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~Chapter 54~
“Big sis, today I met a really interesting lady.”
“Alisa! You went out again?! I told you not to do that! Why are you going out and doing such things!”
It was a common enough story.
An older sister—without parents—working as a knight and carrying the burden of raising her two younger siblings on her salary.
And a younger sister, eager to help in any way, taking on any small jobs or errands she could find.
Janet, finally home after a long while, thought she was about to hear something that would make her explode again.
“Listen, she was young, but her hair was all white.”
“Are you even listening to me?! I told you, I don’t want you to suffer like this—”
“But she said she was an experienced herb-seller! And she told me the price I set for lily-of-the-valley was too low. Because of the danger in handling it, she said I should double it.”
A stormy, stubborn teenage girl, who never listened no matter what, kept chattering on with her story.
“-She also told me I should wear gloves when collecting it. And since it can cause contact dermatitis, she said to go to the Varein Pharmacy, mention her name, and get an ointment.”
“…So, did you get it?”
“Of course I did! It was a great deal! And while I was there, I looked around inside too. The staff treated me like some academy student on a field trip. They even gave me a bunch of freebies!”
Nothing in their reality had changed.
The wall of hardship was still high, and they were still struggling under the weight of daily life.
But seeing her little sister laughing and talking so brightly—like a girl her age should—was something Janet hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Anyway, she was a fun lady. Do you think she’ll come again?”
For Janet, that alone was enough.
Everyone else had left, and just as Shariette was about to return, Noxian stopped her.
“Shariette. You’re my doctor, not the physician of everyone in this mansion.”
He tilted his head, speaking in a crooked tone.
Maybe he wasn’t done with the earlier argument. Shariette quickly pointed out the flaw.
“Deodorizer isn’t a medicine. Even if you’re not a pharmacist or a doctor, as long as you know the principle, you can make it. It’s just a household chemical.”
“……”
That wasn’t the point.
Noxian pressed his hand to his forehead, unsure where to even start. He slowed his words, lowering them to her level.
“You don’t have to make medicine just because people ask you to. It isn’t your duty.”
“I’m a pharmacist, though.”
She was a pharmacist—so of course she made medicine. What else would she do?
“If it’s business, fine. But this wasn’t business.”
“The ingredients are bought by the ducal house anyway.”
So she factored in the raw cost, but not her own labor.
Back in that tiny apothecary, she’d been running it like a proper shop.
No—that wasn’t it. This woman…
Noxian finally understood the problem he had always sensed in her.
“It’s fine. I’m useful.”
“I already loaded the carriage with the sedative samples and ingredients.”
“I never thought a pharmacist would be given a room outside the pharmacy.”
“Should I make a medicine that kills touch?”
Her entire value was tied to medicine.
She breathed to make medicine, as if that was her whole existence.
Like water flowing when you turned a tap, she made medicine for anyone who asked—just a tool.
A hot anger surged deep inside him. He didn’t even know who it was aimed at.
At the people who had made her this way?
Or at himself, who had brought her here because he needed her medicine?
“Yes, you’re a pharmacist. You make medicine. But you don’t have to.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. You could do something else—or nothing at all.”
Shariette suddenly realized. Without thinking, she had been working as if she were still inside Argen Castle.
But this wasn’t Argen Castle.
It wasn’t a place where you were disposed of if you failed to serve your function.
“…It’s not that I dislike it.”
Here, people were different. Warm, kind, smiling, asking, listening.
So no—she hadn’t been forcing herself to make medicine she hated.
But still, she couldn’t understand what this man was trying to say.
‘Can’t he just explain it simply?’
Looking into her turquoise eyes, still full of confusion, Noxian wanted to ask:
You’re brilliant as a pharmacist.
But if one day you couldn’t make medicine anymore—what would you become then?
If you stopped being “useful,” what would happen to you?
Instead of voicing it, he asked slowly:
“Shariette. When you’re not making medicine, what do you do?”
“I trim herbs.”
“Something else.”
“I organize vials.”
“…Without the word ‘medicine.’”
With a sulky face, Shariette thought hard.
“I clean the cabinets.”
“And besides that?”
“I read books.”
“Not books for work.”
“……”
Ugh. What do you want from me?
His relentless questioning finally made her snap.
“Why do you keep asking?”
Noxian saw the sharp reaction and the confusion beneath it.
So unlike the Shariette who always answered smoothly, armed with knowledge.
Inside her mind, there was nothing but medicine, knowledge, saving and treating lives—and nothing beyond that.
She was even thrown into confusion over something this simple.
“So, you don’t have an answer?”
His words pierced her. To Shariette, it sounded like:
“You don’t know how to do anything else?”
Feeling unjustly cornered, she shot back:
“Then what about you? You only work every day too. Don’t act like you’re any different.”
What great things do you do, then?!
Noxian smirked, lifting one corner of his mouth.
“You want to know what I do?”
The arrogance in his tone made Shariette quickly add:
“Take off the ‘Rube’ in Rubellot and the ‘Duke’ in House Duke. Say it without your title.”
Pfft. Noxian let out a short laugh, touching his lips.
Whenever the topic of her Shasha days came up, she panicked and dodged—but now, refusing to lose, she pushed back. It amused him.
“Easy. I do a lot of things. Some of them, I think you’d actually enjoy.”
“Me?”
“Looks like you’re not interested in teatime, unlike Mother and Nixia.”
That was true.
She could tell what leaves or flowers a tea was brewed from, but enjoying the taste and aroma was another matter.
“Who knows? If you try different things, maybe one will suit your taste.”
“Why would I need that?”
…Because you’re the kind of person who asks “why” even about the obvious.
He had only wished she would stay alive.
As long as she was alive, it didn’t matter how. He had been relieved just that she survived.
But now… was this really living?
The place had changed—from Argen Castle to Willowhill, and now here. But she still lived the same as “Shasha.”
Making medicine, swallowing poison. As if that was all she was.
At least she still brightens when she sees something new, when she wants to understand.
He recalled her, buried in stacks of books.
Books had probably been her only way to experience a wider world.
“What’s this parrot show again?”
“Isn’t it good she’s gotten along with people? She really is interesting.”
So it hadn’t just been about memory. It had been her clumsy way of connecting.
Instead of voicing the bitter thoughts at his throat, he answered her gently, in her language.
“True experts—real masters—work when it’s time to work, and live when it’s time to live. They enjoy the balance.”
Shariette didn’t want to call herself a fake, talentless expert. She mulled over the meaning of “living.”
Noxian continued.
“Outside the pharmacy, the world is wide. You can do anything.”
“……”
Do anything. Shariette repeated softly.
“Yes. Anything. Nothing you can’t do.”
—As long as it’s where my eyes can reach.
He stepped behind her, wrapped both hands over her shoulders, and whispered low:
“I want to know. What you’ll like, what you’ll hate, what you’ll be interested in, what you’ll want to have.”
Likes, dislikes, interests, desires.
Every one of those felt impossibly hard.
Shariette, hearing him say he wanted to know things even she didn’t know herself, asked back:
“Why do you even want to know that?”
