faces had gone completely blank—not the empty kind of blank, but the kind that comes right before something inside a person breaks.
Then, slowly, their expressions changed.
Not to anger.
Not to laughter.
Pity.
Pure, undiluted, soul-deep pity.
Ana walked over. Gently—like approaching a wounded animal—she pulled him into a hug. The kind of hug reserved for children who've just said something so heartbreakingly wrong that correcting them feels cruel.
"You poor, poor child."
Something in her voice made his stomach drop. Not what she said. How she said it. Like she was mourning something on his behalf that he didn't even know he'd lost.
'Why does she sound like that?'
Because Rei had taught him everything. Survival. Fighting. Stories about his adventures and the countless women he'd charmed across the world. Shiro had soaked up every word like a sponge that didn't know any better.
Because he truly didn't.
One night—or day, he wasn't sure, since it was already dark—he'd asked Rei a question. A simple one.
'How was I born?'
He'd wanted to understand. Why someone would bring him into this world just to hurt him. What was the point of creating something you planned to destroy.
And Rei—the great warrior, the legendary voice, the man who'd survived it all told him with confidence.
Birds. Left hands. Tongue kissing. Nine months.
And Shiro had believed him, of course. Because Rei knew everything.
With that, they left the room. Quickly. Suspiciously quickly.
He caught a glimpse of their faces on the way out—cheeks puffed, lips pressed tight, eyes watering from the sheer effort of not exploding.
The door closed.
And then he heard it. Muffled.
Laughter.
'What did I say?'