Episode 83
It was nearly time to leave work.
The military doctor, who had remained in the examination room until the very end to finish organizing his work log, looked up in surprise at the sudden sound of the door opening.
“Huh……?”
His eyes went wide. The late-night visitor who strode toward him with crisp, measured steps was a famous figure no one in the military could possibly fail to know.
Ezekael Valdemaera.
The very man who had recently set all of Astrie abuzz in more ways than one had, for some reason, appeared at the military hospital. Moreover, as far as the military doctor remembered, Ezekael was not the sort to seek out the medical tent even when injured in battle. Unable to hide his curiosity, he looked up at the officer’s tall, elegant silhouette.
“What brings you here, sir?”
Despite his long absence, the major did not give the impression of having been away at all. His officer’s uniform still suited him with effortless grace.
If one had to point out something that had changed, it would be the shadows cast over his delicate features. Yet even that did not mar Ezekael’s extraordinary appearance; rather, it only added a deeper resonance to his innate atmosphere.
“I’d like a prescription for laudanum.”
“Pardon?”
The military doctor swept his widened eyes over the officer’s lean, solid physique. No matter how he looked, the man appeared flawless, so it was only natural to worry when he said he needed painkillers.
“Major, have you still not fully recovered?”
The officer before him, who had returned to the military after a long seclusion, was an important figure responsible for one pillar of Astrie’s military power. The very fact that he had been assigned and allowed to operate an independent special unit meant the state had recognized his abilities, did it not?
Though he was, fundamentally, an officer in a chain of command, the right to speak at operational meetings and autonomy over company operations were entirely achievements won by Ezekael Valdemaera himself. His role had been significant in bringing the entire 37th Regiment, including the company he commanded, to its current status. Thus, even with the commander of the most famous unit at home and abroad absent for so long, the royal family and the regiment must have waited with one heart and mind for the major’s return. There were even open predictions that, if he continued to be promoted smoothly as he was, he would one day be appointed the youngest general in history.
He had been relieved to hear that he had returned looking no different from before, but was there some hidden problem that did not show on the surface?
“Is there perhaps an issue with the eye that was operated on?”
“None whatsoever.”
Ezekael answered as he accepted the laudanum the military doctor handed him.
“I simply can’t sleep very well.”
“Ah…….”
The military doctor nodded.
“It must be because you went through something so serious. Among soldiers who have suffered severe injuries, there are many who struggle with insomnia for a long time. They say they keep dreaming of returning to the battlefield and become afraid to fall asleep. But soldiers say laudanum gives them nightmares. Will you be all right, Major?”
Ezekael tucked the small vial into his coat, tilted his head briefly, then asked back in puzzlement.
“What is the problem? The battlefield is no nightmare to me.”
Well, if he were someone frightened of war, he would not have made a name for himself through such brilliant military achievements. The military doctor accepted it on his own.
“Still, becoming too dependent on medicine is not good either, so please be careful to follow the dosage. It would be best to take no more than fifty drops per day.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I know the dosage that suits me.”
At Ezekael’s casual reply, the military doctor thought no more of it and returned to organizing his work log.
Ezekael left the military hospital at a brisk pace. As night fell, his heart slowly began to beat. Night was the time that belonged to him and Rose alone. And to meet Rose, laudanum was absolutely necessary.
At first, he had thought this thirst would be quenched if he could see her just once.
He had been mistaken.
Seeing her even in that way only made him ache more desperately. It felt as though his heart were being worn away with every passing moment.
His decision came quickly. If this way was hell and that way was hell as well, then he would rather choose the hell where Rose was. At least there, heaven existed too.
The laudanum he had kept at the mansion for emergencies was emptied in a few days. If he ordered more to be brought, the servants would likely worry and summon a doctor, so Ezekael planned to use the military hospital for the time being.
“This won’t last many doses.”
However, the tiny size of the vial did not satisfy him in the least. The dosage required to relieve pain was, in truth, no more than a few drops, but that was far from enough. The proper dosage of the drug was the amount that allowed him to see Rose in his illusions. He had decided so.
Because of habits steadily ingrained over a long period, he moved like a machine even during the day, but only in the hazy mist where he met Rose did Ezekael finally feel truly alive. Only when she was with him did his dulled senses become clear, and color return to his faded emotions.
“You are late again today.”
“Now that I’ve returned, I’m busy with work. Were there any new visitors?”
As soon as Ezekael returned to the Valdemaera mansion, he asked the butler who had come to greet him for news of Rose first.
“Three or four red-haired women came and went, but the errand boy looked at their faces and said none of them were her. We made suitable excuses and sent them away, so you need not worry.”
Calling Merlot in and giving him instructions had indeed had an effect. The footsteps of the errand boys who had chased after Ezekael several times a day with reports that guests had come to his study had stopped completely. It was convenient not to waste time on futile expectations, yet on the other hand, the repetition of days in which he could not even hold a handful of hope made him feel as though he would suffocate.
“Rose, do you truly have no intention of returning to me?”
It seems you can live well enough without seeing me.
When I find it so hard to endure.
Submerged in the warm water of the bath, Ezekael closed his eyes for a moment. Amid the tranquil ripples, he breathed in the sweet scent of floral oil and revived the sensation of holding Rose for the first time. Her damp skin, slippery beneath his hands, the soft little tremors he felt each time he pressed his lips to her, and even the breath that had quietly grown faster.
When he placed his lips on the nape of Rose’s neck and slowly licked his way downward, she would tense up sharply and shiver.
Because her natural scent was faint and other fragrances clung to her easily, Rose often carried traces of the day she had spent. On days she made lemon syrup, there was the fresh scent of lemon; on days she simmered fruit compote, the rich fragrance of fruit; and on days they bathed together, the dizzyingly dense scent of flowers. Though they had used the same bathwater, Rose’s scent was strangely sweeter.
Ezekael tilted his head back. Surrendering his consciousness to the darkness, he heightened every sense except sight. Suddenly, it felt as though he had returned to the past. To that past when he had been blind, yet Rose had always been by his side.
Caressing empty air, Ezekael struggled to feel Rose.
He wished time would stop like this, with his eyes never opening again.
Longing led Ezekael into the realm of the unconscious. He sank into a waking dream.
It seemed he had wasted quite a bit of time in reverie. His reason abruptly returned in the bathwater that had gone cold.
Ezekael slowly opened his eyes. The daydream, closer to a light doze, had not brought back the touch of Rose. A fathomless emptiness surged in like hunger.
“Wait for me, Rose. I’ll come to meet you soon.”
It was still all right. He still had a way to meet her.
After roughly drying his wet body, Ezekael sat on the bed and drank down the medicine he had been prescribed.
With that, every preparation to end the day was complete.
“Rose, come here.”
The hazy intoxication of opium brought Rose before Ezekael once again. Ezekael reached toward Rose’s silhouette. Even a minute, even a second, felt too precious to wait. He immediately seized her and pulled her into his arms.
He wanted to bury his face in her tenderly full breasts and breathe in her scent until it filled him. He wanted to press his lips to her smooth hair and feel its texture. He wanted to taste Rose thoroughly, every last part of her, then push himself deep into her narrow, secret depths. He wanted to fall asleep joined with her as a single body. Heat gathered between his legs from imagination alone.
Because they were all sensations he had once experienced, his thirst only grew stronger. Ezekael knew well with what tender warmth Rose had held him. When he explored her soft body deeply in the darkness where he could not see an inch ahead, her stifled moans would seep into his ears.
“Rose, you are too cruel to me.”
Pinning Rose’s silhouette beneath him, Ezekael laughed bitterly at himself.
“You only show yourself to me when I can see nothing, and now that I can see you, you show me nothing at all.”
How am I supposed to see your face?
He lowered his half-lidded gaze and stared at Rose.
His vision, drunk on alcohol and opium, wavered. The face of Rose, with red hair and green eyes, whose features he had never once seen directly, shimmered as if it might appear and then did not.
Even if it’s only a little, let me know you.
Ezekael focused on the woman’s face without so much as blinking. It was a face he had wanted to see so badly that he had traced it with his fingertips tens and hundreds of times, touched it, and tried to draw it in his mind.
With desperate effort, he strained his sight and dug into the blank space where Rose’s face should have been.
Today, I will see it.
No matter what, I will see it.
Was it not said that there was nothing human will could not accomplish? Ezekael repeated it to himself again and again.
I can see you.