The Scented Thing - 5
“What brings you here?”
“Hmm... I think it would be best to build a bit of atmosphere with some idle conversation before getting to the point.”
Lobelia said it as she sat down as naturally as if this were her own room. She glanced around, looking this way and that as though searching for something, then clicked her tongue and sent me a sulky look.
It was the kind of gaze that looked almost reproachful.
“No rum?”
“I’ve been keeping the rum in a separate place since that little mishap last time.”
“What mishap? You merely laid me on the bed and that was that. Still, I suppose a village boy like you, Hawin, would never have experienced a woman like me, would you?”
Lobelia gave a little snort of laughter and tossed the remark out as a joke. She flicked me a sideways glance, as if expecting an answer, but it was difficult to speak.
It’s probably not a good idea to say, I’ve seen too much of that to care anymore...
So I kept my composure and smiled brightly instead.
Of course, inside, I was working my brain overtime to make sense of the situation.
It would be too easy to assume she’d come because she’d lost her mind like last time; after all, during the long council meeting, she’d seemed perfectly sane.
Was it about Lady Aran? Roswell? The meeting? Treason?
Too many possibilities.
Some of them involved my head being cut off on the spot.
I wasn’t afraid of death, but I was afraid of Lobelia not being happy without me.
She had high expectations this time around.
“No answer. I’ll take that as agreement.”
With a slightly sullen look, Lobelia opened the drawer beneath the desk.
Rattle.
Inside it was a bottle of rum that, to my knowledge, hadn’t even been put there.
W-what? Magic? Sorcery?
I stared at it, dumbfounded.
Meeting my vacant stare, Lobelia curled her lips into a meaningful smile.
“How could we trust you, after all? The moment your carriage set off, we searched everything. There was surprisingly little in the way of luxury goods... and almost everything was artifacts and intelligence, so I was suspicious. Still, I suppose that’s exactly like you. I had the rum tucked away as a gift.”
“...So that’s why the arrangement felt a little different.”
“It’s a fine gift for me now.”
Lobelia shook the bottle with obvious satisfaction, and the liquor inside sloshed with a wet, rich sound.
She motioned to the bed, telling me to sit, and I took a rough seat on the edge before asking, “When did you start liking alcohol?”
“Does it look as though I like it? It’s necessary.”
For a moment, Lobelia looked at the rum.
“Alcohol numbs a person’s reason and makes them more emotional—more truthful, in a way. Right now, it’s time to show my true self rather than my reason.”
“...And why are you so good with words? I have so many questions.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead as if a headache were coming on.
Then, as though it were nothing, she shrugged and turned a water glass upside down on the desk, spilling the contents onto the floor.
“Why do you think I’ve changed?” she asked evenly.
“I’m not fond of answering a question with another question, but... I don’t really know.”
I shook my head. I did have some guesses, but nothing I could state with certainty.
Could someone really change that much from nothing but emotion and memory? In such a short time... like this?
...I can’t quite imagine it.
Lobelia stared at me in silence for a while. Her red eyes slowly sank, as if they were laying bare my heart for her to read.
She refilled the emptied glass with rum and said, “Let’s call it complicated.”
“...”
“It’s all tangled together. It isn’t simple.”
Lobelia offered a bitter smile and threw back the liquor in one gulp.
Is that stuff water?
It wasn’t beer. It was rum.
Strong rum, too.
Seeing her like that, when she’d usually only sip wine, made me feel oddly unsettled.
Her mouth was clearly smiling, bright and sweet, but everything inside her seemed to be growing more and more complicated.
“I’ve talked too long. Will you drink as well?”
“Sure.”
When she offered me the same drink she’d been nursing, I hesitated for a moment before nodding.
A satisfied smile touched her lips.
“Hawin, you’ve changed too. Do you know that?”
“How so? I remember being exactly the same.”
“At first, you always smiled so falsely and toyed with people. There wasn’t even the slightest change in your expression.”
I took a sip of the rum and listened. Well, back then, things hadn’t been nearly this complicated.
Lobelia laughed teasingly and pointed at my eyes with one finger.
“But those eyes were never quite the same.”
“Kheh. Is that so?”
“Look at you now. Your clothes are disheveled, and you look so pathetic there isn’t even a trace of sharpness left. You probably threw them on the moment you heard me knock.”
I started and looked down at myself in confusion, patting at my clothes with my hands.
Things I normally kept carefully in order were no longer neat.
But the difference was so minor it would barely be worth mentioning.
Did she notice?
When I looked back at her in bewilderment, Lobelia tilted her head as if to say, Isn’t that right?
Her faint smile left me dazed for a moment.
She rose from the chair and stood before me.
When I looked up, her blood-red eyes looked down at me.
“Let’s go back to the question from before. What is it you want? No—what is it?”
“...”
“Now that I think about it, it was strange. You know, Hawin. You hate luxury so much you practically despise it, and even if there are nobles you could use, you might have been able to swallow this empire whole together with Kalufen.”
Lobelia fixed me with a steady gaze, as though she were trying to peer straight into my insides.
I wanted to look away from those red eyes, lit with a kind of feverish delight, but I found myself staring back as if bewitched.
She poked my chest with one finger.
“It’s a simple process of elimination. You threw away money, power, honor, everything, without hesitation.”
“Princess Lobelia, you seem a little too excited.”
“I am excited. If anything, that means I can tell you what’s in my heart. Why do you think excitement is bad? Because people become violent?”
Lobelia asked with a chilling smile.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry.
...I’ve been dragged into this.
I had no idea what her aim was, but this feeling was no good.
No, did she even have a goal? Was she just about to spit out whatever had been festering in her heart?
A strange scent of alcohol hung in the air.
“You’re far too suspicious. Don’t you know that?”
“...How rude, saying you’ve been digging into my past. A person is supposed to have some secrets to be attractive.”
“Ha! Then Kalufen must be an insanely attractive man, huh?”
With a scoff, Lobelia pressed her finger firmly against my chest.
I couldn’t hide my flustered expression. I gently moved her finger away with my hand and forced an awkward smile.
“That language is a little too crude... please mind your dignity.”
“I gave up dignity a long time ago, back when I started spending time with you. And besides, you hate anything luxurious that much. This is better, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. You’re a princess, after all.”
“Hmm?”
Lobelia furrowed her delicate brows, clearly displeased by something. She let out a long sigh.
Raking a hand through her hair with obvious irritation, she gave me a vexed look.
Red light flashed in her eyes.
“Haah... I’m not a princess. I’m Lobelia. The same way you’re Hawin.”
“...”
“We’ve drifted off-topic. Anyway, the reasoning goes like this. A man named Hawin, who should have been toiling in the fields in some backwater village, came to the Imperial Palace with an invitation and swept through the entire nobility. Well... that could happen.”
Lobelia nodded and shrugged.
...What exactly is she talking about?
Why question me here instead of in the council chamber?
And why speak only when it’s the two of us, while borrowing alcohol to do it? Was this really such a difficult thing to say?
“You prevented Lady Aran’s poisoning, and on top of that, you got hold of her leash. In an instant, you became an object of fear and fascination among the nobility. And then you even managed to approach me... strange, but possible.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m still reasoning things out. Could you stay quiet for a moment?”
Lobelia pressed a finger against my lips and shushed me.
There was heat in her gaze, so I shut my mouth.
It was the look of a madwoman.
Someone like Sierti.
With a soft little laugh, she placed a hand over her own chest.
“If all of this was just to steal the heart of me, the beautiful Princess Lobelia, then I can understand it.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed?”
“If I were embarrassed, I wouldn’t have drunk, would I? Ahem.”
Lobelia gave a small, awkward cough, as if embarrassed after all, then twirled a finger in the air.
“And yet, in the middle of all that, there were a few things that couldn’t be explained. Why did I know your name? Why did I miss you, resent you, and feel uneasy around you?”
With the information she had now, there wasn’t much Lobelia could conclude.
Even if she guessed my true purpose, her logic would have to leap across several impossible gaps. Regression was like that.
“But you said you wanted to stay by my side. You never flirted with me at all... if anything, you kept doing things I disliked. You made me wary of you more than fond of you.”
“...”
“And then, to stop the Nine Kingdoms, you personally go west? That’s nothing like the Hawin I knew. The truth isn’t simple.”
“At this point, I’m curious. What is the truth?”
I set a hand to my head and let out a heavy sigh.
Lobelia leaned in close.
Smiling.
Her blood-red eyes looked at me from only a breath away.
“It’s me. Not the princess—me. Lobelia herself.”