Side Story Episode 8 2024.06.23.
‘This is bad.’
It truly was a masterpiece that gathered the essence of herbalism handed down on the mysterious Sol Continent.
Having experienced it herself, it was exactly as Hanna had boasted. She had said that no matter how much one drank, there was no unpleasant aftereffect and no hangover; that it was something like alcohol, but not alcohol, and was in truth medicine.
There was none of the stomach churning one usually suffered after drinking, and her head did not ache either. The drunkenness merely made her feel elated and hazy.
And just like people who were truly drunk from drinking too much, there was no gap in her memory, no forgetting what had happened in between.
‘Kaiaaaaaaan!’
The moment she saw Kaian enter the room, she had been unable to contain her joy.
‘Why’re you only coming nooow!’
The instant she recalled Kaian’s face rotting away in real time, the temperature dropping as soon as he saw her shouting loudly with her tongue all twisted, a chill ran down her spine.
‘She should have told me my memory would be perfectly intact too!’
If she had, then while tipping back those cups that went down so smoothly, sweet and tart, Claudel might at least have thought that she should restrain herself.
Claudel had never drunk liquor that way before, and so being drunk itself had felt unfamiliar; she simply had not imagined she would become like that.
Just as she was blaming Hanna—
“You’re finally awake.”
“K-Kaian.”
The arms that had been warmly embracing her from behind loosened. Gathering her disheveled hair in one hand, Kaian pecked and teased the nape of her neck and shoulders.
“D-did you sleep well?”
Her entire body felt languid and sore, as if she had been beaten all over. To be honest, she felt as though she did not even have the strength to move a finger, but she could not tell whether it was because she had swum with all her might for the first time in a while, or because she had tormented Kaian all night.
“Do you think I slept well?”
“I-I wonder.”
“I suppose you would. You slept very well.”
“I see.”
Claudel instinctively pulled the thin blanket into her arms.
She needed to put on clothes somehow. Unable to bring herself to look at his face, she lay on her side, but within her field of vision there was no sign at all of the clothes she had stripped off yesterday.
‘Since he took them off for me, are they all on the other side?’
That would not do. Then she would end up showing Kaian an indecent sight.
Just as Claudel was fretting—
“Show me your face.”
“I’m ugly. I look awful after waking up.”
“I’ll be the judge of whether you’re ugly or not. Look at me.”
When Claudel hesitantly turned her body toward him, Kaian studied her face closely, as though he really were about to pass judgment.
“Hmm.”
Why was he looking so intently?
With his gaze roaming every corner of her face as if licking over it, Claudel lowered her eyes primly and waited.
“You’re ugly.”
“What did you say?”
Just as Claudel stared at him in disbelief, Kaian’s monstrous strength lifted half her body into the air and dragged her toward him.
He scooped up her lying form and placed her atop his own body, then stroked her hair with his hand as if satisfied.
“You’re not ugly. Even when you’ve just woken up, you’re always pretty.”
“……”
Claudel closed her mouth.
It felt awkward to call herself ugly at this point, and her pride would not allow her to demand that he praise her.
‘But last night, he seemed like someone who knew everything.’
As if he had known that, for the past month or so, she had been aching because she could not properly face him.
One by one, he had granted everything she had wanted and begged for.
“Kaian.”
“Tell me.”
“……
I missed you.”
She hoped he would not think of it as something she had said carelessly because she was drunk.
There were many things Claudel had tried to endure because she loved Kaian, but did that mean they had to go on living so that even seeing his face was difficult?
“I wanted to talk with you too.”
Had such ordinary things, things she had thought were only natural, become matters she had to voice aloud, saying she wanted and wished for them?
Claudel felt her circumstances were a little pitiful.
“Me too. I felt the same.”
The large hand that had been gently combing through and untangling her tangled hair all along came to rest on top of her head.
“Really? You really felt that way too?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you wake me?”
When Claudel spoke in a sulky voice, filled with hurt feelings, Kaian looked dumbfounded.
“You want me to wake you when you fell asleep because you were tired?”
“But still, we barely saw each other properly for almost a month.”
“You could have stayed awake and waited instead of falling asleep like that.”
“When I’m putting Julien to sleep, I get sleepy too. What am I supposed to do?”
A meaningless conversation passed between them.
“How could I do that? Besides, you suffered from insomnia, and yet you tell me to wake you?”
“That’s how much I missed you.”
It was not Kaian’s fault, but her words kept coming out in a petulant tone.
More than anything, it felt good that he was grasping the feelings inside her, how she had yearned while time passed and he had been unable to act one way or another.
“It seems I did something unnecessary.”
“What do you mean?”
“My workload has increased.”
Kaian gripped her small head with his fingertips and pressed and stroked here and there. Strength drained from her whole body, and a small groan escaped her of its own accord.
He was the sort to be very pleased by and enjoy Claudel reacting like a trained animal, so she let her body be handled as he pleased.
As she remained still while he kneaded the stiff spots on her neck and shoulders, quite a bit of time passed again.
“Come to think of it, what about Julien?”
The reason they had been unable to spend leisurely time together was because the baby would cry and fuss.
“They say he slept well through the night without crying even once.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Kaian smiled as he watched her look surprised.
“A child is bound to grow when the time comes.”
“Ah.”
“He makes you suffer too much.”
Claudel shook her head.
“I was happy that Julien looked for me.”
He was a child who had nearly been separated from her for life because he had met such a foolish mother.
Claudel had never once said it aloud, because everyone would be hurt by it, but she felt terribly sorry and regretful that she had not even been able to nurse Julien properly.
After Valquiter told her that something had gone wrong with the baby, she had stopped eating, intending to die, and let time pass in vain. By the time she held the child in her arms again, her body had become too thin and weak to produce anything to feed him.
“I haven’t done anything for him. But still, he looks for me because I’m his mother.”
Usually, they said babies calmed down when a wet nurse held them, smelling the milk they liked so much.
But Julien now clearly knew she was his mother, and when he was in a bad mood, he would throw a fit as if committing an outrage, stubbornly insisting that Claudel hold him. She was simply grateful for that.
Even when she stayed awake all night, becoming a human cradle as she held and patted the baby to soothe his crying, her shoulders and arms stiffening and aching, even if she was a little tired, she never once thought of putting Julien down.
“What was that about your legs?”
“My legs?”
“Hanna had much to say about the liquor she brought from the Sol Continent, calling it medicinal wine, saying it wasn’t alcohol but actually medicine.”
Kaian looked her over with worry in his eyes.
“You wrote to Hanna saying your legs hurt, yet you didn’t tell me?”
“You were already busy, and I didn’t want to make you worry over nothing.”
“Let me see.”
Kaian sat up and slipped his hand beneath the blanket still wrapped around her body to touch her leg.
“Ugh.”
When Claudel let out a small sound of pain, he raised an eyebrow.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“When did this start?”
“Julien gets around so well. I’ve been following him around all the time.”
But perhaps the medicinal wine Hanna had given her was working, because it was better than the pain she had felt recently.
“The medicinal wine I drank yesterday must have been effective. It’s better than how much it’s been hurting lately.”
“So. You intend to drink more of it?”
“……
No.”
Claudel became as silent as a mute who had eaten honey.
But since Kaian was the one who felt disappointed when he could not hear her chatter, he soon kissed her again and parted her lips.
“Shouldn’t you be going?”
Since there had been something every single day without fail, Claudel was bothered by it.
“Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I have to go in person.”
Kaian had gained enlightenment over the course of one night.
The most important things to him were Claudel and Julien.
He worked hard to keep them safe, to be happy together with them. If not for that, there was no need for him to suffer to this extent.
“From now on, I’ll try to reduce my workload too.”
Kaian had a personality that could not rest unless he saw and confirmed everything with his own eyes.
The very fact that this many matters had to pass through his approval one by one was itself absurd.
When it had merely been the Rowen Estate, things had somehow moved along. But now that several territories had joined together under the Kingdom of Rowen, the amount of work had been impossible from the start. And yet he had clung to the old way and insisted on doing things as he had before.
“In that sense, shall we have lunch together today?”
“Really?”
When Claudel’s face brightened, he smiled gently.
***
After finishing the meal, Kaian headed toward his office rather late, and without realizing it, his eyes widened.
While he had overslept and lazed about, he wondered what the castle servants had done. The corridors and windows shone without so much as a single speck of dust.
“Did they do a grand cleaning?”
For some reason, the castle corridor he saw every day looked beautiful today.
After arriving at his office, Kaian soon summoned Baron Kolon.
“You called for me, Your Majesty?”
He was no longer a butler, but the chamberlain in charge of the royal protocol of the Kingdom of Rowen.
Kaian opened the matter to Baron Kolon.
“Look into some skilled carpenters.”
“May I ask for what purpose?”
“I want to change the arrangement of the office.”
He handed Baron Kolon a bundle of papers he had gathered on one side of the desk.
“What are all these?”
“References for construction on the office.”
There was something he had been pondering all along, but he had been unable to bring himself to put it into action.
At last, he had decided to remodel the office.
Unable to hold back his smile, Kaian chuckled as he gave the order.
“I leave it in your hands.”
Not long after that—
Kaian escorted Claudel and slowly walked down the corridor with her.
To each other, they were like sunlight and water.
When, for about a month, things had gone wrong and they had been unable to be together, they had withered strangely like blades of grass drying out. But once they clung to each other again, they returned to how they had been before, as if nothing had ever happened.
“What is it?”
“You’ll know once you see.”
The moment Claudel opened the door to his office and stepped inside, she was startled.
“What is all this?”