The Line in My Heart (2)
The next morning, the same tranquil start to the day as yesterday's settled once more over the Kell household. No — it should have.
"Huh...?"
But this time, even Miriam, who had risen at her usual hour, could do nothing but stare in bewilderment. Why, you ask?
"Ah, Miriam. You're awake."
"...Lady Mnassil?"
Because a person she never, ever could have expected was cooking away in the kitchen with impeccable elegance. The red-haired noblewoman, up before even the mistress of the house, apron tied around her waist.
"Go and hold Kirba for me a moment. My hands and tail are quite occupied at present."
She had even laid the egg she normally cradled in her tail gently upon the sofa, devoting herself entirely to the cooking. Specifically, to flipping a fried egg.
This was the same woman who, until yesterday, had been crushing pumpkins with her tail. And now she was shaking a pan with such delicate care.
Struck by a severe case of cognitive dissonance, Miriam could only blink a few times as she forced herself to accept reality.
And beside her stood one more person.
"Oh my, you're up?"
Erzena, making Nathan's favorite cream soup.
"A lovely day, Madam. Just like yesterday."
"It is indeed. A fine day, the finest since the day I laid Kirba in my long life."
"Ahahaha."
"Ufufufu."
The two women burst into laughter over words that meant nothing and everything. Mnassil in particular wore an expression exactly — precisely — identical to the one Erzena had worn yesterday morning.
The moment Miriam saw it, she understood.
Something happened between her and my son, too.
A woman's intuition rang alarm bells like mad. Then a single thought flashed through her mind.
Don't tell me they... went all the way?
The possibility was more than plausible. A holiday, that most special of occasions. The family home, a novel setting he hadn't visited in four years. A woman he'd been drawn to from the start, and a young man of twenty-three, youthful and full of blood.
Miriam sank into grave contemplation.
Was my son such a beast?
Under his parents' roof, with a woman he hadn't wed, and a beautiful lady with a child at that — in the dead of night? No. That wasn't it.
There wasn't a single trace on Mnassil to suggest anything of the sort. She simply looked utterly content, occasionally rubbing her forehead and smiling to herself.
A light kiss. Or perhaps, a confession.
It probably stopped there.
If they'd actually shared a bed, Mnassil would surely have been crowing it to the whole neighborhood by now. In just two days, Miriam had come to understand the red-haired noblewoman's character completely.
As she silently accepted this, the members of the household began drifting to the table one by one. All but one. Nathan's seat.
Everyone tilted their heads in puzzlement.
"That's strange. Nathan has never once been late before."
"Sleeping in. So he has a side like this, too."
Just then, Noah sprang up from her seat.
"Then let's go wake him. I want to see him sleeping, anyway."
Only Miriam caught the way both women's eyes gleamed for an instant.
Nathan's room was the first room at the top of the stairs.
- Knock, knock.
She rapped on the firmly shut door.
"Nathan, it's morning."
But no answer came. The door didn't so much as tremble. She tried the handle.
- Click.
Locked. Had his guard simply relaxed for the holiday, latching the door so he could sleep soundly? Or did he need time alone with his thoughts?
As Miriam stood lost in thought, Mnassil stepped forward and drew something from her pocket.
"Stand aside."
In her hand was the key to Nathan's room.
"Why on earth do you have that, my lady?"
"I nicked it when I left his room last night."
Mnassil announced, without a flicker of shame, that she had visited her son's room in the middle of the night. Was this what they called decisiveness, or a lack of noble grace?
Unable to reach a verdict, Miriam smiled awkwardly. She decided to deliberately overlook the way Erzena flinched.
- Click.
The moment the key turned, the door swung open smoothly.
"My guardian! It is morning! I have cooked for you with mine own hands, and eat you must — 'tis your duty!"
"N-Nathan. You need to wake up."
Mnassil strode in with supreme confidence. Erzena entered cautiously behind her, her face faintly flushed.
But about three seconds later—
"...Huh?"
"...Eh?"
Two bewildered voices drifted from inside the room.
"What's the matter?"
Miriam poked her head in. And she, too, could only be stunned.
The room was empty. There was no one inside.
The only trace of Nathan was yesterday's pajamas, draped over the back of a chair.
"Did he go out for a walk?"
And yet Miriam somehow felt he had gone somewhere much farther away. Because the immigration officer's uniform that had clearly been hanging on the rack just yesterday was gone.
*****
Meanwhile, in the dining room—
Everyone had gone to wake Nathan, but one person remained where she was, sitting in silence.
"..."
Elaine Castor.
As before, the table groaned under a feast fit to break its legs. Even a salad made of chicken, her absolute favorite.
But Elaine didn't move, quietly staring down at her plate. Lost in deep thought. Thinking back to what had happened two days ago.
She hadn't been asleep that night. She had simply hated being alone, had wanted someone near her, and so she had thrown a small tantrum at Erzena's door. After Hannah and Nathan, Erzena was the person closest to her heart.
And she had heard.
- I like you, Nathan. Truly.
And she had seen.
The gap between them vanishing, the moment lips met lips.
- Throb.
At the same time, an ache spread through her chest. A pain she had felt before, returning once more. That throbbing had tormented her for two days straight now, and it was steadily stealing even her appetite.
Why does my heart keep hurting like this?
There was nothing wrong with her health. Mentally, too, these days were happier than any she had ever known. Nathan and Erzena — and now Mnassil as well. All of them had become precious to her.
If they were happy, then she should be happy too. And yet, why?
Why does watching the two of them hurt so much?
She searched herself for an answer that wasn't there.
While she sat drowning in the question, the voices of those returning from upstairs drifted down to her.
"Don't tell me... he couldn't have gone to the royal castle?"
"Well, it is about two hours' walk from here to the castle, so it's possible. But why would he?"
The two women groaned in shared perplexity. Listening quietly, Elaine thought she knew exactly where he had gone.
Somewhere near the royal castle. The place she herself had often sought out when her heart grew tangled, when she could hold on no longer.
She turned her gaze toward the window. Toward the Royal Cemetery.
This was a place of nothing but gray and silence. Even the autumn trees stood bare, mourning the dead with their naked branches. A place where only a name remained, carved into stone, and was forgotten in the passage of time.
I stood in that place once again. Why had I come here? I didn't know. It was hardly a place of rest. Every time I came, memory clawed the emotion raw out of me. And still, my feet would not stop.
"..."
Renee Ilia
The familiar name greeted me. A body buried two meters below. A body standing two meters above. You and I, now forever unable to look in the same direction.
"If it were now," I asked her gravestone, "if I had learned the Dragon Tongue by then — could I have saved you?"
Instead of cowering before powerlessness and authority — if I had thrown myself away instead. I don't know. I simply don't know.
Was it because I lost you that I made it this far? Or was it truly nothing more than a cruel twist of fate? If a god existed, and that god had truly appeared in my dream — then why didn't it protect you?
- Then what of my son?
King Rio's monologue echoed faintly in my mind.
"No."
That isn't it. I can't cling to the past forever. I promised, didn't I? To see it through to the end. Whether tragedy or comedy.
"I won't become like King Rio."
I won't rage at the heavens for refusing to intervene when Renee was lost. Even this, I must leave behind and move forward. While remembering you.
But still—
"...I'm scared."
The truth slips out in a whisper. I'm afraid.
After losing Renee, I drew a line inside my heart. Forming new bonds. Being wanted by someone. Moving beyond mere professional ties into something deeper. I had sealed my heart shut so I would never reach that far again.
To forge a new bond is to risk losing it. But now, that line was wavering.
"Am I... allowed to?"
I ask a grave that cannot answer for the right answer, because I cannot find conviction on my own.
Erzena. Elaine. Mnassil. And even Melanie. I knew. I knew how they saw me. With what eyes they looked at me, in what voices they spoke to me.
No — how could I not have known?
The very first thing I learned as a merchant was to read the other person's feelings. And yet I had deliberately ignored it all. Because I was afraid. Because I lacked conviction.
"...If I were simply bound here by duty and royal command, I wouldn't even need to think this hard."
If I had just buried my feelings thoroughly and processed everything as responsibility, I could have gone on.
But I could no longer do that. I could no longer pretend not to know. Because I had heard it.
- My guardian, my companion. Let it be forever.
- I like you, Nathan. Truly.
The first confessions ever spoken to me. Hearts carrying not a single grain of a lie — I had heard them all.
"Renee... what would you have done?"
I did not love that beautiful, straight-backed fairy. I simply cherished her — cherished her dearly — as a bond I must never let slip, as someone I longed to walk beside, always. If I couldn't even protect her, what right had I to call it love?
That's why I could never say I loved you. So how could someone like me — someone who couldn't even protect you — deserve to receive the hearts these women were pressing against mine so earnestly?
- My companion.
- Nathan.
And yet, why did I waver so much?
"I don't know... what I'm supposed to do."
At last, I voiced the conclusion of my heart. And in that moment—
- Pat, pat.
The sound of soft footsteps on grass came from behind me. And then, reaching my ears—
"I thought you'd be here."
A familiar voice.
- Whirl.
Startled, I shot to my feet and spun around. And I was startled all over again.
"E-Elaine?"
There she stood — Elaine, wearing a black mourning veil. Just as she had been the very first time we met.
I hastily swept my gaze past her. Thankfully, I could just make out the faint silhouettes of Intelligence Department agents near the entrance.
But even so — I hadn't told a soul I was here.
"How... how did you know to come here? And all by yourself?"
"...Nathan."
Elaine lifted the veil, and her green eyes fixed on me.
"There's something I want to ask you."