Chapter 179

【That day, Mikhail spent the whole night curled up in front of your bedroom door. His face a complete mess of tears and snot.】

The silver letters wavered in place, as if they were speaking to him. Sion stared at the words with his eyes thrown wide.

Coming face to face with a moment from his childhood in a way he hadn't expected, his words failed him for a beat.

But only for a moment. As if to turn away from the letters in front of him, Sion let his head drop at an angle and pulled a bitter smile.

"Was that so?"

"……"

"But that was… because Elder Brother was badly startled and panicked. For a child that age, it'd be the natural reaction."

As Sion's flat answer faded into the air, the words wavering in the space in front of him faded with it.

Joseph watched the side of Sion's face as he kept his mouth shut, like a stubborn little boy, then let out a long sigh.

【Either way, the two of you are just as stubborn.】

"…I'm—!"

Sion flared up and jerked his head up. I'm nothing like my willful brother who's always done as he pleased. The thought rushed up out of nowhere and pushed right to the tip of his tongue.

"……"

But the words never made it out of his mouth.

The moment he met Joseph's eyes — smiling as if he already knew all of it — the complaint he'd been about to bring out got shoved back down his throat.

"It's nothing."

In the end, Sion answered in a voice that had lost its edge. Then he let out a breath to close the topic and moved on to something else.

"More importantly — are you really feeling all right?"

【No.】

Joseph's silver text was answering something that couldn't be brushed aside, in a perfectly easy tone.

Sion's eyes narrowed with displeasure.

"…Then you shouldn't be here, should you."

【No. I'm heading back soon. I have to take my medicine and get to sleep before the head butler comes back. Otherwise I'll really be in for it.】

The sentences carrying Joseph's voice were shrinking down little by little, as if murmured under the breath.

Joseph smiled with a face drained of color and reached his hand toward the drawer beside him.

Hummmm—.

The sound of a locking formula being released rose up. At the same time, what appeared from inside the drawer was a single sheet of paper.

【But before that, I have something to ask of you. Sion.】

Flap.

The paper resting on Joseph's fingertips drifted across to Sion. Sion caught what had drifted over and looked down at the writing on the page.

"This… looks like the name of a book."

【Yes. That's right. Three of them.】

Sion read Joseph's silver answer through, then lifted his eyes back across the desk.

In the meantime, Joseph had pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and now looked like a snowman.

Joseph nodded easily from his round little shape, then propped his chin on his hand and spoke.

【I've already sent word to the library. If you go to the librarian this afternoon, they'll hand you the books on that list.】

"Yes. I understand. But…."

Where am I supposed to deliver these books? Sion parted his lips to ask the question that had come to him.

But it was only an instant. Just ahead of him, Joseph's text inscribed itself into his line of sight a beat faster.

【Head south. Go and bring them to Mikhail.】

Sion's eyes flew wide with surprise. The air he was drawing in lumped together and seized in his throat.

Go and see my elder brother? Out of nowhere? On my own?

A bewilderment much like running into a magical beast on some remote road started welling up from one corner of his chest.

"……"

But whether he understood what was going on inside Sion or not, Joseph kept the topic going with an easy smile.

【You've worked hard holding the line for me all this time. May as well make a proper trip of it and take a good long stay somewhere warmer.】

【And, hmm — since it's been ages since you've seen Mikhail, how about picking out a gift? You can spend whatever you like for spending money.】

Sion held his mouth firm and gave no answer. But before long he let out a low sigh, settled his expression back to its earlier composure, and opened his mouth.

"Understood, Father."

---

Meanwhile, at the same hour, to the south.

An outlying dormitory at Salvator Academy.

—Creak.

A rocking chair set in the middle of the room ticked back and forth slowly, making a low sound.

The glass bottles lined up on the shelves caught the sunlight pouring in through the window and scattered light around like beads.

Beneath a brightening, cloudless sky.

Inside a private dorm room where peace was the only thing to be had.

"……"

Julien sat perched on the rocking chair, looking at the desk.

What his angled purple eyes were taking in were the envelopes laid across the wooden surface.

Letters with Cassien Leventia written on the senders' line.

From the first to arrive, now creased and softening at the edges, to the latest one, three more letters had come in since the first he'd received.

【To my dear younger brother, Julien.】

Every one of them spoke to him in a voice almost unbearably warm.

Julien stared at the letters laid out side by side, then stretched a trembling hand out and picked up the most recent of them.

Rustle.

A letter holding dozens of lines.

It began with a memory the two of them shared.

【It must have been a long time since you've seen Father. Even so, you must remember the man we looked up to as Father in our childhood.】

【As the sovereign of the South, Father stood with the honor of the household and the trust of the people on his shoulders. To shield the South from outside pressure, he allowed not the smallest blemish, and he refused to show any weakness. At the height of that resolve, not a single blade of grass in our domain was ever left trampled.】

【But on the other hand, I think that same Father left no small wound on our family.】

Julien nodded, small. As though he were answering the words speaking gently to him.

【I myself had a hard time accepting that Father, many times over. But now I find myself thinking another way. His conduct was for the sake of protecting the family name — but it was also a way of protecting us, his family.】

【Father couldn't have done it all perfectly either. He only did what he could, with everything he had, to protect it all. Just as you yourself are doing your best.】

Julien fixed his gaze on the smoothly flowing script and nodded once again.

It was true. Just as Elder Brother had said, he'd done his best.

Inadequate as he might have been, he had crushed everything down inside himself and held on, all so he could be accepted as a part of the family.

So perhaps… it had been the same for Father too.

【Father was a man who held a glorious age in his hands. But now he's grown deeply weary holding off the schemers using the chaos to line their own pockets. His honor and pride have been wounded, and he often loses sleep worrying about a family in decline.】

【By now, not even fine food and wine, not even rare jewels and stories, can draw a smile from him anymore.】

Julien lowered and lifted his eyelids as he remembered.

His father, in his own memories, had always been suffering too. Drawing ragged breath after ragged breath, his voice splitting….

【Julien. To be honest, what I asked of you back then may have been an unfair thing to ask. I may have demanded something more than you could bear. So at times… I do wish I could take that decision back.】

【But I think it's time now for us to move with our eyes on the future. Think about it. Didn't our childhood, the time we spent running around together, pass us by far too quickly?】

【Father, Mother — they'll both grow old in time, and one day the time will come when they're gone. When that day comes, we have to be one family. Don't we have to see them off together, comfort each other, and meet the new era as one?】

【That's why I would like you to be the one who brings, ahead of the rest, the possibility that the family will endure — the news that the South will never again have to look up at the North.】

Behind the lines as he read them through, Cassien was leaning close to his ear and speaking in a soft, whispering voice.

Julien turned his eyes and looked at the corner of the desk.

A small bottle of pills. It sat in a place set apart from everything else, alone.

【Let the good news be something you deliver to Father in person. Let him see that his child is the one upholding the future — that we're together in this, as family.】

【Ah… how delighted he'll be. The picture of him setting aside his sighs and raising a toast in celebration comes to me as vividly as if it were already happening.】

【My dear brother, Julien Leventia. I picture, every single day, the day you'll return and we'll discuss the future of the South together.】

【Be well.】

Creeeak—.

Cassien's voice ringing in his ear scattered like paper caught by a gust of wind. With that, every page in Julien's hand had been turned.

Julien let the arm clutching the paper drop to his side and tipped his body in the rocking chair to one side.

Creak. Creeak—.

Then, in an instant, the motion stopped.

Julien rolled his eyes back to the bottle of pills.

Give it to Mikhail Senit.

Something he'd been handed along with that instruction.

【Notice: This medicine's effects manifest after three doses, and each additional pill compounds the effect….】

"Three times."

Julien muttered it in a voice without strength, then let out a small puff of a laugh and raised a hand to cover his face.

"Honestly disgusting. How can you even think of selling out a friend. The first friend you ever shared a secret with. The friend who gave you the help you needed most. My precious—"

A hot breath seeped out between the fingers covering his face.

Every time another phrase slipped through his lips, a sharp self-loathing drove into his chest like a knife.

In the end Julien pressed his lips together, unable to go on.

"……"

His breathing rose and fell like a balance scale.

A stretch of silence ran on like that.

Julien murmured into the empty room.

But… is there anything more precious to a person than family?

Julien let the hand he'd raised drop. Then he pulled his knees in and curled himself up.

Six days in a row. The whole time, he hadn't been able to settle on a single thing — only suffer.

Pouring out tears that wouldn't dry, twitching like an insect pinned through with a needle. That was all of it.

But… now he really was at his limit.

---

A few hours or so passed after that.

The sun, climbing through the clear window and laying down long stretches of light, had sunk low to the west.

Flip.

Mikhail lay back on his bed reading a book.

His calmly lowered eyelids tracked across the page, and his fingertips, moving at a steady rhythm, turned the leaves.

But only briefly. The fingers that had been crossing the page sideways stopped in an instant and curled tight.

Yesterday and today. So that's two whole days he's avoided me. Julien.

Mikhail let out a displeased breath through his teeth and closed the book.

Then he furrowed his brow and tapped the spine of the book, dissatisfied.

The truth was, he'd gone to Julien's room that morning and knocked any number of times.

But there'd been no answer.

Only a silence as dead as a tomb stretching on.

No sign anyone had stepped outside, either.

Mikhail recalled the moment he'd confirmed that only his own footprints had been left in the dust-covered corridor.

He also remembered asking Han and Ul to look around the area.

And he recalled what they'd turned up — that after he'd hidden his presence, the curtain inside Julien's room had stirred.

"……"

Mikhail went over every piece of behavior Julien had shown so far.

Showing up at his own dorm door wearing his gloom on his face. The hollow complexion and the hard liquor. The repeated avoidance, the refusal to come out.

No matter how I look at it, this is too much. An excessive reaction. If Cassien's instructions could shake him this badly….

…Did he hear something he was supposed to do to me?

Mikhail had just narrowed his eyes at the possibility that had crossed his mind.

Knock, knock, knock.

That was when it happened. Someone was knocking on the door of his quarters.

Mikhail set the book in his hand down to the side and moved toward the door.

"Coming."

Mikhail answered toward the presence and opened the door, looking ahead.

"—Hey there? Mikhail. You were resting in here after all!"

A cheerful greeting was tossed his way. At the same time, what came into view was a familiar head of pink hair.