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Chapter 5
The attendants bustled noisily as they welcomed the three children, who had returned thoroughly drenched.
Thanks to them, the trio was soon wrapped in dry clothes and seated before a refreshment table, with a steaming teapot set between them.
Sada suddenly noticed that Aila wasn’t adding sugar to her tea.
Ordinarily, she would have spooned in at least two lumps, but today she hadn’t even touched the sugar bowl.
“Don’t you want sugar, Aila?”
Luca, equally puzzled, asked the same question, and Aila answered with dignified composure.
“I don’t like sweets.”
“What?”
“What?!”
Luca’s eyes widened.
“But Aila, you always ate a lot of sweets! You even insisted on sugar in your tea.”
Aila turned her gaze to the distance and said quietly—
“I just thought it looked more like the behavior of a cute young girl…”
“Unbelievable….”
Sada muttered, somewhere between admiration and disbelief, while Luca nodded solemnly.
Sada raised her teacup, still skeptical.
“Do you truly dislike it? Not even a spoonful?”
Aila nodded.
“Actually, I don’t even like cake that much.”
She pushed her share of dessert toward the other two.
Sada couldn’t quite tell whether this was a new affectation or genuine.
Even Madam Poppy, standing behind them, was startled into protest.
“But my lady, you always sought out desserts! You even researched all the famous pastry shops.”
“That was, um…”
Aila cleared her throat delicately.
“I really thought it would make me seem more feminine.”
“Heavens…”
Madam Poppy’s voice spoke what all of them were thinking.
Flustered, Aila avoided their eyes.
“Anyway, it’s true. I really do prefer tea without anything in it.”
“…I see.”
Sada nodded in reluctant acceptance. At this point, it was becoming harder and harder to tell if Aila was being earnest.
“Hmm.”
Sada touched the rim of her teacup and studied Aila.
Calmly sipping her unsweetened tea, Aila did look, at least, like the beautiful young boy she seemed determined to be.
Is this a new persona? A cross-dressing girl, playing at a story of fiery male friendship?
Three years earlier, the Duke of Solarun had sent a marriage proposal to the House of Ult.
The idea of letting the children socialize with one another seemed natural, and the Count of Ult readily sent his youngest.
Though recognized by the Emperor, the Ult family’s position in society was still precarious. Their ancestors had been pirates before becoming privateers, and only generations later had they finally earned noble titles. That alone did not make them fashionable in the salons.
Sada’s elder brother, for instance, had the looks and the charisma of a true gentleman. But no one wished to marry into the Ult family. He had to bend over backward to seek a bride.
Sada remembered watching his brother apply powder in desperation, trying to appear paler, and thinking him mad. But it was simply desperation.
No matter how hard he tried, noblewomen who had “received the ring” wanted nothing to do with the Ult name.
After each ball, Sada’s brother would sit at breakfast with a bitter smile.
“Not a single dance last night.”
He was always rejected, no matter how politely he asked.
Eventually, he did marry, but to a woman considered beneath the Ult family’s station: the daughter of a country knight. She was kind and gentle, but she could not serve as the family’s face in society.
So when Sada first met Aila—dressed in a gown like a bundle of blossoms, with long brown hair and a prim little pout—he thought—
“So this is what a true noblewoman looks like.”
His heart had even skipped a beat.
Though, to be fair, I was only seven years old back then.
But after three years of dancing to her whims, his eyes had grown as lifeless as a dead fish.
Fetching treasures for Lady Aila. Fighting monsters for Lady Aila. Gathering flowers for Lady Aila. Always for Lady Aila.
Eventually, he began to wonder—
“Wait. Am I supposed to live like this for the rest of my life?”
The thought was suffocating.
Still, Aila’s heart was not wicked. So long as one indulged her cloying, girlish tastes, she was easy enough to get along with.
Too much, in truth, for the Ult family.
But now…
Suddenly she had cut her hair and dressed as a boy.
Even at their age, it was obvious why the families orchestrated these meetings: marriage.
The daughter of Solarun was far more than Sada deserved.
But now she was talking about friendship.
Was this a warning? A sign that marriage was out of the question? Or something else?
“Well… friendship alone would be more than enough for me.”
Sada glanced sidelong at Luca.
Luca Ioran was quietly smiling, eating dessert in neat bites.
How is he taking this?
The rumors about Luca were known even to the far-flung Ult family. Surely Aila was the only one unaware.
Or is she pretending not to know?
Sada set his teacup down.
I don’t really like tea anyway. I’d rather have fruit juice.
Just then, Aila slid her own glass of orange juice toward him.
He blinked, then accepted it.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Aila smiled sweetly.
At least the day had ended on a pleasant note.
The Fish Ornament
On the carriage ride home, Sada glanced at Luca and asked—
“What do you think?”
“Think about what?”
Luca sat upright, turning the question back with impeccable manners.
Are all nobles like this, or is it just him? Sada wondered, finding no answer.
“Aila, of course. She says she really wants to be our friend. Do you think she means it, or is it another persona?”
“Does it matter either way?”
“Well, when you put it like that, maybe not. But ‘friendship’ feels… less political than noble courtship.”
“Does it?”
As Sada stretched his legs, Luca lowered his gaze.
Each year they spent a month or two at Solarun, just so they could see Aila every day.
Sada peered out the carriage window.
“Anyway, I’ll be glad when this is over. In about two weeks, we’ll finally be free.”
Luca turned his gaze outward as well.
The duchy, stable for a thousand years, glittered with wealth. All the riches of the West flowed into Solarun. The surrounding lands were barren, long abandoned by other lords.
The carriage stopped at a street corner. Luca stepped out first.
He watched the carriage depart, then slipped into a narrow alley and up to the second floor of a shabby house in the commoners’ quarter.
No one would have believed a noble lived here.
It must be nice… to have a home to return to.
He thought this as he sank into a worn chair.
The Duke of Ioran had sent him here alone, without even a servant. Providing a rented house had been the bare minimum.
Of course, back at the ducal estate, his room was vast and well furnished, with servants to wait upon him.
“But I don’t want to go back.”
When the proposal for Aila’s companionship arrived, the Duke of Ioran had actually asked whether it was truly Luca.
Only after the Solarun governor confirmed it did the duke, burying his complicated feelings, send him there.
That was how Luca first met Aila.
Life with her was not difficult. She treated him like the knight of her dreams, and within her fantasy, he was safe.
If only it had stayed that way.
But Aila had shattered the illusion in an instant.
To Luca, her bold declaration of living as she pleased had felt like a rosy proclamation delivered in the dead of winter.
She doesn’t realize what a blessing it is to be able to live that way at all.
“Friendship. A friend.”
Could it be true?
Would she still call him a friend once she knew the truth of his birth?
I think Sada knows…
It had been one of the most scandalous tales in the Empire: the affair between father-in-law and daughter-in-law.
Its climax was Luca’s own birth.
He was the child of his grandfather and his brother’s wife.
And yet he grew up calling the duke his “father.”
Did Aila not know? The thought unsettled him—and reassured him, too.
His heart swayed back and forth.
“But today… today really was fun.”
He recalled her teasing voice—“Oh, you’re alive, aren’t you?”—and burst into laughter again.
It had been such a ridiculous day.
Still chuckling, Luca drew out a sheet of stationery.
Writing daily reports to the Duke of Ioran was, after all, his duty.
