4. Have You Never Even Read a Romance Novel? (3)
"And where might you be going at this late hour—again?"
"?!"
He had thrown his body out the window only moments before.
The voice rose from the front garden of the manor, as though it had been waiting there for him all along.
"…."
The instant his feet met the ground, his mother stood before him in plain, unadorned dress, fixing him with a long, level stare.
Her darkly sunken eyes, caught in the glow of a small lantern, seemed bleak beyond all describing.
"Slipping out into the night yet again, are we?"
"…."
"Why do you not answer?"
Whatever had lifted his spirits moments ago was flung to the far bottom of the sea.
"Because Rueld asked it of me, I have pretended not to notice and let it all slide… but the situation has changed now, Cariel. You are Her Imperial Highness's betrothed."
"…The betrothal ceremony hasn't even been held yet."
"The moment His Majesty proclaimed it publicly and in grand fashion, it became a settled matter."
In that brief span, the moisture in his mouth dried to dust.
"Unsavory rumors are circulating."
"I…."
"I know. That you did not cross the final line—I know at least that much."
But.
"The eyes of the world will not see it that way. From this point on, even the smallest lapse must not be tolerated. That is what I am telling you."
"…."
"Because you are the son of Rueld and me."
He very nearly bit through his tongue.
He caught himself and ground his teeth shut instead.
His breathing had gone ragged of its own accord, but he bowed his head as far as he could, strangling the heat rising in his chest.
"And I hear you have shown a careless attitude toward your swordsmanship lessons. What is the meaning of that?"
She even knows about that?
No—she can't be bothered to notice what actually matters, but somehow she keeps perfect track of things like this?
"…."
"Answer me. How long do you intend to keep your reasons to yourself? Do you truly believe staying silent will resolve anything?"
"I thought it was… pointless."
"Pointless… wh-what did you just say to me?"
Any other time.
Absolutely, absolutely, he would never have let slip an excuse this saturated with emotion—no, was it a straight answer? Defiance?
Whatever it was, he would never have bared an attitude like that so bluntly.
And yet, somehow—
he couldn't bear it. He simply couldn't hold it in.
But I'm right, aren't I?
Grit—
"And just what could be more foolish and inefficient than clinging to something that was never going to happen in the first place?"
"…."
As if her tongue had failed her, she stood blinking at him for a long while, lost in blank disbelief.
"You call that… an excuse?"
"Do you honestly consider it one?"
"Then what would you call that incorrigible attitude of yours?!"
The instant she flared up—
"M-Milady! Please, compose yourself! Agitation is not good for the child!"
a woman fluttered anxiously to her side and barely managed to hold her back.
Patina?
The girl who had joined the very knightly order their father commanded as its youngest member ever.
Golden Dragon.
She who bore that epithet—Geumyong, the Gold Dragon—stood there wrapped in a black formal uniform that stood in stark contrast to it, and for some reason, she had come all this way.
"…."
Stroking her swollen belly, Ermina drew a short breath.
In mere seconds, she had recovered her composure.
"You have seen an unseemly side of me."
"N-no, Lady Ermina. How could you say such a—"
And then Patina wheeled on him, eyes blazing.
"I will give the young lord a proper lecture myself. So please… worry no longer. Now, off you go—into the house. Quickly."
"But…."
"Lady Ermina. I beg you, trust me."
"Haah."
With a sigh, Ermina feigned reluctant surrender and turned toward the house.
At the very last, she threw Cariel one lingering, wistful glance—but even that was cut off the moment the door closed.
"Young lord. It has been a while."
"…."
Even her pale brown hair was swallowed by the darkness, giving off a jet-black sheen.
But where the moonlight touched it, it shifted all at once to a blinding white—just like her father's.
It was all an illusion of the light.
And yet within that shifting color, one thing alone held fast: a pair of eyes of vivid green, blue-tinged like leaves burned by the summer sun, fixed on him with unblinking intensity.
"I am disappointed in you."
"…?"
What?
"No matter what the people around me said, I refused to listen. I refused to believe any of it. So tell me—how is it that you have become so insolent, so utterly lawless?"
"…Sister. It seems your temperament has soured somewhat in my absence?"
At that, she froze on the verge of snapping back, then groaned low and let a bitter smile escape instead.
"Still… you do call me 'sister.' If you had forgotten even that, then I think… bearing everything would have been very hard on me indeed."
"…."
His chest ached for no reason he could name.
It wasn't the shock of a heart plunging through the floor—this was something else entirely, a pain that went beyond churning guts into something that felt like his ribs caving in on themselves.
Something impossible, in the end, to put into words.
"Sir Rueld asked that, should I find any spare time, I look after Lady Ermina and… you, Cariel—just in case."
"…."
What a useless thing to arrange.
No—not useless.
Guarding my mother—fine, that's necessary.
…No, wait. By that logic, does that mean this whole situation is just the natural order of things too?
"…."
So what am I supposed to do about it?
Why should I have to keep account of every last one of these things?
"Is that any way to speak to your lady mother?"
"…You've only just arrived, and you don't know the circumstances. Leave it at that."
"And what is it I don't know? Isn't the situation crystal clear?"
"Crystal clear?"
Why do people who don't know the first thing always have to go poking where they shouldn't?
Haah…
Right.
Looked at coolly, objectively… it must have seemed like a rebellious brat of a son talking back to his pregnant, hypersensitive mother at her most raw-nerved.
Ah. Put that way, I've got no argument left.
What does that make me… a villain pure and simple, huh?
And Patina's next words drove that suspicion home like a nail.
"You've grown too jaded even to bother making excuses. To think that someone as clever as you would abandon even the pretense of making others understand—of persuading anyone. Shall we simply take it that you accept your faults in full?"
"Ha!"
Damn it all…
Even so, he couldn't quite spit out the curse.
"Young lord. You made a promise to me, didn't you."
Together.
"…To follow in Lord Rueld's footsteps, and to ease his labors—his burdens—even by a fraction."
"…."
Did I?
When was that even supposed to have happened?
I don't want to think about it.
If something had surfaced unbidden, that in itself would have been its own kind of curse.
But truly, regrettably—
by pure coincidence—
…nothing came to mind at all.
"Have you… forgotten?"
Why are you making that face?
Why…
Why are you looking at me like I'm the one who betrayed you?
If anyone was betrayed by the world, it was me, wasn't it?
"I see."
The descent from rage into resignation came far, far too smoothly.
Which was to say—
she had hoped for him, even while giving up on hoping long, long ago.
Just in case.
Because she couldn't quite help it.
"So I was the only one who kept trying. How foolish of me."
"…."
"Right up until the rumor spread that you had given up even holding a sword, I refused to believe it."
Young lord.
No—Cariel.
"You truly have… now you've…."
"Who gave you the right to be disappointed in me?"
If it had been the old him.
If it had been the him of ordinary days—
then he would have said nothing. He would have let them misunderstand on their own, despair on their own, resign themselves on their own, and then snap then get out of my face—
cursing them silently, grumbling to himself in the dark—
and like that,
staring holes into the floor, patiently enduring the slow rot of time, he would have simply waited it out until the end.
Oh?
A windfall rolling straight into my lap, vine and all?
He had been feeling the pinch for real combat experience anyway.
That one—trouble just erupts wherever he breathes.
Well… being born to misfortune was a settled fact the moment I got tangled up with him, I suppose.
Any other day, he'd have swallowed a heaping serving of scolding and curled up in a corner like a whipped cur—but tonight he'd stood right up to Ermina's face.
And if it had ended there, well. But the situation just kept getting more entertaining.
The Demon King—perched at his leisure somewhere high in the sky, far outside the reach of Cariel's senses.
Denounced by a woman bound to him by old ties, resented, blamed—until at last the boy couldn't take it anymore, pushed back, and stood his ground.
"Draw your sword. I will beat some proper sense into that head of yours!"
"Why should I? Weren't knights supposed to protect the weak? Or is it that without resorting to violence, you can't even manage to get your own opinions across?"
"How very polished your words are. So tell me—which of us is the one who's frightened and blustering?"
Unyielding.
She was glaring at Cariel in pure fury.
And that fury—
'He squandered my expectations. He broke his promise. No—to think he forgot it entirely!'
—was laced through with a naked, unmistakable sense of betrayal, laid bare for anyone to read.
In a case like this, for Cariel, it would be enough to drive him out of his mind.
'Why do you expect things of me of your own accord? Why do you despair of me of your own accord?'
Lines that could cross a thousand times and still never meet; threads that could tangle forever and still never blend.
A mess!
A quagmire!
Heh… heh heh…
Hahahaha!
Idly, lazily spectating at someone else's misfortune from some utterly uninvolved vantage—it was, as always, a delightful pastime.
In the end, Cariel, who had held back and held back, took the bait.
Sword in hand, he followed the woman in black to the training ground behind the manor—the open yard set aside for drills.
Two figures facing each other, wooden swords gripped.
What has changed—wake yourself up to it, with your own flesh.
…And what it is you truly need.
Necessity, after all, only becomes real once you have lived through the situation that demands it.
Those who have eaten their fill, and eaten their fill again—
no matter the hour, they simply cannot grasp the need for the food that keeps them alive.
Still, it's a mercy that you've recovered even a little of the confidence to talk back.
A slave's temperament, a defeatist's stains—those are ever so hard to wash out.
To someone, it might have been the lowliest, smallest of steps.
But it was, without question, a step that had to be taken.