Before the Snow Falls (2)
My earlobes burned.
My mouth still felt as if I’d just tugged at the corners, and I hurriedly looked away, rubbing at the trembling line of my lips. Why had he had to walk in at exactly that moment?
Still, I couldn’t blame him. It was only that my impulsive little act had been caught.
The room was filled with nothing but awkwardness.
I glared at Evan, who kept sneaking glances at me, then sighed and lowered my head. What must he think of me? Some frivolous fool practicing smiles in front of a mirror, perhaps.
But hadn’t all of this been his fault to begin with? I’d only considered it once when he said he wanted me to smile as a gift, and I’d looked in the mirror simply because I wondered if my usual expression was too cold.
“...Haah.”
I had nothing to say, so I could only stare at him as he stood there, blinking at me. The tea going down my dry throat tasted bitter. Was this how it felt to sit on a cushion made of thorns?
But he was my bodyguard knight, so I couldn’t very well tell him to leave. I turned my face away and looked out the window instead.
Chirp-chirp—
Even the birds outside seemed to be laughing at me, which made my brows knit tighter.
I was irritated that my knight still hadn’t said a word. If only he’d talked about something else—anything else—rather than standing there with those green eyes fixed on me. When had those eyes become so unbearable?
“Why don’t you just laugh already?”
“...Ha-ha.”
When I narrowed my eyes at him, Evan averted his gaze, turned his head away, and gave an awkward laugh.
If he’d just laughed normally, I would have been embarrassed and let it go. But every time he looked at me, the slight twitch at the corners of his mouth scraped at my nerves, and before I knew it, a sharp note slipped out of my own voice.
I just wanted you to smile.
I listened when he said that he had a wish. There was nothing I wouldn’t give the man who had fought the black mage and been wounded for my sake and for the sake of Yuris.
I had meant to grant him whatever he asked for.
And yet all Evan wanted from me was that disappointingly simple request—that I smile. “I hope that face of yours won’t stay clouded anymore. Please, just once, lay down that burden on your shoulders and smile brightly.”
That made me think. What sort of expression had I been wearing in front of others for him to say that?
I had spent my life hiding my feelings, so I knew how to hide my face. Sad or happy, I had always kept the same impassive look. I was good at standing there like a finely crafted doll.
Of course, after meeting Evan, I had felt that expression soften a great deal. Sometimes, when I looked in the mirror, there was warmth lingering in my gaze, where once there had only been coldness. Ropena had even told me I looked happier lately.
So I hadn’t been paying much attention to what sort of face I wore.
And yet his words kept knocking against my chest.
At the very least, I had thought I wasn’t hiding my feelings from him. Had I still been treating him coldly all this time?
If that was how he’d seen it, and if that was why he’d wished for such a gift, then perhaps showing him a smile once wouldn’t be so bad.
To set down the burden on my shoulders. To let the shadow over my face disappear. The thought alone made my chest itch strangely.
Was it because he was the only one in this ducal mansion who would ever say such things to me?
Or was it because those green eyes, saying them, were so irritating?
His eyes, always shining so beautifully, still hovered before me. In this desolate winter, his gaze alone seemed to reflect spring, and it kept throwing my mind into confusion.
“But... was this really because of what I said?”
“......”
How dense could he be?
He was usually so good at noticing my feelings, yet now he was jabbing me in the chest with every innocent word. I let out a dry laugh, finding his beautiful face suddenly infuriating.
If I could, I would have rushed over and clamped a hand over that mouth of his. Since I couldn’t, I only narrowed my eyes.
Did I do this because of his words? Of course I did. How could I not, when a mere wish had been enough to leave me this rattled?
I’d looked in the mirror and tried smiling in my own clumsy way. He had said it was a birthday present, and I wasn’t so miserly that I couldn’t give him even one smile.
Of course, smiling on purpose was awkward since it was my first time trying it, but after a while it had started to improve. If I’d practiced a little longer, I might even have been able to smile naturally.
But everything shattered the instant he caught me tugging at the corners of my mouth in front of the mirror.
My humiliation had already risen to its limit.
“Can you leave?”
“Unfortunately, that’s going to be difficult.”
“Then just rest today. I’ll have Sir Chris take your place.”
“I also have something I want to say.”
“...Evan.”
I had long thought he was unusually sly, though I’d felt that way since the first time we met. He knew perfectly well how to handle me. How could I really get angry at someone who smiled so brightly?
He was irritating, yes, but not enough for me to hate him, so I let out a small sigh.
“What is it you want to say?”
“I received the sword we got from the weapon shop earlier. I wanted to thank you for it.”
“...There was no need to thank me. I only bought it because you needed a sword.”
I had bought it thinking of it as a birthday present, but since I’d purchased so many things at once, calling it a gift felt a little embarrassing. It wasn’t even only for him; the other knights would be using them too.
The word gift made me think of that embarrassing wish he’d mentioned, and I lowered my head slightly to hide the heat rising in my face. I rubbed a hand over my dry features, but his voice rippling in my ear made me bite at my lip.
If I’d been alone, I could have done something about it, but with him here, I couldn’t do a thing. I wanted to kick the blanket aside with my foot.
This humiliation surging up from deep in my chest made my face heat every time I looked at my knight, and all I could do was fan myself helplessly.
“Are you all right?”
“...Do I look all right to you right now?”
“No.”
I glared at Evan, who was still smiling, then let out a thin sigh. He seemed especially playful today. Even yesterday, something about his attitude had felt subtly different.
When the green in his eyes curved into a crescent as he looked at me, I couldn’t help frowning. Not because I disliked it, exactly, but because it made my chest feel strangely tight.
I looked at him for a moment longer before my eyes fell on the bandage wrapped around his shoulder.
The bandage had already turned red. Had he not changed it yet? If he left it like that, the wound could become infected.
Every time I saw that bandage, my heart grew uneasy. It made me think of him fighting the black mage all alone in the dark, with not even the moon to watch over him.
The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became.
I had never seen black magic myself, but I had heard it caused pain on an entirely different level from ordinary magic. No matter how weak that black mage had been, there was no way it hadn’t hurt.
And every time I remembered the way he had endured that pain and bowed his head to me, it seemed to overlap with the man standing before me now, so I looked away without thinking.
“...Go change your bandage.”
“Ah, I was planning to in a little while. I need to see the duke first.”
At that, my eyes narrowed. See the duke? He meant he was going to meet my father.
For an instant, unease brushed past me, but I shook it off. He was probably going to discuss the black mage. Still, wasn’t it too soon?
He could have waited until his body recovered before meeting him. Why was he in such a hurry?
No—if I were being coldly rational, my father would be right. The black mage was a threat to the Empire. Even if this one had been weak, it was only natural to investigate anything connected to black magic as quickly as possible.
No one had expected this attack to be the end of it. In the future, there would surely be many more points of contact with black mages.
In that sense, Evan’s achievement this time was more important than anything else. Not only had he driven off the black mage, but he had also helped develop a vaccine against the illness the black mage had created.
Perhaps there would be not only praise for him, but a change in his position as well.
If, because of this, he was no longer my bodyguard knight—
My heart seemed to drop with a dull thud.
Biting into the soft flesh inside my mouth and tasting the faint metallic tang of blood, I frowned.
If that happened, what was I supposed to do? I had finally found someone I could relax around. Someone who had recognized the shadow over me and smiled for my sake, as if to brush it away, had come to stand beside me. How could I let someone like that leave so easily?
“...Evan.”
I opened my mouth in a flat tone, but my voice was trembling slightly. I was anxious. The person Evan was about to meet was my father, after all, and no one could guess what the head of Yuris was thinking.
What if it led to the worst possible outcome I could imagine?
“What are you worrying about so much?”
“...I’m not worried.”
Perhaps my anxiety showed on my face, because Evan looked at me and spoke. There was warmth in that gaze—gentle concern.
If he had been anyone else, there might have been disdain in those eyes instead, the kind reserved for an inexperienced young lady in the line of succession.
Cold air began slipping in through the open window.
No, perhaps I was only just now noticing the chill. Had I grown so used to the warmth of the person beside me that I had forgotten how cold winter could be?
The bodyguard knight I had only recently met had already become someone who could drive away my cold.
...Maybe this was greed. Maybe the feeling I was nursing would one day curdle into desire. But at least for now, I wanted him at my side.
#
“The reason my father called you in is probably to commend you for dealing with the black mage. Black mages are an especially serious matter in this empire, and you handled it without suffering any injuries.”
“Sir Chris said the same thing. He told me the duke would probably summon me to praise me.”
“...He’ll call you soon enough. Once his morning duties are over, he always meets with guests at lunch.”
Was that why he hadn’t called me yet?
But my thoughts about the duke were soon scattered. The expression on her face, which I’d been seeing from the side, seemed much darker than before. Was I imagining it?
What was she worrying about?
From the moment she brought up the duke, her face had darkened so sharply that it had to be something related to her father.
Maybe she didn’t like the fact that I was meeting the duke.
Not much had ever been said about Garot Yuris, but I did know one thing for certain: he was a man very much in keeping with the Yuris spirit of Iron Blood.
A man who lived for his family less than for duty, and for the emperor even more than for family.
When I first became her bodyguard knight, I’d even wondered if her warpedness had something to do with the duke.
So it was unlikely that she’d be looking at me with any great fondness.
Even so, I couldn’t imagine she’d be hostile to me either, and that made it hard to understand what exactly she was worrying about. I let out a faint sigh.
I had spent a long time with her now, and yet I still couldn’t tell what was going on in her head.
All I could tell was that there was worry written across her face.
What else could the duke possibly do to me besides praise me? At most, he’d shower me with gold and jewels or hand down a sword, then ask for cooperation in future matters involving black mages.
And then, suddenly, a thought brushed through my mind and my eyes narrowed.
If this incident changed my position, if I were no longer her bodyguard knight but folded into the Yuris knights instead...
I couldn’t allow that. Was I not the only one who knew the tragedy she would endure?
If I couldn’t stay by her side, if I couldn’t stop her from twisting down that path and one day becoming the villainess I knew she would be...
Then everything I had done so far would be nothing but a wasted effort.
And right now, there were very few people she could truly open up to and be at ease with.
Ropena, Sir Chris. And maybe me—that was all, probably.
I couldn’t leave her side.
Unless I was the one to sweep away every last trace of her tragedy and leave on my own, I would have to remain by her side forever.
“Don’t worry too much, miss.”
If the shadow over her face was because of that worry, then shouldn’t I be the one to erase it?
Just as I had wished. I wanted the shadow on her face to vanish, and I wanted the burden on her shoulders to disappear. How could I have forgotten the vow I made at dawn?
I wanted her to be happy. And if the time ever came when I could regard the contents of that novel I had seen as nothing more than a dream, then perhaps I could leave her side with a clear heart.
So for now, I would only smile at her. I wanted the darkness to leave her face. I wanted the unease lodged in her heart to disappear.
“I am your bodyguard knight.”
Could the smile I wore really drive away her anxiety?
Honestly, I doubted it, but I smiled anyway.
For a moment, I did wonder if I wanted her to smile at me like this too, but that thought dissolved like mist and was gone.
This was nothing more than greed.
A little selfish greed of my own.