Professor Perzen
Euphemia's days were boredom given form. She did not know a single soul in the capital, and even if she had wanted to enjoy something, the money was not hers. It was Perzen's.
She woke, submitted to the maids at her bath, ate, and after that the height of her amusement was a book or a walk through the manor garden. When night came and the hour of his return from work drew near, the maids took her away, lowered her into a tub where fragrant oil had been loosened into the water, washed her with careful hands, and put her into the bedroom.
It had been only two days since she arrived in the capital, yet she had the ominous sense that this wheel would keep turning forever.
The clothes. Why, again...
Beneath a thin outer wrap she wore a white negligee sheer enough to show everything under it, and she drew the blanket up. She had tried a small rebellion—she did not want to wear a thing like this—but the middle-aged maids had dismissed her opinion without mercy.
"......"
Should she try the problems again? From the second one onward her head had begun to ache, and she had left them untouched. Even so, he had promised that if she solved them he would grant her a wish...
If I asked him to set up even a little shop...
What she ought to do, what she wanted to do—she had lost any purpose of her own. Still, if she set a little money aside, bit by bit, it might be of use someday. Where spending was concerned he was generous past the point of carelessness, so opening a single shop in the capital would be nothing to him.
A click. She flinched.
Six in the evening. Home from work and finished with his bath, he stepped into the room in comfortable clothes. Today, unlike other days, he carried a bottle of wine and a glass.
"It should not be cold. Why have you drawn the blanket up so far."
"You're asking because you don't know?"
"If I knew, would I ask."
"......"
Euphemia opened her eyes to narrow slits and slowly lowered the blanket.
"This outfit... you didn't order it, did you...?"
"Ah..."
From his reaction she understood at last that it had been his instruction. He had simply forgotten.
"Shameless..."
"It suits you. It is a sight for me alone in any case. There is no need to be ashamed. You have already shown me worse."
"You've got a surprisingly lecherous side..."
"Had I truly been lecherous, I would have left you stark naked, without so much as a rag, and ordered you on the spot to spread your legs."
In truth he had told the maids to dress her so for one reason only: to wear down her line of psychological resistance little by little, and to lower her self-regard along with it.
"......"
"Will you take a glass with me?"
He sat in the chair before the small table and set the glass down. Euphemia shook her head without answering.
"A wife without a single endearing quality."
"I don't believe this..."
"If you will not keep me company, so be it."
Perzen poured the wine and drank in silence, gazing out the window.
"If sleep comes, retire first."
"I'll manage myself..."
In her heart she wanted exactly that, but it was only six. Sleep was not going to come. She rose from the bed, took up a book, and began forcing herself through words that would not enter her head. Perhaps, if she kept at it, her weary eyes would start urging her to sleep.
So Euphemia let the time pass, turning pages with a soft rustle, while Perzen drank the hours down with the moonlight for a side dish.
Drink a little more slowly...
He emptied the glass, and he poured the next rather quickly. He did not even seem to hold his liquor well. It would be trouble if drunkenness rose in him for no reason and the sparks landed on her.
Of course, the drinking habit she had seen from him back in the North...
Had been bad...
She had been about to tell herself that falling asleep with a fierce grip on her breast was still a comparatively tame habit—until the memory of him snatching up the baron's vase and smashing it rose vivid in front of that thought, and she corrected herself at once. What was more, today he looked deeply out of sorts, for reasons she could not name. Like it or not, the time at his side had already stretched well past a month, and things like this she could not help but notice.
Did something unpleasant happen?
He was the second son of House Brutein, but she had heard that the Academy's professors were drawn solely from nobles of considerable houses. Even if no one had come at him alone, a pack of them might have gathered to pick some irritating quarrel. And yet she could hardly picture him drinking in frustration over a matter so small. Faced with that, he seemed the sort to sneer that the half-wits were flocking together to perform their little antics, and let it pass.
I don't know... why should I trouble myself over this.
She shook her head, dropped her gaze, and returned to the book.
How long passed that way? The wine in the bottle was showing its bottom, and Euphemia's eyes, worn by reading, had begun to blur, when he spoke.
"Euphemia."
His voice was soft, almost coaxing.
"What..."
She had been about to settle comfortably on the bed. Instead she turned her head, just slightly, and looked at him. His crimson eyes were as calm as ever. But that calm was like the eve before a storm. Yes—like a black cloud that had not yet given rain.
"Come here."
"......"
She could not bring herself to refuse. Quietly she rose and approached his side with care. Perzen looked her over in silence, up and down, as if he were appraising goods: the pure white negligee, and the underclothes showing through it.
"Perverted bastard... I can hear your eyes rolling from all the way over here."
The grumble was a warning to be a little less obvious. She covered her chest with both hands and drew her legs together.
"Euphemia. Take your hands away and stand properly."
"No..."
She had done nothing wrong. Why was he like this. She had been about to say so, but the moment her eyes met his she let out a rough sigh and did as he wanted.
"Well done."
"Your praise... is really cheap. Worthless."
"Your hand."
"......"
Was he planning to treat her like a dog tonight. It was not a difficult demand, so she set her left hand atop the left hand he held out.
"Wh-what..."
His brow furrowed at once.
"Your hand."
After the wine, was it he who had become the dog. Did the thing she had given him look like a foot rather than a hand?
"......"
She seriously considered whether she was meant to set her foot there. Then she withdrew her left hand and placed her right.
"Well done."
Out came that endlessly cheap praise.
"Honestly... this is a strange way to be drunk."
She barely swallowed the hollow laugh the absurdity wanted out of her, and grumbled at him.
"Euphemia."
"What... do I have to put a foot on you this time?"
He shook his head. Without a word he tapped his own knee twice and only looked at her.
"Do not pretend you fail to understand."
"......"
When she stalled, he spoke as if to hurry her. Euphemia swept a glance down her clothes, then sat upon his knee with a face that had all but given up.
"Sit facing me."
"Hey...!"
Facing him, she would have to part her legs, and the hem of the short negligee would ride up.
"If you mean to work me up, keep such things to the bed."
"Who's working anyone up...!"
It was such a bizarre drunken fit that she wanted to slap him once across the face and knock him back to his senses. If she did, though, this man would strike her cheek without mercy in return. That was a lesson already learned. She bit down hard on her lip, took his shoulders in both hands, and sank onto his knee.
"Well done."
"Shut... up..."
The hem had been shoved up, so her pale legs and thighs lay bare, and her black panties, stitched with luxurious embroidery, met his thigh. Every time she moved, a sensation rose that she did not want to recognize.
"I mean it."
"......"
"Well done."
His face was directly before her, so the thick reek of liquor reached her at once. How strong had that wine been. Even a faint breath of it was enough to make her head swim.
A slow stroke.
"......"
After that he said nothing. He drew her in and ran his hand down her back.
How much relief there was in the sight of her submitting so obediently. One variable, steadily brought under control—yes, only one. For Perzen it was an immense comfort, and a joy.
At times like this he wondered whether it might have been better if Perzen's self had swallowed Lee Seojin's whole, leaving not a trace. At least then the variables around him would not have stressed him so, and he would have snorted at the fangs Loer had shown.
Of course, had he done so, the end waiting beyond that...
There was no need to say it. He would have lived as he pleased and died the same, without taking on a single burden. It was a meaningless supposition now. The Perzen remade by the mingling of Lee Seojin's self did not, at the very least, wish to die.
"Euphemia."
"......"
"You need only do as you did today."
He tightened the arms around her, buried his face against her nape, and murmured it. The weakness of him was so unlike the Perzen she had known that the dissonance unsettled her. She thought the cause was the wine. Saying nothing, she let the strength leave her body and gave herself over to his hands.
"Let us sleep..."
Somehow the time had become 8:55. He lifted her gently, carried her to the bed, laid her down, and drew the blanket over them both.
"You're not keeping your distance tonight..."
"You're going to be holding me when morning comes anyway."
This way or that, it came to the same thing, so she had simply given up. Even that surrender satisfied him.
"Yes. Sleep well..."
She did not answer the good night. It was a very small rebellion, small enough that he himself was unlikely to notice. And with reason. Sleep well—like hell. Where in the world was a bed as uncomfortable as this.
For no particular cause she lifted her eyes and stole a glance at him...
Unfairly enough, Perzen had already sunk into an even, sound sleep.
"......"
He had fallen asleep the night before over his wine, yet the thought that he must go to work was driven so deep that his body woke far too quickly. A glance at the clock: 5:40 in the morning.
I could sleep longer...
More than sleeping longer—it would not matter if he fell completely under. Black Magic was lectured only once a week in any case. That did not mean he would skip work today.
The professors charged with teaching commoners and those charged with teaching noble children alternated dormitory night duty by the week. Today's watch was Perzen himself, and one professor whose name he did not know. The imperial knights guarded the dormitories regardless, so he could not see what meaning the duty held. It was a schedule into which political intent had been thoroughly mixed.
Should an outside attack cause harm within the Imperial Academy, the authority of the imperial house that had driven the matter would suffer. With a professor standing watch, however, the imperial house could share that burden with the professor's family. Set aside the carelessness of the one on duty; if someone meant to tear into the affair with real viciousness, they could even raise the question of whether that professor had been in league with the attackers.
Judged by efficiency alone it was idiotic, yet politically it was a decent enough maneuver.
In any case...
Around lunch yesterday, the administrative aide assigned to the department office had come to him with thoroughly exhausted eyes and asked whether they might speak for a moment, and he had refused. He ought to have heard the reason. Even without this duty he would have stopped by. That hour, however, was meant to fall in the afternoon.
Perzen buried his face beside Euphemia's head and closed his eyes again.
She smelled good.
Far too good.
Fragrant.