A Boy and a Boy, Both Lost in Thought
The moment we returned to the manor after our outing, Karma announced he had business to handle and headed straight back out. Probably off to Serpe's main base, knowing him.
Peri seemed a little disappointed by his departure, but she must have been getting used to it by now — she let out a single wistful sigh and obediently returned to her room, while I left the goods I'd bought at the market in front of the main house and followed him.
"Those packages are a nuisance. You can just leave them in your room."
"I'm afraid I can't do that. From the moment I took on the duty of guarding you, my place is by your side as much as possible."
"Wha— what's that supposed to mean all of a sudden…? Yesterday you told me to go away… Don't think saying that makes me forgive you… Tch…"
Peri muttered under her breath about what could possibly be so conflicting, but my own mood wasn't nearly so sunny.
Someone was definitely watching us.
Watching us — while leaking killing intent, no less.
It was absolutely not my imagination.
I'd whipped my gaze toward the direction the bloodlust had come from, but I couldn't tell who had released it — no, there was nothing at all in the place the killing intent seemed to have erupted from.
But I hadn't grown up naive enough to dismiss what I'd felt as nerves just because I saw nothing.
This was a foe so hidden that up until now I'd barely sensed even a whisper of their killing intent — today was the first and only time I'd caught so much as a single instant of it. Of course they'd vanish immediately.
What I couldn't figure out was why they'd made the blunder of letting their killing intent slip, just enough for me to notice. Maybe they'd simply wanted to watch the prey cower. Or perhaps my becoming aware of their existence served some purpose of theirs. Or it really could have been an honest mistake.
"Either way, I can't just let it slide."
As I'd suspected, the Grizzlies hadn't died from infighting after all. It was a silencing.
The one who'd directed killing intent at me earlier — no name, no identity — I'd just call them X for now.
X, or X's associates, must have been the ones who killed the Grizzlies.
So what exactly was the relationship between the two of them?
Had Grizzly simply been an expendable shield with no real connection to Peri's abduction? Or had the abduction been Grizzly's idea, with the others dragging X in to pull it off — only for X to turn the tables on them?
"…"
With so few pieces in hand, I couldn't even get the frame of the puzzle to fit together properly.
"What are you brooding about all by yourself?"
Peri, who had been quietly enjoying tea and sweets in the study, glanced at my face and spoke up.
"…Is it showing?"
"…Yeah."
And here I thought I was hiding it well. Apparently I was unsettled enough that even a kid could tell something was eating at me.
"I was worrying about your safety, my lady."
"Hmph! You think some pretty words now will make me forgive you…?"
It's not pretty words — I'm genuinely worried. Someone's tailing us right now who wants you dead.
Unbelievable, honestly.
I'd tailed and chased and shaken off plenty of people in my time, but I'd never been the one being followed, so the road ahead felt frustratingly unfamiliar.
You could argue that someone who's thrown punches knows best how to take them, so just flip the logic — but in practice, it's nowhere near that easy.
If there's anyone in Serpe who's actually good at this bodyguard business, I ought to track them down and pick their brain, that's what.
"…Hey. Are you ignoring me?"
"Ah — my apologies. I was lost in thought again."
"Be honest with me. You weren't thinking about me at all, were you."
Naturally, nothing so dramatic as an ambush by X awaited us once we got home.
The manor remained the very picture of peace all the way until the evening Karma returned. I played the role of a shadow trailing Peri's every step, weathering her barbs along the way — but those were trivial things.
"You felt killing intent?"
After the sun had fully set and Peri had gone to sleep, I helped the servants with their final round of cleaning before heading to the office where Karma was working and telling him about what had happened at lunch.
"And you're only telling me this NOW!?"
"I felt the killing intent and searched right away, but the enemy had already fled. And Peri was there when it happened — I figured if I told her, she'd only be frightened for no reason."
"…"
She acted composed now, but underneath it all she was as soft-hearted as a puppy. Who knew how she'd react if she learned her life was under threat yet again.
Karma seemed to reach the same understanding, because he swallowed the scolding he'd been about to deliver and silently accepted my reasoning.
"In other words, you're saying that even with Grizzly gone, the assassins are still after Peri?"
"Could be after you. Could be after me, for that matter."
If they were after Karma, then someone was simply trying to tear Serpe down outright. But if they were after me… the motive got murkier.
It could be payback from the men whose limbs I'd been hacking off for the past month, after all.
"Understood. I'll keep it in mind. I'll have Galing raise the watch across our territory — or find some other way to tighten security."
He might be physically unremarkable, but he had no shortage of the qualities a leader needed; Karma was already hunting for countermeasures.
"Can I head back now? I want to do some maintenance on my blade before bed."
"Go on, get some rest. Good work today."
Parting ways with Karma, I picked up the pile of packages I'd left in front of the main house and carried them back to my room in the annex, where I unpacked.
I altered and hung the clothes neatly in the wardrobe, set the toothbrush and towels within easy reach, and with the rough organizing done, I spread a mat across the floor to keep it clean and laid down the kukri I'd been carrying at my hip.
"Has the edge dulled a bit?"
With a whetstone I'd picked up from the blacksmith, I ground down the worn sections, honing and polishing the blade as I maintained the only keepsake my grandfather had left me.
Once the work was done, the kukri looked no different at a glance, but when I gave it a few light swings through the empty air, it felt easier to cut than before.
Any tool you stake your life on, however trivial it seems, is meant to be maintained on a regular schedule — that's how you keep it from failing you the moment you actually need it.
Satisfied with the finished maintenance, I slid the kukri back into its leather sheath, tidied the floor, and went to sleep.
As if mocking the anxiety of a boy who couldn't know when the enemy might strike, X — who had leaked killing intent in the middle of a crowded street — didn't show so much as the tip of their nose for a whole week.
"Could it really have been my imagination…?"
If it were merely a matter of not being able to read their presence, fine. But Serpe's people had combed through the duchy with their eyes practically burning, and they hadn't turned up a single suspicious thing. No wonder my confidence was going dull.
"…Spacing out again?"
"Not at all."
Setting that aside, a week spent glued to Peri's side had let me grow accustomed to the guard work and get a decent read on her tastes and temperament — though it did nothing to spare me from her barbs.
The funny thing was, if she were just a bratty kid all around, I'd shrug it off. But with me as the sole exception, she's kind to everyone.
Not just her father or the adults — she shows not a trace of condescension even to the servants and other social inferns, and she's soft-spoken and warm with the children her own age she happens to run into on the street.
So why me and only me…?
She's a good girl to ninety-nine people, and rotten to exactly one. Figures.
I don't like it.
Peri took a sip of the milk tea — an unsweetened, gently sweetened blend that even a small child could drink — and her eyes narrowed at the taste.
Not because the milk tea was terrible. It tasted a little different from what she usually drank, but the softness more than made up for the slightly reduced sweetness; in its own way, it was delicious.
This is way too good…! Why does he have to be good at even THIS…!
That was precisely it. The reason she was angry wasn't the taste of the milk tea — it was that the milk tea was too good. She'd thrown a tantrum to force the boy guarding her, just one year her senior, to brew it himself — a little hazing, a way to tease him for getting so cocky about settling into his job — and the result had turned out magnificent.
"How is it?"
"D-don't ask me that like it matters!?"
"…Is it quite bad? I did put some thought into it."
He was mostly hiding it, but there was a faint trace of disappointment in his voice — had he actually been hoping for praise?
"I-it's not awful or anything! It's just, you know, passable…! About the level of something you'd nibble at to pass the time with a snack…"
She wanted to needle him, but disparaging milk tea this good was simply unacceptable — and above all, seeing the disappointment on his face made her chest ache for some reason, so Peri hastily corrected herself.
"I see."
The positive verdict had come out in a rush, but in his voice there was only the fading of disappointment — no joy, no sense of accomplishment.
Infuriating.
More than anything else in the world, this side of Gul infuriated Peri.
He devoted himself to her like this. Without being asked, he handled everything flawlessly, tailored perfectly to her preferences. And yet when she praised him or thanked him, he showed no pleasure at all.
Gul prioritized her above anyone else in this manor — and wanted nothing whatsoever from her in return.
She hated that more than anything. The way he made her mistake kindness for something more, then shattered the illusion a heartbeat later without granting her even a sliver of grace to linger in the misunderstanding — it felt like being strung along on hope just to watch it die.
This is what I want, though…
And the most humiliating part of it all: Gul asked nothing of Peri, yet Peri found herself strangling on his indifference.
She could have killed him for drawing that hard line — for refusing to give her any sweet memories. But having already been saved by him once, she kept turning back to look at him before she knew it.
If she couldn't have his interest and goodwill, then she wanted his attention — even his contempt would do.
If only we were close — even just as close as he is with Dad…
Gul kept things strictly businesslike with her father, Karma, too — yet Peri could vaguely sense that there was something between the two of them that didn't exist between herself and Gul.
Which was why Karma always looked faintly frustrated whenever he looked at Gul, and why Gul deliberately never talked to her about Karma.
They probably didn't get along, the two of them.
But the opposite of love isn't hatred — it's indifference, or so they say. And from where her heart stood, Karma sat closer to Gul than she ever would.
She hated it.
She hated him so much.
She hated Gul, who made her heart ache this wretchedly.
A child like her couldn't possibly control the tangled, sticky knot of love and hate that even grown adults couldn't endure. And knowing full well, with her head, that this wasn't the answer, she still couldn't stomach the forbidden fruit of his indifference — so again and again, she ended up tormenting him.
Ahh… this isn't how it's supposed to go…
Instinctively, she knew that going down this road would drive the two of them straight into ruin. Counting lost the number of times she'd regretted it, Peri glanced back over at Gul and—
"…"
The moment her attention lapsed, Gul had already left her behind, staring intently out the window.
Not daydreaming — searching, focused on something.
The instant Peri realized that whatever he was burning to find, it wasn't her, she sank into deprivation all over again.
Clink—
"…I dropped my cup. Clean that up and bring me a new one."
Wiping away every trace of the regret she'd been drowning in moments before, she interrupted him once more — if nothing else, she would not let him lose himself in anything that wasn't her.