Say It (3)
Alcohol is a kind of awakenizer for people. It gives confidence to the timid, and courage to the weak.
So what kind of power would it breathe into Roseline, who already possessed both confidence and courage in full measure?
A mask.
Yes. Roseline was wearing an expression called a mask over that beautiful face, trying to announce to everyone exactly who she was.
The Veloa family has not yet fallen.
Roseline Veloa has not yet backed down.
That was the impression she wanted to leave on everyone gathered in this banquet hall, and she was minding every detail down to the very fingertips holding her glass.
For all that, it was still the sight of someone holding their ground in front of a pack of hyenas drawn in by rumor.
And yet that expression was, as always, unbearably lovely.
A face striving not to fall apart.
"I do have a taste for faces like that, though—faces on the verge of breaking."
"So this is where you were, my lady."
A familiar voice sounded at my side. I turned my head to find Isabel approaching quietly. Her face was as impeccably composed as ever, though today it showed a faint weariness from fending off troublesome people.
"You're late for once, Isabel."
"My apologies. A great many people were intent on striking up conversation with me."
Well, that figured.
Isabel, my maid, was the third daughter of a count. She served at my side now as a lady-in-waiting, but the name Isabel Lowen itself was not one to be taken lightly.
"Watching Lady Veloa again, I see."
"It's the one pleasure of my life."
"Struggling... is she?"
"Mm. Very prettily."
Roseline stood at the center of the hall, holding court with the crowd.
Surrounded on all sides, she was fielding the words that came at her one by one, meeting each in turn.
The nobles around her were dressed flamboyantly enough, but even among them, it was true that she drew the eye more than anyone. The deep navy made her pink hair and eyes all the more vivid, and her graceful neckline caught the gaze strangely every time she lifted her chin.
The dress was not so ornate that it would invite mockery over the Veloas' ruin, nor so plain that the nobles' sneers could find purchase on it.
"The mask suits her rather well, doesn't it?"
"Those are words Lady Veloa would find deeply unpleasant to hear."
"Which is why I only say them here."
"The stares around you are already quite blatant, my lady."
"Endure it."
"Me?"
"Yes."
Isabel swallowed briefly—a face holding back a sigh.
Roseline's mask was remarkably seamless. She distinguished with precision between the genuine concern and the barbed mockery hidden inside each remark, answered with flawless courtesy, and showed a clear understanding of both her position and how to carry herself within it.
She was doing well.
In the space where the sneers around her had bent away the moment I stood at her side, Roseline was holding the line on her own.
So that it wouldn't look like she was hiding under the Arzen family's protection.
So that even in a dress I had chosen for her, she could prove she was not my shadow.
Her struggling was a truly amusing thing to watch.
"By the way, my lady. Lady Veloa is drinking."
"I know."
There was no way I didn't know.
A glass sat in Roseline's hand.
At first it must have been mere courtesy. Someone had proposed a toast, Roseline hadn't refused, and it could have ended at a single sip—but the problem was what came after.
A person with a glass in hand finds silence much easier to bear.
Bring the glass to your lips before answering, and you buy time; when an uncomfortable question arrives, you can pretend to swallow while gathering your breath.
Roseline was exploiting that beautifully.
The only problem was that she seemed entirely incapable of calculating how much she was drinking.
"Do you think she knows her own limit?"
"She probably does. Surely she wouldn't drink without knowing it."
"Shouldn't we stop her anyway?"
"Why?"
Isabel looked at me for a moment.
"She may become intoxicated."
"Mm."
"My lady."
"Isabel. If I stopped her now, do you think she'd listen to me?"
"She would not."
"Then it's better to leave her be."
"Is that truly the only reason?"
"No. I'm curious."
Alcohol gives people courage.
But Roseline had no need for new courage. She was, and had always been, someone who did not run.
Which meant what alcohol could offer her lay on the other side entirely.
The words she would ordinarily have held onto to the very end. The feelings swallowed behind her lips. The cracks invisible because she was forged too hard.
Alcohol would probably let a little of that seep out.
"You truly never grow curious in any decent sense, my lady."
"Curiosity in a decent sense isn't any fun."
"Which is precisely why I worry."
"Don't. You've seen enough to know how dearly I treasure Roseline."
Roseline accepted a second glass.
No one had offered it. She had simply handed her empty glass to a passing servant and taken a fresh one. The motion was so natural that she herself seemed entirely unaware of it.
She probably thought it was still the first glass.
Oblivious to the fact that her glass had changed at all.
"Lady Veloa."
A noblewoman approached her.
I didn't remember her name. Closer to the truth: I'd never felt any need to. A couple of similar faces trailed behind her.
"That dress is stunning on you today. I hear Lady Arzen chose it for you herself?"
"...I received aid far beyond my deserving."
Her voice was calm, but I caught it. That answer carried a brief anguish and a silence all its own.
"I had no idea the two of you were so close."
"We are not close enough to be called so."
"Oh, really? Even so, choosing your clothes for you—doesn't that make you rather special?"
"...'Special' does not seem a fitting word."
"Then what should we call your relationship?"
"A necessary one."
For an instant the air around them stopped, and Roseline herself wore the belated realization that her phrasing had come out rather strange.
I covered my mouth.
Ah. She keeps tempting me.
"A... necessary relationship, you say?"
"...Exactly as it sounds."
Roseline raised the glass to her lips again.
"The House of Veloa is currently receiving Lady Arzen's assistance. Nothing more, and nothing less."
"To say that so boldly..."
"There is no reason to hide it."
The words were composed, but the tips of her ears had gone faintly red.
Her eyes, too, had loosened from their usual severity—that gaze once sharp as a blade's point now slightly dulled, soaked in wine.
Ordinarily, the moment Roseline saw me, she would bar my way. She despised me, guarded against me, endured me, ground her teeth—but tonight was a little different.
She was still holding on, but through the gaps, her insides showed.
Shame.
Pride.
And the traces of an awareness she could not shake—that I had been standing at her side.
"We should go, my lady."
Isabel said quietly.
"You've watched more than enough."
"Not yet."
"The flush seems to be rising."
"That's exactly why it's not yet."
"Master."
Isabel said nothing more, but her eyes were eloquent enough.
Do not cross the line.
I'd heard that one not long ago, too.
Really—now she's obstructing me outright. Which of us is the mistress and which the maid? Should I schedule regular remedial training?
Forcing down the slow boil in my chest, I turned my gaze back to Roseline. She had emptied her glass in the meantime and was holding a third.
She really is an idiot.
Not even knowing her own limit.
"Fine."
I picked up a glass of my own.
"I'll go stop her."
"Am I to trust those words?"
"Don't trust them. Just listen and remember them."
Isabel closed her eyes.
Smiling, I walked toward Roseline. The first to react to my footsteps was Roseline herself. The instant she saw me, the smile left her mouth. I could see the mask she'd worn for everyone else stripped away in a heartbeat.
Strange, isn't it.
That face is my favorite one.
"Lady Arzen."
"A necessary relationship?"
Roseline's brows shifted, ever so slightly.
"You were listening."
"Mm. Very well, actually."
"So you have a hobby of eavesdropping as well."
"You said my name. How was I supposed not to hear?"
The noblewomen around us laughed awkwardly, trying to smooth the mood, but I didn't spare them a glance.
"Give me the glass."
"No."
"I'd say you've had enough."
"Do you know how much I've had?"
"Better than you do."
Roseline's lips closed.
Whether from the wine or not, the retort that would normally have sprung out at once was slow in coming.
"Do you remember which glass that is?"
"......"
"See. You don't."
Roseline still would not lower the glass.
If anything, she raised it to her lips with deliberate defiance.
"Is this concern?"
"Does it sound like it?"
"No."
I watched a faint smile bloom across Roseline's face.
A smile that could never exist under ordinary circumstances. Neither scorn nor courtesy—just a tired person's smile, thinly glazed with drink.
"Because you are someone who never misses the moment I grow weak."
My fingertips tingled.
I plucked the glass from her hand, and Roseline's fingers froze in the empty air.
"That is rude."
"You're drunk."
"I am not drunk."
"That's what every drunk person says."
"Do not treat me like a child."
"I'm not treating you like a child."
I set the confiscated glass on the tray of a servant passing nearby.
"I simply don't want to see this face on a child."
Roseline's eyes hardened.
"What is that supposed to mean."
"You don't need to know."
"You are always like this."
"Yes."
"You say only what you wish to say, look only at what you wish to see, and take from me only what you wish to take."
The air around us trembled, just barely.
I don't know whether Roseline felt it—but even if she had, she probably couldn't have stopped herself.
The alcohol had left the door behind her lips slightly ajar.
"Roseline."
I said her name low.
"Stop."
"Why should I."
Roseline looked up at me.
The rims of her eyes were red.
"Is it embarrassing now, in front of everyone?"
"......"
"You took my name, my silence, my shame—all of it. You already did."
The surroundings froze solid, drowned in silence.
This is... unexpected.
At this point I really should have stopped her, but strangely, I couldn't move.
"Do you want it that badly?"
My breath nearly stopped.
Roseline's face showed no awareness of what she had just said. No—perhaps she knew the words, but had never considered how they would sound.
It was the wine.
Certainly, it was the wine.
And yet.
"Roseline."
At the intrusion of another voice, Roseline turned her head slowly.
A man was approaching from beyond the reach of the chandeliers' light.
Luka.
Roseline's childhood friend.
The name that had remained at Roseline's side longest in the original story.
The moment she saw him, Roseline became a different person entirely. The blade-edged gaze she'd aimed at me moments ago softened, faint but unmistakable. The tension didn't vanish completely, but she looked, at least, like someone who had found a place to breathe.
"Luka."
That one word grated on me.
Deeply.
Luka stopped in front of Roseline, then turned to me.
"Lady Arzen. It has been some time."
"It has. First time since the street, isn't it?"
"Roseline seems a little unwell. Might I take her aside for a moment?"
His tone was perfectly courteous, but refusal plainly never entered his mind—his hand was already extended toward Roseline.
I looked at that hand. Then at Roseline.
Roseline did not push it away.
"No."
The word left me before the thought did.
Luka's hand stopped.
Roseline looked at me too.
"Lady Arzen."
"Today, Roseline is with me."
Roseline's eyes wavered.
"Do not decide that on your own."
"No."
"You—"
"You're drunk, remember?"
I took hold of Roseline's wrist.
Not with crushing force, but with no intention whatsoever of letting go.
"Let's go get some air."
"No. Release me."
"Say one more word here and you'll regret it."
Roseline's lips closed.
Her eyes, wavering with drink, seemed to return to reality for the briefest instant. As if she had only now realized what she had just said in front of all those people, what words she had let slip.
Luka took a step forward.
"Roseline said no."
"I heard."
"Then let go of her hand."
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
"Lady Arzen."
"This is a matter between Veloa and Arzen. And—don't you dare stick your nose in so insolently. I only tolerate you for Roseline's sake, and even my patience has limits."
Luka's expression hardened.
A fine face, certainly—but what I wanted to look at right now was not him. It was Roseline.
"You said it yourself."
"......"
"A necessary relationship."
The tips of Roseline's fingers trembled.
"Do not use my words like that."
"Then how should I use them?"
Roseline couldn't answer.
Gripping her wrist, I led her toward the edge of the hall. She didn't resist. Whether from the wine, from the desire to sweep up the words she'd just spilled, or from not wanting to look any more wretched in front of Luka—
I don't know.
She simply followed.
The chandeliers' light and the laughter of the hall faded slowly behind us.
When we reached the corridor, cold air met us. Only then did Roseline draw a deep breath. Her face was still flushed, and the rims of her eyes looked strangely wet—whether from the drink, I couldn't tell.
"Let go."
"No."
"You've had quite enough spectacle in front of everyone."
Roseline glared at me.
That face.
Soaked in wine and still refusing to bow its head. Caught showing her weakness, yet refusing to retreat to the last.
Truly.
This is why I can't let go.
"You are truly the worst."
"I know."
"And knowing that, you—"
Roseline couldn't finish.
Instead she stopped, leaning against the wall for a moment. The wine seemed to be hitting her properly only now; the pace of her eyes closing and opening had gone sluggish.
I stepped closer.
"Roseline."
"Do not call my name."
"No."
"Why do you keep—"
Roseline swallowed.
"Why do you keep appearing before me."
Was it the drink? She sounded more honest than usual.
"Because of you—"
"Because of me?"
"Because of you, I keep—"
The end of the sentence dissolved.
Roseline turned her head away, like someone who hadn't meant to speak yet had already let the words escape.
In the end she swallowed whatever came next. Instead, she laughed bitterly at me. That laugh was nothing like the mask she'd worn in the banquet hall.
The wine.
Anger.
Shame.
And something she herself had never sorted out.
"Are you that curious?"
"Yes."
"Then see for yourself how far you can take it."
In that instant, something in my head snapped.
I released her wrist and took hold of her waist instead, and Roseline's back met the corridor wall.
"What you just said."
My own voice sounded strange to me.
"You're going to regret it."
Roseline's breath caught.
Whether from the closeness, the wine, or the fact that she had only now realized what she had said—
Out of pride, defiance, or some confidence neither of us could name, she did not push me away.
"I've already done a great deal to regret."
Roseline whispered.
"Ever since I met you."
And with those words—
I could no longer hold back.