Chapter 7

As Raon was leaving the Imperial Palace, he spotted her still standing outside and took her into his carriage.

“Thank you.”

Kina bent deeply at the waist toward him, expressing profound gratitude.

Even though it was the Viscounty of Sennet that ran the poorhouse, she, insignificant though she was, had received no punishment simply because she was still a noble in name. But it was different for the employees who had worked for the poorhouse. According to the rumors she had heard, the people from the poorhouse were being subjected to severe t*rture.

She had sent letters to the Crown Prince several times, but no reply came. It was the same at the Imperial Palace when she went there herself. Even when she said she had come to see Bersha, the only answer she received was a firm refusal.

In the end, within the circle of connections Kina knew, the only person she could ask for help was Raon. It had only been a few days ago that she had resolved never to ask him for anything, and yet now that things had turned out this way, she had gone to him despite her shame.

Thankfully, Raon had granted her request. Even though his face had grown hollow and worn from exhaustion, he had not driven her away or turned her back.

“This is not your fault, Miss. Don’t make that face.”

Kina forced a weak smile. Perhaps because of how much she had suffered in her heart, she looked drained as she kept her gaze lowered.

After that, in the quiet carriage, only the noise from outside could be heard. Raon, seated across from her, was lost in thought. Kina carefully observed his gaunt appearance.

Bersha was getting married. To the Crown Prince, not to him. What must his heart be like now, when he had even been preparing a proposal.

At that moment, his injured hand caught her eye. It was a wound that had not been there just a little while ago.

She did not know what had happened inside, but it was surely an injury he had gotten after going to meet the Crown Prince because of her request.

“Here.”

Kina held out the handkerchief she had with her. Following her gaze, Raon looked at the injury on his hand. It seemed to have happened when the glass Chris had thrown shattered earlier.

“It’s all right.”

The wound was not very deep. It was only a little troublesome, not painful.

“Even a small wound will fester if you leave it alone.”

As Kina said that, she folded the neatly spread handkerchief into a triangle and quietly looked at Raon. Realizing from her action that she meant to wrap his wound, he held out his hand.

“Come to think of it, I think you were right, Your Grace.”

“……About what?”

Kina carefully wrapped the wounded area with the handkerchief. Raon watched as her soft cotton handkerchief enclosed his hand.

“You wouldn’t say a cut was your own fault.”

It seemed to Kina that Raon was feeling helplessness just as she was. It might have been a mistaken guess, but still.

Kina tied a knot so that the handkerchief would not come loose.

“So it isn’t your fault either, Your Grace.”

Her words were surely about the wound on his hand. Yet somehow, they sounded as if she were comforting him. Perhaps that was simply because every one of his thoughts was fixed on that matter.

Since coming out of the Crown Prince’s Palace, Raon had kept turning over Chris’s words in his mind.

No one knew when the still-vigorous Emperor would hand the throne over to Chris. If it turned out to be more than ten years from now, could he ask the one he loved to endure such a long time? Could he soothe and soothe her by saying she only had to hold on a little longer.

Could he himself endure it? That sweet h*ll.

Most of all, would their love remain firm and unwearied until then.

At the end of those thoughts, he hated himself enough to die for imagining that final outcome. Even if it was supposedly for Bersha’s sake.

“Let’s say neither you nor I did anything wrong, Your Grace.”

Just having the neatly tied handkerchief cover the wound made it feel better somehow. When Raon, who had been looking down at the handkerchief, met Kina’s eyes, the faint smile she wore stirred a small ripple in his heart.

Very quietly and very softly.

* * *

“I heard Raon came by.”

Not long after Raon had left, Bersha came to the Crown Prince’s Palace.

“Ah.”

She shot Chris a glare when he spoke as though it were nothing.

“If Raon came, you should have told me.”

“I was busy. As you can see.”

Chris lifted the liquor bottle. It seemed he had drunk all of that strong liquor by himself. When he had come to see Bersha then as well, she had smelled alcohol on him. Seeing him drinking alone in loneliness, she could not bring herself to grow any angrier and dropped heavily into the seat across from him. Then she drank the liquor Chris had poured straight down.

“What did Raon say?”

“The same as always. Stiff and only saying what is right.”

“You told him everything about us, right? Did he understand?”

At Bersha’s question, Chris, who had lifted the bottle to pour another drink, stopped moving.

“What do you think he would have said?”

But she failed to notice that small change.

“He must have accepted it.”

Bersha answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world and chewed on a small piece of dried fruit.

“Why do you think that?”

“If it concerns me, Raon will do anything.”

“……I see.”

At words that sounded close to certainty, Chris only sipped from his glass in silence. Bersha laughed at him as though he were dull.

“By the way, I heard the letters my friend sent are being filtered out.”

“Friend?”

“Kina. Miss Kina Sennet. Why is that?”

“She keeps pestering me about the poorhouse.”

Chris’s face twisted up sharply.

“Why is it that everyone keeps talking about that? What are mere commoners, anyway.”

He was already overwhelmed with his own affairs, so he could not understand why all anyone talked about was some young lady who might as well not exist.

“She’s not a commoner, she’s from the Sennet Viscountcy. She is a proper noble, you know.”

“To me it’s all the same.”

“Yes, yes, of course it is.”

Giving up on explaining any further, Bersha replied in a mocking voice.

“But those people aren’t guilty. If providing the place is a crime, then who will ever prepare such a venue for an Imperial event again?”

Even so, she said everything she wanted to say. At words exactly like Raon’s, Chris clicked his tongue. Truly, they were lovers after all.

“……Can’t you let them go?”

Their similarity lay in how they had too much needless affection to pass by the unfortunate.

“Is it more important than my grief?”

“Why do you compare it like that.”

How childish.

Bersha jutted out her lips.

“If we’re making comparisons, then Kina is a friend who would gladly throw herself in for me. And aren’t you a friend I have to throw myself in for,  Your Highness?”

She meant that they were that precious and close to each other.

“……Wait.”

The glass that had been near Chris’s lips stopped.

“A friend who would gladly throw herself in for you? You are certain she truly cares for you.”

“Of course. We’re true friends to each other.”

At her words, Chris fell into thought for a moment and then called for the head attendant.

“Send a letter to Lady Sennet.”

“Did you just grant my request?”

Without answering her, Chris simply smiled.

Yes. It did not necessarily have to be a way of using Bersha herself.