On the Boat (1)
A picnic with Ethan, begun without warning right in the middle of the afternoon teatime hour.
Within an atmosphere where a strangely awkward current seemed to drift between us, Ethan and I quietly raised our cups to one another.
—Thunk.
Two wooden cups filled with red wine knocked together between us, ringing out once with a dull, heavy note. They were admittedly a far cry from proper wine glasses, but then, tracking down a wineglass made of glass or porcelain in a place like this would have been no small feat to begin with. Glass cups especially commanded a steep price — even if he'd managed to get his hands on one somehow, procuring it separately would have been next to impossible.
If anything, what amazed me was that Ethan had found wooden cups to go with the wine in so short a time. So much so that the thought crossed my mind unbidden: had he prepared all of this in advance for this very moment?
'...Well, probably not.'
As Ethan's personal maid, I spent the better part of my days at his side. If he'd been pulling any funny business, I would have caught on long ago. Whether it was suggesting we buy cheese and have a picnic, or out of nowhere proposing wine to go with it — if any of it had been planned beforehand, there was no way it would have slipped past me. Above all, today's date... no, outing, was an impromptu arrangement that had grown out of the results of Ethan and Harold's sparring match in the first place.
On the paper wrapping spread wide before us, with a few bite-sized pieces of neatly sliced cheese sitting between us, Ethan and I each took a sip of wine. Perhaps because the alcohol was landing on a mostly empty stomach, I felt a flush of tipsiness rising with surprising speed.
"How is it, Lilith?"
"...I couldn't say. Today is the first time I've ever touched wine, after all."
"For a first-timer, you seemed to be savoring the aroma and everything."
"...I've only ever imitated what other nobles do on the surface."
Needless to say, claiming today was my first encounter with wine was a bald-faced lie. Wine was hardly an expensive drink in my old world either — though granted, most of my drinking back then had revolved around beer.
"It's my first time drinking it, but personally, I think it's rather nice. It's a bit heavier than the cocktail I sipped at the masquerade ball, but perhaps because the sweetness is gone, the aftertaste feels a touch cleaner."
"...You really have never had it before, right?"
"That's what I keep telling you."
Hoping to dodge Ethan's suspicious gaze, I deliberately shifted my eyes toward the cheese laid out between us, as if to pick up a piece. But the moment I was about to pop a deeply colored morsel — cheddar, by the look of it — into my mouth, a thought flashed through my head.
'Shouldn't I feed Ethan first, before myself?'
However much I might be out today as a baronet's daughter rather than a personal maid, strictly speaking a certain gap in station still yawned between Ethan and me. Just because I wasn't serving as his attendant at this moment didn't mean the difference in rank had evaporated entirely. But I couldn't exactly set the piece of cheese I'd already picked up back down on the paper, so as though this had been my intention all along, I carried my hand naturally over to Ethan.
"Here you are, Ethan."
"...Hm?"
"Drinking on an empty stomach will wreck your insides. You're supposed to have it with something to eat."
"...Ah. Right. Thank you, Lilith."
With a somewhat awkward response, Ethan received the piece of cheese from my hand and brought it to his mouth. For some reason I couldn't begin to fathom, he was eating the snack I'd given him with a faintly reddened face.
...Well, I'd fed him a bite first, so surely he couldn't complain now about me eating my share.
With that thought, I picked up another piece of cheese and quietly slipped it into my mouth, and the nutty, salty fragrance of the cheese bloomed softly down my throat.
'This is actually pretty good.'
Even for someone whose entire cheese experience amounted to what came on hamburgers and pizza, I could tell that this thing melting on my tongue was genuinely fine cheese. Come to think of it, cheese eaten in this world would hardly differ from savoring authentic cheese at its very source — unless it was made on-site, carting it over long distances would be a struggle in itself. If that was the case, then perhaps it was only natural it tasted this good.
While a faint stickiness still clung to my tongue, I let a sip of wine slip into my mouth, and the lingering saltiness and the wine's faintly bitter aroma swirled across my palate, mingling in a way that was oddly perfect.
"Mmmmmm."
"......?"
This was the first proper drink to touch my lips in nearly a year — no, closer to two. If you counted the single cocktail I'd had at the masquerade, that is. Come to think of it, I had almost no memories of drinking properly in this world. Being the personal maid of a duke's son, alcohol simply wasn't part of an environment I had easy access to. The taste of real liquor after so long began to warm my mood in a strange way, and Ethan watched me with an air of mild fascination.
"Lilith, are you drunk?"
"No, Ethan. I'm hardly so weak to drink that half a glass of wine would fell me."
"...How would you know whether your tolerance is weak or not if this is your first time drinking?"
"Just... a gut feeling, I suppose."
"I'm pretty sure you're drunk..."
Ethan muttered something while studying my face, but it didn't seem to be anything important, so I let it slide past. Besides, right now I wanted to focus on the wine and snacks in front of me.
For my second course, I stuffed in a piece of hole-riddled cheese — presumably thrown in as a freebie by the cheese shop's owner — and a bold, assertive flavor washed over my mouth along with a whisper of bitterness. Immediately afterward, I finished things off by draining the last of the wine from my cup.
Perhaps because alcohol was truly entering my body for the first time in ages, this strangely warmed-up feeling of elation wasn't bad at all. And with my stomach pleasantly full, a comfortable drowsiness seemed to be tagging along for the ride.
"Lilith, you like your drink more than I expected."
"...No, not at all. I only thought that if I didn't show I was properly enjoying myself, you might feel let down after going out of your way to buy the wine, Ethan."
"For someone doing it out of consideration, you seem awfully enthusiastic about it."
"...What about you, Ethan? Why not have a little more yourself? Every last one of these pairs wonderfully with the wine."
"I'm fine just watching you eat, Lilith. There's still wine left — shall I pour you another glass?"
"...Just one more, then."
"Yes, yes."
Unlike the first glass, which he'd filled only halfway, this time Ethan poured in a good three-quarters. It wasn't that I failed to notice the increased amount, but I simply accepted it without fuss. It wasn't as if I could pour it back into the bottle for being too much.
"Here, Lilith. Try this one too."
"Pardon?"
"Here — I don't think you got to try the cheddar earlier. This one's delicious as well."
With those words, Ethan held out a piece of richly yellow cheese right in front of my face. And since the morsel had arrived at my lips at that exact moment, I accepted it into my mouth without much thought, along with a word of thanks.
"Thank you, Ethan. ...Mmph."
"...Huh? Huh?!"
"Mmm... this one's quite good too. Nutty, with just the right touch of salt."
"Ah, u-uh, yeah..."
"......?"
For some reason, Ethan abruptly panicked and snatched back the hand that had offered me the cheese. Sensing something was off, I studied his expression — and there was Ethan, avoiding my eyes with a face several shades redder than usual.
...He hadn't even finished a single glass yet, had he? Was he the type with a weak liver?
With that idle thought, I emptied my refilled second glass, devoting myself wholeheartedly to enjoying the picnic that had sprung up out of nowhere — when Ethan's voice, calling my name with a gravity I'd rarely heard from him, drifted into my ears.
"Lilith."
"Yes, Ethan?"
"...There's something I'd like to talk about. Seriously. Will you hear me out?"
"......Pardon?"
It felt as though the tipsiness that had just begun swirling through my head evaporated on the spot, and my eyes wavered in confusion. In contrast, Ethan's gaze, meeting mine head-on, was more earnest than anyone's I had ever seen.
"Lilith."
"...Yes."
"The truth is, there's something I've wanted to say to you for a long time."
No. Don't.
I couldn't be certain what he was about to say, but whatever it was — don't.
"Wh-what is it? Do you a-absolutely have to tell me right this second?"
"If I don't say it now, it'll only keep getting put off further and further."
"...I-I see."
It could stay postponed for a lifetime, for all I cared.
No — at the very least, until I graduated from the Academy would be plenty.
"Honestly, it already feels far too late as it is, but I'm going to say it properly while I have the chance. If you're willing, Lilith, then starting today, the relationship between you and me—"
"...Ethan, one moment, please."
"...Lilith?"
I cut Ethan off before anything more dangerous could slip out of his mouth, then hastily swept my eyes over our surroundings. A bench fronting the lakeside promenade on a weekend afternoon. It was hardly packed to bursting, but it wasn't deserted either — an awkward middle ground of foot traffic. If even one Academy student, or anyone else capable of recognizing Ethan and me, happened to be among them, this conversation would be problematic in more ways than one. Handled poorly, it was the perfect breeding ground for a rumor: the baronet's daughter, personal maid to the ducal House of Blackwood, had audaciously spurned the very young master she served.
To refuse whatever Ethan was about to say as smoothly as possible, the first order of business was moving somewhere where even a bit of a commotion wouldn't cause trouble.
"...I understand perfectly well that you have something you want to say, Ethan. But before that — shouldn't we head somewhere the two of us can be alone first?"
"...Somewhere alone?"
"Yes. Somewhere beyond the reach of other people's eyes and ears."
For a serious conversation, there were simply far too many people here. If Ethan laid some feeling bare before me and I answered it, there were any number of bystanders who might carry second- and thirdhand rumors out of the park. The love affairs of the highborn were gossip fodder that never went out of style, whatever the era. And in our case, Ethan and I already had one prior strike against us — a similar rumor had spread through the Academy once before. A little caution never hurt anyone.
"Somewhere alone, you say — where, exactly?"
"Um, well, that's..."
The problem was that, in our current situation, the only place we could hastily find to be alone amounted to, at best, an inn room. And if I barged into a double room at some nearby inn under the pretext of hearing him out, it would be practically the same as saying yes to whatever he was about to ask. There had to be somewhere — anywhere — where the two of us could talk naturally, and yet where Ethan couldn't try anything funny...
BOAT RENTAL
'Ah...!'
...Right. Bold as Ethan might be, he wasn't the sort to attempt anything even out on the water. With that thought, I pointed at the boat rental sign that had caught my eye by sheer chance and called out to Ethan.
"How about over there, Ethan?"
"...A boat rental?"
"Out on the lake, the two of us could talk without worrying about anyone else's ears, couldn't we? I'd say it's a fine spot for an important conversation. What do you think?"
"...Alright. That's not a bad idea."
In that instant, I had somehow managed to cut Ethan off mid-sentence and steer us toward a place where only the two of us could be. From here on out, I'd have no need to worry about prying eyes or prying ears — all that remained was to talk my way around a graceful refusal. Ideally with as thorough an explanation as I could manage, so that Ethan would come away convinced. If I wanted to keep living as his personal maid without things turning awkward between us, this was the most rational judgment call I could make.
"......"
Ethan gazed toward the boat rental I'd pointed out with an unreadable, meaningful look in his eyes.
Right up until that moment, I still had no idea.
No idea that the boat — that 'somewhere alone' I had so carefully steered Ethan toward — was about to become, in more ways than one, a place from which there would be no escape for me.