7. The Butterfly Dream (胡蝶之夢) - 01
7. The Butterfly Dream (胡蝶之夢) - 01
The fight within the banquet hall had come to an end.
A single breeze blew in through an open window. That breath of air, cooling the heat inside even a little, brought everyone back to their senses as if they were waking from a daze. And every gaze turned toward the back of the lone young man standing tall in the center.
...The actual clash had lasted barely a minute. Perhaps even less—a vanishingly brief moment.
Yet every guest assembled there felt as though that single instant had stretched on for an eternity. Moments before, the two combatants had spat ferocious killing intent at each other, unable to acknowledge one another—and that sight left an overwhelming impression on everyone who witnessed it.
Perhaps that was only natural. For most nobles who had lived their entire lives with grace and elegance, the primal, savage bloodlust of a battlefield was something they could never have experienced, could never have even imagined.
The fight was over.
The defeated lay collapsed in the distance, unconscious. The victor stood alone, revealing nothing but his aloof back to the room.
Everyone present could do nothing but stare at that back, barely able to breathe. They didn't dare make so much as a sound. A hush had settled over the hall that no one could intrude upon.
At a glance, his back was as shabby as could be. Sweat soaked his shirt, his formal uniform was slashed in countless places by his opponent's blade—more rags than clothing—and his fingertips were crushed. Blood and ooze dripped endlessly from his hands, laced with sword wound after sword wound.
No matter how you looked at him, he did not look like a victor. His appearance didn't suit victory at all; he looked closer to a defeated man.
...But no one in that hall thought him shabby. No—gazing at his back, everyone in the chamber realized their hearts were pounding madly. Appearances didn't matter. In their eyes, this young man was undoubtedly the truest victor of them all.
...Because they had seen it. And because they had seen it, they understood.
They had seen him face an overwhelmingly stronger opponent without a shred of hesitation, standing tall to protect his betrothed, who could not move freely. They had seen his fighting spirit as he faced that foe bare-handed, without even a weapon. Every wound upon his body was a medal, and at the same time an honorable battle scar.
He was courageous, dauntless. And so, everyone thought: it was not for himself, but for his betrothed that he had faced death, and in the end, he had even overcome death itself.
"...Kain von Estel."
From someone's lips, his name flowed out like an incantation.
All the nobles present knew of him. How could they not? One of the Four Great Ducal Houses of the Empire. Young Duke of House Estel. And a young man utterly unremarkable, with no particular distinguishing feature.
Frankly, they had looked down on him. Unlike the heirs of the other great ducal houses, he had never distinguished himself. He had always dragged rumors behind him, and they had decided he was unworthy of the reverence due a ducal heir. They had concluded he was living proof that House Estel had decayed beyond recovery.
They had sneered that his engagement to Bianca del Castana was far too good for Kain von Estel. They had even mocked him in secret, saying that if he weren't the direct-line grandson of a ducal house, he would never have been linked to House Castana's sole heir.
...But that was merely their delusion. Without spouting any grandiose words to persuade them, he had eloquently demonstrated with his actions what kind of man he was. Through his own deed, he had proven his worth to every noble in the room.
"....Ah."
...The fight was over.
The thunderous booms that had shaken the hall, the fierce clash of blades—all of it had vanished without a trace. All that remained was a young man with a battered but utterly unbroken back.
All the nobles who had been silently watching his back soon began, as if by agreement, to bow their heads toward him with quiet respect. In their eyes, Kain von Estel was more than worthy of their obeisance.
The hall was nothing but silence. Whether he knew everyone was bowing their heads to him or not, he simply stood there, quietly stroking the hair of Aria, who clung to his arms.
****
"Lord Kain, we're really going home now, aren't we? Right? We're never coming back to a strange place like this again, are we?"
Aria glared at me with narrowed eyes, as if she truly detested House Castana. I smiled wryly and patted her back.
"...Yeah, it's really over now. We're actually going home, Aria."
I answered her while recalling the nauseatingly sweet fucking memories I'd been forced to stomach during my stay at House Castana. My words were the truth.
Having succeeded in tracking down the traces of those rats lurking behind House Castana, my contract with Bianca had automatically ended. Which meant I no longer needed to keep up that revolting charade of playing her fiancé.
Incidentally, thanks to the attack by those bastards, my engagement ceremony with Bianca had fizzled out entirely. In a way, that was only natural. Right in the middle of an engagement ceremony held under the name of House Castana, the absurd incident of the couple getting attacked had occurred. House Castana might have partly intended it, but in the end, they had effectively smeared mud all over their own face.
When I asked Marquis Castana about that, he simply replied:
- House Castana is not so weak as to be shaken by something of that level. Rather, since this allowed us to catch them, you could say we got off cheap.
...Well, I couldn't really call it a gain, but if the head of the family said so, it wasn't my place as an outsider to meddle. In the first place, House Estel and House Castana weren't close enough families to exchange pleasantries. After extracting a promise from Marquis Castana to share the information they gleaned from them, I quietly withdrew.
Now it was done. At my age, if things like this kept happening, my heart might give out under the strain. I vowed firmly to bury myself back in the Estel Duchy and enjoy a life of ease. I was in the middle of packing when—
BANG!
The door flew open without any warning. I turned to see what kind of barbarian who had never learned to knock would commit such rudeness, and there stood Bianca, breathing hard in the doorway.
"...Kain, what are you doing? Why on earth are you packing?"
Her voice was trembling as she asked me. She looked like someone barely suppressing something violently rising inside her. I blinked at the sight of her. I genuinely could not understand what she was talking about.
"What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm packing to go home, obviously. Like we talked about in the beginning: we caught all those suspicious bastards, so our contractual relationship is effectively over. There's no reason for me to stay here anymore, is there?"
The payment I'd secured from the contract was to be delivered directly to the Estel Duchy by Marquis Castana later. So there was practically no reason to stay.
At my words, a tremor seemed to ripple through Bianca's pupils. She looked like she had never even imagined I'd respond like this.
"Hey, what about the engagement? We agreed to hold an engagement ceremony. And we didn't even get to finish it because of the attack. And now you're saying you're going back to the Estel Duchy?"
"....? Wasn't the engagement ceremony only a pretense to catch them? Now that we've accomplished that objective, I don't see any need to keep putting on that farce."
At my answer, Bianca's breathing began to quicken. It felt as though my casual reply was gradually causing her reason to slip away. Going by my experience in the Winter Expedition, her expression was unmistakably the demeanor of someone on the verge of an explosive rage. It was the precursor to a great fury. I glanced at Aria standing next to me. If Bianca lost her mind and tried to beat me to death, Aria would be my only hope.
"...Then what about the time you declared in front of everyone that you loved me? What was that?"
"...That was because the situation forced me to say something like that. When they ask why you're getting engaged, you can't exactly say it's because of a contract, can you?"
"....."
In an instant, Bianca's ragged breathing stopped. I could only surmise that something inside her had crossed its threshold.
"...Then what about when you said you wouldn't leave me alone? And what about when you said you'd always be by my side?"
"....."
Only then did I realize the situation was taking a slightly odd turn. And I understood. This is just my personal take, but it seemed Bianca had gotten a little too immersed in this childish game of a "fake engagement." Or else the words I'd blurted out back then had touched some sort of emotion inside her.
"Bianca."
"...Huh? Wh-what?"
When I looked at her with serious eyes, Bianca stared back at me with a flustered expression, as if she'd regressed to her childhood. Her appearance stirred a feeling of nostalgia in me, though I couldn't say why.
...But at the same time, that was all. I slowly shook my head and gave her my conclusion.
"You know as well as I do. That sort of clichéd story—a descendant of Estel and a descendant of Castana falling in love and ending up together—could never actually happen in reality."
"...What?"
At my words, Bianca's face went stiff. Paying no mind to that, I slowly continued.
"Honestly, I don't really know what you're thinking right now. But I can at least tell you were taking this fake engagement pretty seriously. So there's really only one thing I can say to you."
"What?"
"Just think of it as a dream, Bianca."
At my words, it looked like something might spill from Bianca's eyes at any moment. Seeing that, I forcibly denied a certain conjecture rising from deep within my heart. Because the woman named Bianca del Castana had to remain, in my heart, forever the woman I could not understand.
"...A dream?"
Bianca asked back in a mournful voice.
"Yeah, a dream. You just had a dream. The kind that, once you wake up, you forget without a care."
At my words, Bianca's hands trembled.
"...Was it a lie?"
"What?"
"Back then, you said it in front of Grandfather. You said it in front of everyone watching. That back when we were children, we made a promise to each other. That we promised to be together. Was even that a lie to you? Was it just a passing dream to you?"
At Bianca's words, I let out a low sigh.
"It wasn't a lie. In my own way, I meant it."
"Then, then why? Why are you doing this? Why?"
"But that was just a silly story we shared back when we were still immature."
At the word "silly," Bianca's body froze completely.
"Bianca. We're adults now. We've become adults carrying way too much on our own backs. Why can't you understand that we're no longer at an age where we can only think of ourselves?"
"...Kain. You..."
"Bianca, I'm the Young Duke who will inherit House Estel. From the moment I was born, as the price of standing above all the people of the Estel Duchy, I've carried the duty to look after them. For the sake of everyone who calls me 'Young Duke' and believes in me, I can't think only of myself. I absolutely cannot bend."
As I spoke, I glanced at Aria. Easily picking up my signal, she handed me the already-packed luggage. I passed by Bianca, who looked as though she'd been dealt a massive shock, without a trace of lingering regret, and left her with these words.
"Well then, goodbye. Honestly... pretending to be your fiancé wasn't that bad."
SLAM!
Maybe because of the strong wind, the door shut with a violent noise.
Everything came to an end. Probably.
****
"....."
For a very long time, Bianca remained alone in that empty room with no one else. She couldn't even think. No, she couldn't. Everything that made her who she was had crumbled.
The thought hit her that all the happiness she'd felt over the past few days had been a false illusion. Yes. She'd been so sure she'd finally gotten hold of it, that it was utterly perfect—but in truth, it had only been an illusion. A happiness that was nothing more than a sand castle. A phantom with no meaning, always ready to collapse.
Plop.
She fell to her knees. She buried her face in the bed in front of her. Because she thought that if she cried like this, the sound might leak out.
Suddenly, she realized that his scent still clung to the bed sheet. When she came to her senses, she found herself clutching the sheet, drinking in his smell.
"...Crazy bitch."
Even as she muttered that self-mocking curse at herself, she couldn't let go of the sheet. To her, that sheet was a treasure she wouldn't trade for anything, for the simple reason that his scent remained on it.
"...Ah, *hic*..."
As she breathed in his scent, her longing for him only deepened. In that moment, Bianca realized. That she, as a woman, could not possibly live separated from him. Having once tasted the happiness of being with him, she could never go back to a life without him.
...But at the same time, she hated him for it. She detested him. Even more than when she had reunited with him ten years after his engagement to Sarah Sernad, she utterly loathed him.
He had denied it. He had called "silly" the shining childhood memory that, to her, was more precious than anything in the world. With his own hands, he had thrown that memory into the mud.
So he was running away from her. Fleeing from her. When she imagined him, at the end of it all, abandoning her and meeting another woman, her mind went blank without her even realizing it. Fury and hatred made her fingertips tremble.
Again. She had lost him again. Stolen by Sarah Sernad, stolen by the other women of the Winter Expedition, even stolen by that white-haired wench. She had never once monopolized him. No, not even once. Across past, present, and future—not a single time.
She hated it. Hated it. Hated it. She was sick of it now. Sick of her helpless self who kept losing him, sick of her own life, sick of those other bitches. She wanted him to look only at her. To love only her. She wanted to bear his child. And for the two of them to be happy in the end.
In that instant, a thought flickered through her mind. A thought she had always set aside as the worst-case scenario, the one she'd sworn never to act on.
"...What, the answer was simple."
Bianca's lips twisted strangely. She let out a broken, giggling laugh, then smiled brightly as if she had found the solution.
"This time, I just have to persuade him so he can never run away anywhere else, right?"