45. No, Really, I Mean It

Kairon fixed his gaze on me. Then he opened a drawer and laid the scroll I’d brought beside the one I’d received from Rose last time, so that the two sat side by side. With both of them resting on one desk, a strange sense of pressure settled over the room.

“With this, you’ve secured the qualifications of both strength and wisdom.”

Kairon rose from his seat, picked up the fountain pen lying on the desk, and began writing something down.

Scratch, scratch.

In the silence, the pen was the only sound. After a moment he folded the parchment, dripped red wax onto it, and sealed it with the house’s signet.

“Take it.”

On the face of the envelope, in Kairon’s neat, precise hand, was written:

To the Imperial Knight Commander, Seraphina Arne

“It’s an official letter bearing my name, so even the Imperial Court won’t be able to block it lightly.”

I took the envelope, and the corner of my mouth lifted.

“Yes, sir.”

The moment she received this letter, Seraphina would come running.

What kind of face will she make?

I found myself looking forward to the expression she’d wear when she saw how remarkably I’d grown.

“Once you’re ready, send that letter to the Empire.”

Having said what he meant to say and not a word more, Kairon plunged back into his paperwork. Half a year ago or now, his daily routine didn’t seem to have changed at all.

So this is the life of the head of the house, huh?

To become the heir meant claiming the seat of the next head of the house, and that meant a life of nothing but parking your backside in a chair all day long and working through documents.

If it were games instead of documents, maybe.

If the job were playing games all day, then becoming the head of the house might not be so bad.

…As if.

Either way, that profession felt a world away from me. You wouldn’t find a bleaker sweatshop, after all.

“Then I’ll take my leave.”

Kairon gave a nod instead of answering. Was he too busy to spare even the time for a reply? So I resolved then and there that if I ever found myself in danger of becoming the head of the house, I’d pawn the job off on someone else by hook or by crook.

“Ngh!”

I woke and stretched, and every joint in my body gave a crisp crack! It felt absolutely glorious.

Now that I think about it, how long has it been since I slept properly in a bed?

For four months in the underground training ground I’d toughed it out on a hard stone floor. When the stone floor finally came to an end, I’d forced down fitful sleep inside a swaying, jolting carriage. And the ride back, after Lillian joined us? How was that?

I never imagined Lillian’s sleeping habits would be so brutal.

With her DV lowered, Lillian was a human retriever, plain and simple. Maybe clinging to people was all she ever dreamed about, because even in her sleep she’d suddenly throw her arms around me, latch on, and refuse to let go.

This is the first freedom I’ve had in ages.

So this was how fresh the air of freedom could taste. A plush bed, a warm blanket, and the liberation of being alone. It struck me all over again that I’d really come back. In real-world time it was only six months, but counting the time inside Lillian’s trauma, I’d been wandering out there for well over two years.

This place really does feel like home now.

Maybe, given enough time, you end up assimilating after all. The “room of Woo Suhan,” that game junkie’s den where computers and emptied-out cup ramen piled up regardless of day or night, was slowly fading from memory. To think the day would come when I’d treat this room as my own, decorated here and there with the blue lion crest that symbolized House Arne.

Even if the core of me is still Woo Suhan.

Would the day ever come when the possession ended and I went back? I had no idea. You never know how things will turn out for a person.

Knock, knock.

While I was lost in all that, someone came calling, and before I could even say “come in,” the door opened.

Behind the knock was Elli, transformed now with her short, cropped bob and dressed in a loose set of workout clothes.

I frowned, still lying in bed.

“What is it?”

I couldn’t just let her barging in unannounced slide. Close was close, but what needed addressing needed addressing, so I spoke in a put-out tone.

“Elli, no matter how close we are, there’s such a thing as privacy. Coming in without my permission is crossing a line.”
“…”

My scolding didn’t faze her in the slightest. She merely checked the pocket watch strapped to her wrist, indifferent.

“I’m sorry. I’ll be careful from now on.”

There was no soul in that apology. If anything, she snapped the watch cover shut and pressed me.

“Anyway, you need to go right now. You’re already late.”
“Late for what?”

Elli threw open the curtains, and dazzling sunlight came pouring in.

“You’re starting ‘Arden’s Running Crew’ back up today, aren’t you?”
“…What?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot? You founded that group yourself, Young Master. You even named it.”

Her voice was growing steadily harder and drier. She seemed to think I’d clean forgotten about it.

Truth be told, I had clean forgotten about it, but still.

“No, but it’s my first day back….”
“While you were away, Young Master, we ran every single day without fail. Rain or snow. Whether you were here or not.”
“Feels like that last part had a bit of a bite to it?”

Elli played innocent.

“You’re imagining things. Anyway, the leader’s back, so you ought to set an example.”
“…”
“Senior Leo’s waiting too, so be out in five minutes.”

She walked out of the room without so much as a glance back, and I stared blankly at the closed door.

She’d spent the past few months stuck training with Valerian. Had his personality rubbed off on her?

“There’s a reason they say you end up following your friends wherever they go.”

I sighed and shuffled into my clothes.

“One, two! Keep in step!”
“…”
“Both of you, lift those legs higher! You’ve slowed down!”

Elli ran at the very front, shouting back over her shoulder. Her phrasing was ordinary and polite, but the spirit packed into it was unmistakably that of a boot-camp drill instructor. On top of that, her speed was no joke either. This was how an ordinary maid ran?

So I gritted my teeth and ran until I’d overtaken her, and then she picked up her speed again. A death race of back-and-forth jockeying went on like that for over an hour.

“All right, that’s it for today.”

In the end it finished neck and neck. I dropped to the ground, gasping, with sweat pouring off me by the bucketful.

“Haah… haah….”

Elli, unlike me, swiped her sweat away once and said, “You ran fairly well, but I think you’ll need to push a little harder.”

Elli, there’s such a thing as a baseline for a person. It’s that you run well, not that I run poorly. I worked out and gave it my all while I was away from the house too, you know, so hearing you put it like that kind of stings—

—I only just stopped those words from bursting out of my throat.

“Well then, I’ll be off now.”

And just as she made to dash off somewhere again—

“It’s almost breakfast. Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry. I’m out of time.”

She stole an anxious glance toward the training grounds.

“It’s almost time for my morning training with Young Master Valerian. You overslept today, Young Master, so it’s already running a whole ten minutes late.”
“…What?”
“If I’m late, Young Master Valerian will scold me. I’ll tell you about it when I’m back! Make sure you eat!”

Without waiting for my reply, she took off toward the training grounds like a loosed arrow. I watched her back vanish like the wind, and my mouth fell open.

She was going to morning training with Valerian? That coldly? When I’d only been back a single day?

Elli was slipping out of sight at a tremendous clip.

“…Huh.”

I was floored. I poked Leo, who was sprawled out beside me.

“Hey, what’s the deal with her?”

Leo looked up at me with a face like death, his eyes brimming with deep resentment and woeful complaint.

“…Didn’t I tell you? She’s gone strange.”

He heaved a heavy sigh and pushed himself upright.

“This is all your fault, Young Master.”
“I said it back then too — how is that my fault?”
“You being away is the root of it all! If you’d been here, Elli would never have changed!”

Listening to him go on and on, I felt a flicker of irritation.

“Fine, Elli’s changed. But is the old Elli going to come back just because you sit there wallowing in self-pity?”
“I know that! That’s why I’m trying too, you know!”

The crazy bastard suddenly raised his voice, and—

“Before, I’d have weaseled out of running because I hated it, but now I do it without a word of complaint! I go along with whatever Elli wants, and I’m trying to be warmer with her!”

It wasn’t like he was trying to win me over, yet he launched into a full PR pitch aimed at me.

Still, he’s got a bit of a point.

A pang of pity, I guess you’d call it. Maybe it was because the old Leo so obviously would never have gone this far, but some sympathy was creeping in.

“That’s exactly the problem.”

But then my thinking shifted again and I said it flat out, because I knew that effort doesn’t guarantee results.

“You haven’t changed. You’re just forcing yourself to match Elli’s pace, that’s all.”

I said as much, yet even I could see that Leo was putting in the work. I’d been genuinely startled that he’d finished that hell-run all the way to the end without giving up halfway. Quite apart from that, though, the fact was that he didn’t even register in Elli’s field of vision.

“If running because Elli says to run is your idea of effort, then you could run for the rest of your life and nothing would change.”

Elli probably didn’t even know he was making an effort at all.

If she did, would she be running around in a baggy getup like that?

I looked straight into Leo’s miserable eyes.

To put it bluntly, whether his one-sided love ended in tragedy or not was none of my business. To put it even more bluntly, it looked hopeless to begin with, because the way Elli looked at Leo was, to anyone’s eyes, not the look of someone who saw him as a man.

I went to all the trouble of fixing his little sister’s problem — the last thing I want is for him to demonify over a broken heart.

A servant losing his marbles over love trouble was a different story. He wasn’t all that mentally sturdy to begin with, and now he was set to go dark from being love-crazed.

Eve’s report was also part of why I was paying attention at all, because one-sided love becoming the root of a trauma that demonifies him might not be such a laughable notion after all.

Well, one way or another I did take him in under my wing, so I suppose I have to look after his mental state.

Of course, coddling wasn’t my style, so—

“Elli’s found her own path and she’s running down it. But you? You’re still chasing after Elli’s coattails, going ‘ah, the good old days.’ So how’s she ever supposed to see you as a man?”
“…”
“Elli’s already gone way out ahead. If you want her to see you, you don’t chase her — you change first, and get out in front of her. I’m saying tear up how you operate, right down to the foundation.”

It was advice about love, but it was also advice about the direction of his life from here on, because Leo’s life as it stood didn’t look healthy.

Leo clamped his mouth shut. My words seemed to have struck a painful nerve, but I didn’t think this alone would change him so easily.

Because it’s human nature to make a brief, half-hearted effort, then fall into self-justification that there’s nothing to be done.

In failure, blame the circumstances. In challenges, slap on this reason or that and steer clear. The human, as far as I knew it, was a creature more averse to changing than any other species.

Even a beast stakes its own life to hunt down its prey.

Cold as it was, that was the truth. To truly pour your heart into seizing something takes a considerable amount of courage.

Sunk in worry, his face dead serious, Leo parted his lips as if he’d made up his mind. But before a single word could leave his mouth, I cut in.

“You’re not the type to change overnight anyway. Whatever resolution or goal you just came up with — I don’t want to hear it, so don’t say it out loud.”

The firmly resolved look on his face came undone, and he spoke with a hollow gaze.

“…Where’d you go and learn mind-reading?”
“It’s written all over your face. And honestly, is there a more boring routine than a guy with a one-sided crush blabbing about how he’s going to change for a girl? So tacky.”
“Good grief… are you some kind of love doctor, Young Master? Have you ever had a one-sided crush?”
“Me?”

Hm, well, speaking of yours truly—

“Let’s go. Time to eat.”

The guy who’s never given a single piece of dating advice in his life is the one who’s good at it, you fool.

“Just so you know — it’s not that I couldn’t, it’s that I chose not to.”
“…Sure.”

No, really, I mean it.