“……Seiyed?”

In an instant, Kisa’s drowsiness vanished completely as she blinked and stared at him.

“Yes, it’s me.”

The pleasant, gentle voice from her memory. This wasn’t a dream. It really was Seiyed.

“W-when did you-!”

Seeing Seiyed put his index finger to his lips, she remembered this was a library that required silence. Kisa hurriedly lowered her voice and asked.

“How long have you been here?”

Seiyed answered casually.

“About ten minutes?”

Goodness. That long? Even if she had been drowsy, she hadn’t noticed him opening the door and coming in at all. Moreover, to have shown such an embarrassing sight.

“…You could have said something when you came in.”

“Would that have been better? I apologize. You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

It seems in his eyes she hadn’t just been dozing, but fully asleep. Feeling like she wanted to crawl into a hole, she covered her face with both hands.

“Please forget what you just saw.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s embarrassing.”

“Not at all. Drowsiness is a natural physiological phenomenon.”

Still, it wasn’t a sight befitting a lady of a noble family to show others. Especially for Kisa, who had received a conservative education from Count Vanspelt, she felt this way even more strongly.

But for some reason, when Seiyed said it, it really didn’t seem as embarrassing as she thought. It was strange.

“You were reading The Theory of Possession.”

Seiyed glanced at the book and whispered.

“Well. I’ve read too little to say I’ve read it.”

From his perspective, she had barely read two pages after getting a book recommendation before falling asleep. It was still embarrassing.

However, seeing Kisa’s flushed face, Seiyed gently said:

“It’s alright. They say well begun is half done. Just attempting something unfamiliar is already a big step.”

“…Thank you for saying that.”

He is a good person. Her heart, which had only felt cold when receiving encouragement from the noble princess, now felt warm.

“Did you come to read a book?”

Wanting to continue the conversation, Kisa asked him an obvious question. You fool. What else would one come to a library for if not to read?

But an unexpected answer came from Seiyed’s lips.

“No. My mind was complicated, so I was wandering around to organize my thoughts when I found myself here.”

“I see.”

For a moment, an odd sense of kinship arose at the fleeting look of weariness that appeared and disappeared on his face. Even Seiyed, who had seemed capable of solving any problem due to his intelligence, had his own worries. Like her.

“Ah, I also came in to see Kisa.”

“Pardon?”

“Looking at the library, I had a feeling you might be inside.”

“…Are you joking?”

“I’m serious.”

The smiling Seiyed confused Kisa. Is he trying to seduce me now? She asked herself the question, but no clear answer came to mind.

She was accustomed to being seduced by men to the point of being jaded. If it had been another man, Kisa would have judged those words as frivolous talk and kept her distance.

But unlike men who expressed their interest with subtle glances, Seiyed’s attitude was utterly plain, so she couldn’t make a judgment.

After brief contemplation, Kisa tentatively concluded that Seiyed’s words and actions were simply kindness. It was also a conclusion heavily tinged with personal hopes.

For some unknown reason, she wanted to keep their relationship as a pure connection born from a chance encounter.

“Would you like to get some fresh air? It should help clear away your drowsiness somewhat.”

So she wanted to believe this proposal also stemmed from goodwill. Kisa looked out the window Seiyed pointed to and replied, “Sure.”

The two exited through the library’s back door into the rear garden. In truth, if they had used the main entrance, there was a possibility of being spotted by Marsha, so Kisa was secretly relieved when Seiyed first suggested going to the rear garden.

“Wow, there’s no one here but us.”

“Well, compared to the one by the main entrance, this is more of a formal garden.”

As Seiyed said, the rear garden was small and didn’t get much sunlight, being blocked by the library building.

Moreover, it being early afternoon on a weekday, when university students, the main users of this place, would be in classes, the entire library was quiet.

“Do you visit the Royal Library often, Seiyed?”

When asked that, Seiyed stroked his chin with a strange expression.

“Not really. Actually, I haven’t been in the capital long. I first came here when I was touring the capital recently, and I liked it quite a bit, so I’ve visited a few more times.”

“Oh, you’re not from the capital?”

“I was born and spent my early childhood in the capital. But due to circumstances, I had to spend most of my adolescence in another region.”

“I see. I thought your capital accent was quite accurate for someone from elsewhere.”

The two walked side by side through the cramped rear garden, which didn’t have much variety in plants. The fresh breeze blowing made her feel much better than she had just hours ago when she felt like rolling in the mud.

“Did you return to the capital to attend university?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve never attended university.”

“What?”

Kisa finally realized she had been assuming he was a university student.

“I’m sorry. I misunderstood.”

“It’s alright. There’s nothing to apologize for. Shall we sit here for a moment?”

He led Kisa to a bench that seemed to have been placed in one corner of the garden for appearance’s sake.

If he’s not attending university, does that mean he’s not a student? Then why did he return to the capital? Various questions about the man sitting beside her swirled in Kisa’s mind.

But it would be rude to ask about deep personal matters in such a casual relationship, so she held back. However, Seiyed beat her to it.

“Is there something you’re curious about?”

Their eyes met.

“You can ask. How about this? We each ask one question fairly.”

“One question each?”

“Yes, or more if you’d like.”

“You said you had a worry earlier. May I ask what it is?”

Seiyed’s eyes widened, perhaps at the unexpectedly sudden question. In fact, Kisa who asked the question was more surprised. Is this what they mean when they say the mouth moves faster than the mind?

“Ah, no. What I just said-”

She was about to say to ignore it, but Seiyed opened his mouth.

“It’s about marriage.”

Because it was the same as what she was worrying about, Kisa unconsciously paid attention to his words. Seiyed spoke with a bitter smile.

“Due to family circumstances, I have to marry a certain woman, but I’m not at all inclined to do so. I’m looking into every possible way to avoid it, but it’s not as easy as I thought.”

How surprising. To think he would be struggling with exactly the same problem as Kisa. Encouraged by this miraculous coincidence, she cautiously spoke up.

“I’m in a similar situation. I’m in a position where I have to go through with an unwanted marriage.”

Seiyed also seemed quite surprised.

“You too?”

“Yes, there’s an engagement my father arranged, but I can’t see any way to avoid it.”

“…Then, was the reason you were crying when we first met related to this?”

The man looked at Kisa with serious eyes.

“At that time, you said you were crying because you couldn’t understand the Bart doctrine, but honestly, I didn’t think that was the whole story.”

Kisa chewed on her lip, unable to answer easily.

“This is my one question.”

Whether it was her imagination or not, a pressure unique to those who have lived their whole lives giving orders from above others rose from the reddish-brown eyes she faced.

“Kisa, will you answer me?”

It was the most polite way of urging an answer she had ever heard. Half of her own volition, and half due to the gently forced will of another, Kisa moved her lips.

“You’re right. That day, I heard harsh words from my fiancé. I also found out that he had a more intimate relationship with another woman than with me.”

It was hard to understand. The shameful details she never wanted to reveal in front of the princess and the young ladies flowed smoothly from her mouth. As if she had desperately wanted someone to ask.

“My fiancé said that. That I was stupid for not even knowing what the Bart doctrine was. Because of that, I became stubborn… thinking I would check for myself, I went to the library…”

As she spoke, her emotions welled up. However, even though she paused occasionally to catch her breath, she continued to speak.

“I don’t know what to do. The people who were precious to me suddenly became distant, but thinking about it, they were probably always like that, and I was just under an illusion.”

Finally, tears welled up in her eyes. She had shown tears twice now to a man she had only recently met, tears she hadn’t shed in front of Daniel or Melissa.

No, perhaps it was possible precisely because of that. To Seiyed, she was just Kisa, not Kisa Vanspelt. Just a woman he happened to encounter in the library.

He silently held out a handkerchief to Kisa.

“It’s alright.”

Not wanting to soil his, she tried to take out her own, but Seiyed pressed his handkerchief into her hand.

Surprisingly, his hand, which she touched for the first time, had calluses. She had vaguely thought they were hands that only turned pages.

Finally feeling too sorry to refuse, she wiped her tears with his handkerchief. The cool scent of bergamot tickled her nose.

A moment later, only the sound of Kisa sniffling, having calmed down somewhat, could be heard in the rear garden. Apart from feeling relieved, embarrassment rapidly rushed in.

“Kisa, in that case.”

Seiyed suddenly spoke and met her gaze.

“Would you marry me instead?”