Chapter 05Ā
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I even stopped breathing and turned my eyes outside the window. Small pebbles, as if someone was throwing stones, were continuously tapping on the window pane.
Quieting my footsteps, I carefully approached the window. I fully pulled back the half-drawn curtain and got into an attack stance. At that momentā
“…Huh?”
A single flower was suddenly thrust into my view. It was a flower in a vase.
‘What is thisā¦.’
Before I could even finish my thought, the person holding the vase grinned and waved at me from behind the thin glass. It was the Emperor.
‘What kind of situation is this now?’
Without even time to straighten my clothes, I hurriedly opened the window leading to the balcony.
“Your Majesty? Why are you here of all placesā¦.”
“It’s only proper that you take this first, and then we begin our conversation.”
Instead of a proper answer, the Emperor held out the flower still in the vase. I guessed he had brought the entire vase, decorations and all, from a table or desk.
When I just stared blankly at the vase, not knowing how to take this situation, he cleared his throat with a slightly embarrassed expression.
“I came in a rush because it suddenly occurred to me.”
“ā¦ā¦.”
“I will prepare proper flowers next time, so could you forgive me with this for today?”
I couldn’t possibly say no to the Emperor, so I took the vase he was urging me to accept. That was fine, but I wanted to ask what on earth had suddenly occurred to him, but my lips wouldn’t move.
“I thought we could take a walk together and talk.”
“ā¦ā¦.”
“The palace’s night garden is quite splendid.”
As if refusal had never crossed his mind, he was already climbing over the balcony railing and reaching his hand out to me. Feeling like sighing, I stared at the large hand being thrust right in front of my nose.
I had no way to refuse, nor any reason to.
> ‘Let’s go. I can’t sleep anyway.’
The man’s hand, which I held for the first time in my life, was bigger, longer, and harder than it looked. As soon as I held the Emperor’s hand and jumped up onto the fairly high railing, I immediately leaped down into the garden.
“ā¦ā¦Heh.”
The Emperor let out a soft laugh from above, looking down at me with a bewildered face.
Only then did I realize, a bit late, that he had intended to carry me down.
“Ah. My home is in a high and rough placeā¦ so it’s a habit.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and stammered out an excuse. The Emperor chuckled a few times and then silently leaped down right next to me.
> “A Silver Dragon, and a mansion located in a high, rough place ā the Evergreen family’s territory. I would very much like to visit sometime.”
“ā¦The head of the household would be honored to hear that.”
“Would he really?”
He retorted in a strange tone and held out his hand. This time, I placed my hand on his palm, quite like a proper noble lady.
“You don’t seem accustomed to taking night strolls with someone.”
“No, I tend to sleep early and wake early.”
What part of my answer could have been so funny? All of a sudden, the Emperor threw his head back and started laughing loudly.
Using his low, spreading laughter as our carpet, we slowly strolled through the night garden. The moonlight and the flowers were both so beautiful that it was more awkward and ticklish.
“Did you write the letter?”
“Ah. So you came to check on the letter.”
The Emperor burst into laughter again.
I grew more and more troubled because I couldn’t figure out what part of me he was finding so funny. The more troubled I became, the louder the Emperor’s laughter grew.
How long had we walked like that, me feeling unfamiliar with the sensation of his hand holding mine, fidgeting with the awkwardly cradled vase? Suddenly, I felt something was strange.
Without realizing it, the Emperor and I were walking on a path that was too remote.
> ‘I noticed he wanted to talk in a quiet place with no people aroundā¦. But this isn’t just a quiet placeā¦ā¦.’
He and I were standing in a pitch-black space with absolutely nothing, literally.
“Your Majesty, this isā¦.”
“Ah, you noticed?”
Formal speech?
Suddenly, the Emperor’s tone changed. It wasn’t that dignified voice from before, but a much more comfortable and natural voice.
> “This is a blind spot in the system. A rare, precious space where I can avoid the natural order and be my original self.”
System? Natural order?
> “Seeing you, I take it this is your first time being ‘inserted’ into a world.”
The Emperor’s smiling expression was also completely different.
His authoritative, sharp-as-a-blade demeanor was gone. In an instant, he had transformed into a familiar, friendly boy-next-door type.
“Your Majesty. I’m a little confused right now.”
> “Speak comfortably. I brought you here because I think of Merial as my only friend.”
“Speak comfortably, you sayā¦ā¦.”
> “I’m asking you to be comfortable because we’re both in similar situations. Perhaps I’m in even more trouble than Merial.”
He scratched his head and laughed, looking like he had no idea how to explain.
> “I’m really not suited to being an Emperor. In the Academy’s aptitude test, I was judged suitable as an aide or a supporting knight, but somehow I got assigned as the arrogant Emperor of a coercive, angsty drama.”
He shook his head with a deep sigh.
> “It’s so hard, really.”
Academy? Aptitude test?
Again, difficult words popped out. While I was trying to understand him, he plopped down onto the pitch-black floor and spread his outer garment on the ground. Then he patted the clothes.
When I hesitated, he reached out his arm and gently pulled me down to sit on his clothes.
> “Let’s catch our breath here before going back. You probably can’t even imagine how happy I am to have someone to pour my heart out to like this, Merial.”
“Uhā¦ā¦. Soā¦ so Your Majesty is also like meā¦ā¦.”
> “That’s right. I was originally supposed to play a rather insignificant role too. At best, I was supposed to be a supporting character with a one-sided crush on the heroine. But when I came to my sensesā”
He drew out the end of his sentence, elegantly spread both hands, and shrugged.
> “Here I am.”
Deep fatigue was embedded in his voice as he recited the Emperor’s lines.
His gentle, slightly tired smile gradually faded, and a shadow fell over his face.
> “I’m only saying this because we’re alone.”
“Yes.”
> “You saw the Falkenstein lady earlierā¦ Adeline, right?”
I nodded.
He nodded back at me and lightly tapped the fancy flower cradled in my arms with his fingertip.
> “I’ve liked Adeline since my Academy days. For a long time.”
“ā¦Ah.”
> “Doing things like imprisoning someone I’ve secretly liked for a long time, crushing them with force, breaking their spiritā¦ I realized I could never do that, so I hid here alone every day and cried. Among coercion, angst, and regret, I’m confident I can do regret very well, but I didn’t think I could manage the first two.”
He lifted his head and looked at me.
> “I was thinking I’d rather die, but then you appeared, Merial, and the direction of the story shifted slightly. Honestly, until that strange mist spread, I didn’t know how to handle this situationā¦ but now I’m completely at ease.”
He smiled innocently and held out his right hand.
> “I’ll do my best, so let’s try our hardest, you and me.”
The moment I absentmindedly shook the Emperor’s hand, I frowned again, feeling tightness in my chest.
This man, and Adeline too, were both doing their best in their roles. Was it right for me to barge in and change the established flow among people who had their own struggles and efforts?
“Your Majesty.”
I cautiously opened my mouth.
> “Adelineā¦ she probably thought she would become the Empress, right?”
“She probably did. Naturally.”
> “Then, for Your Majesty and Adeline to become the heroes of this story as originally intendedā¦ā¦.”
I paused for a moment, then continued.
> “ā¦And at the same time, for it to be a story where you don’t treat Adeline violently as Your Majesty wishes, and you two live happily ever afterā¦ What should we do then?”
The Emperor looked at the sky and chuckled softly, as if he’d heard a dreamy tale. After a few quiet laughs, he stared into the air with a face that seemed happy just imagining it, and answered.
> “Well, I don’t know. Right now, Merial is the Empress-in-waiting. We’re currently in the middle of a very standard, stable romance, so there’s no particular need to change anything.”
“I know that. But still, I’m just talking about imagining it.”
> “It’s impossible, even in imagination. I’ve already firmly said that Falkenstein is out of the question.”
“Still, as you live, there are things like a small possibility or a variable, right?”
> “In this story, it’s nowhere near possible. Unless there’s a major accident involving Merial that turns this into a decent event-driven drama, this setting is fixed.”
A major accident, huh.
I engraved the hint he gave me not in my head, but in my heart, and stood up.
> “Thenā¦ shall we go back now?”
This time, I held out my hand to the Emperor. He looked at my hand for a moment, then smiled and took it.
“You’re so diligent. I wanted to rest a bit longer.”
“I haven’t written the letter Your Majesty commanded yet.”
He twitched the corners of his mouth and lightly shook our joined hands. Like that, swinging our hands like children out on a picnic, we returned to where we had come from.
“Please grant me the honor of escorting you this time.”
“I assure you, when it comes to climbing walls and jumping over fences, I’m far more skilled than Your Majesty. If anyone’s doing the escorting, it should be me escorting you.”
The Emperor snorted and placed his hands on the railing. I snorted back without backing down and leaped toward the balcony.
Recalling memories of tree-climbing contests with the village children when I was very young, I put strength into my arms, and laughter burst out of me involuntarily.
“Starting first is cheating, Meriel.”
“In the place I lived, someone who moved as gracefully as Your Majesty wouldn’t even get their dinner.”
“Ha.”
The offended Emperor grabbed my ankle and pulled me straight down.
I barely swallowed a scream and scrambled back up, struggling. The Emperor and I crossed the railing almost simultaneously and laughed in hushed breaths like troublemakers who had succeeded in a night adventure.
“My foot touched down first.”
“No? I climbed up with one hand while holding a vase, so you have to account for that handicap.”
“Don’t you think I gave you the whole vase knowing that?”
“Wow. Can you be that cowardly?”
I chuckled and crossed the railing ahead of the Emperor, stepping into my room. That was the moment.
> “You two look like you’re having fun.”
Adeline was sitting on a chair as if it were her own room, staring at us. Her large eyes were filled with cold betrayal.
