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"Stop that. Do you want to have ragged nails?" he admonished, reminding himself of his own mother, and of how she used to reprehend both him and Chu Hean for biting their nails.

"You sound just like her," Chu Hean said, clearly reliving the same memories. But unlike Chu Yun\'s fondness at the similarities, Chu Hean frowned.

"Is that a bad thing?" Chu Yun asked, squaring his shoulders. He happened to hold his mother in high regard, and if Chu Hean thought he was going to feel insulted by being compared to an omega he had another thing coming.

His brother just sighed, tapping his unchewed nails listlessly against the stone table. "No, not really...," he sighed, "it\'s just that she was one \'mother\' to you, and another to me."

"Did she mistreat you?" Chu Yun asked, feeling his own hackles raising. He had never seen his mother be anything but kind towards Chu Hean. And it wasn\'t as if he thought she was entitled to abuse him because she wasn\'t his mother, but she was never cruel to him or his mother -- at least not that Chu Yun had ever seen.

Chu Hean sighed in frustration. "No, it\'s not that, she didn\'t mistreat me. But everything she encouraged in you, she repressed in me."

Again, Chu Yun wracked his brain for an explanation but he couldn\'t come up with anything.

But instead of arguing, he remained silent and listened.

"At first I thought it was because she wasn\'t my mother, you know? That when she encouraged you to be well-read, and ask questions of our father about state matters, that she was just trying to ensure you came ahead, and were father\'s favourite."

Chu Hean chanced a wary look at Chu Yun, but once again he said nothing, nodding instead for Chu Hean to go on.

"But it wasn\'t just that, she encouraged different things in me. Things I had no interest in, like embroidering," he snorted, not without some amusement, and added with a little shake of his head, "she even sat with me many times and taught me how to run the household books, manage the harem, keep track of food and assign tasks to servants."

Chu Yun thought he understood where his brother was getting at. "She was trying to teach you how to be a good omega."

Chu Hean met his eyes and nodded slowly. "It goes to show how slow I am, that it took me so long to realise it. But once I did...I would have preferred it if she had been trying to sabotage me to make you shine."

There was nothing Chu Yun could say to that, so he reached across the table and clasped his brother\'s wrist. Chu Hean looked down and saw the red bracelet wrapped around Chu Yun\'s own wrist. The same bracelet he hadn\'t taken off since Xiao Zai had found it in the woods during the hunt

For a moment, Chu Yun thought his brother would remark on it, just as all the other times his eyes had snagged on it, but he wrested his gaze away, just as all the times before.

"So, no, it wasn\'t that your mother was cruel, she was very kind to me, and she often reminded me of the importance of attracting a good alpha, just as she had."

He looked up at the moon with a sigh, one corner of his lips ticking up. "But I couldn\'t stand any of it. I wanted the freedom you had, to come and go from the estate as you pleased, to visit your friends and spend time with them around Lanzhou\'s pleasure houses, to go to the palace and discuss serious matters with grandfather--"

At the mention of their grandfather, Chu Yun sucked on a sharp breath.

Chu Hean noticed his reaction and shot him a confused look, but Chu Yun quickly diverted his attention by asking, "but now you think differently?"Chu Hean made a sound of confusion and Chu Yun elaborated, "because of your newfound friendship with Min Sezhui?"

"Oh, yes, I-" he cleared his throat, "I think I have now realised my own selfishness."

Before Chu Yun could say anything Chu Hean pointed an accusing finger at him, "don\'t gloat."

Chu Yun raised both hands in surrender with a smile. "I wouldn\'t dream of it."

"Anyway, most of my discontent came from feeling I was just as capable, just as talented, as all the young alpha nobles of Lanzhou, and yet I wasn\'t given the same opportunities. I didn\'t really consider how much more \'delicate\' the situation was for omegas who came from poverty."

Chu Yun was well acquainted with the abuses Min Sezhui endured, and would likely continue to endure if Xiao An hadn\'t died. He also knew, first-hand, what Gu Wei had done to survive the royal palace.

He didn\'t know how much of all that Chu Hean was aware of, but judging by his pained expression, Min Sezhui had confided in him plenty. Perhaps more than she had in Chu Yun even though they didn\'t know each other well -- he was an alpha, but both her and Chu Hean were omegas; that was its own kind of closeness.

"I don\'t think I was wrong to feel unfairly treated as an omega, but I think I was shortsighted. The injustices go much further than me, and the other sons and daughters of nobility."

Chu Yun met his brother\'s eyes and smiled. "On that, we agree."

The nervous tap of Chu Hean\'s fingers against the stone table was the only sound in the courtyard for some time, until the halting hum of his voice joined it, "I think I also owe you an apology."