One Week Left
"Ah."
I'd gotten up early and started getting ready, same as always. Same as every other morning. Same as I always did.
I washed in the bath, same as always. Shampooed my hair, then worked my way down — arms, chest, stomach, thighs, groin, legs, back, backside.
Afterward I dried off and put on my usual clothes. A thin undershirt, a dress shirt over that, and a blazer over the shirt. The pants were the same slightly fitted dress slacks I always wore.
Then I walked down the hallway. Destination: Kyle's door.
That was when it finally hit me.
"Kyle isn't here yet."
He still had a full week before he'd be back. I'd known that. So why had I done this?
Had eight years really carved themselves that deep? Well — I'd done this every single day for nearly eight years. Of course my body had moved on reflex. I'd done it every day. Weekdays, weekends, from the first day I met Kyle to the night before he left. Every single day.
I could break the habit, sure. But it wasn't going to be easy. Today was proof enough — I'd gone through the whole routine from the moment I woke up, completely on autopilot. Not a flicker of doubt. Not even a passing thought that something was off. It was closer to a command hardwired into my skull. Maybe doing something every single day for that long just... rewires you that way.
I wouldn't know. Neurology was never my field. I was a humanities student in my last life — how would I know? The only time I ever read anything about the brain was when it turned up in some standardized test passage.
"Hah..."
I went into Kyle's room anyway. He wasn't there, but it was still his room.
It was quiet. Of course it was — I was the only person in it. It hadn't been noisy even when Kyle was around, though.
"Might as well clean..."
The maids had probably been in a few times already, since Kyle's room had been sitting empty. They just hadn't done it today. Not that it mattered either way. I was already in here, and I had nothing else to do.
So I started cleaning Kyle's room. I borrowed a duster and a rag from a maid passing in the hallway and got to work. Kyle had never been the type to enjoy a mess, so there wasn't any trash rolling around on the floor. Unlike a certain mage friend of mine.
"Nngh... mm... hup... ahhh..."
I finished up and stretched, and it felt incredible.
Now what?
Without really thinking about it, I sat down on Kyle's bed. And then, still sitting there...
Thump.
I tipped sideways and lay down.
The only thing I felt was that it was comfortable. No particular scent. No rush of feeling. No urge to stay there forever. Just comfortable, and nothing else.
The last time I'd lain here, it had felt so good I'd wanted to stay like that indefinitely.
"Ah. I was just exhausted that time, wasn't I?"
That would explain it. I'd been unbelievably tired. If someone told me to do that again, I honestly wouldn't want to. I'd only acted tough because Kyle was right there — the truth was it had been filthy hard. Filthy hard.
"Hah..."
I had no idea what to do with myself today. I'd been reading, the way Louise suggested, but trying to read all day every day for a week had worn the novelty right off. Of course it had. How was anyone supposed to enjoy doing nothing but read from morning to night? You needed to take it in moderation and mix in other things.
"Haah..."
A thought occurred to me. Lately, the thing I'd been saying more than anything else was a sigh. Calling a breath a "thing I'd been saying" sounded a little strange, but it was true. Anything happened and I was going haah, hah, whew. Even I could tell I was doing it too much.
In my last life there used to be this nonsense about how sighing drives your good fortune away. I hadn't believed it then, and I believed it even less now. If sighing really chased off your luck, I'd be dead by now, wouldn't I? I kept sighing and I kept not dying, so it was bullshit after all.
"One week left."
Until Kyle came back. Eight days out of fifteen were gone. The whole point had been to last fifteen days. Meaning he'd arrive on January 16th. I'd have liked him to come on the 15th, but there was nothing I could do about it.
"A whole week of vacation still left..."
Vacation or not, there was nothing to do with it. Seven days wasn't enough to travel anywhere — by the time I reached another region, the vacation would already be over. If I'd had a full month, I might have gone home. I'd only exchanged letters with my parents since they sent me to the boarding academy, and even those had tapered off lately.
Ah — I could always visit after I finished my work in Eristirol. It was going to wrap up within a few months anyway. No need to rush. I could take my time.
"Quitting my job in Eristirol, huh..."
It felt incredibly strange. Because I'd worked here for eight years? Even graduating from the boarding academy hadn't felt like this. I'd attended from about elementary-school age, in past-life terms, until I was sixteen, and it hadn't felt anything like this. Back then I'd just been glad I wouldn't have to look at those shitty bastards anymore.
"What are those guys even doing these days?"
I'd been near the top of the class, but they hadn't been trash-tier either. I remembered them sitting somewhere between the upper-middle and the middle of the rankings. And yet I hadn't run into a single one of them since we left the academy. Not once. You'd think I'd cross paths with at least one of them eventually.
"Mmmmh..."
No matter how hard I thought about it, I genuinely never had. It wasn't as if the academy had been small. How had I not bumped into a single one of them? Even the servants hanging around the nobles last time I was in the capital hadn't been any of those assholes.
Was I the only one from that year's graduating class who'd landed a job with a noble house?
"Pfft..."
If that were true, it would be hilarious. The thought of those bastards who'd given me hell over the dumbest shit falling behind me even in employment was enough to make me laugh. The ones who'd said my tits were so big I'd be slow at cleaning. Who'd spouted bullshit about how my employer would stare at my unnecessarily huge chest. Who'd called me a whore just for changing clothes. Imagining those same people losing to me on the job front was genuinely funny.
"Ha... haha..."
I laughed for a few seconds, then let my face settle again. Thinking about those bastards didn't actually feel that good.
I'd once told Kyle something to the effect that it was better to just let that kind of thing slide. When I was injured, I think? Probably. He'd been so worried he was almost in tears, so I'd said it to put him at ease.
It hadn't been wrong. I'd figured, well, these things happen — you live long enough, you run into every flavor of bullshit. But I wasn't some perfectly kind, innocent person either.
With Kyle, it genuinely hadn't been his fault. That really had been a these things happen situation. Those bastards were different.
"If I actually said this to Kyle, would it tank how he sees me?"
I'd worked hard to be a cool adult in front of him. I'd wanted him to grow up kind, admirable, good. If I said the things I'd just been thinking out loud, that image would shatter, wouldn't it? I was pretty sure it would. I'd be startled too, if someone I thought was admirable suddenly let something like that out of their mouth. It wouldn't sound like them at all.
"Haha..."
I was supposed to be an adult. Maybe I still had some bratty kid left in me.
Today, of all days, the useless thoughts just kept circling.
"Aaaah!!! I miss you, Miss Sophia!"
I shouted it in the opposite direction from the territory. It had already been over a week since I'd last seen her, and I couldn't stop thinking about her. Not that I ever could, really.
"Haaah... there's nothing to do."
I'd been hunting, and the blood had sprayed enough that I'd long since thrown my shirt on the ground. There was nothing to do. Nothing to eat, either. There was food, technically, but it didn't taste like anything. Unlike other regions, this was not a place where you could just pick spices out of the wild. At the estate and the castle it was fine — we bought them in from elsewhere. Our family had money. We regularly took down the monsters that came down from the mountains and sold the goods, and there was a certain amount of support from the Imperial Family as well.
"The Imperial Family..."
Something from years ago surfaced without warning. Something already several years old. The day I'd first arrived in the capital and made my debut. The day Miss Sophia had been so terribly worried.
I'd thought it was fascinating, how a person's eyes could be purple. Ordinary blonde hair, and then those violet irises. Miss Sophia had told me once that purple was the color of the Imperial Family. They'd probably chosen it because their own eyes were that rare shade of violet. Our house wasn't so different, in that respect.
"A white wolf for a house sigil... it is pretty cool."
There were bears and snow leopards and plenty of other beasts, but they'd gone with a wolf. If I had to guess why my ancestors picked it, it wasn't complicated. Wolves hunt in packs. They're intelligent. They take the role of a leader seriously. That was probably it.
"Wolves..."
When we'd walked through the capital's menagerie, Miss Sophia had mentioned wolves. Honestly, I'd let my thoughts run in some strange directions that day. The woman I liked had suddenly brought up the animal that symbolized my house. Of course, Miss Sophia had only been explaining things, the way she always did.
"Haha... one week left... more than half over, actually."
Yes. More than half. Already. It had gone faster than I'd expected, too.
"Hah..."
I was worried, though. Knowing my father's personality, the moment this was over he was going to pile work on me. And then announce he was going off on another trip. But I had things I needed to do for a while myself. A lot of things, all of them related to Miss Sophia. I needed to get closer to her. I needed to get her to see me as a man. And there were any number of steps after that.
"I'll talk with Miss Sophia a little when I get back, then go see Father."
Above all else, I missed her. So it couldn't be helped.