The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 39
After the music ended, Fezin escorted Heidi back to her table.
Heidi spoke to Miller, her face flushed with excitement.
“Whose brother is he? He’s quite the dancer.”
“Still, I’m better, right?”
“Hmm.”
“Just say yes for now.”
“Let’s go with that.”
Miller laughed along with her, finding Heidi’s joyful face utterly lovely.
Fezin clicked his tongue as if he couldn’t stand the sight.
“I went to the Empire because I hated seeing this. I should go back.”
“Don’t go. I’ll stop.”
Miller made a show of holding Fezin back. After playing along for a moment, Fezin turned away to find April again.
There was no risk of her running away, but as the party grew more boisterous, the number of drunks who might pose a threat to her was also increasing.
Fezin scanned the entire ballroom, thinking it was about time to take April out.
“Lunos.”
However, that conspicuous dress was nowhere to be seen.
Fezin hurriedly checked every corner of the party venue.
It was no exaggeration to say that the biggest topic of conversation at today’s party was the witch hunts.
Stories of how the Church had tracked down witches and how they had tortured them to extract confessions could be heard all over the ballroom.
There wasn’t a single person there who didn’t know who those stories were aimed at.
Just as Fezin’s urgency began to turn into genuine anxiety, a young noble lady spoke to him.
“Um, if you’re looking for Miss Lunos, she left the ballroom a moment ago.”
“Ah… I see. Thank you.”
Fezin gave a polite nod and strode out of the ballroom.
April had tried her best not to react to the talk of witch hunts.
But while Heidi was dancing with Fezin, she could no longer bear to listen to the voices that grew aggressively loud as if mocking her. Her stomach churned at the overtly threatening conversations directed her way.
Needing fresh air, April turned and headed straight for the ballroom doors.
Running out of the hall, she made her way toward a forest path, seeking a place where no one else would be.
The servants of the Grand Ducal Residence had been continuously clearing the snow around the ballroom, so there was barely enough left to leave a footprint, but the areas left untouched were different.
The snow there reached halfway up April’s thighs.
After walking only a short distance, April collapsed into the snow as if her feet had been caught. She didn’t have the strength to walk any further.
She was angry, but since she had no way to resolve that anger, she had become lethargic. It seemed humans were destined to trap themselves in such cycles of helplessness.
She knew that time would eventually calm this wave of rage.
Once the wave subsided, the strength to take the next step would return, but she couldn’t endure the time until then.
As April lay in the snow like someone who had resigned herself to everything, including life itself, Fezin, who had come looking for her, approached and spoke.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m tired.”
April muttered, brushing his arm away.
Fezin stared at her as if she were being ridiculous, then clicked his tongue once and lay down right there on the snow beside her.
April, who had been curled up with her eyes closed, opened them to find Fezin’s profile right next to her.
“…What are you doing?”
“I’m tired.”
He gave the exact same answer to the exact same question. Of course, Fezin’s response was laced with mischief.
Her mind told her this was the moment to ask why he followed her or to tell him to go back inside, but the words wouldn’t come out. Physical exhaustion simply made her not want to move a muscle.
Fezin glanced at April as she drifted toward sleep and said,
“Move just a hand’s breadth.”
At those words, April opened her eyes irritably.
Fezin was taking off his jacket and laying it on the snow. He was telling her to at least rest her cheek, which was touching the snow, on his jacket.
When April furrowed her brow, Fezin leaned in and said,
“If you don’t move, I’m going to start again.”
“Start what?”
“The epic saga of my face. The face that one can never praise enough—”
Before he could finish, April snatched the jacket, shook it out, spread it over the snow, and lay back down on it.
Once she was settled, both her own actions and his self-praise seemed so absurd that a small, involuntary laugh escaped her.
She didn’t understand how she could go from being so angry to laughing so quickly.
Fezin was only wearing a shirt and a white vest, which didn’t look nearly warm enough for someone lying in the snow.
April felt she was fine, but Fezin, having grown up in the Empire, seemed likely to catch a cold.
Eventually, April propped herself up with both arms and said,
“Get up. You’ll freeze to death.”
“Lying here, it’s actually quite soft and nice. I see why people fall asleep and die in the snow.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
Fall asleep and die in the snow.
April found she hated the thought of that phrase applying to Fezin, so she grabbed his vest. She tried to pull him up, but he was quite heavy despite his appearance.
Perhaps he was using his strength to stay down. He was, after all, no ordinary troublemaker.
April struggled for a moment before giving up. As her strength failed, she inadvertently slumped onto his chest. The warmth radiating from his body had drawn her in, perhaps because she was cold. Or maybe she was just blaming the warmth because she had nothing else to blame.
There was a time when she avoided all warmth in this world, yet April couldn’t understand why she had suddenly come to crave his.
Actually, she did know.
She knew the answer all too well.
April thought it would be better if he rejected her completely.
However, Fezin did not offer any words or gestures of rejection at her sudden action, and her body, melted by his warmth, wouldn’t move easily.
The only saving grace was that he didn’t do anything to embrace her either.
Fezin remained as quiet as a dead man, offering neither affirmation nor denial. At some point, she even felt his breathing grow so thin it seemed to stop.
April couldn’t ignore even that, so she lifted her head and asked,
“Why aren’t you breathing?”
“What do you want me to do? Just pretend you didn’t notice.”
“Notice what?”
“That I can’t breathe.”
“Am I heavy?”
“…Do you really think it’s because you’re heavy?”
When Fezin rebuked her, April’s eyes darted around in confusion for a moment before she spoke.
“I can’t pretend not to notice. You’re going too long without a breath.”
“Ah, you’re incredibly difficult.”
As he spoke, he wrapped his arm around April’s shoulders and pulled her tightly into his embrace.
His hand stroked her shoulder as if to soothe her. The touch was unexpectedly gentle, and it felt good.
After patting her sufficiently, Fezin sat up, shook the snow-covered jacket out, and draped it over April’s shoulders.
“Let’s go in. I’m cold.”
“I don’t want to go in yet.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t.”
“What is it you don’t like?”
“The fact that I can’t win.”
The stubbornness in April’s eyes was evident as she spoke.
Fezin leaned down, wanting to look straight into her eyes. There were small predators in this world. For instance, beasts with venom or sharp weapons.
Fezin thought April’s red eyes, glowing in the night, were eerie. Yet strangely, that eeriness satisfied him. It was the gaze of a warrior.
“You should at least be this much.”
At his casual murmur, April narrowed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, as if asking what he meant.
Fezin leaned in further, looking into her eyes from a very close distance.
“You need a gaze like this to win against anything.”
He continued slowly.
“When we were young, I hated that arro—no, ‘arrogant’ isn’t the right word for someone from the Runos family.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I hated those eyes that knew how great they were, but now, I like them well enough.”
“…”
“Because I don’t want you to break.”
Fezin wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or a lie.
He felt it ought to be a lie, but the fact that it was so sincere left him feeling utterly baffled by himself.
