Chapter 59
Time was like a handful of sand scooped from the shore. In the blink of an eye, it slipped through my fingers and vanished into nothingness.
Which meant the Atara Kingdom's delegation had arrived.
"Shushu unnie! What are you wearing to the welcome banquet for the delegation? Let's match our dress code!"
"I'll match with Shushu. You didn't match with me last time."
"Don't be a jerk and butt out, oppa bunny. Unnie's matching with me."
"You're the jerk here. What about black and gold? I saw a nice uniform design the other day."
"Ha! Unnie's matching with me in burgundy! Burgundy uniforms would be great, right? I'll order from Katrine's shop!"
"Look at Shushu's face. She's got that expression like she'd rather die than match with your sneaky, venomous self. You said you love Shushu, but you're forcing her like this? What a sight your personality is."
"You little brat who needs his tongue cut out... Are your eyes okay? That's unnie's happiest face. Oh, oppa bunny hasn't lived with unnie for months, so he can't read her expressions? And you don't have childhood memories with unnie? How pitiful."
"......You're incorrigible. Keep acting like that, and Shushu will end up hating you too."
I sipped my tea amid their savage bickering, pretending to mediate as I tossed out a compromise.
"Why not just match all three of us the same? Like blue or something..."
"Why the hell would I match with this idiot?!"
"I'd rather walk around naked."
Of course, the compromise was shot down instantly.
I'd grown used to seeing Kal and Aria on the verge of throwing punches, so I sighed in resignation and let my mind wander elsewhere.
The Atara Kingdom's delegation is like the opening skirmish of war.
It was the trigger for the full-blown Night of the Fairies arc.
'Alessandro Leandro Leone de Atara.'
The young king of Atara who had seized his smoke-choked throne with the edge of his sword.
In Atara, where birth order heavily influenced succession, he was born the seventh prince yet clawed his way to the crown through sheer tenacity.
'A maniac with a blade, literally.'
Alessandro had reached Sword Expert at just fifteen, butchered his elder siblings, and ascended the throne at seventeen—a mad munchkin with a ferocious temper that cleaved through anything in his path.
'He was surprisingly well-behaved, though, all things considered.'
I glanced idly at Kal and Aria's squabble, then down at the newspaper in my hand.
Ever since the original story crossed my mind, I'd made a habit of reading the papers religiously.
'There were never any articles about Alessandro's tyranny before.'
In the original, Alessandro's reign kicked off with insane atrocities that set the entire continent abuzz. But the Sun Times I'd been devouring daily had never once mentioned his excesses.
Today's front page only blared about the delegation's arrival.
'His over-the-top cruelty as described in the original should've been all over the news... Guess the original really can't be trusted.'
I folded the paper with a faint sigh.
No matter how many times I vowed not to rely too heavily on it, I kept judging people through that original-story lens out of habit.
I hated that about myself, but with the coming war, I had no choice but to lean on it somewhat to protect my loved ones.
According to the original, Alessandro disguises himself as one of the envoys and comes to the empire.
It was a plot point with zero plausibility. Even back during serialization, readers had flooded the comments asking how a king could just leave his kingdom. The author replied that in the eyes of sword-wielding maniac Alessandro, only Aria mattered.
'Can't blame him, really. He was utterly obsessed with Aria.'
I gazed at Aria—her soft pink waves flying as her lovely peach lips hurled double curses at Kal—and let out a sigh.
The sole reason Alessandro would pull off the unprecedented madness of leaving his palace was Aria.
Alessandro was your classic novel bastard with a backstory. Born the seventh prince with the weakest claim, he was a green upstart not even worth the effort of his scheming older brothers' elimination.
Neglect and disdain were his daily bread from birth, culminating at age twelve when the second prince's assassins cornered him.
'You must become strong, Your Highness. Avenge us! I don't want to remain just a prince's nursemaid! Become king. Become king, and let me stand as the retainer who laid your foundation!'
Thanks to his sole loyal nursemaid's sacrifice, Alessandro barely teleported away, crash-landing gravely wounded in some dingy alley of the Solatine Empire.
'Oh! There's someone here...!'
And that's where he met Aria.
According to the original, Aria heals Alessandro and plants the flag... But now...
I stared at Kal and Aria tearing into each other like rabid dogs, my face twisting in agony.
In the original, Kashimir should've vanished from Aria's side at ten. But becoming Kashimir meant I stayed through her childhood.
From my memories of a lifetime with Aria, she'd never once brought home so much as a stray dog, let alone Alessandro.
'I was the one who kept picking up strays.'
Recalling the cartel kids, Leo, the nameless boy from my youth, and even grown-up Diego, I made a complicated face.
Thinking back, I'd always been weak to the frail and helpless.
'Never imagined those childhood ties would turn out like this... What intense connections.'
I thought of Rainer and Elrior, now all grown up—fates I'd never dreamed of.
'Who could've guessed the kids I saved would all be capture targets?!'
Honestly, it still drove me nuts just thinking about it. Their subtle attitudes made sense now, but I had zero clue how to treat them.
'Elrior asked me to play dumb, so I am. Rainer said to act like I don't know, so I'm doing that too... But pretending not to know isn't the same as truly forgetting. Those days with them still shine in my blood-and-ash childhood memories.
I want to acknowledge those memories, share the nostalgia—but they're both pretending like it's nothing, which leaves me a bit miffed.'
'Damn... They're older and higher-ranked than me, so I can't just smack their heads and tell them to drop the formalities... How the hell do I handle this...'
I ruffled my hair in frustration. Then it hit me: of the three boys I'd saved as a kid, only one I hadn't reunited with yet.
'Leo.'
There was that boy around thirteen, collapsed in an alley from severe wounds, who introduced himself as Leo.
Back in the shack where I'd treated Diego, we'd bickered fiercely with that prickly brat, which annoyed me to no end—but now it stood out as one of my few fond childhood memories.
'...Hold on.'
A sudden hypothesis flashed through my mind.
Based on my inexplicable knack—misfortune or luck?—for tangling with capture targets, it was an absurd possibility.
If I was thirteen, Alessandro was twelve. That's when he fled to the empire.
He'd crash-landed wounded in an imperial alley. And Leo had collapsed there too, gravely injured amid a summer downpour.
'Leo... is... Alessandro...?'
That single thought made my head spin.
I frantically checked Alessandro's photo in the paper.
His infuriatingly handsome face triggered déjà vu again.
My instincts screamed danger, but I forced myself to think calmly.
'No way that prickly cat turned into a sword maniac like Alessandro. Different hair color. Face... kinda similar, maybe... Circumstances match too closely... No, really? Nah, no. Can't know for sure till I meet him.'
I bit my nails without realizing.
Saving Alessandro wasn't the issue. The problem was how roughly I'd handled that prickly cat Leo during our time together.
'Will Alessandro come disguised in the delegation like in the original...? Or since Aria didn't save him, maybe not. But... if Leo really is Alessandro... won't he come back for revenge, holding a grudge against me...?'
My head throbbed with possibilities.
I'd often thought of reuniting with Leo, but never imagined him growing into a blade-wielding maniac.
'Who was the maniac Elrior mentioned...?'
Thinking of the delegation dredged up Elrior's warning from the hot springs, making my headache worse.
I clutched my head and groaned for a while before sighing and shelving the thoughts.
'It'll all come out at next week's welcome banquet.'
I could check there who Elrior's maniac was and if Leo was really Alessandro.
'If Leo really is Alessandro... and he shows up disguised in the delegation out of grudge... I'll just play tough. No choice.'
No matter how much of a sword maniac he was, he couldn't outright slaughter Duke Crisis's daughter. And I wasn't the type to go down easy anyway.
With things as they were, I decided to own it boldly.
'For starters... those shack days might've meant nothing to Alessandro. He could've forgotten... might not even recognize me.'
The thought left a bittersweet pang. Time precious to me might've been forgettable to him—a sad reality.
But even if tangled interests faded our bond, the moments that boy—leaving only a deep lemon scent—had appeared to my younger self remained untainted.
'Still. Whether Leo's Alessandro or some far-off farmer, I hope he's happy.'
A small wish from the child mired in filth.
While lost in thought, I'd barely talked Aria and Kal—now on the verge of grabbing each other's collars over my dress code—into a compromise.
In the end, my outfit was a uniform blending burgundy, black, and gold. Kal got a black-and-gold tailcoat, and Aria a burgundy dress.
It was the only way, since they'd die before wearing anything too similar.