Because You Smiled
Kallion woke from a peaceful nap and began picking at the food on the plate, taking small bites one by one. Irien found her gaze unconsciously stolen by the sight of him. Instead of sitting at the neatly arranged table and using the proper utensils, he was munching away with casual, unrestrained hands.
“……Why? Want some?”
Irien wasn’t particularly hungry right now. Or rather, it wasn’t that she lacked an appetite so much as she rarely felt one at all. Still, watching him eat somehow made her want to try it too.
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“……Huh?”
“It’d be a pain to get more.”
At Kallion’s playful smile, Irien simply stared at him, dazed.
“Kidding. Go ahead and eat.”
It’s not like it’s mine anyway.
Irien studied his nonchalant expression as he pushed the plate toward her, then cautiously reached out and picked up a piece. The food wasn’t messy or difficult to eat. He had only brought simple finger foods, so there was no problem.
“Good, right?”
Kallion asked with a faint smile as he watched her chew. She nodded quietly, still eating.
“Even the same stuff tastes better outside.”
Sharing the plate between them, Kallion lazily turned his eyes to the sky. Irien followed his gaze.
“Do you do this a lot?”
“……Do what?”
Kallion had been blankly watching the clouds drift by. He answered Irien’s question a beat late.
“Out here, I mean. Do you do this often?”
“……Pretty much.”
Kallion’s routine was always the same. Lying around peacefully while staring at the sky, napping under warm sunlight, eating simple snacks the servants brought when he got hungry, and taking a stroll through the garden when he felt too full. But none of that was valuable enough to share honestly with someone he had just met, so he decided to keep it vague.
“It just helps to stare blankly at the sky when my head hurts or when I have too many thoughts.”
“Ah……”
“You should try it sometime. It’s comfortable.”
Irien could tell at once that Kallion was lying. His posture and habits made it obvious this wasn’t something he had started doing one or two days ago. Still, she offered no comment. She was confident she wasn’t tactless enough to point it out in a moment like this.
The music from the distant banquet and the sound of people laughing and chatting formed a pleasant backdrop. A gentle breeze brushed past, carrying the faint, sweet scent of flowers. Sharing the same view with this boy—slightly, no, very handsome and strangely comforting despite being a stranger—felt like a scene from a fairy tale.
Without thinking, Irien let a small smile bloom on her lips.
Kallion glanced at her from the corner of his eye, let out a soft chuckle, and spoke.
“Yeah, you look much prettier when you smile.”
“Wha……What?!”
Irien’s face flushed crimson at the abrupt compliment.
“You were making this gloomy face like you might drop dead any second.”
“I… I was?”
“……Why the sudden formal speech?”
As the flustered Irien’s eyes darted around, Kallion blinked slowly, now confused himself. Before she could even register his expression, Irien had already fallen deep into thought.
That can’t be right.
She didn’t sense any lie in his words. They weren’t calculated to please her. He had simply spoken honestly about what he saw and felt. That honesty made it all the more bewildering.
No one had ever said anything like that to her. Not a single person who had spoken with her face to face—not even her mother or father, who adored her beyond reason. None of them had ever told her she looked depressed or exhausted. Since Irien herself believed her condition was perfectly normal, it was no wonder others hadn’t noticed.
“……Are you okay?”
Kallion’s voice pulled her back from her thoughts.
“Ah, y-yes… I-I’m fine.”
“……You don’t look fine.”
Suddenly, the casual tone that had come so naturally moments ago refused to appear. It wasn’t uncomfortable or unpleasant. The words simply came out that way on their own.
“Eek……!”
Seeing Kallion stare at her with that awkward smile, heat surged across Irien’s face. The warmth that started deep in her chest spread, burning through her entire body.
“Young Master Kallion!”
A loud voice called from afar at just the right moment. At the urgent, almost desperate tone, Kallion let out a deep sigh and rose to his feet.
Knew it wouldn’t take long.
Muttering under his breath, he brushed off his pants and turned to Irien.
“I’ll head out first.”
“Ah, yes.”
She wanted to tell him not to go, wanted to grab his sleeve, but she couldn’t. They both had paths they needed to walk. Still—
Kallion… sir.
She etched the name firmly into her memory. They would surely meet again at the next banquet. Or the one after that.
“Young Master Kallion! We must hurry. The Marquis is currently……”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Stop rushing me.”
“More importantly, where did you leave your jacket?”
“Huh? Someone looked cold, so I gave it to them.”
Irien carefully picked up the jacket Kallion had left behind—the one she had been sitting on—and hugged it to her chest. Strangely, it still seemed to carry his scent.
“……In this weather?”
“Ahem. At times like this, you just say ‘I see.’”
“You didn’t throw it away because you were scared of getting scolded for sitting on it again, did you?”
“Ahem.”
Watching Kallion’s retreating back, Irien smiled softly. It might have been a common, cliché story. But to the young girl, it was nothing less than a dreamlike moment straight out of a fairy tale.
“……Lady Irien.”
“Yes, Lord Kallion.”
I understood what she was getting at. I knew what had happened back then.
“But how the hell am I supposed to remember that?”
It wasn’t like it happened yesterday. Asking me to recall something from ten years ago was a bit much, wasn’t it? Especially something that occurred in a single fleeting moment?
If I had to guess, the me from back then had probably just woken up from a nap and had zero thoughts running through my head. That’s why I went around giving unsolicited advice like an idiot. Or rather, how close to death must I have looked for me to say something like that?
“I remember it, though.”
“……You have an impressive memory. That’s amazing.”
My head was starting to throb. Setting aside the fact that the Grand Duke’s daughter had a good memory, I could understand why that moment from ten years ago might have left an impression. But the fact that she had cherished and held onto it all this time was another matter entirely.
“Don’t tell me…… you weren’t rejecting every single engagement proposal because of that, right?”
I really didn’t want to believe that the reason the Grand Duke’s daughter still hadn’t found a suitable fiancé was because of me.
“That’s correct. Lord Kallion, I have been waiting for the day you would come find me.”
The cold, lofty, noble Grand Duke’s daughter had vanished. Instead, she looked at me like a girl waiting for a present.
Shit. This is insane.
“Even if I had remembered that day from the start—”
“There’s no way the Helios Marquisate would send a matchmaker, is there?”
In high society, Kallion del Helios had quite the notorious reputation. The prestige and power of the Helios Marquisate couldn’t completely hide behind his name, yet the fact that he remained unpopular despite all that was proof of just how terrible his infamy was.
So unless our father the Marquis had completely lost his mind—and even if he had—he would never send a matchmaker to the Leonhardt Grand Duchy. Asking for their precious only daughter for a mangnani like me wasn’t something anyone would do unless they had a death wish.
“Hmm, that’s true as well.”
“Knowing all that……”
“You’re not the type to care about things like that, are you?”
She stared at me with eyes that practically asked, Then why didn’t you come? The slightly sulky look on her face made cold sweat trickle down my back.
She was right. The old me really hadn’t been the type to care about such things.
She was right, but… that wasn’t the issue here, was it?
When I looked at her with a somewhat sour expression, Irien let out a small laugh and shook her head gently.
“It was a joke.”
“Joke with me one more time and my heart’s not going to make it.”
“Does it feel that romantic when your heart races because of me?”
It’s not romantic, it’s straight-up horror, lady.
“Even so.”
As the internal danger meter for Irien skyrocketed in real time, she quietly continued.
“I’m truly happy we met again.”
Hearing the sincerity dripping from her words, I could only think with a completely blank face.
Yeah. I need to avoid this girl at all costs. One wrong move and it feels like she’ll sink her teeth into my neck.