#69
“If you’re feeling left out, then hurry up and get better.”
An immediate counterattack shot back. Sercil crossed his arms with a triumphant expression.
“Ahahaha.”
Ersen laughed, but there was something strangely attached to that laughter. His voice flowed lightly, but there was a tremor that seemed to be hiding something.
The way he doted on him so much was somehow irritating.
Skyle watched the scene silently and briefly thought that to himself.
It wasn’t unreasonable antipathy. Even if he didn’t know the name of the emotion, there was something that brushed across his heart. It was subtle discomfort.
The inexplicable tension flowing between the two as well.
It was puzzling but simultaneously irritating.
Skyle tilted his head slightly as he watched them, then gently raised the corners of his mouth.
In the silence where the steam from the soup subtly spread, their bickering was creating warmth. Watching it quietly, Skyle fell into the illusion of seeing a scene from an old fairy tale book. It was warm, harmless, and somehow incongruous. He felt like he was standing outside that landscape, and that sensation was both familiar and unfamiliar as always.
Just as he was about to get up from his seat, he made eye contact with Sercil.
Sercil paused for a moment with his mouth open as if confused, then reflexively threw out a question.
“Oh, Your Grace, are you leaving already?”
His pupils shook for an instant. At the unexpected timing of farewell, Sercil revealed a moment of fluster. His words were natural, but what was contained within was regret.
“Yes. I should be going now.”
Skyle’s answer was calm as always. He rarely revealed his heart in his gentle and refined tone. That was his habit and the line he had drawn for himself. He hadn’t intended to stay here long from the beginning.
Sercil asked carefully.
The end of his words trembled slightly. The hesitation felt like traces of trying not to show it, but it showed so clearly that even an oblivious person could see it.
“You’re going to keep coming today and tomorrow, right?”
It seemed like a simple question, but the emotions within were complex. Curiosity, anxiety, slight wariness. Skyle didn’t miss those subtle nuances.
“I plan to drop by daily for the time being.”
The answer was still concise and kind. It was a tone that was neither unnecessarily long nor meaningful. Nevertheless, the reaction in Sercil’s eyes was gradually changing. Bewilderment, somehow uncomfortable expressions. The emotions hidden within quietly rippled.
Skyle watched with interest as Sercil subtly grew uncomfortable.
He couldn’t know exactly whether that emotion was jealousy, worry, or confusion. But he accepted it as an interesting subject of observation. Triggers that shook emotions always came in small, trivial ways. Sometimes gazes said more than words, and subtle breathing said more than fingertips.
Prince Lindea couldn’t just overlook the fact that Prince Ersen was particularly weak to Archduke Rodias’s words.
That weakness was a threat to others, but approached Sercil as an ambiguous stirring of the heart. Sercil always quickly noticed how the prince would readily agree to Skyle’s words and deeply engrave even light requests. Skyle’s position of saying things he couldn’t say was a burden to Sercil.
Even now, he was clearly acting this way seeing the prince’s regretful appearance.
Skyle knew this. Ersen’s gaze that had just passed by, his eyelids that blinked a few seconds late, the texture of emotions that lingered within. All of it was etched in Skyle’s mind. The prince still wanted to be together.
Skyle smiled a bit more deeply.
He wasn’t smiling with his eyes, but his lips were gently curved. The leisure and calculation contained within, and slight playfulness. He revealed himself in a way that didn’t reveal emotions.
It was quite an interesting point that only the person in question, Ersen, didn’t know about this reaction.
Something that only the person involved couldn’t feel. The innocence of someone who had no idea how they were being seen was sometimes the most dangerous weapon. When everyone was smiling on one side, the sight of only one person seriously tilting their head in puzzlement was also a long-familiar sight to Skyle.
While doting on him so much.
He didn’t say it aloud, but he was definitely calling him that in his heart. The word ‘cute’ rarely came out of Skyle’s mouth, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have such feelings. The prince was quietly shaking someone’s heart in ways he himself didn’t know.
“Hmm, th-then, I’ll see you tomorrow. Your Grace!”
Sercil offered his final greeting. He slowly waved his hand while drawing out his words. Like someone who wanted to say please stay a little longer instead of farewell.
“Archduke, be careful on your way!”
Ersen’s voice was somehow clearer. Those words were sincere and at the same time mixed with slight regret. Since he didn’t try to hide the lingering feelings in his heart, Skyle momentarily focused his gaze on him.
Naturally making eye contact only with the prince among the two waving side by side, Skyle lightly bowed his head.
Making eye contact wasn’t rare, but the gaze of that moment definitely felt different. An exchange that gave and received more than any answer or words. It was a greeting that seemed to have organized something.
“Then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Until he opened the door and stepped out, Skyle never once stopped his footsteps. Even until the moment he closed the door and went out, warmth remained in the room.
The feeling of leaving the room was strange.
Outside was still cold. The stone walls of the corridor held no warmth, and the softly echoing sounds with each step reminded him of the fact that he had returned to reality. However, one side of his heart was still lingering in the room.
It felt like gathering a handful of warm air and trapping it somewhere before coming out.
That room, that space, those people. He knew everything was temporary, but for that moment, such facts became meaningless. The lingering feelings that remained in one corner of his heart followed Skyle like an unfinished story despite closing the door.
‘……I don’t know exactly what kind of constitution it works as, but it seems certain that it’s an inborn constitution due to Eris.’
Thoughts naturally returned. The habit of reducing the warmth from just moments ago to data rather than emotion. The way of converting and organizing with reason rather than heart. That was Skyle’s attitude toward life.
If it’s this powerful, perhaps it’s not a naturally born constitution but a type of curse.
Strong things always came with a price. When something drew and shook people’s hearts like that, there was always corresponding pain or loss hidden within. Skyle didn’t deny that possibility.
Right now, when he firmly believed that all these sensations were happening because of someone’s constitution.
Emotions that couldn’t be explained otherwise. The laughter, wavering, discomfort, and coolness from just now. It was rather safer to attribute all of that to one constitution, one ‘legacy of Eris.’
That was all Skyle could think.
* * *
Hearing the sound of the door closing, I quietly exhaled.
Slowly, very slowly, air escaped from my lungs. The feeling of something that had been fully inflated deflating. It quietly embraced the bedroom, and for a moment I felt as if the density of air surrounding me had changed. That way, the room became a space for just the two of us again.
The trembling of the spoon in my hand wasn’t just because of the slight fever.
A single piece of cutlery with no weight or special qualities trembled minutely at my fingertips. It was trembling that originated from the body, but at the same time trembling that stemmed from emotions. I had swallowed too many words and suppressed too many expressions. As a result, it leaked out from my fingertips first.
‘The Archduke acting like this isn’t something I’m used to.’
He pretended to be indifferent, always using refined speech, yet held some warmth within. The problem was that warmth was always very precisely calibrated. So my body had no choice but to react first to kindness poured out without warning.
Necessity.
Those words remained in my heart longer than expected. When I heard them, I seemed to have passed them off as nothing, but they repeated inside me belatedly. The more I repeated them, the stronger the resonance became.
Necessity…….
I had known before what nullification magic meant to the protagonists.
Whether those who coveted that power or those who tried to protect it, they were all the same in the end. They all moved with me as both a ‘tool’ and ‘focal point.’ That was also the position given to me.
There were only differences in how they expressed it, but the protagonists were showing completely different reactions.
Some carefully, some excessively, others without saying anything. But Skyle always acted politely, very slowly, as if being considerate so I could notice. That’s why it was more unfamiliar. Careful kindness lasted much longer than aggressive goodwill.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
