IDIBC Chapter 57

The Place Where Misunderstanding Vanished and Understanding Emerged

Somehow Walter’s voice sounded a little angry. Was this gentleman sent from heaven also considerate enough to understand others’ feelings?

Unable to be certain what expression I was making, I lightly touched my cheek with my gloved hand.

“If my expression seems unsettled, it’s probably… because I feel sorry.”

Could he understand if I truly felt sorry for the inconvenience and trouble Ricardo would have to endure because of me?

“I do have quite a bit of shame, you see.”

Walter seemed to have no intention of continuing this conversation and stood at the balcony railing, looking down at the courtyard. I too looked at the same place, maintaining some distance from him. Though it would have been right to go outside immediately, the thought of needing to rest for a moment came first.

Thanks to summer’s invasion, even at night warm heat was mixed in the breeze.

“Then why were you out here? It couldn’t have been because you felt sorry for Young Duke Rochester.”

I let out a chuckle at his lightly tossed remark. Perhaps it was because we had heard such horrifically crude criticism together? Somehow it felt alright to be a bit honest with him.

“To be frank, I can’t dance.”

As if this was an unexpected statement, the teal eyes that turned back to me wavered slightly.

“The Young Duke stepped away briefly, and the gentlemen around me asked me to dance.”

“…….”

“No matter how polite, a refusal is still a refusal. I can’t reveal everything about myself, but I haven’t received a noble’s education. So the only dance I know is the sarabande.”

A brief silence lingered. Was this somewhat shocking news for him, being at the pinnacle of nobility?

“And even that I dance very awkwardly, as if creaking. If I had danced here, I would have become the laughingstock of the century.”

Walter let out a soft laugh. It was quite a self-deprecating laugh.

“The reason you came out to the balcony is the same as mine.”

“What… do you mean?”

“I also cannot dance.”

“That can’t be.”

“Though not for the same reason as you—not having received a noble’s education—the clear reason I’m hiding on this balcony is the same as yours: because I cannot dance.”

His words, spoken with a bitter smile, didn’t feel like a joke or a lie.

“Perhaps this is the first time I’m confessing this to anyone.”

“…….”

“Aren’t you going to ask why?”

“Well, there are various reasons why someone might not be able to dance. It’s a personal matter, so I don’t want to pry. Rather than that…”

I trailed off for a moment, buying time. I needed time to decide how much I should share.

“I want to give you an answer to the question you asked in the garden in front of the Crown Prince’s palace last time.”

Of course, I knew that Walter had some idea about that night, but that was ultimately just his speculation.

“About why I entered the Young Duke’s bedroom holding a yellow rose.”

I explained the events of that time in considerable detail. How I had happened to pick up the yellow rose and how Walter had bumped into me at that moment.

“This is the truth of that day.”

“…….”

“I don’t know why the Young Duke urgently used his ability. Other than the fact that some woman called out loudly to the Young Duke from behind and the Young Duke was backing away.”

“Was Young Duke Paquin also involved?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Why… are you telling me all this?”

I had started this story half-believing whether he would believe what I was saying. However, seeing his earnest attitude, I thought it was good that I had revealed the truth.

“Because I know very well what it’s like to lose memories. Though I haven’t experienced it myself, I’m someone who has watched it very closely.”

“…….”

“I can’t tell you in detail what happened at the Chaplin household, but I absolutely did not commit any act that would harm the Young Duke’s family.”

“I know that. In fact, nothing happened.”

“So you’ve clearly cleared up your misunderstanding about me, right? Especially regarding the yellow rose.”

“Of course.”

We stood facing each other for a moment with smiling faces. Though there had been a great misunderstanding at our first meeting, I thought we had resolved it quite well.

It was a summer night when the full moon hung much closer than on other days.

Neither I nor Walter knew well then what could grow in the place where misunderstanding vanished and understanding emerged.

****

It was a night when the moon rising in the pitch-black sky was unrealistically large. Ricardo had briefly left Lienne’s side, having been summoned by the Crown Prince. He thought to himself that the royals were calling for him quite frequently today.

“The reason His Majesty summoned you is probably because of the sword.”

“That’s correct.”

He had deliberately told Lienne to stay on the balcony visible from where he would be. He felt anxious if he didn’t keep her in sight. Especially in the imperial palace.

Anxiety… It was a quite unpleasant emotion he had newly come to know recently.

“I’ve just been told to exercise restraint. When I merely won a wager.”

“It would have been good if Father had also exercised that restraint.”

Today the Emperor appeared with the Second Prince by his side. The sight of him bringing out the incompetent son he had never even glanced at, dressed up splendidly, was nothing short of ridiculous.

The imperial court’s regular banquets are held four times a year. Three of them are held on fixed dates, but one, like now, is declared by the Emperor himself when a situation requires it.

The Emperor had prepared seats not only for the Crown Prince but also for the Second Prince directly below his own platform. The implication of having both sons stand side by side was clear.

It was a natural course for the nobles to be stirred up, and that was also the reason the Emperor had held the banquet.

“Everything else was fine, but it was a bit hard watching Mariette clenching her teeth trying not to be shaken.”

When it became known that the Crown Prince would appear at that occasion holding Schneider’s sword, the Emperor was the first to catch on to whose possession it would become.

He summoned Ricardo to warn him, but ultimately the Crown Prince appeared holding the sword. In the very box the Emperor had given him.

“How can his actions be so identical then and now?”

The “then” the Crown Prince spoke of referred to events before he had used his ability to turn back time.

“His son can’t even stand, yet such a grand banquet. But isn’t it funny? Back then, even though he could stand perfectly well on two legs, Father still held a banquet with the Second Prince by his side.”

“Back then, His Majesty knew immediately after the onset of the illness.”

“Right, it was almost the same time. When this banquet was held.”

To the Emperor, there would have been no difference. Whether his son’s legs had buckled and collapsed or not.

Exactly ten years—the Crown Prince had turned back time with Ricardo exactly ten years.

And precisely that much time had flowed again.

The Crown Prince of that time had fallen ill at the age of 25, but after turning back time, his illness began five years earlier.

The imperial ability was to turn back time, and the price paid for it was roughly half the amount of time turned back, taken from one’s lifespan.

“If Father hadn’t moved so immediately back then, I wouldn’t have followed your words.”

“So… do you regret it?”

“Not at all. I turned back ten years and lived that time again. I lived five more years at the most brilliantly shining age of my life. It wasn’t a losing deal.”

Ricardo looked down at Stuart silently while holding his glass. When Ricardo returned from the trap-like war and sought out the Crown Prince, he was this age now.

Stuart at twenty-five became a boy of fifteen again because of Ricardo. Perhaps that’s why the Crown Prince always gave off a feeling more mature than his actual age.

At age 20, signs of the illness showed without fail, but he desperately hid that fact.

“I only feel sorry for Bea. That I took her as my wife again knowing I would fall ill and die.”

“Do you regret it?”

Though he knew he was repeating the same question, Ricardo could only ask it that way. To him, who had no memories remaining, everything was just an excess of incomprehensible emotions.

“How could I? There wasn’t only love between Bea and me. Even knowing all the facts, she willingly took my hand. She’s the bravest woman I know. Mariette is.”

The Crown Prince had a son with the Crown Princess, just as in his previous life. The scene of him holding his newborn son and shedding tears as if pouring out his heart was not easily forgotten even by Ricardo.

“All I did was turn back time. And I loved her the same way. I saw my wife walking toward me in her wedding dress twice. I thought it would be less shocking the second time… but it wasn’t.”

‘She was more beautiful. Unbelievably so.’ The Crown Prince’s words scattered in the moonlight.

More beautiful? The woman who had looked at him with a blank face while holding eggs in her arms?

Ricardo briefly recalled Lienne, whom he had met again—no, met for the first time. It was an endlessly foolish question to ask himself when he had no memories.

Little Lienne who kept popping into his mind. Lienne Rowe Fennel.

A name that evoked the sensation of pain before the impression of beauty.

Ricardo knew the reason she remained as an afterimage in his memory.

Memories lost through manifestation and awakening can never be recovered. But he himself had turned back time.

As if memories remaining like blood in his body circulated hotly and at some moment formed on his retina, she would suddenly come to mind. Her name lingered here and there as pain, as if carved into his bones.

A face that wouldn’t be forgotten even if all his blood drained away. A name that wouldn’t disappear even if his bones crumbled to dust.