[Episode 111] - The Day We Head to the Academy
In the end, the morning of the day Titania would leave the royal castle dawned.
From morning on, the royal castle was quite noisy. Maids who had heard Titania was leaving came flocking to her room to bid her farewell, and the attendants bustled about moving the packed luggage to the carriage. Of course, I was bustling about as well.
“Titania, did you pack everything? You didn’t forget anything?”
“Yes, I checked one more time just in case.”
“Why are you worrying so much? If she left anything behind, we can just send it by letter, can’t we?”
Titania and Veronica sighed at the same time. Veronica was planning to set off for the Academy through the cabin, while Titania was to ride to the Academy in the carriage prepared by the royal castle.
Even though I had seen Titania answer so confidently, why was I still so worried? Unlike me, pacing restlessly around the room, Titania only sat on the bed and let out a deep sigh.
Was this what a parent felt? Wanting to send her off without the slightest thing lacking, I looked around the room once more, only to feel a little bitter at how empty it had become. Now I really would be left alone.
While living with Titania, I had never once thought this room was spacious. But today, for some reason, it felt far too large. Had this room really been this wide? A bitter smile escaped me before I knew it.
As I stared blankly around the room, I heard a knock from behind.
“Your Majesty, Princess. Everything is ready for the journey to the Academy.”
“Yes. We will be down shortly.”
In the end, the time to part had arrived.
The moment the maid informed us that preparations were complete, I felt as though tears would spill. If I were honest, I did not want to send Titania to the Academy either. I truly did not want to be separated from Titania.
After all, the reason I had been able to endure this place until now was entirely because Titania had been by my side. This unfamiliar life, the complicated and difficult official duties, the irritating and repulsive social circles—all of it, I had been able to bear because Titania had stayed beside me.
If anything, it was not that Titania had been depending on me, but that I had been living while depending on Titania. And now, that very Titania was about to leave my side today. I felt as though the building that was me, which had been held up by the pillar called Titania, was about to collapse.
“Haa...”
The sigh that spilled from my mouth felt hot. Feeling as if I was about to cry, I touched the corners of my eyes, and a faint dampness came away on my fingers. Truly, I had promised myself I would send her off with a smile at the end.
‘This isn’t easy...’
I slowly approached Titania, who was sitting on the bed, and looked at Ainsel hanging around her neck. I had resented Ainsel for leaving me, but since it was for Titania’s sake, I had decided to forgive him.
I smiled softly and lightly lifted Ainsel.
“Get along well with Titania even after you go. And try to become a little closer with Veronica too. All right?”
—A-All right... I said I’ll try...
Ainsel, pouting and grumbling at my nagging, looked nothing but adorable. After gently stroking Ainsel’s mirror, I turned my head and looked at Veronica sitting beside me.
“Do you need nagging too?”
“Do you even have anything to nag me about?”
Veronica and I chuckled. Yes, Veronica was not really a child who needed nagging. I lifted my hand, stroked Veronica’s cheek, and lightly pressed a kiss to her forehead.
At my sudden kiss, imbued with the meaning of farewell, Veronica’s eyes widened in surprise. But when my lips left her forehead, she rubbed it and wore a slightly sullen expression.
Next was...
“Titania.”
When I called her, Titania lifted her head with difficulty and looked at me. In Titania’s eyes, which barely managed to meet mine, there was a faint wetness.
As though revealing exactly how she felt right now, the eyes looking at me trembled without rest. I carefully touched the corners of Titania’s eyes, which looked as though tears would fall at any moment.
‘What should I say to her?’
There were so many things I wanted to say to Titania, but none of them formed words; they only circled inside my mouth. Not knowing what on earth I ought to say, I merely parted my lips.
As I blinked while meeting Titania’s eyes, unable to bring myself to speak, perhaps finding the silence suffocating, Titania rose from the bed first and threw her arms around me.
I was slightly startled by the sudden embrace, but I calmly wrapped both arms tightly around Titania’s waist. Titania’s body trembled in small shudders. When I patted her waist, Titania began to sniffle.
“I’ll send letters, so you have to reply...”
“...I will.”
“If you don’t reply properly every time, I’ll drop out of the Academy...”
“That is frightening even as a joke...”
When I chuckled, Titania, in my arms, answered, “It’s not a joke...” It seemed I would have to send letters faithfully if only to keep Titania attending the Academy.
“Honestly...”
With a bitter smile, I caressed Titania’s cheek as she was held in my arms. When I stroked her cheek, Titania lifted her head and met my eyes.
Brushing my thumb down Titania’s slightly reddened cheek, I cupped her face, lowered my head, and lightly pressed my lips to her round forehead.
My warm lips touched her forehead with a ticklish sound, then slowly drew away. When I looked at Titania’s face, she was smiling bashfully, as if the fact she had been crying just moments ago had been a lie.
“...Have a safe trip.”
“Yes... I’ll be back. So...”
Titania smiled brightly at me.
“When I return, you have to come out to meet me. You have to wait for me at the main gate.”
...By then, I would not be here.
How was I supposed to answer such an earnest request?
My lips trembled. Not knowing how to answer, my lips kept trembling, and I felt as though I might cry. Because of the guilt and sorrow I felt toward Titania, my voice kept shaking. Today was the first time I learned that putting a lie into words could hurt this much.
“...Yes. I promise.”
I’m sorry.
“I will be the first to come out and meet you.”
I’m truly sorry.
“This is a promise too, all right?”
Titania, who knew nothing, smiled bashfully and held out her pinky finger to me. Her pure smile felt as though it were cutting my guilt-ridden heart to pieces.
Truly, it hurt enough to make me cry.
“...Yes. A promise.”
*
Three days had already passed since Titania, Veronica, and Ainsel all left me here alone and went off to the Academy together.
During that time, I spent most of my days in a daze. I could not bring myself to work, and I left eating and washing myself roughly to the maids and ladies-in-waiting.
The maids and ladies-in-waiting begged me to please pull myself together, but I had no energy, so there was nothing I could do. What should this be called? Lethargy? I simply did not want to do anything.
I only rolled around on the bed all day, without the slightest motivation. Perhaps rumors had spread in social circles that Titania had entered the Academy, for several invitations arrived, but I did not so much as open them, let alone read them. I was not going to go anyway.
As I stared blankly at the ceiling, I heard a knock on the door. Though I had not answered for them to come in, the door opened, and bald Bangsho, who poked his head through the crack, strode into the room and frowned at me.
“Hoo... Your Majesty, no matter how much this may be your room, it is still broad daylight. Please at least dress properly.”
“I am dressed, am I not? In nightclothes.”
“In what world, in what country, is there a queen who receives her subjects in nightclothes from broad daylight?”
“Is there not one right in front of you? Besides, in three years I will not be queen anymore, so do not expect too much from a fixed-term queen, baldy. That is why your hair is falling out.”
When I fluttered the negligee I was wearing, Bangsho wrinkled his brow in irritation. Seeing the stack of documents in his arms, it seemed he had come to ask me to approve the papers I had neglected for the past three days.
“Leave the documents on that desk over there. I will take care of them later, once I have the energy.”
“It has already been three days since you said that. There is no room left on that desk for documents either.”
When I turned only my head slightly to look at the desk, it was true that the documents piled on top of it had overflowed and were strewn over the chair and floor. Still, right now, I did not even have the strength to read a single letter.
As I lay on the bed and merely waved my hand, gesturing as if to say, “Stack them nicely like this,” Bangsho let out a deep sigh. Then, after truly stacking them carefully atop the pile so they would not collapse, he approached me and looked down at me lying on the bed.
“Your Majesty. Is Princess Titania’s departure so painful for you?”
“...It is. It feels as though there is a hole in my chest.”
It was exactly as I said. It felt as though a cold wind was passing straight through my chest. Now that something precious had disappeared from my side, it felt unbearably hollow. When I glanced at Bangsho with only my eyes, Bangsho pulled over a chair, sat beside me, and looked at me.
“Have I ever told Your Majesty about my children?”
“You were married?”
“Did you think I was not?”
Bangsho looked at me as though he found it absurd. No, I was not teasing Bangsho; I truly had not known he was married.
He had never particularly told me about his family circumstances, nor had I heard any rumors in social circles about his children or wife.
Now that I thought about it, why had there been so few rumors? I had heard stories about the children of the Minister of Education and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“My wife does not live in the capital for the sake of her health. She lives in a remote country village in the provinces, one Your Majesty would not know even if you heard its name. My children are there as well, so you might not know... No, that cannot be. How can a queen not know the family relations of her ministers? It has already been so long since I began serving Your Majesty...!”
“S-Stop. I am sorry. But no one ever tells me about your family, so is it not possible that I would not know? Th-That’s right! You know the story from years ago about how the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ son nearly laid hands on a married woman. Compared to that, no news is good news.”
“That... is true.”
Bangsho poured out his grievance like a rapid-fire complaint, as though deeply hurt, but I waved my hand and shifted the topic to the story of the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ son. Upon hearing that sordid tale, Bangsho cleared his throat, sighed, and continued speaking again.
“In any case... I, too, have sent my daughters away many times. I married off three of them, after all.”
“You... had more children than I expected.”
“Two sons and three daughters. All of them are married now. And please stop interrupting me. The story will never end.”
“Very well...”
I shifted my body and began listening while lying there facing Bangsho. Bangsho seemed displeased with my listening posture, but as if there was nothing he could do, he continued his story. Slowly, methodically, recalling the old days.
“It was, in fact, over forty years ago, when I married off my eldest daughter. At that time, I—”
“W-Wait. How long is this story?”
Feeling as though Bangsho’s story might become a time in which he reflected on his entire life up to now, I stopped him first. No matter what, I did not want to listen to this sort of story for a long time.
Bangsho glanced at the clock and answered.
“I believe it will end before dinner.”
“Lunchtime just passed...”
“In any case, at that time, customs placed even more importance on formalities than they do now—”
...Bangsho continued his story even when I signaled for him to stop. I truly was not interested. I did not want to hear it.
Bangsho’s story continued until the sun set. Having unfolded a grand epic of the marriages of his eldest to his third daughter, Bangsho told me the tale as if he were acting it out—intensely at times, sorrowfully at others.
When about three hours of this story had passed—
“At that time, in order to stop my third daughter, who said she would marry that man even if she had to cast aside her family, I...”
Knock, knock, knock, knock. A hurried knocking sounded at the door. Though no one had told her to come in, a maid hastily flung open the door and entered, her face pale.
“Your Majesty...! Minister...! Her Majesty the Queen Dowager...!!”
At that moment, Bangsho and I sprang to our feet and ran to the Queen Dowager’s office. Even without the maid saying it, we could understand the situation.
The third day since Titania had departed for the Academy.
Before the news that Titania had arrived at the Academy came, the news that Her Majesty the Queen Dowager had collapsed reached us first.