Winter (2)
He laughed bitterly. Truly, bitterly.
Watching his face as he frowned in genuine confusion, as if he truly didn’t understand why she should go out and why he should follow, she let out a heavy breath that tasted of bitterness.
“...Go ahead. You’re leaving around evening anyway.”
Her mood had already improved when she saw him, but that expression of his—so plainly at a loss over why she had to leave—dragged it back down again. The way his face showed nothing but ignorance irritated her more than she wanted to admit.
Did he really not know that tomorrow was her birthday? Or was it simply too awkward to tell her?
Their tangled thoughts slowly made her chest feel tight. It could have been nothing at all; maybe he was just so busy that he’d forgotten even his own birthday. And yet, for some reason, the feeling that it wasn’t that kept returning.
By the time Evan left the room, her face was already cast in shadow as she stared after the door.
#
It had been a single remark, overheard by complete accident.
Ropena, idly eating cookies while reading as usual, tossed out a casual comment, and it sent ripples through Irene’s mind.
“Lady, did you know? The day after tomorrow is the knight’s birthday.”
Irene had asked what would be best to prepare as a gift, saying she’d only learned of it by chance, but in the end she’d had no answer to give. She had surely seen his personal details in the documents, so why had she never known it was his birthday?
When she asked whether he had told her himself, Ropena shook her head. She’d only noticed the date while tidying the desk and looking through the paperwork.
A gift. At that word, one she hadn’t thought of in a very long time, her eyes narrowed slightly.
If she did give him something, what should it be? It would be easier to ask, but even so, her bodyguard knight was living a rather busy life, wasn’t he?
If this had been before, she would have ignored her bodyguard knight’s birthday and let it pass without a thought, so she found it rather ridiculous that she was now considering making a fuss over it.
And yet, what could she do? She had already come to acknowledge him so deeply in her heart that it was hard now to keep him out of sight.
She already knew he was devoting himself to training in preparation for the knighting ceremony.
She didn’t know how those words she had spoken so frankly at the ball had been received by him that day, but if he had taken them negatively, she doubted he would be acting the way he was now.
She was rather pleased. The fact that he had heard those words and still worked even harder.
It felt as though he was doing it for her sake, and for the first time in a long while, she found her chest tingling with a strange, fluttering sensation.
Even as winter came, and the cold and chill settled over the ducal estate, whenever she saw him it was as though a warm breeze had begun to blow again.
The human heart was so deceitful that, though she had once tried so hard to push him away, she was now accepting him with such ease.
Had his existence already become imprinted on her, just like Ropena’s?
If he were to disappear someday, she might feel regret.
And then, remembering the expression he had worn, she slowly closed her eyes.
When she thought of him looking at her with a face that plainly asked what on earth was going on, and thought about it more carefully, his green eyes had definitely been trembling.
Her bodyguard knight, no matter how she looked at it, seemed not to know that tomorrow was her birthday.
The question in his green eyes had been obvious. It was not the reaction of someone who knew that sunset would bring her birthday.
Sir Chris’s occasional words drifted through her ears like an echo.
Had he said that before meeting her, Evan always wore a gloomy expression?
After making a face that looked as though he might leave for somewhere at any moment, he would always shut himself up in his room and swing his sword.
That was what he had said, and it bothered her far more than it should have.
Was he making that kind of face somewhere she couldn’t see, even now?
If he was wearing such an expression while the door was shut, and still smiling at her anyway—
—then she suddenly realized she was biting her lip.
Her own teeth had caught the soft flesh inside her mouth, and a faint metallic taste spread across her tongue. It did not feel pleasant in the slightest.
What could possibly make him so desperate that he would forget even his own birthday and focus on something else?
“...Lise.”
She called to whoever was standing outside the door, and before long it opened to admit a maid. The one with the mole beneath her eye, the maid who had a habit of touching it now and then. If she had to name the person closest to Evan, it might well be her.
“Lady.”
“Tomorrow is Evan’s birthday. Did you know?”
“Oh, was it?”
At the maid’s head tilt, so clearly genuine, a soft laugh escaped her.
Even she hadn’t known. Even the maid who talked with Evan so often, who was even close to Ropena, hadn’t known it was his birthday.
Before she knew it, her deep blue eyes had gone cold.
Some thought she had forgotten for a while surfaced again, and without meaning to she bit down on her lip.
Yuris—hadn’t she hated this ducal estate to the point of loathing? This was the sort of thing she despised.
Outwardly, they seemed so kind; their mouths always smiled, but their eyes never did.
How could it make sense that, despite being so close, they didn’t even know his birthday?
“...Go on.”
There was nothing left for her to ask.
She let out a thin sigh at the disappointing result, then roughly scattered the papers piled on her desk.
Pressing a hand to her forehead, she slowly dragged her palm down over her face.
A small circle marked on the calendar. Hearing Ropena’s words, she realized that his birthday was tomorrow.
If this had been before, she would have known and moved on, but for some reason she couldn’t simply let it slide.
What would it feel like to be unable to celebrate the day you were born?
His expression, so empty of understanding, came to mind again. And then his face as he always wore it—bright, easy, smiling.
Whether he had truly forgotten it was his birthday or was merely pretending to have forgotten, she couldn’t tell, and that only made her more restless.
When she thought about it, she realized she knew nothing about him. And yet she had told herself she felt at ease when he was by her side, and had kept him close all the same.
She was still selfish. The woman who had thought she had changed after that ball had, in truth, changed at all.
Before the tea party, before she had spoken with him there, how was she any different from then?
Only his attitude was no longer cold. Only the words that left his mouth no longer carried thorns.
She had merely leaned on him as her bodyguard knight, and never once tried to learn anything about him.
If Ropena hadn’t told her, he would likely have spent his birthday without even that much as a celebration.
The sigh that left her was heavy. As her chest tightened again, she frowned.
She had despised the people in this ducal estate so much—so why was she becoming so much like them? It was simply dreadful.
She didn’t want to be like them. Hadn’t she vowed to live differently?
She could have asked a little sooner. Was she still afraid of growing closer to him?
Even while pretending everything was fine, even while pretending she had already laid it all bare, was she still inwardly avoiding his approach?
By now, she ought to have been able to remove the thorns wrapped around her, but it was far from easy.
Dammit.
#
“This time, go alone.”
After I went to see Sir Chris again and told him about my conversation with Irene, he looked at me for a moment before giving that answer.
Well, with the knighting ceremony coming up soon, was he planning to hand responsibility over to me completely?
“Sure.”
When I answered readily, Sir Chris stared at me for a moment, scratched his cheek, and spoke.
“By the way, tomorrow’s your birthday. Am I supposed to say congratulations?”
“...It’s my birthday?”
“What, do you live without ever looking at a calendar? Tomorrow is your birthday. I didn’t manage to prepare a gift, though.”
Hearing that for the first time, I widened my eyes, and Sir Chris seemed startled in turn, narrowing his eyes as he gave me a sidelong look.
I had been living as Evan Fried for quite a while, but because I hadn’t retained his memories, I hadn’t known my birthday.
Come to think of it, there had been a circle marked on tomorrow’s date in the calendar, but had that meant it was my birthday?
Old memories surfaced suddenly, and my brow creased faintly.
Birthdays weren’t exactly full of good memories for me.
I lifted a hand, rubbed my face, then let out a small sigh and twisted the corners of my mouth.
“You don’t need to congratulate me. It’s not exactly a special day, is it?”
For other people, maybe not for me. It really wasn’t a special day at all.
It was just one of those days I’d rather not remember.
For someone else, it might be a day blessed by their birth; for me, it had only ever been a day cursed.
“...You.”
Sir Chris stared at me for a while, then finally let out a sigh and lowered his head.
“If that’s how you want it... fine. Still, happy birthday. I can’t give you a gift, but don’t refuse this.”
“Yes, thank you.”
I grinned and shrugged, and Sir Chris gave a hearty laugh as he got to his feet.
Against that grim face of his, the curve of his mouth drew a thin line, almost gently rounded.
At first he’d been a little scary, but after spending time with him like this, it hadn’t taken long to realize he was a good person.
I wished I could keep seeing him.
When the ending Irene was meant to meet was finally changed, and everyone could smile in happiness—wouldn’t it be nice if Sir Chris were there then?
As I watched him quietly leave, I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath.
My chest had grown uneasy the moment I heard the word birthday, and now that the cold winter air filled my lungs, I felt a little better.
“My birthday, huh.”
Maybe I could just accept it without overthinking it anymore.
I was Evan Fried now, and Evan Fried had probably lived a very different life from mine.
Maybe he’d received all kinds of gifts on his birthdays and eaten sweet cake with a family smiling at him.
But I was not a being that could be defined so simply as Evan Fried.
I was only someone who had entered Evan Fried’s body and settled there; I couldn’t honestly claim to be Evan Fried.
It would probably be best to let it pass quietly. Thinking that, I slowly opened my eyes.
What met my gaze was moonlight so cold it made my chest ache, and the chill of winter seemed only to deepen.
It was bitterly cold. The wind that had merely felt cool a moment ago now felt piercing, enough to make my body shrink inward on its own.
The breeze slipped through my clothes and scraped against my bones, then ran through every corner of my body until I felt frozen solid.
A barren old tree stood watching me. It was as if it too was saying it was the same as I was, its leafless branches standing out more starkly than ever.
“Why were you born, anyway?”
That one line, spoken by the person who had given me life on the day I was born, lingered in my ears.
No matter how hard I tried to forget it, the words always came back, and I clenched my teeth.
“...Haah.”
The breath I let out between my teeth was cold. My body felt completely frozen, as though I were already dead and stiffened into ice.
I had never believed that birthdays were days to be blessed, not since long ago, from childhood, before I could even speak properly.
I hated my birthday.
If only this day could pass quietly, with no one the wiser.
Lowering my gaze from the sky, I began to walk forward again at a slow pace.
The path strewn with dead leaves felt only slick and muddy today, as if the cold itself had soaked into it.
Like a black swamp, that chill seemed to be sinking into me, trying to seize my feet and drag me down below.
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