The House of Aepheros (8)
Inside the quiet carriage, nothing could be heard but the rhythm of hoofbeats, the rumble of turning wheels, and the faint vibration beneath them.
Harnie sat within it, quietly studying Karsein.
Sensing her gaze, his eyes flicked toward her for a moment.
"...Is there something on my face?"
"No."
"Then did something happen? Did Barak say something out of line?"
"Not at all."
"Then why on earth..."
"...It's nothing."
She brushed it off and averted her eyes.
Karsein scratched his cheek, tilted his head in confusion, and returned to reading his documents.
And at that very moment, Harnie's gaze drifted back to him all the same.
He didn't look particularly tired. His eyes, moving over the papers, must have been running constant calculations. But neither were they brimming with vitality. He was simply absorbed in his work.
Watching him, Harnie found herself recalling her own past and sinking into troubled thought.
She had met Karsein through a string of circumstances, spent a night in Rusmayer Territory, somehow gotten through another day here, and come the next morning, she had watched him sleeping in his chair.
Until then, she could, in all honesty, understand his position to a degree. Because hers had been much the same.
Rejected by her family for being a bastard child. No matter how hard she worked for the household, they had only ever sought to use her. And when she finally refused to help them any longer, they had gone so far as to arrange a political marriage to sell her off.
In a family like that, wouldn't the sensible thing be to secure an escape route and flee as quickly as possible? Nothing about Karsein's conduct was strange at all, then.
Cutting sleep to squeeze in more study. Building the means to survive out in the world from the knowledge he had acquired. And then, once safely outside, laying plans so they could never lay hands on him again.
Her circumstances and her position had been so similar that she could understand him completely.
Which meant the right call was to leave him alone with his paperwork.
And yet.
...Why am I thinking about that time now...
-Miss, there's no need to push yourself so hard.
-You could afford to sleep a little more slowly, you know...
-It breaks our hearts to see it, Miss.
The voices of her maids, asking why she didn't rest a little as they watched her buried in work, echoed in her ears.
Back then, Harnie had told them she was fine. That she wasn't skipping meals, that she was getting plenty of rest, so they needn't worry.
But even when she said that, her maids never quite shed those pitying looks. Some of them had gone so far as to boldly confiscate her workload outright.
She had never understood why, no matter how she turned it over in her mind.
Yet paradoxically, it was only in recalling that time now that Harnie finally understood where her maids had been standing.
I see. So that's how I must have looked to them.
To the person buried in work, sacrificing sleep, the goal was simply to achieve that purpose a moment sooner. So it didn't feel like anything at all. It was merely a means to an end.
But the ones watching saw something entirely different.
They couldn't help wondering why she pushed herself so hard. They grew afraid she would stumble from running too fast for too long. And watching her act as if everything were fine while teetering on the edge filled them with a quiet, mounting frustration.
Now she understood why her maids had tried to hold her back.
Understood, too, why they had pitied her all the more when she insisted she was fine.
So this is the suffocating ache you all carried in your chests, every time. And then you had to go back to it.
With a faint sigh, Harnie allowed herself a small, wistful smile.
How was this any different from her own situation?
Because she understood both sides, she could reach her conclusion.
Yes. This is you pushing yourself far too hard.
She had cut back on sleep when she needed to bury herself in work, too — but never to this degree. And unlike what she'd seen that morning, she'd never slept in such an awkward, hunched position. She dozed off now and then, granted... but still, never to the point where anyone would look at her and worry the body might simply break down.
But Karsein?
-...As you suspect, Miss, the young master's sleep is severely lacking. Two hours a day. No — perhaps one. And even that is nothing more than napping in fits.
Hadn't Barak said as much?
It was strange, the sheer volume of work he shouldered. She had assumed it was a one-day thing, but no. It hadn't been a day or two — he had kept it up for days on end.
And then he was back at the documents again. Running calculations again. Planning the next task, reading another report.
That cycle repeated, on and on. Day and night, without pause.
Left like this, anyone could see his body would give out.
No matter how busy he was. No matter how important his purpose. No matter how many times he insisted he was fine.
He must not solve his work by destroying himself.
She had to stop him — even if she understood his position perfectly well.
-Whoosh.
"...?"
When she snatched away the document he was reading, Karsein looked up at her in astonishment, his expression asking what on earth this was about.
Harnie planted one hand on her hip.
"This is confiscated."
"...Pardon?"
Karsein asked, utterly dumbfounded.
"Barak told me everything. You've barely slept, and yet you're planning to work in the carriage?"
"I'm fine. I slept plenty. As you can see, I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."
"'Slept plenty' meaning two hours of fitful napping? That's absurd."
"There are people in this world who do fine on less sleep. And it varies depending on sleep technique."
He tried to deflect, insisting there was no problem — that less sleep didn't mean diminished efficiency.
Just as I thought.
How could anyone produce such an identical answer?
She was beginning to feel genuinely sorry for Mina.
When he answered like that — I'm telling you I'm fine, so why are you stopping me? — the maids had no way to press further. That was how the argument always collapsed.
But unlike her maids, Harnie had grounds that couldn't be dismissed.
"My, my. As your fiancée, I can hardly stand by and watch you ruin your health, can I?"
At that, Karsein looked at her in exasperation.
"Ours is merely a transactional arrangement. Hand it back, please."
"A hollow engagement is still an engagement, is it not? I am your fiancée, that much is fact."
That was it. It might be a facade, but for now she was the fiancée.
Attacking from this angle, there was no way for Karsein to refute her.
"Don't worry. Once I judge that you've rested sufficiently, I'll return it. And even if it doesn't come to that — if there's any part of it I can help with, I'll lend a hand, won't I?"
"...Skip the jokes and just give it back."
"No. And it isn't a joke."
Harnie whipped her head away, hiding her document-clutching hands behind her back.
At that, Karsein let out a long sigh and began closing the distance between them.
"D-don't tell me... y-you're going to take it by force?"
"I'd rather not, but you leave me no choice."
"That's too far! Is this how you repay your fiancée's concern?!"
"Oh my. Someone might overhear and get the wrong idea. We're merely business partners, aren't we?"
"That depends entirely on how you look at— no, wait, that's not the point... Would you just stop coming closer! Karsein, this is genuinely underhanded, using force like this!"
"Yes. I am that underhanded sort."
He said this as he maneuvered her toward the corner of the carriage, but he showed no sign of stopping.
What do I do? What should I...
His hand was drawing nearer by the second.
If this went on, he would take it back.
But the space inside a moving carriage was hardly vast, and there was no way she could beat Karsein in a contest of strength here.
Then she would simply have to obstruct him — keep him from seeing the documents at all...
That's it! If I can't stop him, I'll just keep him from seeing it!
Between his two approaching arms, Harnie threw herself forward instead, surrendering her weight to the charge.
"Wha—!"
She launched herself at him without warning.
Caught off guard, Karsein had no choice but to catch her body in his arms.
"What are you doing?! Throwing yourself at someone in a moving carriage...!"
"You said if I just let you rest and sleep a bit more, you'd give it back! I'm not stealing it from you!"
"Yes, but does that warrant going this far...?"
"You said helping each other benefits us both, didn't you? Then you don't get to work without my permission either! I'll allow you to work hard — what I won't allow is you wrecking yourself!"
"Ha. What manner of sophistry is th— whoa!"
-Jolt!
In that instant the carriage lurched violently, and Harnie, already pouring her weight toward Karsein, had no intention of halting that momentum.
Karsein's balance, on the other hand, was thrown completely off by the rocking carriage.
Inertia carried Harnie's body straight into him.
All the force tipped to one side.
Karsein, who had been standing perfectly fine, staggered and toppled — and catching the added momentum of the young woman flying into him, he crashed flat onto the carriage floor.
-Thud!
The floor thundered under the combined weight of their two bodies.
Both of them were dazed. There had been things they wanted to say, no doubt.
But at that exquisitely terrible moment, the carriage door swung open.
"Karsein, welcome to the Western lands, I—!"
Pollux's gaze swept from one of them to the other, and he stopped mid-sentence. Then, slowly, he closed the door again.
"Ah... it seems my eye for reading a room has failed me. No offense was intended. My apologies for the interruption. Ahem."
By the time those words had sunk in, a strange sense of déjà vu was blooming in Harnie's chest.
Then she realized exactly what the two of them must look like at this moment — and tumbled off Karsein in a flash, springing up to shout her denial.
"W-wait, just a moment, Pollux! I think you've gotten the wrong idea! It's not what it looks like! It's not, I tell you!"
-Click.
The carriage door was already shut.
I've — I've lost my mind! What did I just do...?
The aftershocks came crashing in from every direction.
For the barest instant, she had thrown her arms around his whole body. As if that weren't enough, the carriage had jolted and their bodies had ended up tangled together. And that exact moment — Pollux had seen it.
Heat flooded her face, burning it crimson.
With the very hands that had been reaching for the door, Harnie had no choice but to cover her face instead.
"Uh... what was that?"
Only now regaining his senses, Karsein picked himself up, clutching his head.
At the sound of his voice, Harnie's face burned hotter still.
Hands still shielding her face, she spoke.
"...Don't say a word. Just leave."
"Pardon?"
"Don't say anything. Just get out. Please."
"..."
Karsein scratched his cheek, plainly lost — but he knew well enough that now was precisely the time not to poke the bear. He stole a careful glance at her and slipped out of the carriage.
And so, even after arriving at the Marquisate of Aepheros, Harnie remained in the carriage for quite some time, face buried in her hands.