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Yuben watches in disbelief as the carriage starts moving. He's always looked up on how very capable Lou is. She's smart, resourceful, and strong too for handling the Chief for so long—especially the two days she had been kept in that office!

Now that he's intently watching the girl, he can clearly see the bruises shown on Lou's arms and the ...hand mark on Lou's neck...

Did the Chief try to choke her before?

The boy frowns as he clearly sees the red print on the back of her neck, clearly left by fingers bigger than Yuben's.

The boy subconsciously reaches out to the marred skin, which makes Lou flinch at the sudden touch. Yuben blushes and quickly retracts his hand after realising what he's doing.

"S-sorry!" he stammers out. Yuben turns his gaze away from embarrassment, his eyes looking at anything else but Lou.

"It's okay, just give me a heads up next time," Lou jokes and it makes Yuben feel even more embarrassed.

After a while, Yuben takes a small glance at the girl again, who's left hand is now playing with the bruises.

Yuben frowns and stands up to grab Lou's hand away.

Lou turns his head, confused by the sudden hold when she sees the boy's upset face.

"You shouldn't touch your wounds," Yuben chastises.

The girl merely chuckles, which perplexes Yuben, before humming. "Alright..."

The boy sighs and is about to let go of Lou's hand when the carriage suddenly shakes, making him lose his footing.

Yuben was about to fall but Lou's hand, whom he's been holding onto all of this time, catches him and pulls him towards the girl, helping the orange haired boy get back to standing straight.

"You should sit down when on a moving carriage," Lou is the one chastising this time, but it doesn't seem like she means it as she laughs after saying those words and lets go of Yuben's hand.

Yuben also lets go of the girl's hand and coughs his second embarrassment away as he takes his seat again.

Lou glances at the boy to check on him. She smiles when she sees the boy seated and whips the horse to go a bit faster.

Yuben watches in awe as he feels the wind whipping through his face and they set on their journey back to the orphanage.

.
.
.

It's been two days on the road, definitely longer than when they originally set off with the kidnappers from before—mainly because they sometimes stop midway to take a break and eat their food.

( Lou told him that they shouldn't be moving or juggling their body a lot after eating or else the food ends up getting stuck and not get eaten correctly )

It's currently night time and Yuben is keeping himself warm by the fire Lou made while the girl is currently feeding the horses with the sacks of carrots they found in the carriage that Lou also easily carried off ( Yuben will never be not amazed whenever Lou does something )

Now that they've been spending their time together travelling, Yuben and Lou are considerably closer than when they were back in the orphanage. However, there's something that has been bothering Yuben for a long time and he hasn't find the right time to ask about it until now.

"Lou, I've got a question," Yuben starts. He looks up at the black haired girl that's currently busy feeding the horses and whilst petting them.

"Yeah, what's up?" Lou answers without looking back.

"Why does everyone call you as 'big brother'?" He's seen it mostly from the younger kids that he usually talks to, and the kids Leonia often play with. The older kids and all of the teachers all think she's a girl though... unless they've been wrong this whole time?

But how can the teachers be wrong? Didn't they check?

...Well, the teachers didn't check him when he first came in and just assumed he was a boy so he guessed that the same thing could happen with Lou.

"Oh, that's because I'm a boy," Lou answers casually, still not looking back.

"I knew it! There's no way you'd let people label you wrong like that," Yuben's expression then morphs to confusion, "wait... but why did you not correct the teachers?"

Lou shrugs as he feeds another carrot to the horse, "meh, I didn't see a point in arguing with those idiots."

"But doesn't it bother you to be assumed wrongly like that?"

"Meh, I don't really care."

And that answer surprises Yuben... or should it?

I mean, this is Lou he's talking about here. The boy literally planned out a detailed escape plan after learning that they've been sold for money and he managed to pack things and steal bread from the kitchen, and also distract their kidnappers and get away!

Maybe he's just at a level of cool that Yuben doesn't understand that other people's opinions don't bother him that much.

"...so you're a boy?" Yuben asks again for confirmation.

"Yup," pops his 'p' as he answers the orange haired boy's question. Lou then turns back to look at Yuben with a devilish smile.

"What? Disappointed that I'm not a cute girl?" Lou wiggles his eyebrows ( Yuben doesn't even comprehend how he can do that ) before bursting out laughing at Yuben's sputter and throwing a carrot to his face.

"Don't actually think about it, you're still young." Lou deadpans.

Yuben makes an "oof!" sound as the carrot hits his face. He rubs the previous hit area and complains, "you don't need to be a cute girl anyways, you're already pretty as you are now."

Lou stares at the orange haired boy for a moment, his eyes wide, before laughing again.

"Hahaha!" The black hair boy pokes the ginger's nose, "and your freckles are pretty cute too!" Lou compliments back.

The action causes Yuben's brain to malfunction before the cogs start to turn again and his face suddenly turns tomato red. Yuben stutters as he stares at the grinning boy beside him as the words finally came out of his mouth:

"WHAT??!?!??"

-
Author's note:

This was all supposed to be in one chapter but I decided to cut it off and thank god I did 'cause I expected a 2 chapters arc and not 4+

Also I know Yuben canonically doesn't have freckles ( at least in the manhwa ) but he does in this world cause I didn't know what Lou would have complimented back lmao...