I AM EXTRA IN A SHONEN MANGA

A night of quiet after battle, lanterns bobbed on ropes, laughter drifted from the inn, and the sea whispered its old lullaby. On a rocky outcrop beyond the village, two figures moved like shadows that belonged nowhere.

A younger man, slick white hair combed back, smiled with a calm that was almost tender. He whispered, "Oh brother… he's here." The words were soft, but sharp as a blade in the dark.

Beside him, a broad-shouldered man turned, the black whale sigil on his back catching the moon. "Are you sure, Seirath?" he asked, voice low. He did not want to alarm the village; Hollow Nine patience was its own weapon.

Seirath Eluron's grin was slow, a moth's wing unfolding. "Yes. I'm sure, Nore." His gaze traveled across the lit quay where the villagers celebrated. "Rael's here. Little brother hasn't changed his habits."

Nore let his jaw tighten. "We watch. Quiet."

They melted further into shadow and watched the scene they had come to inspect.

Back among the lanterns and bowls of salted fish, the students were a knot of heat and noise. Kaen laughed until his shoulders shook; Juno cracked a roasted bone apart and pretended to feed it to the sky; Lira carefully wrapped bandages and traded jokes with the Pearl Guardians. Ceyla sat with her knees tucked up, storm-anger cooling into warm ribbing at Juno's expense.

Rael sat apart.

He had a plate untouched in front of him, but his fingers drummed an impatient rhythm on the table. His emerald eyes tracked Khael as the Dragon Knight moved among children, handing a small pearl-dust charm to a trembling boy.

The charm caught the lantern glow. The boy's grin bloomed like a sunrise.

Rael's jaw tensed. "(I'm stronger now. I should be the one handing out charms. I should be the one they whisper about.)" The thought stuck in his chest like an ember.

Across the table Kaen noticed Rael's silence and snorted, grinning. "You sulk like a hearth left out in the rain. Eat."

Rael shoved his plate away. "Tsk." The sound was a rasp. He forced himself to sit straighter, to smile a practiced, cold half-smile but it didn't reach his eyes.

Khael's laugh floated over effortless, kind. Children clustered around him like gulls around a fisherman's basket. He moved in easy arcs, listening, kneeling, answering with a patience that made the eldest villagers' eyes wet.

When Khael looked up and saw Rael sitting alone, something almost imperceptible softened in his features. He left the knot of children and walked toward the table, footsteps sure and slow.

"(He's not hiding it well.)" Khael thought, not unkindly. He knew Rael's kind of ambition: born of lineage, polished by expectation. It was a different hunger than Kaen's burning, but it burned all the same.

He reached the table and paused beside Rael, then offered a simple, unadorned gesture — a seat. "Sit," he said, voice gentle. "Join us."

Rael looked up. The moment was small and ordinary: two boys under lantern light, a breeze smelling of salt and victory between them. But beneath the simplicity lay a thousand weighty things: legacy, rivalry, the memory of battle, the ghost of pride.

Rael's reply was clipped. "I don't need charity."

Khael's smile didn't falter. "It's not charity. It's food." He nudged the plate toward him with the toe of his boot. "Eat."

Rael stared, jaw working. The old mask of composure trembled. "(Why do you make everything simple?)" he thought, almost bitter. "(Why is kindness a weapon you wield like a blade?)"

Children nearby laughed at something Kaen did a clumsy bow to a girl who tossed him a chipped shell and the laugh softened Rael's face for a heartbeat. He took the offered chopstick with a hand that did not fully hide its trembling.

Khael sat across from him. For a while, neither spoke. The sea kept its steady counting of waves. Lantern light watched the two like a patient audience.

Finally, Khael leaned forward a fraction and let the truth slip in the shape of conversation, not lecture. "You fought well tonight."

Rael's eyes flicked. "You say that because you watched."

"Because I was there." Khael's chin tipped toward the ruined tide where their strength had kept the village from drowning. "And because you were there too."

Rael's hands tightened around the chopstick. "I know." His voice was soft now, an admission rather than a boast. "I—" He broke off and swallowed. "I don't like being second."

Khael's smile was not cruel. It carried something like apology and promise at once. "Neither do I." He tapped the table lightly. "We don't have to be. But 'second' doesn't mean 'less.' It means you stand beside, not behind. We get better together, Rael. That's how we survive."

Rael looked at him then really looked and in the slow unraveling of his stare there was recognition. A rival's edge, yes, but also the tiny, warm recognition that someone else saw the same things he did: the danger, the cost, the longing to be more.

"(Maybe he's not just… the legend.)" Rael's thought flickered and then steadied. "(Maybe he's a man who keeps his feet on the ground.)"

They were interrupted by a ripple of movement at the water's edge. Two silhouettes easy to miss in the dark shifted as if some instinct had brushed them.

Nore's whisper barely left him: "Now."

Seirath's white hair was a flash as he melted backward into the night. "Let's go."

The Hollow Nine had eyes everywhere; tonight they had watched and judged and decided. But on the quay, under lantern light and laughter and the smell of roasted fish, Rael put down his chopstick and smiled, a small, real thing.

"Thank you," he said, barely louder than the tide.

Khael's voice was softer still. "Don't thank me for dinner. Thank me for not letting you sulk."

Rael's stubborn smirk returned, just for a breath. "Tsk. You're a pest."

"I know." Khael grinned, and the word had all the warmth of a shared future — rivalry honest and clean, not poisoned by jealousy, a promise to sharpen each other instead of breaking one another.

Kaen's voice cut through the night like a bell. He waved from across the square, a half-eaten skewer dangling from his hand.

"Let's go, Rael! Khael!"

Rael turned, his eyes narrowing as if Kaen's enthusiasm alone was an insult. His lip curled.

"What a loser."

Khael chuckled under his breath, unable to help himself. He watched the two—Kaen calling with boundless energy, Rael scoffing like the world had personally offended him—and the smile on his face came unbidden, soft, almost wistful.

"(These two… Kaen Suro and Rael Eluron. The protagonist and the deuteragonist of this manga… of this story. To think I laugh and talk with them like this…)"

He let the thought sit in his chest, warm and strange. Rivalry, tension, and unspoken dreams tied them together in ways none of them fully understood yet. For a fleeting moment, even with the Hollow Nine lurking somewhere beyond the tide, the night felt like it belonged only to them.

Rael muttered again, low but sharp.

"Tch… loudmouth."

Kaen grinned wider, deliberately ignoring the jab.

"Hurry up, sulky prince. We don't have all night!"

Rael's glare burned hotter, but the corner of his mouth twitched almost a smile.

Khael followed, footsteps steady, the sound of their bickering chasing after him like an old, familiar song.

To be continue