Still, the Days Pass - 5
Including a fork with the cake box. For the seller it was only a trifling bit of extra work, yet for the buyer it felt like genuine consideration that put the mind at ease. At the expo, packing forks, knives, and napkins had drawn an explosive reaction, after all.
Though if the sellers were imperial royalty and a prince of the blood, they could probably have sold garbage and still gotten an explosive reaction.
"It was delicious. It feels wasteful to finish it all at once."
Sera smiled as she cut the cake into small bites with her fork.
There was nothing wasteful about it. Cakes of this sort were everyday fare in the Baking Club. If Sera liked them, I could make them as often as she wanted.
"I'll keep making them for you the whole time you're home on the estate."
"Hehe, really? I'd be in trouble if I put on weight, though."
Still smiling, Sera gently nudged the cake to one side.
I could only manage a wry smile at the sight. Sera had always had a small appetite. After all the suffering her illness had put her through, she simply could not eat much.
Even now she had managed only a few bites before setting the fork down, and she had sidestepped any happy acceptance of my offer to keep baking for her.
The aftereffects are still with her.
I bit my lip. I had thought she was much better than before, yet the traces of the disease remained.
Well—of course they did. It was a sickness that had tormented Sera her entire life; expecting no mark at all would have been greedy. That she could rise from bed and talk freely was already something.
"I'm fine, Sir Knight. You aren't planning to fatten a lady up on purpose, are you?"
As if she had read the thoughts behind my eyes, Sera took my hand and teased me.
Strangely, I had never been able to hide anything from Sera, not even as a child. It was almost enough to make me wonder whether she had learned some mind-reading magic.
And it was mortifying. The one who ought to be receiving comfort was Sera, not me—yet here I was, being soothed by my ailing friend. The name of Crassius would weep.
"You need to put on a little weight."
I forced a smile as I spoke, and Sera's eyes went round with exaggerated shock.
"Does Erich have that sort of taste? Planning to fatten me up and eat me?"
Watching her clap a hand theatrically over her chest and curl in on herself, I could not help laughing. She had turned me into a cannibal in the space of a breath.
"Caught me. I was going to triple your weight."
"You're not a knight at all—you're a wicked demon."
At that, both of us burst out laughing together.
The bitter edge to my mood eased a little.
Sera carried every disadvantage imaginable.
A young lady who had spent her whole life inside the mansion. The only way she ever learned of the outside world was through other people's stories. Yet her noble rank made it impossible to speak freely with the servants. From childhood she had lived under conditions more than sufficient to cut her off from the world.
That was why, whenever I visited, she seized me and refused to let go. Apart from her family, I was the only person she could truly talk to.
"I heard the Academy is bigger than most cities. Is that true?"
"The Academy itself isn't bigger than a city—rather, an entire city grew up around it."
"I see."
Not that I minded. My character was not so base that I would ignore a friend's loneliness, and conversation with Sera always settled my heart.
Besides, I always went to see her knowing I would be kept a long while.
"Of course the Academy grounds are large in their own right. It is the Empire's finest educational institution, after all."
Sera nodded eagerly.
Of course she was interested. She had been fascinated by the Academy since she was little. For a girl who loved learning new things, the place must have seemed like a utopia.
It was only sad that she had no choice but to regard a school any noble could enter as an ideal. It had been the same for my older brother, though for different reasons.
"Ah, that's right. I heard this year's incoming students are quite unique."
The remark came out of nowhere, as if she had only just remembered it.
I paused, trying to recall which "unique" students she meant. Anyone would know she meant those three, yet we spent so much time stuck together that I sometimes forgot their ranks entirely.
"Unique is right. There's a foreign prince and the next Saint among them. You won't see another entering class like that anytime soon."
"How curious. I knew there were foreign students, but royalty as well?"
"Because they're complete lunatics."
The answer slipped out before it could pass through my brain. Sera blinked at me in startled confusion.
Damn it—I should have dressed that up a little. I had blurted the unvarnished truth. The last thing I needed was to alarm her.
"We're close, that's all. Same club."
It sounded like an excuse, but it was true. After living in the same club, they no longer looked like lofty personages—only like idiots you could never quite understand how they had ended up in high places.
"So Erich has a prince in his network now?"
"If you can call that a network, then yes."
"What a splendid knight. How impressive."
The "Sir Knight" jabs that always arrived just when I had begun to forget them left me light-headed. The bright smile and little clap of her hands made it clear she was teasing me on purpose.
I resented the me of eight years ago. Why had I said something that would become a lifelong source of embarrassment? Then again, could a nine-year-old really have been expected to show better judgment?
"But if they're Erich's friends—I'd rather like to meet them myself."
As Sera twirled a strand of hair around her finger, the faces of the three who ought to be back in their own countries floated into my mind.
They were not the stuffy, hierarchical type; meeting Sera would have been no trouble. Unfortunately there was simply no way to arrange it now. Ridiculous. They had loitered in the Empire when they had no need to be here, only to bolt across the border the moment Sera wanted to see them. Completely useless, the lot of them.
"Next summer break, if the chance comes, I'll bring them. They're all oddballs, so it should be entertaining."
I spun the thought through my head and offered the most reasonable answer I could. The three had already gone home; next year was the earliest I could aim for.
"It's all right. If people like that suddenly arrived as guests, the servants would have heart attacks."
Her thoroughly sensible refusal made me wince with self-reproach.
I really had gone mad. Spending so much time as one of that pack had scrambled my common sense. I had nearly inflicted a mental shock on Sera, who still needed calm and stability.
"Anyway, I'll be able to see them in person soon enough."
?
My mind stopped cold. See them in person—what was that supposed to mean?
"I've decided to enroll at the Academy."
???
"…The Academy?"
"Mm-hm."
Her sunny answer left me speechless. Enrolling at the Academy out of nowhere? That was no casual outing. Had her condition improved that far?
The nanny would never send her off recklessly.
For an instant I wondered whether I should try to stop her—but the nanny adored Sera more than anyone. There was no chance she had overlooked the worries that were racing through my own head; if the risk had been real she would have dragged Sera back by the ear already.
Still… was it truly all right? What if living in an unfamiliar place only made her worse again?
"I'll be entering as a second-year. It's a pity first-year life will be skipped, but—"
Sera gently took my hand while I sat there in confusion. The bashful little smile she gave me felt exactly like a quiet "don't worry."
"If I were a year behind Erich, there'd be times when we were apart. I hate that idea."
"…If that's the problem, I could come every day during the breaks…"
"No. I want to make memories together with Erich."
In that moment I felt a little resentful of her. Why did she have to be so firm about things like this?
"Don't worry. The mages and the priests all said it was fine. I'm not fully cured yet, but… they said I can manage at least what everyone else does."
And then she had the gall to bring in expert testimony. Once she put it that way, I had no grounds left to object.
"Besides, with Sir Knight here, what is there to worry about?"
"I'm the last person you should put your faith in."
A short laugh escaped me. She had blocked every possible objection with perfect reasoning, only to finish with something so clumsy.
I was no more than an ordinary young master of a house—neither as strong nor as steadfast as Sera believed. Her trust was so extravagant it left me sheepish.
"Why? Are you already serving some other lady?"
But the faint note of disappointment in her voice made me shake my head at once. I had almost been, once—but not now. Embarrassingly enough, I was a free knight with no one to serve.
…Well, when everyone else said it was fine, opposing her alone would have been absurd. And after all the lonely years Sera had spent shut away, she was finally going to step into the light of the world. As her friend I could hardly stand in her way when I ought to be celebrating.
So I held out my hand. If Sera wanted a knight, that much of a role I could play without trouble.
"My lady. Choose the wrong knight and you may regret it for the rest of your life."
"Hehe—that doesn't apply to me, does it?"
Sometimes it seemed she believed in me more than I believed in myself.
After Erich left, I stared at my right hand for a long time.
"Then, my lady. For the next two years I will protect you with everything I am."
Erich had kissed the back of my hand exactly like a knight out of a fairy tale. If I had let my guard down even a little, I might have let out a squeal of pure happiness.
"Then I'll be Sera's knight! If an angel comes to take Sera away, I'll chase it off!"
The words nine-year-old Erich had spoken to me eight years ago, when my illness was at its worst, rose unbidden. In the Erich who had just kissed my hand I saw that little boy overlapping perfectly.
Of course it had been a childish vow. Yet those childish words had been the salvation that kept me from giving up. And Erich himself had never regretted them. He only found them mortifying now because the phrasing had been so pure and full of childhood dreams.
"You could protect me for life, you know."
I murmured the words absently while stroking the back of my hand.
Two years—how stingy. Would it hurt him to guard me for a lifetime? The Crassius family would pass to big brother Karl anyway; Erich could look after me and me alone.
"Idiot."
Still, I liked it. That idiotic side of him was part of Erich too.
…I'm so glad.
Only then did the wave of relief crash over me. If—if Erich had already given his heart to someone else—I might have collapsed all over again.
My own personal knight, the knight I meant to spend a lifetime with. I had endured all those years looking only toward that one hope. If some other lady had snatched him away while I could not even move, it would have been unbearable.
Enen watched over me.
Yet in the year Erich spent at the Academy, no one had stolen him away.
Truly, Enen had protected me. Though He had given me this illness, in return He had granted me a bond more precious than any other.
Not much longer now.
I forced my racing heart to calm and counted the days. Two months. In roughly two months I too would be living at the Academy.
He had mentioned the Baking Club, so I would join that. Even if we ended up in different classes, sharing a club would let me see him often.
We would spend our school days together, meet more often than ever before, grow closer still…
Hehe…
I was happy. These would almost certainly be the finest two years of my life.