What Do You Mean, “At An Advantage”?

After saying it, I swallowed along with the air. Ahh, I should have had some tea or something after all, I regretted.

“That was a person’s name, right? Does he look something like me? Shitoen, do you love him?”

And then, cowardly enough, my lips stiffened.

Say it, I desperately urged myself.

No matter what kind of bandit they were, no matter how many there were.

I had never once faltered before an enemy.

Whenever I was driven into a disadvantage, it felt as though liquor rushed through my whole body, and before I knew it, I would be laughing as I hurled myself at them.

And yet.

The more I spoke, the colder my body grew.

“Shitoen…”

With a tongue that felt liable to tangle, I asked her.

“Not me—do you love him?”

The moment I said it, everything inside my heart went empty.

It had been smoldering that much, letting off gas, giving off that rotten stench.

But because I had spit out those words, my whole body went cold.

Ahh.

So that had been carrying some kind of heat, I thought vaguely.

“…I don’t know whether you’ll believe me.”

After a very long silence, Lady Shitoen began in a clear voice.

“I have memories of a previous life. Do you understand? A previous life.”

“A previous life… you mean, um, that? Reincarnation?”

That was not a religious belief in this country.

In the Kingdom of Tania, people were said to be reborn many times.

“Yes. Through that reincarnation… I was born before, in another world that was not here, and grew into an adult… Prince Saryu, you wondered where I learned my medical knowledge, didn’t you?”

With the faintest smile, Shitoen tilted her head. I nodded timidly.

There was no record or history of her having worked in the medical field in the Kingdom of Tania. Of course, there was also no record of how she had acquired such specialized knowledge.

“That was knowledge I cultivated in my previous life. I used to work as a physician.”

“A physician…”

Still staring blankly, I looked at her.

She was a petite girl.

She was dressed in a silk nightgown now, but her frame was one that could still seem girlish, with a small chest and small hips.

And yet.

Her manner of speaking, and her expression— made her seem remarkably mature.

“The man I loved in that previous life was named Atsuhito… He was a nurse.”

The moment Lady Shitoen spoke that name, pain stabbed through my heart.

Because.

She said that name with such love, with such tenderness.

“He was big, and could make friends with anyone right away… and above all, he was a nurse who cared deeply for his patients. Even though he had been assigned as an operating-room nurse, he was always wandering through the hospital rooms and getting scolded by the head nurse…”

Lady Shitoen smiled softly.

I could only understand about half of what she was saying.

Before I could stop to think deeply about what a nurse, an operating-room nurse, or a head nurse might be— before I could ask her any questions— I looked at that face and was fiercely jealous.

Of that man named Atsuhito, whom I had never even seen.

In the end, I clenched my teeth and remained silent.

“He also treasured me very dearly… But one day, a woman who had been brutally beaten by her husband was brought into the treatment room with severe injuries… and while we were treating her, that husband burst in.”

Lady Shitoen broke off there and drew in one deep breath.

“Atsuhito protected me, and he was killed…”

Ahh, I see.

I understood.

A little of the strength went out of my body.

That was why.

That was why, when Lady Shitoen had been attacked at the café, she had been so shaken and so desperate to protect me.

“After that, I ended up dying as well because of the injuries I received at that time. And when I came to, I was living here as Shitoen Balimore.”

Bit by bit, Lady Shitoen spoke.

At first, she had apparently had no memories.

But when she was sixteen, she had suffered terribly after eating a peach and, while hovering between life and death, had remembered her previous life.

After that, she continued living as Shitoen Balimore, and then had her engagement broken off.

“At that time… when Prince Saryu told them to apologize, I thought my heart would stop. Because…”

Saying that, she covered her face with both hands.

Her shoulders were trembling in tiny shakes. She was crying.

“Because I looked like him?”

There was no reply. She only trembled as she cried.

“When you said you came to love me, was it because I look like that Atsuhito?”

When I asked again, I heard sobbing.

For a while, I simply listened to her strained breathing.

“U-um…”

But Lady Shitoen lowered her hands and looked straight at me with tear-wet eyes.

“But…”

“No, it’s fine. Look, the thing is, the reason doesn’t really matter, whatever it is. No, um. Sorry.”

The words came rushing out of me one after another.

“I wasn’t trying to make you cry, and I never meant to corner you in the first place. I just wanted you to hear me.”

“…Hear you?”

Lady Shitoen sniffled wetly.

“Yeah. Right. Um, look.”

I tugged uselessly at my shirt to smooth out the wrinkles, then straightened my back, which had somehow gone hunched.

“Well, um… I was happy, thinking that you loved me. But then the reason was Atsuhito, because of some other man… and, well… I just felt stupid for getting so carried away, and depressed, and embarrassed.”

“N-no, that’s not—!”

Lady Shitoen desperately tried to cut in, but I forcefully cut her off with, “No, look.”

Her eyes widened in shock, but I said it plainly.

“That guy is already in the past, right?”

“…………Huh?”

Lady Shitoen tilted her head as though all the strength had drained out of her. At the motion, a tear slipped from her eye.

“Huh? No, I mean, right? That’s a story from your previous life, isn’t it? He’s already dead, isn’t he?”

Hm? That was the kind of story this was, right? I found myself leaning forward as I asked.

“Yes… that’s right.”

Lady Shitoen nodded blankly.

“He was killed by an attacker, right? Then he’s not here anymore. Yeah.”

I ended up feeling relieved after all and accepted it.

“Then, doesn’t that put me definitely at an advantage?”

“At an advantage… meaning what?”

With a face like she had just been asked some impossible philosophical question, Lady Shitoen asked.