Da Capo 14

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Chapter 14

Kyle woke up not long after. He lifted his left hand with vacant eyes, examining the bandage wrapped around his wrist.

“Hey, are you seriously out of your mind?”

“…You should have just let me die.”

His voice was so weak that it would have been inaudible without paying close attention. But thanks to the quiet room, Aaron could hear Kyle’s voice clearly.

Slap!

Aaron struck Kyle’s cheek as he lay there. Though it wasn’t the ideal angle for a slap since he put his emotions into it, the sound was quite loud.

After being hit, Kyle said nothing. He could have executed Aaron right then for insulting the Emperor, but there was no reaction.

“What did you say? You should have been left to die? Do you have any conscience? If you survived by consuming his life, you should live well! Do you think he died in your place so you could live like this?”

“That’s why… you should have… just let me die.”

Kyle’s voice was monotonous and indifferent.

“Hey!”

Aaron shouted. But there was no further response. After venting his anger at Kyle, Aaron left the room and tore at his hair, screaming. He felt like he would suffocate from frustration.

“AAARGH!”

Aaron’s hair, already straw-like and rough, became even more disheveled. Passing servants glanced nervously at him. Aaron yelled at the Head Attendant with bloodshot eyes.

“Remove anything sharp enough to cause injury, and only put clothes and bedding made of easily tearable fabric in his room.”

“Yes, understood.”

“Even if he tells you not to enter, open the door frequently to check on him.”

“Understood.”

The Head Attendant bowed with a grave expression. Aaron stomped down the hallway. With Blair dead and Kyle behaving this way, he needed to keep his wits about him. He couldn’t let the imperial palace—this country—fall further into ruin. Aaron gritted his teeth.

Even after Aaron slammed the door shut and left, Kyle remained motionless on the bed. He was like an intricately crafted wax doll. The servants removed all glass objects. Their place was taken by soft bedding and cushions. Kyle’s gaze fell on one of them—bedding embroidered with elaborate patterns in purple thread.

Every time he saw objects with traces of purple, he couldn’t bear to see the remnants of Blair. He wanted to remove it from his sight immediately but couldn’t move a finger. Kyle squeezed his eyes shut. Behind his tightly closed eyelids, Blair’s face appeared.

Blair’s face, which he thought he could draw even with his eyes closed, was gradually fading from his memory. At first, tears would come every time he recalled it, but now the face appeared blurry, as if smeared by tears. Tears welled up in Kyle’s eyes and rolled down his face.

He never thought it would end like this. He had believed his time with Blair would last forever.

It was arrogance.

He shouldn’t have been so foolish. No, everything was his fault.

When Blair expressed his intention to retire, Kyle should have let him go. If he had, if Blair had left his side earlier, he wouldn’t have died. It was his own foolishness to blame.

Had he truly been unaware of Blair’s feelings? There must have been a reason, but now he couldn’t clearly remember the reasons behind the choices he had made. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to disrupt the peace that he and Blair enjoyed. Kyle had simply thought that way—that the state of being together with Aaron and Blair was perfect, neither needing anything added nor taken away.

Kyle hadn’t wanted to destroy that balance with his own hands. Rather than losing their friendship forever through a brief flirtation, he had wanted to maintain that state eternally by pretending not to know. He had thought it was right for the two of them to remain friends.

It was arrogance, and a misjudgment.

If he had known it would end like this, he wouldn’t have done it. He shouldn’t have done it.

The pain in his heart was so intense he could lose consciousness. Kyle slowly clutched at his chest where his heart was located and curled up.

* * *

What had happened at the beginning of winter had already become the past, a month ago. The black ribbons tied by the knightly order under Blair’s command had not been removed even after a month. Though Blair was dead, time did not wait and flowed mercilessly onward. The empire’s winter wasn’t actually that harsh. But this year, an unprecedentedly powerful cold wave had engulfed the empire. People walked with their collars tightly fastened and faces buried in their coats.

It was the dead of winter. It was cold. It seemed as if this terrible winter would remain in the Crassia Empire forever.

Even the atmosphere of the imperial palace, which was always kept warm with heating throughout, was terribly heavy, gloomy, dark, and cold.

“Ah, fuck, damn it, shit.”

Aaron, arriving for work, cursed at the sight of everyone’s gloomy expressions. Though everyone was doing their jobs and greeting him politely, the depressing atmosphere in the palace hadn’t lifted at all.

Aaron walked down the corridor, stomping his heels loudly against the floor. If he didn’t vent his frustration somehow, he felt he couldn’t bear this horrible atmosphere.

His destination wasn’t the Emperor’s office. Leaving the central palace, Aaron headed toward the western palace. The western palace was originally a cold place with little sunlight. Fires were lit there from early winter until full spring arrived. But not now. Not even a spark of fire could be found there.

The western palace, with no lights despite it being daytime, was excessively dark. In books from distant lands that he had read as a child, there was something called the “Cold Palace.” It was where imperial concubines who had committed wrongdoings were confined, their every move monitored, and they weren’t even given firewood, making it unbearably cold. It seemed like that place had been recreated here.

“Ha, fuck. This is really something else.”

Aaron let out another crude curse. He kicked the door open and entered the western palace. The western palace wasn’t a place where many people typically stayed. It was hardly worthy of being called a palace—it was used almost as a storage area. This was especially true in winter when daylight was short. It was practically abandoned, used only to store unused items.

Now, the Emperor of this empire was staying there.

The Head Attendant, shivering despite wearing several layers of coats, immediately bowed when he saw Aaron’s face. Even inside the palace, breath turned to vapor, which immediately froze on eyelashes. The inner part of the western palace was even colder than outside because sunlight couldn’t reach it. Who would have thought such a place existed in the imperial palace? Aaron asked irritably:

“What is he doing?”

Aaron himself knew it wasn’t this Head Attendant’s fault, but he wanted to vent his anger on someone.

That anger might have been directed at Blair. But now he couldn’t be angry at him or irritated with him, so he had to take out his temper on the living. There was no one left to tolerate his nasty temper.

“H-he’s j-just s-sitting inside.”

The teeth of the frozen Head Attendant chattered. Aaron suddenly felt pity for him.

“You’re having a hard time too. A Head Attendant of your rank, shivering in a place like this.”

For the nobleman-born Head Attendant, this must be cold unlike anything he had experienced in his life. He probably wanted to quit this damned position immediately. The Head Attendant looked half-possessed. Perhaps he wasn’t in his right mind and couldn’t even think about quitting.

“I’ll go in. No need to announce me.”

Aaron clicked his tongue irritably and grabbed the handle. The cold flowing through the doorknob penetrated his gloves made of several layers of leather. What the hell are you doing? Aaron gritted his teeth.

Even the massive lake near the capital had frozen solid in this cold. People weren’t leaving their homes. It was an extremely unusual cold spell. People whispered: The heavens must be angry. No, the heavens must be mourning the Grand General’s death.

Aaron now found such talk irritating, sad, and infuriating. He kicked the door hard. The hinges attached to the door rattled.

The room, without even a single candle lit, had curtains tightly closed to prevent any light from entering. It was so dark that the interior was barely visible. The room was like an ice cave. Aaron blinked a few times. Only after some time did his eyes adjust to the darkness. Even the water placed there had frozen solid.

“What are you doing, you idiot?”

Aaron didn’t hide his scathing tone. Those harsh words were directed at the only person breathing and existing in this room. No, Aaron suddenly thought:

Is this person truly alive? Perhaps he’s merely continuing to live because he cannot die. He might even already be dead.

Kyle, who had been rampaging nonstop since Blair’s death, stopped his violent behavior the moment his self-harm was prevented. Instead of raging, he chose to sit still, merely breathing.

Aaron walked over and looked with contempt at the person sitting on a hard wooden chair without even a soft cloth cushion. The golden hair that once caught everyone’s attention had grown unkempt, and the strong, large physique had transformed into something like a withered branch. The vibrant blue eyes were so shrouded in darkness that their color couldn’t be distinguished. He looked like a corpse already dead.

“You idiot, are you eating at all?”

“……”

There was no answer. Aaron sighed deeply out of frustration. The sigh drew a long white vapor in the room.

“Whew.”

His eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. Aaron hadn’t expected an answer anyway. He approached the center of the room.

[To be continued in the next chapter…]