Something Pretending to Tour #5
“Haaah…”
Late at night, Helena leaned against the windowsill in nothing but a light, fluttering nightgown and let out a heavy sigh.
She would have liked nothing better than to throw the window open, but she kept it tightly shut because Zion had asked her to—salt air was bad for her hair, he’d said. The stuffiness only doubled because of it, yet she endured. After all, the request had come from him.
Annoying.
Helena’s expression turned listless, utterly at odds with the fierce slant of her eyes. The rare chance to spend time alone with Zion had been thoroughly ruined, and that was the whole of it.
“Haaaah…”
Another sigh forced its way past her lips. She had accepted the situation, but that did not make her any less dissatisfied.
Whether the interference sprang from pure goodwill or cold calculation no longer mattered. Only the result remained: her time with Zion had been interrupted. For Helena, that outcome was intensely, personally irritating.
Staying at the count’s residence had its inconveniences, but it also had its comforts. And the single most overwhelming comfort among them was that we did not have to prepare our own meals.
I was seated in the farthest corner, yet it never once felt like a problem—only convenient. Helena clearly disliked watching me crouch off to the side to eat, but she seemed to be gritting her teeth and enduring it. She had always been fond of the food I made and of sitting face-to-face with me while we ate. Being denied both, especially under so many watching eyes, was bound to build stress.
“Ah, Zion Altram. There is something I would like to discuss with you alone, if you would not mind?”
While we were taking our after-dinner tea, the count suddenly requested a private audience. As a mere viscount I had no grounds to refuse, so of course I nodded.
Even so, I could feel Helena’s mood souring by the second. No one else noticed, but to my eyes the cracks spreading across her mask were perfectly clear. Outside of sleep she tried to stay glued to my side at every opportunity. She had never anticipated being separated like this, and the shock seemed to double the impact. The hand writhing beneath the table proved as much.
My master is Lady Helena. Therefore her permission comes first.
I considered dumping the decision on her that way, but the idea left a bad taste. Even a viscount who served as a Krauser confidant was not someone they would casually slight, yet I had no desire to look arrogant by leaning on that status. So I simply sipped my tea at leisure and readily agreed.
“Mm. Since the meal is finished… stay a moment, would you?”
Once everyone had finished even the post-meal tea, all but the count and myself rose and left the dining room. Helena brushed past me on her way out; I distinctly heard the grinding of her teeth. It was quite eerie. I therefore gave my arm a small shake and, below the table where the count’s eyes could not reach, clasped her hand firmly. A faint smile came free of charge.
“I’ll be right there, so don’t be too angry, all right?”
“…Mm.”
I whispered it and quickly let go, yet Helena left the dining hall looking markedly more at ease. She had understood that I had risked the trouble of being caught simply to reassure her.
“Well then… now that we are alone, I shall come straight to the point.”
“Yes. Please go ahead.”
Even though we sat at opposite ends of the long table, the count spoke as though the distance meant nothing to him. Perhaps it was an unconscious declaration that any gap between us was irrelevant. Still, I could not afford to be discourteous myself, so I kept my posture polite.
“I would like you to create an opening so that my son may make a favorable impression on Lady Helena.”
Attaching “my son” had given me some idea, but I never imagined he would state it so baldly. The sheer shamelessness of the request was beyond anything I had pictured.
“When you say ‘create an opening,’ what exactly do you mean?”
“Hm. Was I being too roundabout? Then let me speak plainly. I want you to leave them alone together.”
Leave them alone. In other words, the constant shadow trailing at her heels—me—was in the way.
“I serve House Krauser. I am not a man of your household, Count…”
“Did that grate on you? If so, I apologize. But as long as you and Lady Helena remain glued together, Lloyd has no room to step forward, does he? So I am asking you for a favor.”
He put particular weight on the word “favor.” Under ordinary circumstances I might have shrugged and accepted without much fuss. Sending Helena off still felt a little like parting with a daughter I had raised myself, yet there was nothing directly objectionable about it.
But the Helena of the present was unwell. The heavy, sticky obsession that had peaked right after Kane’s execution was gradually lightening, yet it still sat well above the danger line. One look at the way she had ground her teeth while brushing past me made that crystal clear.
Of course, whether to accept Lloyd—or the count’s house—was entirely Helena’s decision. A Krauser’s companion was someone she herself chose and reeled in. I weighed my options for a moment, then broke the silence with my answer.
“Very well. I will follow the count’s wishes.”
“I am most grateful. That is all I had to say. You may go. Ah, and keep this matter secret, if you would.”
I rose from my seat and left in accordance with his dismissal. Then I went straight to the door of the room where Helena would be waiting—both to keep my promise of returning quickly and to coordinate our story before Lloyd inevitably showed up.
“Zion, what did the count say to you?”
The instant she let me in, Helena began grilling me about the conversation. Her urgent, faintly sharp manner might have intimidated someone else, but I decided it was perfect timing and simply relayed the count’s words exactly as spoken.
Keep it secret? Not a chance. Who knew what variables might arise if I played along? Having to leave her side for Lloyd’s sake was headache enough; inventing excuses on top of that would only make the headache worse. Aligning our stories with Helena in advance was far wiser.
“So he tried to peel you away from me… and did it out in the open?”
Helena’s extreme anger was only natural. Her habit of speaking quietly rather than raising her voice kept the volume down, but the killing intent steadily rising off her was enough to choke the air. Of course, thanks to Steel Mental I remained as calm as ever—before and now.
“It’s all right. I’ll keep my distance so the count’s son doesn’t notice. You’re sharp enough to catch on yourself. It’s a relief Lloyd isn’t someone who has sharpened his sword, or it would have been even harder to stay close.”
First I made it clear I had no intention of truly leaving her. The anger cooled a little, yet the lightless, dead quality of her eyes remained unchanged.
“Still… it pisses me off.”
Helena without her mask was endlessly honest about her feelings. If I did not put the brakes on her, she would cheerfully cut off the count and his son’s heads right then and there. Even now she looked as though she were barely containing the boiling irritation, and there was no telling when it might erupt.
If I were cleverer I might have come up with a brilliant scheme on the spot, but unfortunately that was beyond me. A sturdy mind gave me breathing room to think, yet it did nothing to raise my actual intelligence. Still, I could not simply sit on my hands. So I steeled myself and slowly opened my mouth—my stable mentality allowing me to say even the most cringeworthy lines without flinching.
“Helena. Things like this are going to happen again and again. You know that, don’t you?”
“Maybe… but why bring that up all of a sudden?”
“Because you hate demands like today’s, or marriage proposals, more than anything. So… though it feels a little off to say ‘therefore’… there’s one thing I want to ask you. Will you answer me honestly?”
“Mm. Go ahead. I’ll answer anything if it’s your question, Zion.”
Helena still wore those dead eyes as she tilted her head. Curiosity had completely suppressed the killing intent, which was fortunate, but I needed something more to put her mind back in its proper place. Hoping this would be the solution, I asked in a deliberately casual, almost offhand tone.
“Helena… you like me, don’t you?”
“Mm. I do. Probably more than your own parents like you. But why…? You already know that, don’t you?”
Her bewilderment was entirely reasonable. She had worn her affection on her sleeve for years; not knowing would have been stranger. An abnormal obsession directed at a single person might look like mental illness, yet at its foundation lay deep affection. No one could deny that. Of course it was an affection that was far too heavy and twisted in places. But I believed that properly accepting that affection was the only drastic remedy capable of overcoming the present situation—and every similar situation to come.
And if you asked whether I was moving purely out of a sense of duty, I could answer with a clear no. Think about it. She was obedient, kind in everyday life, possessed a springy figure and a beautiful face. She was the sort of woman who could reduce the so-called top-ranked beauty of the province to a limp wreck in a single exchange. A little sickness was the only flaw, yet even that flaw was something I was more than willing to live with. When a woman like that had poured out her affection for years, failing to fall for her would have been the strange part.
Therefore I judged that now was the perfect time to change the nature of our relationship.
“Yes. So… will you go out with me properly?”
“…Huh?”
For an instant I had the illusion that time itself had stopped. No—I was certain it had frozen for that one moment. Even the flow of the air halted; I could not feel blood moving or my heart beating. It lasted only a fraction of a second, yet it felt as though I had been severed from the world—something like the sensation of one’s soul leaving the body. And the moment blood began to flow again, I thought I heard a soft pop from Helena’s cheeks. Looking at those cheeks, flushed as if they might burst at any second, I was sure of it.
I had briefly considered saying something like “Bear a child for this viscount’s house!” to the woman who would become the next grand duchess, but that would have been far past the line.
“Uh… uhh? Huh? Uhhhh?”
She was so flustered she could only manage variations of “uh.” The shock seemed to have temporarily robbed her of language itself.
“Huh? Why? Now? No, that’s not what I—”
“Calm down and speak slowly. Catch your breath while you’re at it.”
At the instruction to breathe she reflexively obeyed, inhaling and exhaling deeply again and again. Light returned to the dead eyes, and vitality flooded back into her previously expressionless face.
“W-why so suddenly? All this time whenever I said anything you just brushed it off…”
She was still stammering a little, but her language ability appeared to have recovered.
“Because if we keep going like this, I feel like I’m going to lose you someday. Until a year ago I thought it would be fine as long as you found a good man who would cherish you, but…”
“But now it’s not fine?!”
Helena’s face lit up with pure delight; she beamed so hard she looked ready to leap into the air. Of all the smiles I had ever seen from her, this one was the most radiant and the widest. Feeling a sudden wave of bashfulness, and conscious of the heartbeat that had been picking up speed for some time now, I drove the stake home by answering her question.
“Yes. It’s not fine. So… what do you say?”