The Knot Comes Undone
I let out a groan, sprawled across the garden floor, and rubbed my stinging lower back. The soft grass had kept me from any real injury, but it still hurt like hell.
No, what the hell…
What was that about? Millium had just left, and I’d stayed behind in the garden for a moment when wild Lucy suddenly appeared and body-slammed me. Wait—has she reached the point where she just charges at me the second we meet, no preamble at all? Isn’t that a bit much?
Irritation flared inside me. I tried to shove the girl off my chest, my voice carrying a sharp edge.
“What is this sudden rudeness? Even if it’s Your Highness, this is—”
Plop. Drip…
My words died in my throat. Small droplets had begun falling onto my cheek.
“……?”
It wasn’t rain. The sky I’d been staring at moments ago held neither dark clouds nor the slightest trace of moisture. And unlike rain, these drops carried a gentle warmth.
Then where were they coming from?
I rolled my eyes, searching for the source. That was when my gaze locked with a pair of transparent blue eyes.
The moment I saw those blue pupils, all I could do was let out a stunned sound.
“Huh…?”
Lucy was straddling me, looking down. She clutched my collar with both hands, tears streaming freely down her face.
“Hic… sob… ugh… sniff…”
“Your Highness…?”
The suddenness of it all left me frozen, unable to respond. I forced myself to snap out of it and called her name again, but she only continued to cry bitterly.
“Sob… huuu…”
Her fragile sobs echoed across the night garden. The surrounding silence made them ring even louder. I felt my mind growing hazy, overwhelmed by the sorrow pouring into my ears.
What is this? Why is she acting like this all of a sudden? Did I do something wrong?
Even from Raiden’s memories, it had been a long time since I’d seen Lucy cry this hard.
“Hiccup… Raiden… sob…”
“……”
The way she kept miserably calling my name made it clear this was about me. But what could the reason be? I really hadn’t done anything this time…?
More importantly, was this even okay? I’d somehow made the Empire’s princess cry. What would happen if Millium—that ridiculously doting father—found out? If he learned I’d made his beloved firstborn daughter cry again…
I’m dead. No matter how I look at it, this is a death sentence.
Cold sweat trickled down my back as I sat up. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, but an apology seemed like the immediate priority.
Treating her as if she might shatter, I carefully gripped Lucy’s shoulders and slowly lifted her body off mine.
“Your Highness… I don’t know what wrong I’ve committed, but please calm down first—”
“Huu, sob… It’s not that…!”
Lucy shook her head fiercely and wrapped her small hands around mine, stopping me from pushing her away. A faint tremor traveled through her slender fingers. She sniffled several more times before collapsing onto my chest as though every ounce of strength had left her.
“Y-Your Highness?!”
The two of us ended up lying there in an accidental embrace. I panicked and tried to get up, but Lucy pressed down on me, refusing to let me move. With her face buried in my chest, she kept lightly hitting me. I could feel my clothes growing damp beneath her tears.
“Why… why did you do that, you idiot…?”
“Your Highness… I truly don’t understand what you’re—”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know…!”
When I voiced my confusion at the incomprehensible situation, Lucy’s eyes flashed and she let out a shrill cry. Her face, staring down at me, was filled with raw anguish.
“I found out everything…! All of it—everything…!!”
“You found out everything? What does that even—”
“I heard it from my brother…! Every single thing you were hiding…!”
“From His Highness the Crown Prince…?”
I barely managed to collect myself with the new information and began piecing things together. Seon had said something? Something he would tell Lucy about me. Something that would provoke this kind of intense reaction from her…
……There’s only one thing that comes to mind.
Could it be—
“Did you hear… about my mother?”
Instead of answering, Lucy nodded, tears spilling from her eyes in pitiful streams. I let out a small sigh.
“Ah……”
***
Raiden and Lucy eventually moved to a different spot. Continuing their conversation in that position simply wasn’t feasible.
The two of them sat side by side on a white marble bench in the center of the garden.
“……”
“……”
A heavy, quiet silence settled between the boy and the girl. Both clearly had things they wanted to say, yet neither could easily open their mouths. It was as if something had lodged itself in their throats.
They simply sat there, sharing only silence.
Chirp, chirp…
The songs of insects neatly filled the empty spaces left by their absent conversation. Early autumn leaves, carried by the breeze, fluttered around us. The boy and girl stared at the lush scenery with unfocused eyes.
After several more minutes of silence, the wind stirred the branches once again. That was when Lucy finally spoke, her voice soft.
“Raiden.”
“……Yes, Your Highness.”
The long yet brief silence the girl had broken shattered into countless fragments and vanished with that single word.
Lucy continued in a trembling voice.
“Why… did you do that…?”
A simple question, yet one heavy with countless emotions. It slowly swept away the scattered pieces of sound lingering in the air.
Raiden pressed a hand to his aching chest and exhaled a lukewarm breath. He pondered how to answer her question before finally lifting his head.
“……I have no excuse. It was simply a time when I found it difficult to control myself.”
The boy recited the emotions Raiden had felt back then in a plain, steady tone.
“The obsession that I had to become a loner… made it impossible to control myself.”
“……”
Lucy bit her lip at his answer. The way it quivered suggested she was fighting back a fresh wave of sobs.
“Then… what about now?”
The girl’s voice, forcing its way past the lump in her throat, was already cracked and brittle.
“Are you okay now? Do you still… have those thoughts?”
“I’ve improved considerably.”
“That means… not everything has improved.”
“……”
Silence fell once more. Their conversation kept fracturing, unable to flow smoothly. Every time Lucy’s emotions surged, they needed time to steady themselves again.
“Why didn’t you tell me…?”
“……”
“Was I really that unreliable…? Was I unable to be your support…?”
“That’s not it.”
The boy could no longer bear to listen. He gently refuted the girl’s self-blame.
Raiden felt his chest being crushed beneath complex emotions and rubbed his face with dry hands. Then, with his face still buried in his palms, he spoke.
“I was simply… scared.”
“Scared…?”
“It felt like all the misfortunes in the world happened because of me… like I was going to lose my mind.”
That my very existence might end up hurting you.
Raiden muttered in a voice that trembled in a way that was unlike him. Seeing him look as though he might shatter at any moment, Lucy felt fresh tears rising.
“Idiot… Raiden, you’re such an idiot…”
“Yes… I truly am.”
“And I didn’t know any of that… I resented you instead…”
Her blue eyes, glistening with tears, looked like stars in the night sky. Those stars wept toward the boy who had been painted entirely in black.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, Raiden… For not realizing how much pain you were in… If only I had known…”
Lucy apologized with a face twisted by messy tears. That apology only made Raiden’s heart ache even more.
The boy said nothing. He simply reached out and wiped away her tears, then stroked her cheek with delicate, careful fingers.
He was remembering. The sins he had committed while drowning in misfortune. The merciless handprints he had left on this fragile skin.
“……”
Silently, the boy asked the girl: Did it hurt a lot?
At Raiden’s question—laden with guilt and sorrow—Lucy finally let the emotions she had been holding back explode.
“Hic… sob… waaaaah!!”
Several scenes flashed through her mind.
The first was from around this time last year—her birthday banquet, when the boy had slapped her cheek with a cold hand.
The second was from a few days ago—after he had saved her from assassins, the boy’s gentle touch as he wiped blood from her face.
The last was right now—the boy’s longed-for touch as he softly comforted her while she cried.
“Hiccup…! Ra-Raiden… it hurt… When you hit me, it really hurt…”
“……I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
“I was terrified you might really disappear… that you might come to hate me… it hurt so much…”
“You can hit me for as long as it takes for you to feel better.”
“How could I ever hit you…!”
For the first time in a long while, Lucy acted like a spoiled child. She stayed in someone’s arms without worrying about anyone else’s gaze. These were the tears she had secretly swallowed after Raiden had vanished from her daily life.
Raiden, who knew this all too well, quietly accepted every one of her emotions.
“Huu… ugh, hic…”
“From now on, I won’t leave.”
The boy gently patted the star that had been trembling in loneliness. The star leaned into him and melted into that warm embrace.
The boy stayed by her side until the star, exhausted from crying, finally fell asleep.
And so, one of the knots of past mistakes—which had seemed like it would never come undone—slowly unraveled.