When quietly yet fiercely intoxicated by a drug, time is silently severed. Everything visible, audible, and tangible is completely erased, and that pure black insensitivity is no different from a disconnection of consciousness and separation from the world. If there is a painless death somewhere to be thankful for, wouldn’t it be exactly like that? A peaceful death.

For that reason, I seem to have greatly enjoyed that hazy state.

I have fragmented memories without even the awareness of ‘regaining consciousness’ or ‘opening my eyes’. At an indistinguishable time. Strangely, in the inverted floor and ceiling before my eyes, the legs of upside-down people were busily parting red waves. My whole body, slung over someone’s shoulder like baggage, and my eyelids were pleasantly heavy. At that time, I had no desire, not even for a moment, to raise or compose my body, which was as limp as water-soaked cotton. That’s right.

I can’t describe how good it felt.

I think I chuckled. Because I was a lightly dead body, unbound by anything. And because my golden hair, cascading down a stranger’s back and waist, sweeping even the floor, looked just like Alyona’s broom. Those things were endlessly amusing.

“Alyona. How dare you hold me upside down and sweep with me?”

When I asked with a smile, the phantom-like gentle and innocent girl blushed as if utterly wronged and babbled out a tearful excuse.

“What else can I do! Your knight broke all our tools, so not a single intact broom remains…”

Strange. I tilted my head.

“Didn’t he compensate?”

“How could this be compensated? What’s broken is broken. Irreplaceable!”

Alyona grumbled. I nodded.

“Mmm, you’re right.”

“Look at her. She’s laughing!”

A slender shoe-clad foot entered my vision.

“It seems her mind is clearing early because she didn’t drink that much. Since it’s come to this, why don’t we call this off? That man, he doesn’t like it when they’re awake anyway.”

The voice following my spine with a subtly anxious tone was Regina’s. The speech I heard clung gently like vines, making me briefly think it didn’t sound like her at all. Someone’s light hand grasped my back as if to soothe me.

“Today, I’ll drink in her place and entertain for free.”

“As if that guy would accept a woman with a ruined face… You go and reduce the swelling. And who said you could set the price…”

It was an old woman’s voice, grotesque as if scraping her throat. The sound of Regina’s footsteps quickened a bit.

“It might be dangerous. Even though it sounds like the ravings of a madwoman, she really could be the daughter of some noble family. Since there’s always a slim chance, we should look into it a bit more…”

“What noble’s child would wander around in this state? Even if she were an abandoned child, they’d quietly lock her up in a convent, not let her drift to a brothel. No need to bring shame to a fine house.”

Regina seemed at a loss for words at the old woman’s firm refusal. I saw her ankles tangling and stumbling in confusion.

“Ah, really…”

I heard the sound of lips being bitten above my back.

They say they sell their own bodies, but now it seems they’re going to sell someone else’s body. I guess my body is merchandise here too. I judged quite correctly even in my hazy state of consciousness. Just leave it, Regina. Because the situation I heard was trivial, and because the voices squabbling over me were annoying, I tried to stop Regina.

But my voice wouldn’t come out well. In the end, I just laughed softly and left it at that. Because even the effort to make my voice resound was heavy and bothersome. I just wanted to sleep. I simply swayed pleasantly like a child. The red before my eyes. The floor. My hair.

Johannes.

If you were to come to me now, climbing through the closed window as we once did, I, drunk with sleep, would shower you with all the childish affection I couldn’t express before. I missed you. Did you feel the same? I want to hold you. Hold me quickly… With my arms around your warm, firm neck, I’d cling to you like a child, like a leech…

I felt someone’s soft cheek press close to the back of my head.

“You, just lie there as if dead. Go ahead and fall asleep. Time will pass quickly, and when you wake up, you won’t remember. Understand? Hm?”

It was Regina’s low and fierce whisper. It sounded utterly anxious and impatient. Why are you so worried about this loose body? I laughed senselessly again.

Not waking up during the unpleasant deed that was carried out without my knowledge was probably one of the many miracles that happened to me that day. My mind, which had been no different from a state of extreme intoxication, suddenly became clear as if washed with cold water. Unlike the day after heavy drinking, not even a fragment of hangover arose, and I found it very strange that it was an exceptionally clear lucidity like glass. Only then did I become certain. The drink Regina gave me, it was a drugged drink.

“…I’ve experienced something similar before.”

I whispered softly to the crown of the man’s head, who seemed busy preparing to carry out the act. The man who had been bowing his head under my body suddenly looked up. Our eyes met in an instant. His expression, as if he had seen a ghost, looked old enough to be my father, and his neck and shoulders visible in my sight were quite large. Yet, why? Despite his warrior-like build, his straight eyes looked so ordinary, like those of a tenant farmer, giving a somewhat powerless impression that was a bit bland. Grand Duke Valdemar. You, whom I still respect so much, were like an iron field.

“Wha, what…”

“What, you ask? Who are you to ask?”

“……”

“How surprising.”

Lying down, with only my chin raised, I blew a soft “puff” into the face of the man who was fiercely furrowing his thick eyebrows. And at that moment.

A slapping sound tore through my eardrums. My vision flashed yellow. My left cheek felt like it was on fire. The man who had raised his hand without warning panted heavily like a bull.

“Ill-mannered wench.”

Ha.

I didn’t even touch the slapped cheek. I just found the sudden violence absurd. I sat up slowly, keeping my gaze fixed on the man’s eyes. Without a moment’s delay, I slapped his left cheek. Crack. This time, it seemed as if fire lit up in the man’s eyes. Not missing the chance when his pupils dilated dizzily from the surprise attack, I struck his left cheek again. Of course, I didn’t give him even a moment’s respite. I just slapped his cheek repeatedly without thinking. Once. Twice. Three times. Just as my father had done to Johannes in the past. As he had done to me. To my…

As he had done to my mother.

Father’s face, as he pinned down that slender woman in their bedchamber, was so merciless. So red that I, young as I was, seemed to have greatly envied his cruel dominance that I had glimpsed through the crack in the door. And perhaps even now.

“Are you coming to your senses?”

I gently grasped the chin of the man whose cheek had swollen red and asked. His gaze slowly, slowly returned to me. It was a look that could hardly be called fearful, no matter how much I had hit him.

My eyes and my body know fear well. The man’s confused eyes before me were different from mine in the past. It was merely a deep bewilderment, unable to discern the situation. It seemed like the kind of bewilderment only possible when one is confident of escaping an unpleasant situation at any time. However, that brief gap the man showed was enough of a clue for me to see through him.

Born to be an ardent follower.

A ruler sorrowful for having no one left to serve.

This fellow, he’s probably not just a simple freeman. I coldly surmised. And so, the person who clearly had the upper hand at that moment was undoubtedly me. Even if I couldn’t completely subdue him physically, I could see right through his one-track mind. I could finally smile brightly. I tapped his cheek lightly with my index finger.

“No matter how precious you may seem, a mere merchant shouldn’t dare to look for manners in front of me. Hm?”

“……”

“Do you understand?”

“……”

“Answer me.”

The man hesitated, his lips tightly sealed. In the end, I leaned in first, putting my lips to his ear and whispered with a giggle.

“Don’t stubbornly resist…”

The way his skin reddened wherever my breath softly touched was surely not just my imagination.

When I quietly pulled away from the man who couldn’t even move, I felt strangely empty all over. Looking down then, I realized that my already thin nightgown had slipped down to my waist, leaving my entire upper body bare.

What a sight this is. I observed my body with an amused feeling, as if watching a jester. I ran my hand along one arm. From the slender fingertips to the soft inner curve of the forearm. Following the line of the armpit, my gaze eventually reached my bare chest.

“You’re quite unlucky to have come this far.”

I laughed in admiration.

“If the drug’s effect had lasted just a little longer, I would have mistaken you for my lover. I would have clung to you desperately with these precious bare arms. You would have liked that very much… Well. Even on that day when I swallowed sleeping pills, the end wasn’t good. Johannes ended up taking me after all. Checking for menstruation and whatnot, even though I clearly said no… So I was resentful and… I was sad about that.”

“……”

“Strange, isn’t it? Even if it was forced, it was something my so-called lover did to my body.”

I turned my head to gaze at the face of the man sitting quietly on the bed. I asked, spreading my hand like a claw.

“What was I so resentful about…?”

I lightly reached out and pressed firmly on his Adam’s apple. Was it because I pressed too hard? The man’s flushed face made a strange sound, “Kkeuk,” and then closed his mouth. The man with features as rough as a thief’s, yet with lines as noble as an aristocrat’s, was at a loss in my grasp.

He looked quite cute in that state. It was then that I realized the man fumbling hesitantly in the air, as if looking for a place to put his hands, was completely naked. Not hiding my amused feelings, I asked the man teasingly.

“How flustered must you be to silently watch a woman not even half your size prattle on? Confess to me alone. Did you secretly hope to be humiliated?”

“……”

“Am I right?”

I released his neck and leaned back. Even as I put my arms back into the fallen nightgown, I could feel the man’s gaze fixed on my brow, not daring to look away. I looked around while tightly fastening the chest ties. I noticed what appeared to be the man’s belt carelessly placed on the table. I lightly stood up and grasped it.

“I shall vent my old resentment on you. Johannes would probably allow it too. What a pitiful coward with only the appearance of a bandit, having a taste for violating sleeping women.”

When I turned around, I saw the man now kneeling in my view.

“Do you understand now? In my eyes… I can see your true form. I can clearly see how pathetic you really are.”

With eyes even redder with tension than before, I firmly grasped the back of the gently subdued man’s head like a lamb, tilted it back, and softly recited against his forehead.

“You know…”

“……”

“My Valdemar…”

“……”

“Doesn’t even care about a small fry like you.”

At that moment.

The man’s heartbeat stopping seemed to reach even my eardrums. It felt as if a cool breeze had blown through that narrow, red room that had been tightly sealed until then.