159.

“The circumstances of oral transmission are quite specific. The free people must have little to do. Like me, they should refrain from wasting their mind and body by spinning thread all day until their fingertips are all calloused. Don’t you think?”

“…I suppose so.”

Johannes had quite a hard time lifting the corners of his mouth. Inette slowly clenched and unclenched her fist, hidden deep where he couldn’t see. She carefully confirmed that the tingling sensation from her fingertips was simply due to nervousness. Not a sign of ‘it’ returning. Her gaze, distracted, inevitably drifted downward a bit.

“Hah…. Whatever the reason, she’s such a selfish and weak-hearted woman. Just like our mother…. No, perhaps better than mother?”

“Mother?”

“Ah…! How foolish of me! I’ve committed a great discourtesy in daring to compare a woman who at least killed once to a deranged woman….”

Inette continued her own speech, disregarding Johannes’s halfhearted question. Her slightly raised, dramatically sarcastic tone happened to be exactly like the aloof Winfrid. Could bloodlines reveal themselves through such trivial habits…?

Inette continued to imitate the princess consort for quite some time after that. She mocked some of her deranged mother’s antics with gestures like a jester performing before a king.

Oh, God! Protect our pitiful mother and daughter…! She flails about with hand and shoulder gestures while kneeling on a tiny desk chair. She’s quite energetic. Regrettably, because of this, he would not be able to hear the answer he wanted today.

Even though one would think her spirit should be broken by now, Johannes was finally able to show a resigned smile after watching Inette, who remained utterly unchanged.

He was a bit tired. It was clear that persisting any further would only be to his own detriment….

Johannes had always restrained himself. Of course, the devil seemed to have oxidized in Johannes’s blood that night several years ago, leaving not even fragments of pain, but it would be beneficial to refrain from forcefully implementing a reckless move that might give the beast a chance to boil over.

So on days like today, he shouldn’t worry about Inette’s change of heart and incite her already unstable soul. Don’t seek answers. Just believe. Like when he first entrusted himself to her. He rubbed the back of his neck, admonishing himself.

“Let’s go to sleep now.”

Johannes said, straightening his body and tidying himself. His fingertips, showing signs of fatigue, still had a faint tingling sensation. And Inette, who had been looking out the window until then, turned to look at him with wide eyes.

“Already? No. Why so suddenly?”

“I’m doing this because I’m afraid you might get worked up again and trash the room. You know the housekeeper thinks I’m the one breaking all this, right? I’m the one sweating to explain every morning.”

Johannes raised one finger, pointing across the brass candlesticks lined up on each wall as if drawing a horizontal line. Each one had a delicately formed arm or corner that was askew. These were precious metals that had somehow survived in the bedroom that had already been turned upside down several times by Inette’s hands and feet. It’s fortunate that there hasn’t been a fire yet.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Wow, you really….”

Johannes clicked his tongue at Inette, who shrugged her shoulders. What are you saying, you brat. Inette pouted her lips, averting her gaze slightly. Johannes, who had chided, “What are you saying, you insolent one,” grabbed Inette’s waist, who seemed to have no intention of moving, and pulled her down.

Perhaps because she had been kneeling for too long, Inette couldn’t easily regain her balance when she stumbled down to the floor. She staggered back and forth like a reed hit by a storm, crying out short screams of “My feet are tingling…! My feet are tingling!” She finally fell into his arms as if collapsing.

It hurts so much… As Inette made a purely pitiful face for the first time in a very long while, Johannes let out a slightly suppressed laugh, finding it welcome and amusing. Inette, who had rested her forehead on one of his shoulders, suddenly raised her teary eyes and exclaimed.

“What! You’ve grown taller, Johannes.”

“Oh, have I?”

“That’s unfair…. You were always the same as me, but this time you’ve suddenly grown so much on your own.”

“I don’t know either. If I knew, I would have shared it with you.”

“Would you have?”

“You’re asking the obvious.”

“……”

“What wouldn’t I share with you.”

Johannes casually replied while patting Inette’s shoulders as if dusting them off after straightening her up.

“These days, I’ve started learning horseback riding and swordsmanship, even if only in an abbreviated form… That might be why I’ve grown….”

His voice, which naturally led to talking about his recent activities, began to fade intermittently from the middle. It was because he had discovered a strand of hair caught between Inette’s lips.

“You often do this. Don’t you feel it?”

Johannes briefly chided her and then cupped her cheek with one hand. The slight furrowing of his brow as he focused his gaze on Inette’s mouth came immediately after. Though the winter chill was so dry it could spark a flame even in frozen hay, Inette’s skin was moist as if holding water, and perhaps because of this, even the hair that seemed like it would come away with a single touch didn’t easily detach even when he gently scratched at it with his thumbnail raised.

Johannes’s head lowered to the tip of Inette’s nose as he began to use his fingers like tweezers, having raised the hand that had been cupping her cheek. Inette’s breath was noticeably closer as she quietly gazed at him from a place about two finger joints lower, but he didn’t even notice. He was only carefully observing the thin golden thread clinging tightly to her cheek. Inette remained silent. Having finally completed his task, Johannes carefully tucked Inette’s hair behind her ear. A faint smile of accomplishment even graced his lips.

“…Have you finished horseback riding?”

At that moment, Inette suddenly asked, as if reciting.

“Yes.”

Johannes answered casually while tidying up Inette’s nightgown sleeve. Inette immediately followed up with another question.

“Did you wield a sword too?”

“Ah, that was a wooden sword. It’s not much yet.”

“But you… I’m sure you did unreasonably well this time too?”

“Well… that….”

Johannes’s gaze, moving from the right arm he had finished arranging to the left, collided with Inette’s face. And at that moment. He swallowed hard for a moment.

He saw it. The sight of her eyes trembling finely as she watched him. He knew it. That trembling was demanding of him. To boast to her right now. To show off his admirable brother before her. That person… is you.

Tell me.

“…Somehow, I think I understand.”

Inette murmured softly, her gaze falling to a shallow place.

“…What?”

Johannes stammered a little. Somehow, his breath caught first at that subtle fall. As if the hand of a girl who had jumped held onto his wrist. Inette’s eyes, standing before him showing a dazzling front, were strangely red. After remaining silent for a while with only her eyes lowered, she soon smiled faintly and opened her mouth.

“That woman, I mean. I think I understand her feelings a little.”

“…Only now?”

“Yes. Although I can’t… fully understand. Although I will never even know her name….”

Inette laughed briefly, like a sigh.

“So, because the person that woman killed happened to be none other than her brother… There must be something somewhere that resembles the love between a man and woman, but is certainly not that, something that makes it impossible to only hate the other person…. Because they’re siblings. I envy it.”

“……”

“Siblings, um, I envy them not because they’re someone else, but truly because they’re ‘siblings’.”

“……”

“I don’t know the name. But if it’s that kind of affection… I think I understand a little too.”

“What… are you saying….”

Somehow, Johannes ended up averting his gaze while mumbling. His vision, tilted askew, barely captured Inette’s earlobe while wandering aimlessly through empty space. He couldn’t focus entirely on one place. But he couldn’t step back either. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. No.

In fact, he had no desire to step back.

“…Who wouldn’t covet you?”

Tell me more.

“How could anyone endure you?”

Tell me more.

“At least I… can’t bear not cherishing you.”

Tell me more….

The sensation of heat rising from the nape of his neck to the edge of his forehead was piercingly hot. Johannes couldn’t come to his senses due to the heat throughout his body. His focus narrowed to a needle point.

Inette came into his arms from the polar region of that gaze with footsteps that seemed like crying. She wrapped her weak arms around his neck and gently rubbed her forehead against his remaining skin. You are my sun. You are the person born outside the tower for me who would be so lonely.

You are… me.

Her small, wet voice was forming inside his collarbone. With his chin slightly raised, Johannes, who had stiffened as if a stake had been driven into his spine, awkwardly stroked the back of her head with his stiff hand. He was breathless beyond words inside his tightly closed mouth. Suddenly, Inette raised her head from his embrace. Johannes, barely planting his feet that seemed ready to jump up like a scream, managed to lower his trembling gaze slightly to meet her eyes.

“Hm? Tell me, Johan. This time too, the vassals must have gathered in droves at the training ground and chanted your name, right?”

“…To an annoying degree.”

“I knew it!”

Inette’s face, having finally obtained the answer she wanted, became drenched in delight and shone.

“You, when you win your first championship in the equestrian competition, you must bring the wreath to me, Johan.”

“I will.”

“And on your first trophy, engrave my name like your own.”

“…Wouldn’t that be a bit strange?”

“What does it matter?”

“……”

“You’ll do it, won’t you?”

This is not a request. It’s an order. And Inette doesn’t even imagine his disobedience. Johannes was not unaware of this. Moreover, on this night, he even had an additional thought. Who are you? That question from the duke should have been directed at her instead.

She had always been a predator from birth. She merely complemented her innately frail body with cunning words, just not appearing like a sword at first glance. A beast that had to wear the disguise of a plant.

Please don’t change.

Just imagining her swallowing even his own groans in one bite made his heart race. Even if he were to someday viciously condemn her in disgust at the pain and sorrow caused by her, she wouldn’t even blink an eye.

Without a trace of guilt, without a single tear begging for forgiveness, she would simply continue to stir him up and refuse to let go.

Don’t whine uselessly. You’re mine anyway. With such a resolute voice, she would be a perfect dominator who wouldn’t give him even a moment’s chance to try to understand her, nor allow him any leeway. You are such a person. How could I not desire and crave such a person like you? Ah, I recognized you from the cradle. That’s why I was so fascinated by you, and that’s why I’m so….

Paradoxically….

Johannes’s tensed muscles slowly relaxed. His entire being, up to the tips of his hair, warmed up as if walking into warm water with reverent bare feet. Even the stiffness in his expression melted away, ending in a brilliantly clear smile. An empty laugh burst forth endlessly.

“I don’t want to?”

He answered playfully in a softly melted voice.