86.
On the morning I returned from spending the night out, the moment I arrived home, the tension left me and sleep came crashing down.
Leaving behind Julie, who was staring persistently at me for coming back together with Prien when we had clearly each gone out separately, I washed up and collapsed face-down on my bed.
As if it had been waiting, sleep pounced on me.
Aside from being forced awake once in the middle to eat a meal, I ended up sleeping straight through until the sun set the next day.
Even when I turned over in my sleep, clutched my stomach in pain, and groaned, I absolutely did not wake up.
What woke me, of course, was not something like sunlight cast by the sun hanging high in the sky.
“You check whether she’s breathing.”
“She is.”
I felt Zaka bring a finger under my nose.
“Surely she hasn’t fainted?”
“Am I the only one who heard her snoring just now?”
“This won’t do. Shake her awake a little. We need to make sure she’s all right.”
“Why are you making me do it?”
“You followed me all the way here because you were worried too, so are you really going to pretend you weren’t?”
“Don’t you know the Baroness’s specialty is sleeping so soundly she wouldn’t notice even if someone carried her off?”
“Wait, look how damp the pillowcase is…… Should we change it for her?”
The problem was the two of them standing side by side at my bedside, incessantly whispering until I woke up.
Because of the conversation grating on my nerves, I had no choice but to gradually awaken.
Frowning, I wiped the corner of my dried, drool-stiff mouth with my palm.
“……I didn’t drool, you know?”
When I replied in a hoarse voice without even opening my eyes, Julie clapped her hands.
“You’re awake! Then I’ll go tell them to prepare your meal.”
“Ah…… No, I’m going to sleep more……”
As I pulled the pillow over my face and buried myself in it in agony, Zaka quietly stepped in front of me.
Julie, apparently not having heard my voice, hurried out of the room.
I twisted my whole body under the blanket and grumbled.
“Ah, I said I’m not eating……! I don’t want to eat…… I’m not hungry……”
Just then, I felt weight settle on one side of the bed, making my body tilt.
Raising my head blankly with sleep-crusted eyes, I saw Zaka sitting on the edge of the bed.
Bathed in the faint sunlight filtering through the curtains, he smiled softly.
‘Pretty.’
I was thinking that in a daze, wiping the corner of my mouth once more, when—
Zaka reached out, planted his hand near my shoulder, and leaned over me.
Zaka’s bangs tickled my forehead.
“Baroness, do you know what?”
“……Huh?”
“Last night, I had quite a hard time cleaning things up without Julie finding out.”
After checking my expression, Zaka gave a small laugh and continued.
“Do you know you were groaning in pain all night, Baroness? Even when you turned this way, you furrowed your brows, and even when you turned that way, you made groaning sounds. You even kept mumbling some incomprehensible sleep-talk while looking like you were about to cry.”
I felt my sleep vanish.
“What, what, what do you mean……”
Zaka stared straight at me in my panic and flicked my cheek with the tip of his finger.
“……!”
Then his hand moved down.
I let out a soundless scream.
He had pressed his palm firmly against my abdomen, as if applying pressure.
“Ha, haa……”
It hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Zaka looked down with an expressionless face at me as I lay curled up alone, groaning for quite a while longer.
For some reason, the atmosphere made me shrink back a little.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he gently wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead and warned me in a fairly eerie voice.
“If you don’t want to be found out……”
At the faint sound of footsteps running this way, Zaka’s eyes narrowed.
The corners of his mouth also drew a pleasing arc.
“You’d better cooperate with me.”
On the other hand, his eyes, which were not smiling in the slightest, watched me as if they would permit no other answer.
“U-uh-huh……”
“Good girl.”
He smiled brightly.
‘Wh-who’s the master here, and wh-who’s the servant……?’
I blinked and raised my upper body.
Zaka naturally supported me and seated me against the headboard.
He even brought a cushion and propped it behind my lower back so I would not have to strain my abdomen.
“……”
Taking advantage of the moment when I was still not fully awake and disoriented, he first inflicted a bit of physical pain.
Then came the mental pressure, accompanied by a sense of intimidation conveyed through his posture.
The entire sequence of steps to achieve what he wanted flowed so naturally it was almost perfect.
And I had fallen for it completely.
……Still, should I be grateful that he kept it a secret from Julie?
Just then, as Julie opened the door and barged in, Zaka made a sly face and winked so only I could see.
‘No need to think too deeply about it, I suppose.’
I turned my head.
“You’ll be having your meal in the dining room, won’t you? Then with the guest in the room across……”
That was as far as Julie got.
Thud.
Zaka threw himself down at the bedside loudly enough to make a sound, sat at an angle, and leaned his head on my shoulder.
With his left leg outside the bed and his right leg stretched out entirely on top of it.
“Baroness, you remember what I told you, don’t you?”
“Uh, huh?”
Zaka pulled my hand out from under the blanket and very calmly interlaced his fingers with mine.
Perhaps because he was still a boy, even though he handled all the rough work at the mansion, his fingers felt smooth.
‘Ow.’
But the moment Zaka tightened his grip, our bones pressed together, and it hurt a little.
Julie’s face turned sour when she noticed me frowning slightly.
“What were you two talking about while I was gone for a moment?”
This time as well, Zaka cut in.
“I said it felt like the amount of time we spend together has decreased a lot lately, and that I was disappointed……”
‘And?’
The gazes of the two women fixed on Zaka.
“She said she would spend time with me for the time being.”
“But the guest in the room across……”
Julie cast a confused look outside the room.
As if saying, ‘Weren’t things going well between those two?’
‘……I suppose I do need to show her that idea is wrong.’
Otherwise, while Prien stayed at the mansion, all sorts of troublesome things might happen.
‘And……’
Since I had received a vacation anyway, I was planning to stay quietly cooped up in the mansion and recuperate for a while.
My thoughts continued naturally.
‘You can’t, Anastasia.’
The man beyond that hood.
That was right.
A “man.”
Of course, I could not completely rule out the possibility that even that had not been his true body, and that he had been controlling someone else.
But the hand that had defended the hood from me had carried a fair amount of sincerity.
The way he had suddenly pulled his head back, too.
If anything, the corners of his mouth curling up as though he were enjoying that precarious moment had grated on my nerves.
‘He spoke as if he knew me well.’
His voice had been beautiful for a man’s.
Though he used a free-spirited manner of speech, he clearly employed sentence endings often seen among nobles.
Simply put, a child of a noble house.
A man.
And……
The arrowhead-shaped scar on the inside of his nape.
‘It seemed like he’d already realized I was chasing him.’
And yet scaring me and tormenting me had come first.
……That rotten bastard. That creepy pervert.
Deep in thought, I tilted my head slightly to the side.
If that was the case…….
‘How will he come out from now on?’
I intended to watch and see.
‘Will he reveal himself? Or will he hide himself away completely?’
Assuming he knew that his own “limbs” had fallen into the duke’s grasp.
If there was no reaction, then starting with House Peregrine, and the families that maintained close ties with them, one by one…….
Julie clutched at the hem of her skirt, then let it go as she asked,
“Um…… then…… Lady Asha, will you be eating here?”
“Yes, I will. Something simple, please.”
“Yes, yes! Please wait just a moment!”
Julie left the room, glancing back at Jaka and me several times.
“I don’t really like being stared at.”
Jaka muttered that in a low voice, then pulled the cord and let down the curtains attached to the bed.
The drapes fell, and it felt as though the space had been confined to the inside of the bed.
“Julie said she’d bring something to eat in a bit.”
“That’s not right now.”
Saying that, Jaka tilted his head again and buried his cheek against my shoulder.
“You’re surprisingly a bit heavy.”
“Did you receive treatment?”
Without hesitation, he placed his palm on my stomach.
I flinched a little.
It was true that, with Jaka, I was especially less guarded.
We did see each other faithfully every day from morning until night, and more and more often, Jaka had begun tending to my minor needs in place of the busy Julie.
Julie had tried ordering him around a few times too, and perhaps he met her standards, because after that she said nothing more about it.
And so…….
As the sun was slowly setting, it had come to this: a man and a woman lying side by side in the middle of a curtained bed, fingers interlaced, far too intimately.
‘Huh?’
“Baroness? What are you thinking about?”
“Ah, what did you say just now?”
“I asked if you received treatment.”
“Yes, I did.”
“It’s obvious. You only received emergency treatment, didn’t you?”
His quiet voice sounded unusually close.
‘Huh……?’
When had Jaka slipped under the blanket?
Beyond the plain fabric of my indoor dress, I could feel his leg.
“What are you planning to do from now on?”
“Huh? What?”
“Why do you keep getting distracted?”
“…….”
“Or maybe you’re not distracted by something else…….”
“…….”
“Are you conscious of me right now?”