With a face that would seem awkward to anyone looking, Cayden forced a smile.
“It wasn’t difficult or challenging work.”
He added just one unnecessary sentence.
“Don’t you miss the horses? You must have given them a lot of affection. With your personality, I’m sure you did.”
Receiving Assad’s casually posed question, Cayden thought about the horses he had cared for. Three horses: one black, one white, and one with patches.
Back then, the horses didn’t have special names. The owner of the mansion didn’t give them any affection, that’s why. The man who worked with Cayden told him to just call them Black Horse, White Horse, and Spotted Horse.
Still, now that Emma, who loved animals, had become the lady of the mansion, he thought they would soon have names. They might already have names.
“I heard they’re doing well. Emma wrote briefly about it in her letter.”
“Hearing about them and seeing them directly are different things.”
“…I suppose that’s true.”
“Let’s go see them tomorrow. While we’re visiting the mansion again, we can see their faces too.”
Assad, who had stopped walking, looked into Cayden’s eyes as he spoke.
It was a somewhat surprising suggestion. Usually, people of high status stayed away from stables. Regardless of how much they loved their horses and bonded with them, most wouldn’t even think of setting foot near where the horses stayed.
“I’m curious to see them too.”
“…”
“Would the horses you cared for wag their tails at you like the dogs in the imperial palace?”
Assad, momentarily shedding his persona as a trading company junior, smiled at Cayden. The flower still tucked above Assad’s ear swayed gently in the breeze.
In Assad’s smile, Cayden could find neither mockery nor pity. Assad was simply curious about the horses that had been cared for by the man who had somehow become close to him. It was just like when he had told Cayden that the scar beneath his cheek wasn’t a problem.
“…If the horses’ owner permits it.”
Cayden, slowly blinking his eyes, smiled along with Assad.
The early worries and anxieties that had been piling up collapsed emptily. The embarrassment that had stiffened his hand while being held disappeared as if it had been a lie.
Cayden realized once again that Assad was a remarkable magician. Whenever he was by Assad’s side, he felt enchanted every minute, every second.
Assad won’t freely tear at my wounds. He won’t force them open.
Such a strange belief arose in him.
By now, a pale pink and vermilion had begun to spread across the sky.
Cayden and Assad passed through the garden and mansion to reach the wide-open iron gates. Now, the carriage storage became their new destination.
The carriage they had brought from Helio was parked in the carriage storage behind the main road that appeared after walking through the residential area beyond the mansion. It was still under a magic spell. They had parked it separately nearby in anticipation of the front of the mansion being crowded with guests’ carriages.
Cayden and Assad walked at a leisurely pace past the long walls of the mansion that extended horizontally. They silently walked between the large and small shops occupying the first floors of multi-family houses. This was to reach the carriage storage.
The two were still holding hands. The residential area had more complex roads than the mansion’s garden, so this time they truly might get lost. That became the only reason their hands remained connected. Despite Assad, who had claimed not to know the way, now walking half a step ahead of Cayden, their held hands remained unseparated.
Shouldn’t I let go of Assad’s hand now? Such a concern crossed his mind. But… what if Assad got lost? That couldn’t happen. He was worried Assad might become a lost child.
Unavoidably, Cayden couldn’t release Assad’s hand. Truly unavoidably.
“What’s that?”
Assad, stopping in his tracks, asked Cayden.
Cayden instinctively turned his head toward the direction Assad was pointing. He could see children gathered in front of a small stand in front of a bakery.
The children were placing money into a small container tied to the stand’s pillar. A man who appeared to be a bakery employee was busily handing over sugar-coated bread to these children. It was delightful to watch him remove bread from metal skewers, cut it up with quick taps, and roll it in sugar.
Cayden couldn’t answer Assad’s question. He didn’t know what it was either. All Cayden could tell was that the children were snacking before dinner. Surely, they would be scolded when they returned home.
Cayden was born and raised in Elba, in the northern lands. But he didn’t know the North as well as Assad. When he was young, he only lived inside an orphanage where going outside was forbidden, and as he grew older, he spent his time only within a farm in a remote area. After leaving the farm, he was busy finding work and earning money. There was no time to look around.
Even after getting a stable job thanks to Emma, the situation didn’t change. Whether it was because his body remembered the life on the farm far from the city, or because he found it difficult to face people… he never dared to step outside the mansion.
He should have at least looked around outside enough to know what that was. If he had, he could have quickly given Assad an answer. He felt somewhat regretful.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
Cayden readily answered Assad’s question.
“Then let’s ask that man. And try some too.”
Having finished speaking, Assad pulled the hand of Cayden, who had a blank expression. The place they headed toward was, naturally, in front of the stand.
Assad, who stood in line behind the children and waited his turn, soon had his curiosity satisfied.
“Why do you have a flower in your hair?”
“Because I want to.”
After first resolving the question posed by a child to Assad. Looking at Assad who gave his answer with a shameless face, the child left a compliment, saying it suited him well.
Assad, placing a coin in the small container, asked the man guarding the stand about the identity of the snack. And he learned it was called “chimney bread,” a rustic name.
That was the end of the conversation with the stand man. Moving his hands busily, the man soon wrapped a bread each in paper and handed them to the two.
Assad recaptured Cayden’s hand, which had briefly separated while they were standing in line. Avoiding the still boisterous children, he moved at a leisurely pace under the lamp that had begun to emit light early.
“I’ll try it first. It might be strange.”
Assad, who had settled in place, spoke to Cayden with a deliberately serious face.
‘That sounds like something I should be saying…’
Despite thinking this, Cayden couldn’t stop Assad. He didn’t want to take away the fun from Assad, who looked excited, not much different from the neighborhood children. Judging by the children who had already finished their bread playing vigorously in a game of tag, there probably wouldn’t be any issue with the bread. Cayden made such a careless excuse.
Assad took a bite of the bread. His expression instantly brightened. Cayden could see the joy Assad was experiencing continuing to swell. He seemed to like the street snack that was thoroughly coated with white powder. That was fortunate.
“You try it too. It’s delicious.”
Meeting the gaze of Assad, who appeared to be in a good mood, Cayden had to quickly take a bite of the bread.
The bread was… extremely sweet. For a moment, he felt like his tongue might melt.
It was a snack with a taste that was profound in many ways. It was difficult to express it clearly. Perhaps he felt unfamiliar because he had never eaten such a thing before.
But thanks to the chimney bread, one fact became very clear.
Assad eats sweet things well. Whether he liked sweet things remained unknown. After all, eating well and eating sweet things well are different.
“…Do you like sweet things?”
Unable to resist the small curiosity that had suddenly arisen, Cayden gathered his courage and asked Assad.
“Yes. I like them.”
A quick affirmation came back. It seems the correct answer was that he liked sweet things and so ate them well.
A fact he hadn’t known while dining with Assad, sitting face to face and talking, he now learned in the distant Elba. It felt strange. He felt an inappropriate desire to know more about what Assad liked. Even the smallest preferences would do.
“You don’t like them, right?”
“I’m not sure if I dislike them.”
Assad’s voice was filled with certainty for some reason. Cayden found such certainty from Assad difficult to understand. After all, Cayden himself felt no certainty about himself.
Cayden didn’t know well what he liked and disliked. He had never had enough diverse experiences to distinguish between likes and dislikes. He had never listened to his own emotions. Therefore, hesitation was inevitable in the answer he gave to Assad.
“From what I can see, you do. It’s clear you don’t like it.”
Assad was full of confidence. Cayden laughed inwardly. His expression must have been quite negative to hear such a definitive statement that he didn’t like it.
Cayden learned that he didn’t like sweetness. While feeling embarrassed at the thought of appearing picky, he somehow felt good.
Maybe he liked that Assad had recognized something he didn’t know about himself, that Assad was the first to recognize it. The small joy hidden behind the embarrassment tapped at Cayden’s chest and laughed.
“Next time, let’s eat something you like.”
“Something I like?”
“Salty things. Isn’t that what you like?”
Cayden, who had learned one more previously unknown preference about himself, had a surprised look. It seemed right now that he thought about it, which made it even more amazing. It was possible to divide likes and dislikes so easily. Cayden was amazed. Knowing others would find it pathetic, he didn’t voice his thoughts.
“And…”
Assad, uncharacteristically hesitant, continued.
“Can you continue to act as my senior, like you did earlier?”
It was a somewhat unexpected topic.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
