Chapter 38
Chapter 38
This woman is on a whole different level of skill from Viscountess Müller.
If I’m not careful, I’ll get dragged in.
"Then just tell me where they sell it. I’m not directionally challenged. I can go ask a clerk and buy it there."
"No. Store clerks just recommend anything to sell the expensive stuff. Someone who knows it well has to put the set together for you personally."
"No, my lady."
I folded my arms in disbelief.
"You know full well who I am, so how could I ask you for something this trivial? Would I drag such a precious person to a cosmetics shop and make them work picking out products?"
"A precious person?"
"Then are you a lowly person?"
This is a matter of survival before it is manners.
If Aunt Marie found out, she'd probably scream, "Young Master! Are you out of your mind?!" and not only smack my back, but foam at the mouth and pass out.
But Elysia remained unmoved.
"It's fine. In fact, I was hoping you'd do it."
"……Pardon?"
"I was feeling restless too and wanted to go for a walk. But wandering around alone is awkward, and if there's a destination and a purpose, it eases the guilt of wasting time, doesn't it?"
She looked straight into my eyes and added,
"For your sake, not mine. Please be my walking companion."
"……."
It was perfectly logical.
That silver tongue, neatly slipping past every excuse to refuse.
I pondered for a moment.
'Come to think of it, the disguise is perfect…… and I even put on a voice changer, so what could happen?'
Anyway, I needed to buy something too, and she said she was bored. Win-win?
"Fine. Then let's go. But if you pick something expensive, I'll cut it down to what my wallet can handle."
In my left hand, ten billion. In my right hand, thirty billion.
Even so, I don't waste money.
"Heh, every time we talk, it's something new. To say so casually in front of a lady that you'll cut it down if you pick something expensive."
"I'm always honest. Even if she's a very impressive lady."
"Don't worry. I'll pick out only the essentials."
Okay.
Go.
* * *
Tap, tap.
We walked side by side through the bustling streets at night.
The streetlights cast long shadows.
Elysia kept sneaking glances at my side profile as we walked.
And each time, the corners of her mouth slowly lifted.
At first I thought it was just my imagination, but by the third time I was sure.
She was smiling at me.
"My lady."
"Yes?"
"You can't keep grinning at someone's face like that. It makes me uncomfortable."
When I said that with a straight face, Elysia's eyes went wide.
"Oh my, was I smiling?"
"Yes."
"Isn't a little smile allowed? I'm not mocking you. I just... thought it was fun."
"No. I have a persecution complex, you know."
"I don't buy it."
"It's true."
I stopped walking and said seriously.
"I mean the very real, survival-level paranoia about getting my head chopped off later if rumors spread that I was fooling around with someone who's taken."
"……Ah."
Only then did Elysia fall silent.
I went on.
"Being out and about in the night streets, laughing and having a good time with some other man when you're engaged is dangerous and wrong. No matter how much of a rough guy I am, I know that much."
It might sound old-fashioned.
You could laugh at it as some country bumpkin's conservative mindset.
So what?
No matter how many times I think about it, this is the right answer.
After a moment of silence, she answered with a joke, trying hard to sound bright.
"That's unexpected. How does someone this conservative live without caring what other people think, letting a bad reputation go in one ear and out the other? That doesn't make sense."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
I shoved my hands into my pockets and started walking again.
"If you're going to live however you please, then all the more reason to keep the bare minimum standards and boundaries to the letter."
"Standards?"
"Yes. Don't hurt other people and fulfill your moral responsibilities. Only then can no one really find fault with you. Then, no matter what anyone says, you can say, 'I'm in the clear,' and tell them to go jump."
The price of enjoying freedom is strict self-management and clear boundaries.
If you can't do that, it's not freedom but indulgence, and in the end it's a shortcut to ruin.
* * *
Elysia was stealing glances at Cassian's side profile, hypnotizing herself.
'No. I can't let him seem cool. This is just... an accidental walk.'
That way she could rationalize it.
Then she could dismiss this pounding heart as merely the cool night air, or the sense of freedom she'd felt in ages.
But after a while.
Cassian's casual remark snagged like a thorn deep in her heart.
'Fooling around with someone who's taken is a surefire way to lose your head.'
That rough little line, paradoxically, made her think of her fiancé, Louis.
Louis de Leopold.
He always spoke to her in the most intelligent and elegant way in the world.
But those dazzling words only ever served to justify his coldness and indifference, and they had never once failed to make her miserable.
Speech that was logical and rational, and left no room for rebuttal, always felt cruel to her.
By contrast, what about the man beside her?
He pretended to have no manners, to be ignorant, to be all sorts of negative things.
But beneath that rough behavior was a righteousness and a standard firmer than anyone else's.
No pretense, no complicated calculations.
Wisdom disguised as ignorance, a plain simplicity with not a trace of malice.
'……At ease.'
Just walking side by side with him made it feel as though one burden after another were dropping off the weight pressing on her shoulders.
Elysia parted her lips.
She wanted to hold on to him a little longer.
A ridiculous desire that this time wouldn't end slowly began to sprout.
'I can't…… he's uncomfortable around me.'
Didn't she say she had a persecution complex because she was afraid her head would get cut off?
But she didn't want today to be remembered as a meeting with Louis, who had been an "uncomfortable obligation."
If that made her selfish, she'd gladly accept the criticism.
The selfish wish that this day would be remembered in her memory as this brief walk with Cassian.
Otherwise she'd be too pitiful.
Faced with the emptiness she felt at that moment, after receiving a single crumb of the attention she'd so desperately wished for over nearly a lifetime,
her long years would feel far too powerless.
Still.
That selfishness wasn't everything.
She thought to herself.
'Please, just a little more.'
That this street would just be a little longer.
* * *
An hour later.
Rubynic Garden, the famous cosmetics shop in the bustling district.
Elysia carefully scanned the items on display with a discerning eye.
"Hmm…… you said the head maid's skin type is closer to dry, right?"
"Probably. She complains that her face feels tight whenever winter comes."
"Then this combination would be good. The brown-bottle essence, this moisture-rich cream, and a drop of oil."
In fact, there was no need to overthink it.
It was the Empire's foolproof, all-purpose combination that worked for every age and every skin type.
Still, Elysia acted in front of the clerk as if she were carefully scrutinizing the ingredients and agonizing over the choice.
That was the only way to keep her real reason for coming here together from being exposed.
"Are you sure? That's different from what the clerk recommended."
"Don't you trust me? I'm a VIP for this brand."
"Ah, yes. I trust you, I trust you."
In the end, after paying, Cassian took the shopping bags and let out a relieved sigh.
"Thanks to you, I feel lighter. If I'd come alone, I'd have been swayed by the clerk saying this is good and that is good, and gone home with a bunch of weird stuff."
"Of course. You think I'd lie just because I wanted to walk with you?"
"……."
Cassian flinched as if stung.
Elysia brushed it off with a casual smile, but her heart was pounding.
'Did I just let too much sincerity slip out?'
"So it really wasn't okay just to tell him the name. The world of cosmetics is truly profound."
Fortunately, Cassian seemed to have taken it as meaning that cosmetics were complicated.
Honestly, he's a man I can't tell whether he's quick on the uptake or slow as can be.
The two of them stepped back out onto the street.
It was now truly time to part ways.
Cassian bowed his head slightly and said.
"Thanks to you, I managed to buy it just fine."
But Elysia's gaze had been fixed for a while now on another shopping bag in Cassian's hand.
Not the head maid's gift, but the small bag he'd separately paid for earlier.
'……Who is that for?'
Another woman?
Maybe a lover?
She wanted to ask, but had no excuse to do so.
Just as she was about to forget about it and give up.
Swish.
Cassian casually thrust the small shopping bag toward her.
"Here."
"……Huh?"
Elysia looked at him with a dazed expression.
"What is this?"
"I noticed earlier that you kept fiddling with it and couldn't take your eyes off it."
"……!"
"It's a thank-you for helping me pick out a gift. And also an apology for startling you out of the blue today when I didn't realize it was you."
"Ah..."
Elysia took the shopping bag in a daze.
Was that for me?
He bought it for me?
It was the lip balm she'd briefly looked at while testing it in the store because the color was pretty.
He had caught that fleeting glance, remembered it, and secretly bought it?
"……Thank you."
"It's nothing. My principle is that if you keep decency and boundaries, you can live without worrying about what others think."
He coolly shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Let me make this clear, by the way. This gift isn't me trying to win your favor. It's a token of gratitude for your help, and a gesture of apology for the friction."
The dry, calculating line was so very Cassian.
This man, who can joke so smoothly in everyday conversation, is as unyielding as a board when he draws a line.
He had no idea.
That what he had just done had made Elysia even more flustered.
Yet Elysia, even as she accepted the gift with an outwardly calm expression, couldn't stop her heart from pounding like crazy.
'Dangerous.'
What was she supposed to do if even that sounded cool?
His different attitude kept elevating him as a point of comparison.
He was different from the crown prince.
Unlike the crown prince, who drew lines and justified them for his own selfish ends,
the man before her drew lines based on principles, for the right reasons between the two of them.
"May I say one thing?"
"Yes. Go ahead."
"Stress is an abstract thing."
What was that supposed to mean all of a sudden?
"I don't think it's wrong, as a noble, to manage yourself on the assumption that you can endure, swallow, and digest it forever, and to shape yourself in that direction."
Cassian pointed to himself.
"The reason I live as this total screwup and degenerate is because it makes me less miserable and a little happier."
"……Are you trying to say that I'm miserable right now?"
She was uneasy.
For her, pity and sympathy were a kind of trauma.
Maybe the reason she had been able to open her heart to Cassian so easily at first was...
when everyone else in the world pitied her on their own for things they hadn't even seen,
he, the one person who had accurately intuited the exact moment she felt miserable, had laughed off what she had gone through.
'Don't do that.'
Please.
But Cassian, as if he'd heard her inner monologue, shot back with an expression that said, What nonsense is this?
"What are you talking about? Who in the world was born into such a blessed environment that they can live warm and well-fed and worry less about other people's eyes?"
"……Pardon?"