“……The tea tastes better than I expected.”
Nigel muttered blankly. His own voice sounded muffled, as if echoing underwater. When he set down the empty teacup on the side table, it tilted precariously on the saucer with a clatter.
“I’m glad. Shall I pour you another cup?”
Eden’s voice sounded close, as if right next to his ear. Though Nigel hadn’t answered, Eden seemed to naturally assume he would and tried to tilt the teapot while properly placing the empty teacup on the saucer.
At that moment, swish— Nigel’s hand extended in front of the teapot.
“No.”
It was a dazed voice.
“I, I’m sorry. Are you not burned?”
After checking his hand, Eden immediately lifted the teapot properly but hurriedly checked Nigel’s hand, worried he might have been burned by the hot water. Fortunately, the water hadn’t touched Nigel’s hand, but it had been dangerous.
“……It’s fine. I don’t think I need to drink more tea.”
Nigel limply brushed off Eden’s hand that was examining his hand. His fingertips grazed past the back of Eden’s hand.
Though he hadn’t even been burned on his hand, for some reason the Artifact that Veil Khalid had forcibly attached was pulsating with a humming sound.
Whether it was because of his chronic headache, his physical condition was getting bad again. If not that, perhaps the tea Eden had given him didn’t agree with him.
Nigel followed the glass greenhouse ceiling with unfocused eyes. The sky with the setting sun was already visible.
“The first day of Mardinia is already over….”
“Your Highness? Are you all right?”
Eden’s worried voice could be heard from afar. All right? Rather, he felt even better than that. Nigel looked at Eden with hazy eyes and smiled slightly.
“How did you live in Sihar?”
Abruptly, Eden’s hand movements as he was clearing the teacup stopped.
“Pardon?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever asked you this.”
“……Why suddenly….”
Eden looked at Nigel’s face with a flustered expression, then soon peered into the empty teacup as if the tea he’d given must be strange. Following the low voice saying “Did it go bad?”, he could even hear the sound of him sniffing the scent slightly and even taking a sip.
Nigel felt a strange buoyancy, as if his consciousness was gradually evaporating from his toes. Nigel’s body, which would normally have already kicked back his seat and stood up, didn’t know how to move, sinking deep into the sofa like cloth soaked in honey.
“I’ve heard about it.”
Nigel said while still facing the glass ceiling with his whole body deeply buried in the sofa.
“About Sihar, I mean. Though I’ve never been there directly.”
As soon as the word ‘Sihar’ touched the tip of his lips, tens of thousands of images rushed in like a flood, as if a locked dam had burst inside his brain.
He had certainly thought while taking a brief walk that he didn’t know much about Eden. But even Nigel himself hadn’t expected to ask this quickly in this manner.
It felt as if sentences were being completed outside his mouth before he even recognized he was speaking.
“I heard there’s a vast meadow where no one lives within several hundred kilometers. I heard that only two things fill both eyes—low grass and blue sky, without rocks or trees.”
“…….”
He couldn’t see what expression Eden Lake was making beside him. Anyway, Nigel wasn’t interested in what expression he had right now. The sunset spreading beyond the glass ceiling disturbed his vision.
“I heard that watching the sunset on that vast land is amazing. Like that one right now.”
The sunset viewed from the Kaiserion Academy Student Council room was beautiful enough. But if he looked at the sky from a field where nothing existed but the horizon, as he’d heard from someone, the feeling would probably be completely different.
Since Nigel had never left the Kaiserion capital, he had only encountered it through landscape paintings drawn by the Empire’s greatest painter or through writing.
Occasionally, as part of his education as Crown Prince, spaces were created with magic, but thinking about it, if Eden Lake had seen them, he might have sneered.
“Is it really like that? Eden?”
He wished he’d give an answer at this point. Nigel waited very briefly with his hazy eyes fixed above his head.
“…….”
Eden Lake hadn’t said anything since earlier. The moment he thought that he might have gone somewhere else because he kept rambling strange nonsense.
“It was a beautiful place.”
At the low voice, Nigel’s closing eyes opened. He had continued to keep his seat beside him.
Eden’s voice was much more damp and deeply sunken than usual, stickily digging into Nigel’s eardrums. It was completely opposite and heavy compared to Nigel, who was drunk on the elation of his whole body increasingly floating toward the sky.
“And it was a free place.”
Eden was sitting with one knee bent below the sofa, looking up at Nigel like a priest hearing confession.
“Free….”
Nigel chewed and spat out that word quietly. His tongue felt numb and heavy, but his brain was rather abnormally stimulated and began to pour out words he wouldn’t have said normally.
“I see. A free place. I’m curious. I’ve always been inside this glass greenhouse. Other guys can go out anytime, but only I….”
I’m envious. A free place. After a low sigh, Nigel’s words continued.
“Your Highness, do you want to go outside? Where did you go during the three days you were missing?”
Eden’s question cut in sharply. Nigel muttered while staring beyond Eden’s shoulder with unfocused eyes.
“Outside?”
“……You just said so. That you were envious.”
Nigel burst into giggles. That laughter didn’t sound like his usual elegant chuckle, but dangerously like that of someone who had let go of all control.
“Envious? I never said that.”
It was a disheveled appearance unimaginable for the usual Crown Prince. Eden’s brow furrowed very briefly. He firmly gripped Nigel’s shoulder and forcibly matched their gazes.
Ugh, a very small groan burst out from between Nigel’s lips. It was a weak sound the usual him would never have made. It hurts, as he muttered very quietly, he could feel the hand strength gripping his shoulder hard slowly loosening.
Only then did Nigel relax his furrowed brow very slightly.
“Nigel. Please answer my question.”
Eden’s voice lowered another level.
That voice mixed with impatience rang in the hazy Nigel’s ear.
Question? What did Eden Lake say? He definitely heard him say something, but he couldn’t remember. Like he was dreaming, he couldn’t even distinguish whether this situation was real or unreal.
“……What question?”
At Nigel’s words, a low sigh from right in front tickled his ear. This side is just as frustrated, but like someone pitiful, the hand gripping his shoulder also had a little strength return to it.
“I’m talking about what you said about wanting to go out. I asked whether that’s what you truly want, Nigel.”
Eden Lake spoke with a deliberately clear voice, enunciating each syllable as if speaking to a young child.
Ah, he had definitely asked that question just moments ago too. Nigel moved his lips to answer the question. Kneeling right in front of the sofa to hear that answer, Eden Lake was only looking at Nigel’s lips.
It was a desperate and eerie gaze, like someone crazed with thirst waiting for a drop of water.
But only the hazy answer “What I truly want…” came from Nigel’s mouth. As if it wasn’t the words he wanted, he could hear Eden Lake letting out a low sigh. Then he could see him taking his gaze off Nigel’s lips and looking at the tea he’d briefly placed on the table.
“……A little more… I wonder.”
Then he muttered.
It was a quiet voice like a soliloquy, so Nigel didn’t hear it. Hmm. Nigel stared blankly at Eden’s face like that, then narrowed his eyes like a child who had discovered a very interesting secret.
This feeling right now, it’s not a normal state. Even though he was sitting, he felt no weight, as if his whole body was floating.
Even in the buoyancy where it was hard to move a single finger, Nigel’s instinctive sharpness sharply raised its head above the surface.
“Eden.”
“Yes? …Ugh.”
He grabbed Eden’s nape and pulled him sharply toward himself. At a distance so close their noses nearly touched, Nigel’s lips moved slowly.
“You….”
A flash of vitality returned to Nigel’s eyes.
“You fed me something strange, didn’t you?”
