The King's Queen | ✔

Chapter 60

He offered Jun a bloodstained smile. "Ohisashiburidesu, onīsama (It's been too long, brother)."

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A/N: The dialogue in italics is being spoken in Japanese. I wrote it in English to make it easier for you to read <3

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My ears must have deceived me. Did... did he just call Jun his brother?

I stood frozen, petrified in shock. We all did—none of us knowing exactly how to react to what we'd just heard or what we were seeing.

His eyes, his nose, his lips—his entire face—was a replica of Jun's. When they were standing so close together, it was impossible to tell who was who.

If Jun didn't have the gun leveled at him, and they weren't wearing different clothes, they would have been perfect identical clones of each other.

The guy, whose name we still had yet to find out, stared at Jun with an air of expectancy, but Jun's expression mirrored our confusion. After a few seconds of brash silence, suspicion snaked into Jun's eyes, and his gaze fell on the mask now lying on the ground.

"Who are you?"

The guy looked taken aback at Jun's question.

"Dōiu imidesu ka? (What do you mean?)" His brows drew together, and he attempted to take a step forward, but Jun maintained his grasp on the gun, making sure to keep the distance between them.

"Don't talk to me like we know each other." Jun frowned. "How can we look so much alike? What did the prinarch do?"

The guy blinked in confusion, before realization tinged with disbelief gradually settled in his eyes. "Ore o oboete imasen ka? (Don't you remember me?)"

If I hadn't been practicing Japanese for three years, I definitely wouldn't have been able to keep up with their dialogue.

Ashton, Kevin, and I translated their dialogue for CaVaughn, Cyrena, Sybil, and Duncan, so they could follow the conversation.

Jun's alleged brother was no longer focused on us as he glared at Jun, betrayal ringing heavily in his eyes.

"Anata wa ore no koto o wasureta (You forgot about me)." He laughed drily. Anger quickly replaced the betrayal as he went off angrily in his own language.

A few of the words were foreign to me—no pun intended—and he spoke so rapidly that it made it hard to keep up with what he was saying. Unlike the first time he'd met us, this time he was speaking in complete Japanese.

It almost felt wrong listening in on their conversation and translating it, but I knew Jun wouldn't want anyone to be left in the dark.

Where I didn't know a word or phrase, Ashton and Kevin—who had been with Jun for almost ten years—helped me to fill in the blanks.

Although they weren't fluent in Japanese, I wasn't the only one who had made an effort to learn Jun's native language.

"How could you forget about me when all I could f*cking think about was you?!"

Jun jerked his chin in our direction. "I'm not the only one here. Speak in English."

"I don't give a f*ck about them, Jun!"

He had the mouth of a sailor, so Kevin took over the translating, censoring the swear words as he went along.

The guy's annoyed gaze fell on the gun, and Kevin assumed he said something along the lines of: "Either shoot me or put the gun down."