105.
On the final night of the holy festival, when people looked forward to the approaching autumn and prayed for fertility and abundance.
There were fake couples, newlyweds in name only, who had recklessly stepped into the midst of the hawkers.
That was us.
“Because of the magnetism, the centers of the necklaces snap together like this! As you can see, they cling to each other as if they’re lovers who don’t want to be apart! What do you think, young customer? Perhaps you’d like to commemorate the day with your lover by purchasing this necklace…”
The hawker spiritedly held up a pair of matching necklaces and glanced beside me, only for his words to falter when he realized there was not just one man.
“Just a moment, pardon me, but which of you is this lovely lady’s lover…?”
“I am.”
Prien, who happened to be standing right next to me, answered.
“Ah, yes! Then perhaps the two of you might share them and try them on…”
“And me too.”
Jaka looked at the hawker with a crooked smile.
“Pardon?”
“I’m also this lovely lady’s husband.”
“Hus…band?”
The hawker’s eyes wavered for a moment, but the stubborn hawker soul within him did not die so easily.
“…I see! Well, well, how blessed it is to have not one but two partners, wouldn’t you say? In that case, I can specially sell you a set of three…”
The gleam in his eyes seemed to say:
‘If I can sell three at once instead of two, that’s the real profit.’
I cleared my throat loudly, then pushed the three men by the back and slipped away from the necklace stall.
“Now, now, shall we go look at the next thing?”
Then, when I glanced back, I saw the duke quietly looking over the necklace stall.
“Perhaps the handsome customer is also with that party just now…”
“I’m her husband.”
Afraid I might even make eye contact with that hawker, I quickly turned my back and hurried my pace.
They say that once you know something, you start seeing it. Only then did I realize that most of the passersby around us were lovers walking hand in hand.
It made me feel strangely uneasy for no reason. From the hawkers who would block the road the moment I let my guard down to the lights shining fiercely from every direction, the atmosphere was so heated that sweat ran down my back despite it being night.
“Are you very hot?”
“Let’s rest for a bit.”
We decided to take a short break and stepped into a relatively quiet side street.
This time, without a word of complaint, I bought four glasses of shaved ice blended with fruit, and we stood side by side drinking them.
Once the coolness slipped down my throat, I finally felt like I could live again.
The drink was cold and sweet enough to give me a brief headache.
Everyone pretended otherwise, but they must have been thirsty, because they were all silent as they drank.
In truth, there was plenty to see just by watching the people passing around us.
“Look at that! Where do you think they bought that headband?”
“Do you like it? Would you like to wear one too, Baron?”
“No, no, no, I just asked because I was curious, so come back here, Jaka.”
While I was holding back Jaka, who seemed ready to dive into the crowd as if he wanted to put that bizarre headband on me, Prien pointed toward the alley across from us.
“Those are the fireworks we waved together last time.”
Over there, a few people were laughing noisily as they lit sticks on fire.
“Oh? You’re right.”
And in the brief moment I let my guard down, Jaka slipped free and vanished into the crowd.
Surely he wasn’t actually going to find the stall selling that headband and buy one…
What Jaka soon returned with, wearing a mischievous expression, was a bundle of sparklers.
“Shall we do this too?”
“Well, sure.”
I was inwardly relieved.
This time, Prien also quietly accepted a stick.
Soon, sparks began to fly from the sticks in the hands of the four of us.
“Wow.”
I had seen it last time too, but it was still a newly fascinating sight.
“Then does this make it your second time doing fireworks?”
At Prien’s question, I barely managed to tear my eyes away from the sparks and answered.
“That’s right. What about you, Sir? Have you ever done this before?”
“My younger sister liked them when we were children.”
Perhaps he sensed the slight surprise in my expression, because Prien turned to me and smiled faintly with his eyes.
“It’s all right.”
I stared at the sparks spreading in every direction as the end of the stick burned down, then slowly opened my mouth.
“Well… They’re pretty, aren’t they? Of course she would have liked them.”
“Yes. I thought they were dangerous, so I only let her do it once every few times she begged me.”
“I see.”
“It was such a small thing, but afterward, I thought about it often. Since she liked them that much, I should have let her do them as much as she wanted.”
“……”
“Do you like these as well, Baron?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’m glad.”
Prien’s voice was trembling slightly, but I deliberately gave no sign that I had noticed. I needlessly scuffed the ground with my shoe, then asked.
“Then shall we do this often?”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s do it often.”
When I turned to look at him, Prien blinked…
Then lowered his gaze.
“May we?”
“Yes.”
“……”
“I’m sure she’d like that too.”
Prien faintly pulled up the corners of his mouth in a smile.
“Ah, it went out.”
Jaka changed the stick in his hand for a new one and looked back at me.
“Would you like another one too, Baron?”
Just as he asked, mine and Prien’s went out as well.
“Yes, give me two.”
After using up all the sparklers Jaka had bought in that one spot, and finishing our fruit juice as well, we moved toward the alley across the way.
“Hit the target and win a prize! The higher your score, the better the prize you can get!”
“How are you supposed to hit it when the target is that far away?”
“But they said that if you hit the center exactly, they’ll give you a prize worth one gold!”
The area was noisy, so I looked to see what was going on. Apparently, because the prizes were good, hitting the target was extremely difficult, and no one had succeeded yet.
I immediately looked back at the three men.
“Anyone want to try?”
“I think it would be unfair to the others if I stepped forward.”
Prien, seeming troubled, smiled and gently declined.
Jaka replied with an indifferent expression.
“Those are all sales tricks. They probably did something to the fletching from the start so the arrows would miss…”
“So, Jaka.”
“……”
“Have you done it before?”
Unable to answer my question in the end, Jaka eventually went out to shoot at the target.
It was funny how his expression was cold, even as he fidgeted oddly, as if the situation felt awkward.
In the end, Jaka watched with a disgruntled gaze as the participation fee from my purse went into the owner’s hand, then picked up the bow.
“What do you think? Do you think he’ll do well?”
I asked the duke, who had been standing silently beside me.
“Who knows. His posture when drawing the bowstring doesn’t look like a complete amateur’s, so he probably won’t embarrass himself.”
“Come on, even if he’s bad, what’s there to be embarrassed about? It’s just for fun.”
“More importantly, you said we should speak casually to each other, but right now I feel like I’m the only one who was tricked.”
“Ah! It’s just a habit. No, no. I mean.”
The duke smiled faintly and jerked his chin toward the front.
“There, he’s starting. You should watch, shouldn’t you?”
“Ah.”
The moment I turned my head, twang, the arrow shot forward.
Thwack!
And with a rather frightening sound, the arrowhead lodged itself dead center in the target.
The number of arrows Jaka received came to ten in all.
Jaka smoothly spun the bow once in his hand and gripped it again, then grinned at the owner.
“It’s one prize for ‘each’ time I hit dead center, right?”
“Th-that’s… I never said that, sir!”
“But you said you’d give a prize as long as I hit it, didn’t you? I don’t recall hearing that I couldn’t do it more than once.”
“Th-that guy, he’s being spiteful again.”
Just as I was about to step in, the duke gently caught my arm.
“Why not just leave him be?”
“But…”
“It seems he hasn’t been able to act as freely as he’d like in front of you. Isn’t letting him relieve his stress at times like this also one of the qualities of a good master?”
Now that he had begun speaking more casually, the duke had a surprisingly unreserved and sharp-tongued side.
At a loss for words, I looked up at the duke, then found myself oddly convinced and nodded.
“Well, there’s no guarantee he’ll really hit dead center with all ten shots.”
“…Well.”
The duke chose not to say more.
Thanks to that, I was seized by an ominous premonition and quickly turned to Prien, who was standing on my other side.
When our eyes met, Prien smiled faintly, looking troubled.
In disbelief, I asked,
“Really?”
Jaka might actually hit them all?
And as if answering that question, the second arrow he fired also lodged itself dead in the center of the target.
It looked as though the two arrows had split the center between them side by side.
“N-no!”
The owner pointed back and forth between the target and Jaka, his face turning white as though he could already foresee what was about to happen.
Even with the owner standing before him like that, Jaka ultimately proceeded to plant every last remaining arrow dead in the center, one by one. Then, in a loose, insolent posture with the bow slung over his shoulder, he looked back at the owner.
“Are all the prizes ready?”
“Please, can’t you show me some mercy? I really never said I’d give you a prize every single time you hit the center!”
“Oh, is that so? Then did you ever tell us in advance that you’d secretly cut the fletching on the arrows?”
“What?”
“So that was it!”
The passersby who had taken part, failed to hit even a single shot, and had been watching until now immediately flushed red and stepped forward.
“On top of that, you set out a bow this heavy and this stiff on purpose and told people to hit a target placed that far away? You might as well have just shouted that you didn’t want to give out any prizes!”
In the end, faced with the people’s fierce protests, the owner repeatedly bowed his head and began returning the participation fees he had collected.
“I told you, didn’t I? That they must have tampered with the arrows or the bow somehow.”
Jaka, having dealt a blow to the swindler who had clearly come out to make a quick killing during the busy season, returned with a much refreshed expression.
Unable to resist, I looked back at the duke.
To think his advice had been right.
When our eyes met, it was hard to hold back my laughter.
Pretending otherwise, I quickly reached up and stroked Jaka’s head.
“What? What’s this? Are you praising me for doing well right now?”
Though Jaka didn’t understand what was going on, he quietly left his head in my hands.
“That’s right. I’m praising you.”
As if he did not dislike the feeling at all, Jaka smiled with the corners of his eyes slightly crinkling and plopped something into my arms.
“What’s this?”
“The prizes.”
Jaka, who had gone so far as to sweep up every last prize from the swindler, checked my expression and then burst into a refreshing laugh.