60.
“Then can I ask you something?”
He stared at me as if to say I could ask anything I wanted.
“Did the previous duke really raise you in secret?”
“He didn’t exactly hide me.”
Isitan folded his arms and leaned against the wall beside me.
He didn’t seem the least bit moved by the new topic of conversation.
So just as I was about to change the subject again, he continued as if it were nothing.
“There was no need to hide a child he’d abandoned before I was even born.”
“……”
“I’ve never once thought I had a father in my life.”
Unable to find anything to say, I merely shifted my eyes in silence.
“Then, when he was about to die, I suppose even an illegitimate child like me started to seem useful. One day, a man calling himself the butler came looking for me.”
“……”
“And so, well. Here we are.”
Isitan glanced at my face, then tugged up one corner of his mouth.
His black eyes gleamed like those of a mischievous boy.
“I guess when people were gossiping behind my back, they didn’t tell you I was illegitimate?”
“……”
“Most people figure out that much without being told. But you didn’t even know that.”
Isitan unfolded his arms, lightly laced his fingers together, and let them hang.
“And after asking, you just froze in shock.”
Isitan, who had been peering at me with his head tilted and a faint smile on his face, suddenly paused.
“What’s wrong?”
Just as he reached his hand toward my cheek.
“What a damned human being!”
In the end, unable to hold back, I spat the words out as if chewing them up.
“No, how can a person like that even exist? Was he in his right mind? Did he have no shame? No sense of disgrace?”
“……”
“You should have just refused to come back! A man like that should have been left to die alone, lonely and miserable!”
Why did you have to succeed him?
Why did you have to leave for a battlefield where you might die as soon as you received the title?
And for a whole six years at that!
On top of that, now you’ve been swept up in this absurd business with a love potion when you did nothing wrong……
I rubbed my face with the back of my hand.
My face was burning hot.
“……”
Did I get too worked up?
Over someone else’s business, no less?
No, but……
Still……
Maybe the person actually involved didn’t want to hear this kind of thing.
I glanced up at Isitan’s profile.
Then, calmly, I adjusted the intensity of my words.
“It’s all right. In any case, he’s dead now.”
I nearly bit my tongue.
Why couldn’t I control what I was saying? My thoughts were tangled, and I couldn’t sort them out.
“What I mean is, from now on, you only have better days ahead of you……. Ah, right!”
“Asha.”
“You said earlier that you don’t know how to dance, right? From what I’ve seen, people with good reflexes can all dance decently enough. So I’m sure you’ll be good at it too, Isitan. I didn’t have anyone to teach me separately, so I learned by embarrassing myself at parties! Yes, tomorrow we can immediately hire a dance instructor……”
“Asha.”
“And have them come……”
I froze a beat late.
What had Isitan just called me?
When I snapped my head up, my eyes met Isitan’s head-on as he looked at me.
He truly had a talent for staring straight through people.
I quickly looked away and tried to smooth over my confusion.
“N-no one but Julie calls me that, calls me that, you know? So why all of a sudden are you…… why me? Why?”
I could hear myself babbling incoherently in real time.
He said quietly,
“A servant who’s only a few years older than you can, but I, the duke, can’t?”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but even that Julie always, without fail, adds ‘Lady’ and calls me ‘Lady Asha.’”
“So you want me to call you ‘Lady’ too?”
If I said yes, would I be dragged away?
For insulting my superior?
“Asha.”
I flinched, my shoulders trembling.
It wasn’t only because of the syllables of my name on his lips.
His two hands, which had approached before I knew it, were gripping my arms from the front.
My thoughts wouldn’t turn properly.
My head simply felt hot.
At the force that made me lift my gaze, my back straightened on its own.
The look he gave me was different from usual, and different from just moments ago.
Beyond that darkness that had seemed like deep glass beads, where nothing could be felt……
I saw something.
Something unpleasantly viscous, so enormous it was distressing and impossible to make out, like a living, moving beast.
An emotion that had lowered its body and held its breath.
A chill ran up the back of my neck, and every fine hair stood on end.
He stepped closer to me.
I could feel his body right in front of me.
That overwhelming presence, and the low sound of his breathing from just a hand’s breadth away.
“……I don’t care who you love.”
Isitan’s voice echoed through the quiet room.
“Even so, don’t love that man.”
“……”
“It can’t be Frien Izanar.”
His head tilted, and with a soft thud, our foreheads touched.
“……”
“No matter what happens, never.”
Like that, he repeated the words as if in prayer.
His jet-black eyes, pushed so close that I couldn’t even turn my gaze away, watched me from within the shadows.
As if he had to hear my answer right this instant.
Uh……
For the first time in front of him, my fingertips went cold and my knees weakened.
‘What emotion is this?’
It resembled the fear one felt when facing an unknowable unknown.
Only after my breath caught did I realize my heart was pounding violently.
That was when it happened.
Bang.
“……!”
The door opened.
And the aide, who found himself face-to-face with me, widened his eyes.
Then, like a spouse who had caught someone in the act of adultery, he pointed at me in horror.
“You……! You……!”
“I didn’t do anything, I swear!”
For some reason, I felt like I had to make that excuse, so I did.
But perhaps it was like pouring oil on a fire, because the aide’s face rapidly turned red and blue.
“You even drank alcohol?”
Gasp. How did he know?
But before I could defend myself, Isitan slowly turned and stood in front of me, as if hiding me from the aide.
Then he said in a strangely reproachful voice,
“You startled me.”
“……”
I think the aide was more startled than I was right now.
His open mouth kept falling wider and wider without end.
‘At this rate, he might even start drooling.’
“W-what is this?”
Then I heard a familiar voice from beside the aide.
When I craned my neck, I saw someone I hadn’t noticed a moment ago.
Daena was hiding behind the door with only her head peeking out.
The look of shock on her face was a sight to behold.
Anyone would think she’d discovered a murder scene.
Feeling awkward, I put some distance between myself and Isitan and stepped back.
“I’m not the one who made him drink……”
“Are you all right?”
For a moment, emotion welled up inside me.
Daena! You’re worried about me!
“No, wait. If you were all right, you wouldn’t have been found looking like this. What a pointless question I asked…….”
“…….”
In the meantime, the aide, who had finally come to his senses, strode into the room.
“Your Excellency, are you all right? You never drink…….”
“I’m fine.”
Isitan swept a strangely displeased gaze over the aide.
The aide stared at his beloved superior with the expression of someone who had been struck on the back of the head.
“Did you not hear me when I told you to go easy?”
“Pardon?”
Isitan jerked his chin toward me and let out a sigh.
“She lost weight.”
“Pardon?”
“She’s lost all her weight. If anything, she needs to be putting some on…….”
“…….”
“Reflect on it.”
“Pardon?”
“…….”
I heard the sound of teeth grinding.
“……Yes, sir.”
With his head lowered, the aide raised his eyes sideways and silently glared at me.
No, seriously, I hadn’t said a single thing.
Isitan turned fully toward me.
“Make sure you eat properly.”
“O-okay.”
“As for alcohol……. Haaah…….”
Isitan raised a hand, rubbed his face, and let out a sigh that seemed to rise from somewhere deep within him.
“And get enough sleep. Especially don’t go to bed too late.”
“……I said I got it.”
Isitan walked farther into the room, then brought a pair of shoes and set them down in front of my feet.
Daena’s face was dyed with shock once again.
I kept my mouth tightly shut as I put on the shoes.
Isitan held out his arm as if telling me to lean on it, and when I took it, there was a little incident where both of us staggered—but putting that aside…….
The aide’s gaze, shooting into the back of my head as if it would pierce right through, was terribly prickly.
“I knew this didn’t bode well from the moment he asked me to bring women’s shoes and even specified the size.”
And how chilling that mutter was.
I desperately pretended not to hear.
Once I had put on the shoes, Isitan, as if he had been waiting, picked up the mask this time.
“I-I’ll put it on myself.”
The pressure from Daena’s face, silently shocked for the third time, was considerable.
I quickly took the mask and roughly pressed it over my face.
Isitan, who had been watching me intently, let out a low rumbling laugh.
“W-what is it?”
“The mask. You chose it, didn’t you?”
“Does it look bad even to you, Isi…… Your Grace?”
I had almost committed the act of calling the duke by name right in front of the aide, whose eyes were blazing wide open.
Even if I was drunk, I still had at least that much survival instinct.
“No.”
“Isn’t the owl cute?”
“I don’t know about the owl.”
He lightly flicked his index finger against the mask.
My head wobbled slightly.
‘Then……?’
Leaving me puzzled, Isitan turned away first.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Home, of course.”
On Daena’s face, shocked for the fourth time already, facial paralysis from repeated shock was beginning to set in.
Thud.
Just then, with the sound of something heavy colliding, Isitan, who had been walking ahead, stopped.
Because his path had veered ever so slightly off course, instead of passing through the door perfectly fine, Isitan had rammed his shoulder into the hinge and fell silent for a moment.
“…….”
The aide asked quietly from beside him.
“Do you…… require support?”
Isitan pretended not to hear.
Following Isitan as he led the way, we started walking.
The new shoes fit perfectly. Each step was smooth and comfortable.
Not far from the side door of the party hall, two carriages were waiting.
I suddenly stopped in my tracks.
“Oh, right. My shoes.”
Daena, who had come up beside me at some point, poked me in the side.
“What?”
Daena silently pointed to one side.
I saw something dangling from the fingertips of Isitan’s hand as he held them behind his back.
……They were my shoes.