Walter and Ricardo
“Love is ultimately nothing but a manifestation of selfishness. That’s not what should be protected. Don’t you feel anything even when you see a cripple like me?”
Just then, the servant waiting by the door announced that Walter had arrived.
As the door opened, Julian greeted him with his back fully resting against the sofa’s backrest, only tilting his head back.
“Oh, the perfect heir to the Chaplin family who has walked on two feet since birth has appeared.”
“Are you drunk already?”
Walter entered and looked at Ricardo. His face showed no particular emotion. Despite the fact that he had become his political rival earlier that day.
“I called you both here. You both have a lot to say to each other today, don’t you?”
No one responded to Julian’s words. He got up from his seat and pat-patted Walter’s shoulder.
“I’ll be going now, so you two can have some time alone. Just don’t start a knife fight in my house.”
Walter smiled faintly and took the seat where Julian had been sitting.
Looking at Ricardo’s face, which felt not just cold but frigid, he was seized by a strange feeling.
Come to think of it, they had never sat alone together drinking. They had only studied together at the Academy for barely a year.
Looking at the table, there was a large bottle already emptied, but Ricardo showed no signs of intoxication whatsoever.
Walter filled his glass and emptied it in one go.
Feeling the liquid flow hotly down his esophagus and heat his stomach, he realized he hadn’t eaten anything all day.
Until the day the heir of Rochester suddenly appeared, Walter had been superior in every way compared to anyone else.
As Julian said, he had lacked nothing since birth.
People praised his perfect bloodline and beautiful appearance. They whispered that he possessed outstanding abilities and inexhaustible wealth.
He also knew what people called him. A gentleman sent from heaven.
He smirked every time he heard it, but there was no real reason to dislike it.
To him, Ricardo, who suddenly appeared one day, always awakened new emotions.
Inferiority and self-reproach, jealousy and envy…
Competing with him alone, through repeated defeats, he eventually even learned resignation. Nevertheless, from the beginning, Walter had welcomed such a Ricardo.
To Walter, who had been perfect since birth, the negative emotions he came to know intimately didn’t feel entirely bad.
They were vitality that came to his listless life, a mountain to overcome, or something to endure.
“I want her.”
Had it now come to the point where he wanted his woman? He had asked himself countless times, but it definitely wasn’t that. It didn’t take a short time to acknowledge this, but it wasn’t a long time either.
Walter had wanted her from the moment he first saw her.
It was the first most primal, raw emotion he experienced after his ennui with life turned into severe aversion toward women.
“As you already know.”
This immediate reaction—eyes opening wide at first sight, hands reaching out, chest heating up, blood rushing through his entire body—could only be expressed as wanting.
“I dare to assert that… I believe one feels this kind of emotion only once in a lifetime. You know what kind of person I am. A patient with women’s aversion wearing a normal shell… nothing more, nothing less.”
“…….”
“Of course, waiting would have been right. Until you break off the engagement and take another woman as your companion. But Lienne doesn’t have time, so I had no other choice.”
“…….”
“If you knew how the Emperor is trying to persuade the saintess right now, you wouldn’t be sitting so leisurely.”
Walter carefully chose his words as he addressed the man who gave no response.
The Crown Princess had clearly said that the saintess would receive the Empress’s oracle. She said the Emperor couldn’t know that fact, but when he met the Emperor recently, he was trembling in fear as if everything was over.
It was quite different from the Emperor who had leisurely offered his daughter. So Walter could only assume something had happened to the Emperor in between.
“The Emperor is also interested in Lienne. Whoever captures the woman who receives the Empress’s oracle wins this fight. The Emperor seems to believe that.”
Ricardo remained indifferent throughout. To the point where it felt like he was talking to some third party rather than the person directly involved. Nevertheless, Walter stubbornly continued speaking.
If not now, it was clear there would be no more time to sit and talk with Ricardo.
Whether he wanted it or not, Ricardo had received the oracle. He would ultimately follow the will of the gods.
“The Emperor seems to be keeping a glimmer of possibility open because Lienne was the catalyst for your manifestation… but what the oracle determined was ultimately Judith Fan Monzania, wasn’t it?”
Finally, some emotion crossed Ricardo’s face. It was quickly composed and could no longer be glimpsed, but that momentary wavering was Walter’s only hope.
“I know you’re trying to spirit Lienne away somewhere. If you can’t permit the engagement right now, at least tell me where you’re sending her.”
“Permit… you say permit.”
The voice he heard for the first time since they sat facing each other was so cold that Walter swallowed dryly. His chest heated up even though he hadn’t drunk any more alcohol.
“People who know I can gauge the truth…”
Ricardo slowly turned his gaze, which had been fixed on his glass, toward Walter.
“…tend to get straight to the point.”
“…….”
“I suppose you’re saying this thinking I know everything, but isn’t it too rude? Moreover, aren’t you the gentleman sent from heaven?”
Ricardo emptied his glass in one gulp and stood up from his seat.
“And permit—is it even appropriate for you to ask my permission? Unless she were the one asking, perhaps.”
Ricardo smirked as if something had occurred to him.
“But let me tell you one thing: Lienne really hates being ordered around like a chicken.”
Walter couldn’t ask anything as he watched Ricardo’s twisted smile. He pat-patted Walter’s shoulder just as Julian had done and walked past him.
“Let me also get straight to the point.”
Only by noticing the subtly different movement from usual did Walter realize Ricardo was quite drunk.
“I’ll protect her with everything I have, so try to take her if you can. It won’t be easy though.”
“Ricardo!”
Walter called out, but he didn’t stop and strode toward the door.
“If I could have taken her, I wouldn’t have needed to be this rude to you. Lienne can’t leave you.”
“…….”
“Don’t use that woman’s heart. You must know that letting her go, no, abandoning her as soon as possible would be the right thing for her. I will keep Lienne, only her, by my side. From beginning to end. But you won’t, will you?”
Creak, the door opened.
“I can protect that woman perfectly. Even if not right now, I can eventually give her complete happiness. You know better than anyone that this is true.”
“…….”
“So don’t be cruel to Lienne anymore.”
Thud—inside the closed door, no more words could be heard.
****
Cock-a-doodle-doo, cluck-cluck-a-doodle-doo.
The chickens are crowing loudly. Maybe it’s because it’s hot these days—they’re not even laying eggs well.
“Ugh, why do those things seem to crow even more vigorously than when they were in Resotia?”
Sabrina shook her head while covering both ears with the pillow she’d been using.
Sabrina and I had been sleeping in the same bed lately.
Every night we’d chat and fall asleep without being able to return to our rooms—it was unavoidable, and perhaps we naturally did so out of anxiety, not knowing when or how we’d have to leave.
Hearing her mumbling, still not fully awake, I carefully slipped out of bed.
Cluck-cluck-a-doodle-doo, cock-a-doodle-doo.
“Where are you going?”
“Sleep more.”
“Of course I’m going to sleep more. I’m asking where you’re going—it’s still dawn…”
“With them making such a racket, I should go see if something’s wrong.”
Sabrina chuckled and didn’t continue. She seemed to have fallen back asleep as even breathing sounds could be heard.
I grabbed the thin outer garment carelessly draped over the chair and went outside. My gaze lingered briefly on the large luggage bag placed next to the door, but I shook my head.
When Sabrina asked why I wasn’t packing, I thought myself quite shallow as I tried to figure out in my head what I should pack.
Coming out of the bedroom, I had planned to go straight to the kitchen for water, but thanks to the dawn scenery with the sun gradually rising, my feet naturally moved toward the window.
While looking at the sky that felt cold despite it clearly being a hot day, my gaze was captured by a dim silhouette in the distance.
It was Ricardo.
The person I miss even while sleeping these days.
I ran toward him with the feelings of welcoming a lover who had been at war for years. The surprised gazes of servants starting their day briefly rested on me, but I didn’t even have the peace of mind to exchange small greetings.
As the door burst open, I saw him straighten his body from leaning against a tree.
I ran straight to him and threw my arms around his waist.
He leaned back against the tree again, pushed by me. Ricardo, who smiled softly and buried his lips on my shoulder, smelled strongly of alcohol.
“What homeowner waits in front of their own house?”
“I missed you, but I didn’t want to wake you.”