“A score theft incident!”
The music festival, with only the final night remaining, was still wrapped in intense excitement.
Just before Sir Rood’s recital. His submitted score had been stolen.
Mikhail’s face was dark.
“Still, he somehow managed to finish the performance that day. Sir Rood’s head disciple had the score for a different piece.”
As a composer, Sir Rood had memorized the entire score of the piece he was originally scheduled to perform. The problem was that since it was a music festival submission, the piece was a concerto.
The performers hadn’t memorized the score.
The piece Sir Rood had intended to present this time was an experimental piece different from his previous works. The composition was especially unfamiliar and difficult. Relying only on conducting without a score was absurd.
Now again, on this final night when the musician to receive the laurel crown would be decided.
The banquet hall was still filled with gossip about who had committed such a shocking deed and what their intention was.
And the winner finally announced was—
“Sir Cedric Rood!”
Sir Rood won consecutively.
The composer ascended the platform. His face, having received the high honor once again, was faintly brightened, but his eyes were still dark.
Below, I could also see the court musician forcing a smile. Everyone was whispering that he had stolen the score and instead suffered a backlash. Just the fact that his patron, the Regent Duke, wasn’t present today meant the match had been tilted from the start.
“It seemed you couldn’t hear even when called.”
Someone lightly touched my shoulder. It was Sir Lifros.
“Do you have worries? Ah, your hair is messy.”
He kept his voice extremely low so as not to disturb Sir Rood’s acceptance speech.
Normally I would have refused the hand trying to fix my hair, but since I’d developed a strange sense of guilt toward Sir Lifros, I let him be.
“Sir Rood has won twice consecutively.”
The acceptance speech ended and encore requests were being called out.
“Such refined encores can only be seen in the Empire.”
I withdrew to one side of the hall with Sir Lifros.
Unlike usual when he let things flow naturally, the knight felt like he was trying to continue the conversation. Since the place was what it was, we talked about music.
“Honestly, I didn’t like the winning piece. Ah, should I not say such things in front of someone from House Meyer?”
“You too are a member of House Meyer, as is Sir Rood.”
“Are you looking after him because he’s family?”
It had a double meaning. Sir Lifros’s voice was quiet, but thinking it wasn’t courteous to Sir Rood, I just raised an eyebrow once.
“Iota is avant-garde, Shumain is idealistic. Imperials are excessive realists. Imperial people avoid new things. They’re old-fashioned and like to thoroughly investigate and verify everything. Of course, the judicial procedures that developed as a result are something the entire continent should emulate, but for artists there must be frustrating aspects.”
“Mm.”
“You’re wondering why I’m suddenly like this, right?”
Behind the grinning knight, Sir Rood’s encore performance was beginning.
“The piece Sir Rood originally intended to present wasn’t that one. It was a much faster, more experimental piece—”
I knew that too.
“Oh my. It seems you already know.”
“How did you find out?”
“There was no evidence. Only circumstantial conviction.”
Within the rigid Imperial musical practices. It would have been a distant prospect for Sir Rood to consecutively grasp the laurel crown with a piece that destroyed existing forms. Moreover, it was at a point when the court musician’s piece announced the day before had begun receiving favorable reviews.
I looked back at the platform. In front where the encore piece was being performed, behind Sir Rood conducting while dripping with sweat, Mikhail was smiling more brightly than the winner.
The culprit who had his disciple steal the score was Mikhail.
I wanted to talk more with Sir Lifros, but something urgent came up. I made eye contact in greeting and left the venue.
I had just seen Miss Lucia, Sir Lifros’s younger sister, leaving the banquet hall alone.
I’d been watching the Young Lady Lifros and Baron Moss for the past few days.
What I learned in the process was as follows:
- Baron Moss is truly a person with no presence. Or he has a natural talent for making his presence fade.
- Baron Moss doesn’t appear when Sir Lifros and the Young Lady Lifros are in the same space.
- He only begins to act in places that are either very crowded or very empty.
Actually, no one would even perceive number 3 as “beginning to act.”
That was something only I, who had experienced it, could know.
The gaze.
A bizarre gaze, like a flower bud that should bloom following the light but oddly sprouts alone with its head bent in the wrong direction.
I had tried to keep my eyes elsewhere to avoid facing the head of that chilling flower staring fixedly at me. That damp gaze sticking like pus to the side of my face wasn’t easily forgotten.
- The Young Lady Lifros seems to sense the gaze.
- But she doesn’t yet know who it is.
When the young lady looks back, like a lie, Baron Moss scatters his gaze. It’s like dense fog vanishing into smoke in an instant.
I’d learned that minor variables can twist the past. Baron Moss, who had come to stalk the Young Lady Lifros, would show a different pattern from when he stalked me. I was anxious that he might move faster.
“Have you seen a young lady with long brown hair? She’s on the short side.”
“If you mean the Young Lady Lifros, she just went that way.”
The court attendant I asked looked back at me dubiously as she passed.
And where I arrived, there was a fork in the road.
If I went left, it was the end of the corridor, a hallway leading directly to another banquet hall. If she went there, she’d be safe whether I was there or not. The place to go was obvious.
The deserted corridor was quiet.
It was the corridor with that room where, a few days ago, I’d shown Prince Benedict a sight I didn’t want to think about. It was when I took a step with resolute determination.
“…! ……won’t!”
A bit of commotion could be heard. Ominous black water surged up inside.
“……I don’t want to!”
At the end of the dim corridor, the Young Lady Lifros was being dragged into a room.
The time it would take to turn back.
The probability someone would come if I screamed.
Baron Moss’s grip strength that I’d experienced five years ago.
My current physical abilities.
Even while thinking about such things, I was already running. I threw open the door with a bang.
“Let go of her right now!!”
“Young Master Meyer?”
The Young Lady Lifros opened her mouth in bewilderment.
She had been vigorously pinching the side of a young noble male who appeared to be a knight.
The man, who had been playfully yelping, raised his gaze following her.
“—Who are you!”
And behind them—
“What is this…… Leave at once! What rudeness!”
Prince Benedict was there. The noble male blocked my path like an escort knight.
“…I’m sorry……”
The Prince was sitting intimately with a young woman who had let down her hair. I could see his white ceremonial dress, which had been neat, loosened.
Faintly, pheromones were tangled between them. A rumor passed through my mind.
The Prince who is obedient before his mother but enjoys hedonistic pleasure behind her back. The people who whispered he was like that because he learned from watching the Regent Duke.
“I was…… passing by coincidentally, and the Young Lady Lifros—”
“M-me?”
“……was crying out that she didn’t want to. I thought she was in difficulty.”
My voice crawled out. The people in the room looked at me like I was an outsider.
Only the Young Lady Lifros opened her mouth kindly.
“—I can. Understand the misunderstanding.”
Thank you for your concern. She spoke as if whispering. It seemed the Young Lady Lifros’s face was reddening because of me.
“……”
“……”
“……Young Master. Aren’t you leaving?”
I had been avoiding Prince Benedict so much.
“—Just a moment,”
Those words rose up. I didn’t want to leave right now.
I bowed my head to the Young Lady Lifros and moved my steps inside. The gradually intensifying pheromone sensation was definitely the Prince’s from my memory.
“I couldn’t properly express my thanks last time.”
I tried my best to be polite and said I was grateful. My skin tingled a little. I firmly suppressed my pheromones that were trying to respond.
Several overturned wine bottles and glasses were also visible in front of the two people sitting at an intimate distance like lovers. The Prince silently curved his eyes slightly. He with the alcohol seemed to be having a leisurely good time.
“I’m sorry. I mistook the room.”
The woman beside Prince Benedict was someone I knew.
It was Sir Sana, with her usually tied hair let down.
She looked at me and whispered something to the Prince. Whether because of that whisper, or because of her leaning halfway against him while whispering. The Prince’s eyes visible between her hair flowing smoothly down shone warmly like heated wine.
“Right. You coincidentally came here.”
“—Yes.”
“I saw you here last time too. It’s a place I deliberately seek out, yet you find it so coincidentally.”
Since it’s correct, I have nothing to say.
“I just arranged to meet someone.”
“Looking at your fine complexion, it’s not that wretched underwear tormenting you again.”
“……”
“If that statement is true, surely I didn’t interrupt a secret appointment that time too?”
The eyes that had looked warm now held their usual coldness.
Conversely, my ears grew increasingly hot. Vivid shame raised its head again.
What do I want to do?
“In any case…… thank you.”
I had nothing to say but forced my mouth open.
There’s never been a time when my poor way with words felt as frustrating as now. I actually want to run away.
Painful silence flowed.
“I, I was curious about something.”
I barely fished out something to say. Since there were watching eyes, I spoke indirectly.
“How did you know that I dared…… —drug you?”
“Are you trying to be courteous?”
“No, I’m not. I’m just curious,”
“Because I saw it.”
The Prince smiled faintly. His lips were shaped in a smile, but his gaze looked away as if avoiding it.
“Your brother definitely doesn’t have that kind of taste.”
“……”
“The mask, I mean.”
Ah. The Munch mask.
That was the end. I had nothing more to say again.
“Then……”
It’s resentful. My creaking head couldn’t think of anything more to continue.
What do I really want to do?
As I stood there stupidly, I felt people looking at me as if wondering what I was doing instead of leaving.
“I understand.”
I swallowed a sigh and turned my back.
“Kiss me before you go.”
At first I thought I’d misheard.
“I can’t just let you go.”
I looked back with startled eyes.
The Prince was wearing that smile of his.
He looked both dissolute and pure. His leisurely curved eyes looked mischievous but also surprisingly calm. For a moment, I felt as if only he and I were in this place.
“If you enter this room, you must pay a price before leaving.”
There were rumors that he repeated the Regent Duke’s habits exactly, but the accepted opinion was that the Prince maintained propriety.
Right now, he was speaking like a rogue who had abandoned propriety. I felt Sir Sana glancing back at the Prince.
“If you’re grateful to me, I want to receive that gratitude in the form I want—”
Because I was looking straight at him, I could clearly see his eyes widening greatly.
I was lunging at him. It was impulsive.
His face swooped right up to my nose. On his cold, surprised left cheek once, on his right cheek once, I pressed my lips. No, I didn’t even press them. I just brushed my lips against his cheeks. I quickly kissed both cheeks like a thief and withdrew.
And without even raising my face, I rushed out of the room even faster than I’d lunged at him. My heart was raging madly. Even a swift couldn’t be more agile than me.
