“……So, Hyungnim. These days I eat bean dishes every morning. My nanny said that eating food you don’t like is what makes you a real adult. If I don’t leave any food behind, do you think I can grow tall like other children too?”
“…….”
“Actually, I know. Compared to friends my age, I’m much smaller, so right now if I hold a sword I might get hurt…… Ah, Hyungnim! This path is faster.”
“Mm.”
I followed along as Lenox pulled me.
The sun was warm and the wind was moderate. Not bad for a walk, I thought as the child’s voice gently settled in my ears the whole time we walked. The words he spoke in his clear, ringing voice were as warm and soft as freshly sprouted buds.
“Still, I’m going to work hard to grow. So I’ll become a splendid person. If I don’t act frustrating, and become smart, and also useful, then you’ll find me less annoying too, Hyungnim…… Hyungnim?”
Was it because of his fluttering gait? His bright blonde hair was disheveled here and there.
I was contemplating whether or not to fix it when Lenox suddenly lifted his head and looked up at me.
“……Am I bothering you too much, Hyungnim? Do you find it unpleasant to listen, or are you angry…….”
“No.”
It wasn’t unpleasant to listen, and I certainly wasn’t angry. It was rather the opposite.
“Keep going.”
In truth, I wasn’t particularly emotional or delicate. So I couldn’t react greatly to Lenox’s stories. Even after seeing the zelkova tree he wanted to show me, I just thought, I see, and that was it.
But I didn’t want to actively stop Lenox. No, I thought it would be good if he chattered to his heart’s content. Because I quite liked this brief moment of peace.
As Lenox said, he was younger and smaller than his peers. The inner thoughts of that child, who seemed to be made by gathering only soft and weak things, were so clumsy they were transparent.
His eyes were clear and bright as if they had never been touched by the world’s grime. Knowing what kind of hardships this kid would have to endure as the protagonist of Pavane for a Dead Princess, my feelings couldn’t help but be complicated.
Standing side by side with Lenox, looking up together at the massive zelkova tree said to have lived for hundreds of years, a leaf carried on the breeze landed gently on top of his head.
Since it was close enough to remove if I just reached out, I raised my arm thinking I’d brush it off.
“……Oh.”
Lenox covered his head and hurriedly stepped back several paces.
Then he looked once at my hand frozen in midair, and at my slightly flustered face, before lowering his gaze.
“I-I’m sorry. That’s…….”
The peaceful atmosphere changed subtly. I could see the guards patrolling in the distance becoming subtly conscious of us and closing the distance.
The system window, detecting the people’s change, also floated up.
[Current Chaos Meter: 83%]
Though it was only for a very brief moment, the emotion that crossed Lenox’s blue eyes was fear. It was because he thought my mood might change at any moment and I might try to hit him.
It was Achille who threw a teacup at a kid who was only nine years old, saying he was being annoying. Would he have treated him well on other days? Of course, I have no memory of it, but for Lenox it must remain as something very unkind and unpleasant.
So I became curious. Even so, why did Lenox follow me?
Knowing that I could try to hit him at any time, he still came to see me, and knowing we weren’t particularly close as brothers, why did he still want to see this zelkova tree with me?
Your goodwill, which only became slightly less twisted after nearly dying, what on earth does it trust to remain so pure?
“Why are you looking at me like that, Hyungnim?”
Right. If I’m curious, I should ask.
“Lenox. Why do you like me?”
Then the kid asked me back instead.
“Do you need a reason to like someone?”
“Well…….”
Maybe there doesn’t need to be a reason to like someone. Because it’s an emotion, not logic. But shouldn’t there be a reason to still like someone you would naturally dislike?
I placed the zelkova leaf in his small hand and answered.
“I’m not that good of a guy.”
That didn’t mean I wanted to act wickedly. I wanted to treat him well within the limits the ‘Chaos Meter’ allowed. So that even if this trivial memory weighed on my mind, perhaps later he’d want to kill me a little less.
“Like what happened a few days ago.”
Of course, that wasn’t something I did, so I feel a bit wronged. But what can I do, it already happened.
“Even if you came to hate me so much you wanted revenge, I wouldn’t have the right to condemn that choice.”
“But I don’t want revenge on you, Hyungnim.”
Lenox said in a fresh and affectionate voice.
“Other people might think badly of you, Hyungnim, but I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
“Even if I do bad things to you?”
“If I returned it to you in kind, wouldn’t we truly remain on bad terms then?”
“…….”
“And I know.”
The child said with a bright smile.
“That the moments you treated me badly aren’t all of who you are, Hyungnim.”
Those words sounded exactly as if at some point Achille had been a decent person to Lenox. Of course, I have no way of knowing. Because that’s their past hidden between the lines.
“Still, it’s amazing. You’ve never been this kind before, have you? I never imagined I’d be able to talk with you this long, Hyungnim.”
The boy’s smile resembled the autumn sunlight shattering into pieces.
“So I even had a very strange thought, Hyungnim. I wondered if maybe you weren’t the Hyungnim I know, but a different person.”
When he was chattering like that earlier, he seemed like a natural nine-year-old kid, but seeing this perceptiveness made me wonder if he really was that age.
“What about now?”
“Now?”
“Do I still seem like a different person?”
Then Lenox stared directly at me and said.
“Your eyes are still the same, Hyungnim.”
“…….”
“My mother told me, you see.”
The kid, who wasn’t like a nine-year-old yet was exactly like a nine-year-old, whispered a secret in a wise and innocent voice.
“She said you can tell lonely people just by looking at their eyes. I didn’t know what she meant, but I came to understand after seeing you, Hyungnim.”
That’s why I won’t be able to hate you, Hyungnim—at those words, a corner of my heart suddenly stung.
Because I hoped that soft heart, still unharmed, wouldn’t get hurt. And if I could be greedy even in this situation, I wanted to change this world’s fate by just that much.
“Hyungnim.”
Instead of answering, I quietly looked into Lenox’s blue eyes.
“We didn’t become Imperial Princes because we wanted to anyway…… and we don’t want to fight with His Highness the Crown Prince either.”
But this world won’t fully understand our intentions. Just because we’re Imperial Princes, someone will suspect us and someone else will try to use us.
“So…… if, you know. If I become useful enough to assist you, Hyungnim…….”
Lenox, who had been hesitating, looked up at me earnestly and said.
“Could you take me away from here?”
Lenox Constina Felwood. The Emperor’s half-brother, not even ten years old yet. They said Constina, his birth mother who was a street dancer, still wandered the world leaving Lenox here.
Perhaps Lenox felt a sense of kinship reading loneliness in my eyes.
In this vast and lonely Imperial Palace, I was the only one in a similar situation to him, so maybe he somehow followed after me wanting to depend on me even a little.
“I don’t know his face, but they say my maternal grandfather was quite a capable priest. If I inherited that talent…… maybe someday I’ll have healing abilities too. Right?”
So I pitied this nine-year-old clinging to me, asking to be used.
‘You’ll get your wish.’
In fact, the Lenox of the original work obtains fairly useful healing power around age fifteen. As the kid said, it was the only inheritance from a maternal grandfather whose face he never knew.
I don’t dislike Lenox. Since I’ve raised a younger sibling, taking care of one more small and good thing might not be so difficult. Lenox wasn’t even particularly sickly like my sibling, nor was death awaiting him at the end of difficult days.
But.
“That won’t do.”
Knowing that the northern winds would be too harsh for that young one. So I decided to be cold-hearted just this once.
“I’m leaving.”
