Reunion
“The young lady is in the study.”
“The study?”
The head maid spoke as we climbed the spiral staircase toward the third floor.
“Yes. She’s always there at this hour.”
“Ah… I see.”
Ilia and a study.
An incredibly mismatched combination.
“Young master, you’re thinking it doesn’t suit her at all, aren’t you?”
“…How did you know?”
“Because your reaction was so halfhearted.”
“Ah…”
As sharp as ever.
But from my perspective, that reaction was inevitable. The Ilia in my memories had built a wall between herself and books.
She’d been that way in the past, and she would be that way in the original story’s future as far as I knew.
The her I knew would rather swing a sword one more time than turn a single page.
Still, you never know.
Things might have changed quietly, the way they had with this bodyguard knight business.
“But you were right, young master. The young lady still doesn’t read.”
“Haha…”
Coming from the head maid who had stayed by Ilia’s side all this time, the statement carried a credibility that couldn’t even be compared to my one-month connection and the fragmentary information I’d gleaned from the original work.
She hadn’t changed that much, it seemed. Strangely enough, that was a relief.
But then why did Ilia shut herself up in the study every day at this hour?
“Is there some other special reason Ilia spends time in the study?”
“Hmm… I wouldn’t know. I’ve never gone in myself. She ordered that she wanted to be alone in there. We’ll be interrupting a little today thanks to you, young master.”
“I feel unintentionally sorry toward Miss Ilia.”
“Still, wouldn’t she forgive you if it’s young master Roen? The young lady only started taking this daily alone time in the study right after you left, after all.”
“Pardon?”
“She might even be missing you. Hehe.”
“……”
I couldn’t flatly declare that was nonsense.
Of course, I wondered whether that ever-expressionless Ilia even knew the feeling of longing.
But a person’s heart is an unknowable thing.
What thoughts she hid behind that blank face were beyond me as well.
Perhaps even choosing me as her bodyguard knight had begun from that longing.
…Was I being far too self-conscious?
Yet it was a plausible deduction that fit together a little too neatly.
Just as I treasured the memories of that time as good ones, she might also be quietly missing those days.
“Then, Head Maid—did you miss me too?”
“W-what?!”
“Ah. Looking at that reaction, I guess not.”
“H-how could that be! Where else would you find someone as polite and earnest as you, young master! My little brother still hasn’t grown up at all—”
“…I missed you too, Head Maid.”
“……!!!”
It wasn’t that I said this because I hated my own home.
On the contrary, I considered it an excellent household that needn’t envy anyone.
But the month I’d spent at the Grand Duke’s Castle had been… something else.
There had been a special quality to it that nothing else could replace.
When a new semester starts, don’t people always find themselves missing vacation?
Time that has passed, and the memories nestled within it, never return.
Moreover, that had been the only period in my life when I wasn’t tormented by my older and younger sisters.
Was Ilia missing those days with that same kind of feeling?
Well, I could ask her once we met.
Whether she would answer me readily was another matter entirely.
“…We’ve arrived.”
While I was lost in thought, the head maid stopped in front of the door.
Knock, knock.
“Young lady. Young master Roen is here.”
Her voice was exceedingly warm and affectionate, proof of their long-standing closeness.
—“…Only let Roen in.”
But the answer was cold.
And yet—why did that hard, unchanging voice from then and now feel so welcome without my meaning it to?
“Yes~.”
The head maid paid Ilia’s tone no mind and winked at me, speaking with her eyes.
Open it yourself and go in.
I nodded and took hold of the doorknob.
When I pushed the door open, a familiar scene greeted me.
Massive bookshelves packed densely on every side.
A desk sitting alone in the middle of it all.
And upon it, a single worn book carefully placed—and one person.
Silver hair like her father’s.
But blue eyes that, unlike his, stared this way with indifferent intensity.
Bangs covering her right eye, black uniform on her frame.
The Grand Ducal Lady of the North, Ilia Weiss.
I had been half-forced into becoming her bodyguard knight, but I still couldn’t hide the gladness. The corners of my mouth lifted on their own.
I let go of the doorknob, and the door slowly closed.
“You’re here, Roen.”
“Is that really the first thing you say after so long, my lady?”
“…Drop the formal speech.”
“Pardon?”
“You forgot? We promised to speak casually when it’s just the two of us.”
“What?! N-no, what are you—”
When it’s just the two of us, we drop the formalities, Roen.
“…!!!”
Okay. Got it, Ilia.
It’s a promise.
“Ah.”
What surfaced from the depths of memory was a promise with Ilia that had been sleeping at the bottom of my recollections.
A childhood voice I never thought I’d hear again.
“…You still remembered that.”
“Mm. Because it’s a promise.”
“……”
Every word from Ilia landed on me as guilt.
Back then I had made the promise with her so brightly, so carelessly.
It was only a childhood promise, after all.
I had casually decided that with time, Ilia would naturally forget it.
But the only one who forgot was me.
“It’s fine even if you forgot.”
As if she had read those thoughts of mine, Ilia spoke first.
Maybe it had shown on my face.
Unlike her, I was terrible at hiding my feelings.
“Nine long years have passed. We were both kids when we made that promise. It’s not strange that you’d forget.”
Click.
Click.
Ilia approached, her white boots that reached her thighs tapping against the floor.
“I just want you to treat me as close as you did back then. That’s enough for me.”
Ice-like eyes looking up at me.
In those eyes that didn’t show even a single thread of resentment, my face was reflected clearly.
The young man with black hair and golden eyes wore a flustered expression.
As if asking whether that was really all right.
I swallowed hard and opened my mouth.
“Got it. Ilia.”
“Mm.”
Ilia gave a small nod.
Her face was still blank, but she looked happy.
She took a half-step back from me and looked me up and down.
“You’ve changed a lot.”
“Where?”
“You look more like a man now. We were about the same height as kids, but now you’re way taller than me.”
“You’ve changed a lot too.”
“Which part?”
Ilia crossed her arms under her chest.
…Really.
In more ways than one, she had grown a lot.
“…Your height.”
“Hmm. I’m pretty sure that isn’t the only thing that got bigger.”
“Ha. You’re still as random as ever.”
Ilia would occasionally come out with these absurd remarks.
And it wasn’t just her words.
Her actions were the same.
Like right now—looping her arm through mine as naturally as breathing.
“Hm?”
“Standing around forever is tiring. Come sit over here.”
Like that, she led me toward the desk.
She used to lead me around like this when we were little too.
But the reenactment failed.
Because back then, I hadn’t felt any soft sensation against my arm at all!
Did she not even realize?!
But I couldn’t exactly say out loud that something was pressing against me.
Ilia had always been pure.
This was simply an act born of pure goodwill.
There was no other intention.
…There wasn’t.
I just broke into a cold sweat and flapped my mouth uselessly.
She sat me down in the chair.
Then she dragged over a chair that had been shoved into a corner and sat down right beside me.
Close enough that parts of our bodies almost touched.
Unlike when we were children, my heart was pounding hard.
“Reminds me of the old days.”
“…Yeah.”
Most of the month I had spent with Ilia had been in the training grounds.
She loved the sword, and like me, she had been born with talent.
In some ways, that talent might even surpass mine.
I had also genuinely loved crossing blades with Ilia.
Back then, among our peers, she was the only one who could take my sword.
That was how our swordsmanship quietly influenced each other without either of us noticing.
But sometimes we spent time in the study like this as well.
The Grand Duke’s Castle had rare books our house didn’t possess.
In those days I had been throwing myself into my studies, so I never missed a chance—using Ilia as my excuse, I would haul armfuls of books from the second-floor archive and read them here.
Ilia would sit beside me just like now and look over my shoulder at whatever I was reading, or else follow my lead and pull a book from the shelves in this very room to read on her own.
She had probably finished every book she would ever read in her life back then.
When that thought made me let out a dry laugh, she rested her head against my shoulder.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I just heard from the head maid on the way up. You don’t usually read, right?”
“…The head maid says the most unnecessary things.”
“But why do you come to the study alone every day at this hour? And not let anyone else in?”
“…Just. Spacing out like this.”
As she said it, her gaze moved to the book resting on the desk.
A black leather-bound volume with no title written on it.
A diary, maybe?
At that moment, Ilia snatched the book up.
“I’m not showing you.”
“Come on. Who said I was going to look?”
“Your eyes did.”
“I won’t look without your permission, so don’t worry.”
“Then… good.”
But contrary to her words, she showed no sign of releasing the book she was clutching tightly to her chest.
If she hugged it that hard and it got crumpled, what then?
“More importantly, I have something to ask you.”
“About the bodyguard knight position?”
“…Honestly. How does everyone know without me even saying anything?”
Ilia gazed calmly out at the blizzard beyond the window and spoke evenly.
“The Debutante Ball is going to be held soon.”
“Ah. So it’s already that time.”
The Debutante Ball.
In other words, a high-society debut.
A kind of ball that young ladies who had turned nineteen attended—and the starting point of the original novel.
The male leads’ obsession with the original heroine had also begun from that time.
“As you know, a guardian has to accompany you to the Debutante Ball. One person, without fail.”
“Right.”
“But Father has to hold the front lines, so that’s impossible. And Mother…”
“…Yeah.”
I could only hang my head heavily.
Ilia’s mother had passed away from illness when she was only five years old.
Her expression had disappeared around that time as well.
“Then what about the head maid?”
“The head maid is coming with me, of course.”
“Then isn’t the guardian problem already solved?”
“What if men swarm us because the head maid and I are too beautiful? Granted, the head maid is a little older.”
“Ahem!”
It was true that Ilia and the head maid were beautiful.
But the head maid’s age…!
In this world, being twenty-nine and still unmarried meant being treated as an old maid, so there was nothing to be done about it.
The reason she had become head maid in the first place was that every other maid had quit after getting married and…
No. Let’s stop there.
“That’s why I need a bodyguard knight. A guardian to accompany me to the Debutante Ball.”
“Fine. Then the bodyguard knight job only lasts until the Debutante Ball is over, right?”
If the mission period was fixed, I might not even need to work so hard to persuade Ilia.
Once the bodyguard knight assignment ended, I could make a spectacular debut as a wandering knight—
“What are you talking about. It’s a lifetime contract.”
“…Huh?”
“Hm?”
Had I misheard just now?
What… a lifetime contract…?