Lea, too, seemed sleepless, watching him with a shawl draped over her.

“Can’t you sleep?”

“A little.”

Lea, who had quietly approached, stood before him.

“Surely, unlike the Count, this place is quite old and cramped.”

No matter how old the Count’s mansion was, it was incomparable to an ordinary orphanage.

‘After all, he spent his childhood in the royal palace, how uncomfortable his bed must be.’

It was natural that the Count could not sleep. So why did he have to follow her here and suffer?

Lea looked at him with a curious gaze.

“But why did you really come here?”

“Well….”

Akkia, who was contemplating a response, stammered his reply.

“……In the past, Heidern had a debt in the Tren region, so I thought I could help somehow.”

Although it was a plausible answer thought up on the spot, Lea was not easily convinced.

“Then why didn’t you come as Count Heidern, why bother….”

“I have to be a frail Count.”

Ah. She had momentarily forgotten. How precarious the Count’s situation was. The once light atmosphere quickly grew heavy.

Feeling guilty as if she had unnecessarily stirred up a bad past, Lea looked around to lighten the mood.

Looking for some upbeat topic to talk about.

Then suddenly, an old tree caught her eye.

“Ah?! That tree is fine!”

With an exaggerated gesture, she drew Akkia’s attention. An old elm tree, standing alone on a small hill, had an old swing hanging from it.

Lea ran towards it with an excited gait.

Naturally following Lea, Akkia stood in front of the tree and stared at the swing. But for some reason, his complexion was darker than before.

Lea, however, failed to notice.

“When I was young, I used to play on this swing. We used to fight with the other kids over who got to ride….”

She fondly touched the ropes of the swing, as if reminiscing about the past.

“Did you like to swing when you were young, Count? Ah, there probably wasn’t a swing in the royal palace.”

“……There was. A swing.”

Such an arrogant man on a swing. No, he must have been quite cute when he was young.

Being a handsome Count, his childhood appearance must have been quite adorable.

“So, did you like to swing, Count?”

Akkia, choked up at Lea’s continuous questioning. The sight of the swing had unexpectedly brought up memories from the past.

An image of a beautiful woman with a tender smile popped into his head. Her silver hair, which glowed like the sun reflecting off a lake, and her skyblue eyes that matched.

Akkia loved the swing that his mother used to push.

The feeling of freedom, like a bird, was starkly different from the suffocating royal lessons.

So, Akkia loved the swing. At least until his mother tragically passed away.

“I…….”

As he was lost in the memory of his childhood, he furrowed his brows. That’s when Lea, who had been watching the Count, caught his hand.

“Why are you just standing there? Let’s ride the swing together after a long time! I’ll push you!”

“No, I…….”

But before Akkia could even refuse, he had already been pulled by Lea’s hand and seated on the swing.

“Well, let’s get going!”

She was not an eightyearold child, yet she offered to push the swing. At the sight of Lea treating him like a child, he chuckled to himself.

But that was for a moment, as soon a refreshing night wind brushed through his hair. He unknowingly closed his eyes at the unfamiliar sensation.

Memories of that day faintly surfaced. The happiest, most radiant time of his life.

He knew better than anyone else that it would never return.

‘That’s right, this was the feeling. Perhaps?’

He closed his eyes and touched upon the memories of the past. It was the same. The smell of grass brushing against his nose and the cool wind seeping into his body.
It evoked an illusion of having returned to the naive days of childhood. For a moment, the swing gradually slowed down until it eventually stopped in place.

“How is it? Fun, isn’t it?”

Lea asked with an excited voice as if she herself was on the swing. Akkia, who was sitting on the swing, tilted his head back.

“Pardon? Count?”

Lea asked him again, her head bowed.

At this, her rosy hair poured out, tickling Akkia’s face. It was a feeling quite different from the wind tickling the face.

Had he ever seen her face this close?

Aside from the times when Lea was asleep, it seemed to be the first time they had been so close.

Was it due to the freedom he felt after a long time? Or was it because it stimulated the buried nostalgia? She looked unusually beautiful. Lea’s face.

Her leaflike eyes twinkled in the moonlight like emeralds emitting a lonely light.

A white skin like a blank canvas. A prominent nose bridge. And lips with a red hue like her hair.

His gaze lingered on her lips for a long time.

Suddenly, he was curious.

How it would feel to touch those lips with a hue of a wellripened peach.

Would it taste sweet like biting into a soft peach?

“Count?”