CH 111

“It is dangerous to walk alone late at night, My Lady. Even if it’s inside the mansion, please bring a maid with you.”

On my way to my room, the knight I encountered kindly said that to me.

“Well, of course there’s no crazy person who looks for his place of death by infiltrating the Duchy’s mansion, but still, we have to be cautious.”

I nodded to him and said good work, and when I opened the door to my room, a very familiar dark presence on my bed made me doubt my eyes.

The presence that wriggled on top of the blanket slowly turned their head.

“Zen.”

I walked closer to him, and strongly grabbed the pale cheeks.

“How did you get here?”

I thought he wouldn’t be able to move for a while since he ran wild in a shock condition.

Looking at how he didn’t shake away my hands, certainly he was not in a good condition.

“How did you…”

How could he avoid not only alarm magic that blocked intruders but also the eyes of guards who were patrolling the surrounding area?

Zen said nothing as he touched his cheeks and looked up at me.

When I took off my hands because of the sulky gaze, I saw the reddened cheeks.

“Sorry. I was surprised.”

“…”

In addition, he had never visited this mansion officially, so how did he find out the location of my room?

I stared at him, then I giggled.

“This is amazing. I was just thinking about you earlier.”

“What were you thinking about?”

The heavy lips finally opened.

His voice was still hoarse perhaps because of his bad condition.

“I remembered about our first meeting. I just gave something as a present to the prince. As I think about it, the thing you gave me that day is the first gift I ever received.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Liar. You cried loudly when you found out that thing wasn’t a flower.”

“I didn’t cry.”

The guy who firmly erased the past, shut his mouth.

I could see that the eyes of the guy, who usually would have insisted more strongly, were closing.

The head that was slowly tilting, leaned on my shoulder in the end.

Soon, I heard the sound of sleeping peacefully.

Hearing the breathing sound, I remembered something that happened in the past.

The things that happened that day, when I met the innocent Zen before the tragedy happened.

I was unexpectedly excited at that time.

I had traveled around with Mom before that, but it was my first time to travel such a long distance.

With a smiling face, she hugged me who looked around absentmindedly, and said,

“This will be a joyful trip.”

The place we arrived at after a few days of running in a rattling carriage was a mountain valley full of green fields back and forth.

I met Zen there.

A shy, kind, and ordinary boy, who hid in the distance and stole a glance at me, with a face like a puppy.

He is very different now that if the prince sees it himself, he will get shocked.

Mom, who talked with people until late, entrusted me to Zen’s family.

There were occasions when I was entrusted to my nanny, but it was my first experience to get entrusted to someone’s family for a whole day.

It was also my first time to play with a boy my age for such a long time.

Zen’s older sister, Rain, made a soup of sheep milk for me and Zen.

Whether it was because the savory soup was tasty, or because I liked my dinner mate, I, who had a small appetite, easily emptied the whole plate.

As we laughed over nothing and played around, we surrendered to the drowsiness that surged up.

I slept like a log until Mom, who came late, shook and woke me up.

“Look at this kid. She’s sleeping like a log in someone’s home.”

“Madam, it’s okay to let the kid sleep here since it looks like she sleeps tightly. How about you pick her tomorrow?”

Mom rejected the offer carefully said by the aunty.

As soon as I opened my eyes, her hand pulled me.

“Come on, it’s time to go.”

Her touch was gentle, she was smiling, but she was firm.

I obediently grabbed her hand, and after regrettably left Zen’s house, we stayed at a shabby inn.

Perhaps because of the hard bed and the damp smell, I couldn’t easily sleep.

Suddenly, I heard a faint noisy sound from afar, and Mom closed my ears.

“Sleep a bit more.”

She gently patted my back and sang me a lullaby.

It was Zen who woke me who fell asleep again.

At the time when the gray figures began to form at break of dawn.

Zen, covered in blood, desperately knocked on the door of the inn.

***

The breathing blown out by Zen, who leaned on my shoulder, tickled my ear.

Turning my head, I looked at the pale face, then I called his name.

“Zen.”

“…… what?”

The owner of the voice answering me still had his eyes closed.

I didn’t know since when he woke up, but I laughed at how he shamelessly kept pretending to sleep and leaned on me.

“From now on, we will really get busy.”

The squinting eyes glanced at me.

His face was asking when we never like that.

“I know you don’t want to get involved with Orion. I also know you’re worried if I keep getting exposed to dangerous things.”

“…”

“But, I can’t promise I won’t make you worry in the future.”

The pen on the table rolled down.

He said nothing, but his mana was unstable as if he was very shaken.

“This is not because of Orion. You know it, right?”

Even if it was a dangerous place, I had to go deeper in order to get what I wanted.

It just, that day came earlier than our plan.

The reason I tried to not bring Orion was simply because I felt sorry for troubling him with our problem.