33.
Cigarette smoke hung thick in every direction.
It was so white and hazy up ahead that I could barely make out people’s faces.
Jaka turned to look at me, clicking his tongue, and raised his eyebrows as if surprised.
“You okay?”
I only shrugged my shoulders, but his narrowed eyes demanded an answer, so I replied shortly.
“Rohwinaseu smoked.”
“…….”
“Ah, he did quit later, so what happened was—”
“I didn’t ask.”
I hadn’t planned on telling him in the first place.
I spoke teasingly and laughed.
“Jaka, you should become an adult who can take responsibility for your own curiosity, shouldn’t you?”
“Mind your own business.”
Jaka muttered rebelliously and pulled me deeper inside.
Then a stage set up further in came into view.
The performance was in full swing. With lights firing from every direction and the hazy smoke, I honestly couldn’t see very well.
Only the singing was too loud and somehow sticky, making it awkward to listen to.
Just then, a boy who looked like an errand runner rushed over, looked back and forth between me and Jaka, and asked Jaka,
“Which seat shall I guide you to?”
What?
Anyone could see I was the one…….
“It’s because anyone can tell you look like it’s your first time here.”
Jaka whispered in my ear.
“So you’re not?”
Jaka subtly avoided answering and turned back to the boy.
“We’d like to enjoy ourselves intimately, just the two of us. As you can see, this is this person’s first time at a place like this.”
“Of course, if that’s the case, we have a nice spot.”
As I followed the boy walking ahead, I stuck close to Jaka’s side and muttered rapid-fire.
“I feel like I’ve come somewhere I shouldn’t. Like I’ve set foot in a place where this wouldn’t end with just a slap on the back from Juli.”
“Just think of it as a place to drink, enjoy the show, and have fun. That’ll make it easier.”
“But it sounds like that’s not actually the case?”
When I grabbed his sleeve and hung off him, Jaka clicked his tongue and turned around.
“Walk standing up straight. What will people think we are?”
“What else but lovers.”
At my grumbling, Jaka leaned his upper body way down toward me as if speaking to a child, met my eyes, and asked.
“Baron, how old are you?”
“Oh, old enough.”
I pressed my elbow firmly into Jaka’s waist and warned him.
“And don’t call me that. I’m already scared my identity will get exposed—are you trying to make it worse?”
“Then shall I call you by name?”
“Ah, that won’t do.”
“Ah, that won’t do?”
Jaka echoed in an ‘I knew it’ tone and began listing choices one by one.
“Then pick whatever you want. Mistress? Master? Or perhaps…….”
“Now that I think about it, name is better. Call me by name.”
Unfazed by my quick change of stance, Jaka nodded.
We were guided to a small room with a view of the stage through the window.
I had been terrified it would be some strange place, but a clean, luxurious room appeared.
It looked suitable for simply having tea or refreshments.
Although I had seen a bed prepared beyond the inner curtain, I staunchly ignored it.
When Jaka ordered some food and flicked a gold coin to the boy with his fingertips, the boy took it, grinned, and withdrew.
My precious gold coin…….
The performance outside the window was reaching its climax. A voice traversing high notes resounded even inside the room.
Jaka, leaning against the window and looking down, let out a light whistle.
“They sing well.”
“Then go out and watch.”
Jaka noticed me standing awkwardly and drew close.
“We don’t even know if we can find any clues today. Get used to it first.”
“Please don’t tell me we’ll have to come here again.”
As we exchanged pointless chatter for a moment, the food arrived.
While Jaka served a bit of food onto the plate in front of me, my gaze briefly landed on the wine bottle.
Thirst welled up, and my heart grew eager of its own accord.
I glanced at Jaka.
Jaka, who had uncannily noticed my gaze, answered without even looking at me.
“No.”
“Then why did you order it?”
“What customer comes here to fill their stomach? I ordered it just to keep up appearances.”
“Then at least the smell.”
“Why smell it? You’re not going to drink it.”
“I’m trying to set the mood, why?”
The moment I grabbed the wine bottle, Jaka snatched it like a man possessed.
“No.”
“If you order it and don’t even pour it into glasses, it’ll look suspicious. We have to pour it into glasses anyway.”
I gestured with my eyes toward the presence that had been loitering outside the door.
As if Jaka had known as well, he clicked his tongue with an annoyed expression.
I let my body slump weakly against the chair back.
“And it’s too loud here, and stuffier than I thought, so I’m saying it’s hard.”
“…….”
When strength left Jaka’s hand, I successfully snatched the wine bottle and excitedly pulled the cork.
I poured wine into the glasses in turn and pushed one toward Jaka.
Continuing to eat moderately, I stealthily leaned my head toward Jaka.
“Gone?”
“Gone.”
“Strange. Do they normally monitor guests like this?”
“Who knows. There might have been a separate reason.”
“What kind of reason?”
Jaka delayed answering and shrugged.
I looked Jaka up and down and clicked my tongue.
“Don’t tell me…… because we didn’t look much like lovers, we aroused suspicion?”
“Are you picking a fight right now?”
“How is this a fight? It’s a reasonable deduction.”
I replied and tilted my wine glass, spilling a little onto my dress.
Fortunately, since it was white wine, it didn’t show much.
I also scattered wine on Jaka’s clothes.
Jaka cried out with a look of disgust.
“What are you doing right now?”
“We need to go out and do some reconnaissance too, don’t we?”
“So?”
“If we get caught later, we need to be able to pretend we’re drunk.”
When I even poured wine into my palm, Jaka raised his eyebrows and warned.
“You’d better not sneak a sip.”
“……I’m not that shameless.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re awfully full of yourself today?”
“Today I’m your lover, aren’t I?”
“If you’re my lover, at least listen to me. Don’t act like a sworn enemy.”
Grumbling, I got up and looked around the room with a serious expression.
“Hmm, how should I put it, it’s definitely too barren—it really lacks that lover-like feeling.”
“That’s because this is a drunkard, not a lover.”
Undaunted by Jaka’s sharp remark, I moved on to the next action.
I strode over, drew back the curtain, and approached the bed.
I flopped face-down onto the bed and messed up the covers.
Then I raised myself and threw a pillow toward Jaka.
Jaka watched the pillow roll to his feet and asked incredulously.
“So after the drunkard comes the hooligan?”
“If lovers who drank alone together in a place like this were to do what comes next, there’s only one thing.”
“…….”
Sitting on the blanket that had half spilled off the bed, I smoothed down the hem of my dress where it had ridden up and asked,
“Are you going to keep standing there looking so sulky?”
“……Are you serious?”
“I am.”
Jaka looked away and let out a sigh that seemed to rise from somewhere deep within him. Then he rubbed his face dry with his hands and began to move.
First, he knocked over a chair. Then he tipped a plate on the table, spilling the food onto the floor.
After that, he stepped on the edge of a piece of dessert with his shoe.
With his hands shoved into his trouser pockets, he looked down at it with an expression that gave no hint of what he was thinking.
Then, when our paths got tangled and his back bumped into mine as I was moving the table,
he stepped well away and breathed out a long sigh.
“I mean, I’m not sure this has any meaning. Maybe someone like the baron would be fooled, but really, if we were truly going to do it……”
“You were doing so well, and now you’re saying something else? This should be enough to make them think we had our fun and left after getting bored!”
Jaka watched me unfasten one of my earrings and toss it by the bed. Instead of answering, he filled a glass with wine and downed it in one gulp.
I cried out, feeling wronged.
“After you told me I couldn’t drink any!”
But when about half the wine had gone into Jaka’s mouth—
Pffft.
Jaka suddenly spat the wine back onto the floor.
“……You didn’t have to spit it out again just because of that.”
Jaka swept back his disheveled hair.
“That’s not it……”
I stepped closer.
“Those bastards put something in the wine.”
“What?”
While I brought the glass under my nose, Jaka rinsed his mouth again and again with plain water.
I could sense a faint, foreign scent mixed in.
It was such a subtle strangeness that one could easily dismiss it as the wine’s own aroma.
“How did you notice?”
“I can tell if I drink it.”
I knew he had a fastidious temperament, but I hadn’t realized his senses were this sharp in such matters too.
It was something most people would never notice without a similar experience.
Meanwhile, struck by an inexplicable sense of déjà vu, I dropped a few drops of wine onto the back of my hand and tasted it lightly.
“Why are you licking that! Didn’t you hear me say it seems like something was mixed in, that there’s a problem?”
“…….”
Jaka grabbed my shoulders and studied my expression, then closed his mouth.
“It’s a smell I’ve smelled before. And a taste I’ve tasted before.”
I slipped a hand inside my clothes and took out a small leather pouch.
Then I untied the knot and handed Jaka the glass bottle inside.
“What is this?”
“A clue that this place may be connected to the heretics.”
Jaka’s face hardened sharply. Then, before long, his expression vanished.
“It was a bottle carried by someone who was a heretic.”
Jaka tilted his head to smell it, and perhaps he sensed the same thing I had, because he said nothing.
I had come here to find out where the potion had gone.
I never expected to stumble upon a lead about this glass bottle instead.
“……Even so, this isn’t something to be so reckless about.”
“I needed certainty.”
“Certainty about what?”
“Let’s not go back today.”
“…….”
Now that things had turned out this way, I didn’t want to return with nothing to show for it.
“Stay with me until daybreak.”
I had to find out just what was happening here.