Chapter 128
Aurora examined the letter Lady Valdis had given her from every angle.
It was such a cute letter.
A letter overflowing with girlish charm.
Anyone could see it.
No matter how generously you looked at it.
It clearly wasn't a normal thank-you letter.
It was a dead ringer for the love letters that often appeared in romance novels.
Sure enough, Lady Valdis's face grew even redder after she handed over the letter.
“I was so grateful that you saved me that day. I really wanted to thank you properly, but approaching you in person was a little... embarrassing.”
“…….”
“Of course I know it's a rude request. I'm also sorry to ask Your Highness to do something like this. But...”
Lady Valdis fidgeted, unable to stay still for even a moment. She kept darting her eyes around, gauging Aurora's reaction.
She looked exactly like a girl in love.
'So people really can make that kind of expression.'
Aurora overlaid the girl before her with a scene she had once seen in a novel.
Wasn't it said that a girl in love sparkled as if she held starlight?
When she read that in print, she had thought it was a bit exaggerated.
But it wasn't exaggerated at all.
She could tell now that she saw it herself.
Lady Valdis really was shining.
Her cheeks were flushed red with embarrassment.
Her fingertips, gripping her skirt, trembled faintly.
She couldn't quite bring herself to look straight at Aurora, yet she didn't want to pull back either.
A face that wanted to hide, wanted to be found out, wanted to run away, and yet still wanted to take one more step closer.
Because that awkward courage was so endearing.
If it had been the usual Aurora, she would surely have clasped both hands together and marveled.
She might even have wanted to turn this scene into writing that very night, saying something she'd only ever seen in novels had bloomed into reality.
Yet for some reason, none of those thoughts came to her now.
Instead of feeling heartened, she felt almost………….
“Your Highness...?”
“Huh, y-yes?”
Lady Valdis called out cautiously. Only then did Aurora come to her senses.
The foul feeling that had been bubbling up in disarray was instantly shoved into a corner.
“I knew it would be difficult, right?”
“Rather than difficult, it's more that...”
“If it really can't be helped, I was thinking of visiting in person, but...”
Aurora hurriedly cut her off.
“I'll deliver it.”
“Really?”
“Of course. What's so hard about it? It's only delivering a single letter.”
Before long, Aurora had recovered her smile.
It was a very elegant smile, one befitting an imperial princess, and one that made others smile in turn when they saw it.
“Above all, the desire to thank one's benefactor is precious.”
“Thank you, Your Highness!”
“Then have you said everything you wanted to say? I'd like to go in and rest now. I haven't quite shaken off the fatigue from that day yet.”
“Oh...! Y-yes, of course! Sorry for troubling you. Please get plenty of rest!”
Lady Valdis walked away with brisk, light steps that practically overflowed with cheer.
Aurora watched her back.
Then she looked down at the letter in her hand.
She absentmindedly tried to clench her fist around the letter.
“…….”
But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it, so she moved the letter to her other hand before clenching her fist.
She felt like, if she didn't do even that, this inexplicable tightness in her chest would never let up.
***
Aurora returned to the study.
She flopped onto the sofa as if collapsing. Her exhausted body sank into the plush cushions.
“Phew…….”
Aurora let out a long sigh.
Even the short distance from the garden to the study had been nothing short of a trial for her legs today.
At this rate, tomorrow's suffering was guaranteed too.
“I want a massage.”
Leon's massages felt so good. Maybe I should ask him for one again when he comes later.
Dad never said I couldn't let him give me a massage, so I guess it's fine, right?
He can't possibly barge in again, right?
She stared at the ceiling for a long while, casually thinking of something that would have made the emperor furious if he'd heard it.
“…….”
Then she suddenly remembered the letter in her hand.
A small, cute, carefully prepared envelope. A gentle, pleasant fragrance drifted from it.
How long had she agonized over it?
What color would be best, what scent to use, what kind of handwriting to start the first line with.
She could almost see how many times it had been written and erased, folded and unfolded again.
That sincerity was so vivid.
Instead, one side of her chest quietly sank.
This letter is going to Leon.
He takes this envelope in his hands.
He breaks the seal with an expectant expression and reads the shy words inside.
Just imagining that scene made Aurora feel as if she had been left alone in some unfamiliar place.
Too small to call painful.
Too distracting to call it nothing.
It was just like having a tiny splinter stuck in her fingertip.
It wasn't enough to draw blood, but it stung a little every time she tried to forget it.
“…….”
Should I sneak a read?
That thought crossed her mind.
She was very curious what it said, what she had written to him.
Because Leon belonged to her.
'As his master, don't I have a duty to check?'
Right.
Inspection.
A preemptive inspection to make sure nothing strange had been written in it.
Aurora came to that conclusion and was just about to open the letter when—
“Ugh... No. This isn't it.”
There are things you can do, and things you can't.
No matter how plausible the excuse, it would still be snooping through someone else's letter.
Aurora wasn't unaware of how much courage Lady Valdis had mustered, or how precious the heart she had poured into this letter was.
And she was going to open it in secret?
“A villainess wouldn't even do that…….”
“What wouldn't she do?”
“Huh?!”
Aurora shrieked and shot upward in shock, only to come back down and smack the back of her head against the armrest.
-쿵!
“Ack!”
Aurora clutched the back of her head.
The silver lining was that, as they say, a person can only feel one pain at a time.
Thanks to that, she didn't feel the pain in her legs.
“Are you all right?”
Leon was standing beside her before she knew it.
He had come after hearing Aurora's order to come to her as soon as training ended.
“Why are you suddenly popping up like that?”
“I knocked.”
“I didn't hear you! If there's no answer, you shouldn't come in!”
“I could feel your presence, but when there was no response, I thought an old illness had flared up and you'd collapsed.”
“What do you mean, an old illness? What do you take me for?”
Aurora straightened her posture.
She looked over Leon's clothes.
He was dusty from having trained hard, but there were no signs of injury.
If anything, he looked strangely refreshed.
“On your way here after training?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing much. We had a welcome party.”
“A welcome party? That must've been fun.”
“It really was fun. It felt like all my tension got washed away.”
The feel of landing a hit was so satisfying.
No matter how good a game's hit feedback was, reality still couldn't compare.
A welcome party like today's was always welcome. She even had the confidence to do it every day.
Though the other side probably wouldn't want that.
“But what's this?”
Leon noticed the letter lying on the floor.
Aurora looked at her own hand a beat later, but it was empty. It seemed she had dropped it when she jumped in surprise earlier.
By then, Leon had picked up the letter.
He flipped it front and back to inspect it, then sniffed it.
“This is the first scented letter I've seen. It looks like a love letter. Did it come for you, Noona?”
“Well, that's...”
“Is it for me, by any chance?”
“…….”
She couldn't bring herself to lie. Aurora slowly nodded.
“There's a young lady from House Valdis among our salon members, and she was the one who was rescued after going missing this time.”
“And?”
“She asked me to give it to Leon. She wants to thank you, but says she's too shy to meet you in person.”
“Oh...”
As if he hadn't expected to receive a letter at all, Leon studied the envelope with interest.
“Can I open it?”
“It's addressed to you, so it's up to you.”
At that, Leon broke the seal without hesitation and began reading.
Aurora's gaze drifted to the letter paper. She wasn't trying to peek. Absolutely not.
She was just purely, innocently curious about what it said.
But when Leon lifted the page slightly, she couldn't see the writing.
'How sneaky.'
She didn't know why it was sneaky, but it was sneaky all the same.
Leon read the letter, oblivious to Aurora's feelings.
There was no particular change in his expression.
He didn't look surprised, and he didn't smile.
That blankness was somehow even more distracting.
“…What does it say?”
In the end, Aurora couldn't hold back her curiosity and asked first.
“Are you curious?”
“No, not curious.”
“Then I won't tell you.”
“...I'm a little curious.”
Leon chuckled softly.
“It's nothing much. She says she's grateful I saved her that day, and that it was a relief I appeared during her scariest moment.”
“That's it?”
“No.”
Leon lowered his gaze to the bottom of the letter.
“What else?”
“She says she was too flustered to greet me properly that day, and that she'd like a chance to thank me in person.”
“In person?”
“Yes.”
A worried light crept into Aurora's eyes. Her hand unconsciously tightened around the cushion.
“What are you going to do...? Are you going to meet her?”
“Hm.”
Leon looked down at the letter as if thinking it over for a moment.
A brief silence followed. But to Aurora, it felt unbearably long.
Then Leon's lips moved slowly.
“No.”
“Huh?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“N-no. I just thought you'd naturally accept...”
Leon tapped the first line of the letter with his finger.
“Here.”
“What's there?”
“It says, 'To the knight,' doesn't it?”
“So what?”
“From the looks of it, she doesn't seem to know that I'm a slave.”
“Ah...!”
Aurora quickly scanned the letter.
First, as expected of a young lady who had received a proper education, the handwriting was cute and the sentences were dripping with affection.
She didn't like it.
The contents were exactly as Leon had said.
That was a relief, at least.
The problem was the way she addressed him: she called Leon 'knight' every time.
“It seems she wrote this thinking I was a knight. Wouldn't she be flustered if she knew I was a slave?”
“W-well, I guess so?”
“It'd be better to let her keep the fantasy rather than meet her and ruin it.”
It was certainly the right thing to say.
What Lady Valdis held in her heart was not a slave, but the sort of white knight or prince you'd find in a novel.
It was Leon's consideration, not wanting to shatter the girl's fantasy.
“Then how are you going to answer?”
“I'll keep it simple. Say that I'm grateful for her thoughtfulness, but that meeting in person will probably be difficult.”
“…….”
At that answer, the black anxiety smoldering in Aurora's heart washed away as if rinsed clean.
'I see.'
So because Leon was a slave, it was impossible for him to socialize with noble ladies.
Not just nobles, either.
No matter who the other person was, without her permission as his master, he could never have a lover.
Nothing like a romance novel could ever happen to him.
That fact brought Aurora quite a bit of relief.
“Then why are you smiling? Did something good happen?”
“Hm?”
Startled, Aurora touched the corners of her mouth. Without realizing it, they had curled upward.
'Why am I smiling?'
To think she felt relieved that Leon couldn't freely meet someone else.
Had her character really become that twisted?
But feeling good was feeling good. No matter how hard she tried to hold it in, a grin kept tugging at her lips.
'Can't be helped!'
She'd just have to take care of him for the rest of her life.
Aurora spread both arms wide.
“Phew, I'm in a good mood! You must've had a hard time training, so Noona will give you a big hug!”
“Phew, I'm in a good mood! You must've had a hard time training, so Noona will give you a big hug!”
The story continues off the page
The Dare in the Back Room
Two academy girls, one lethal measure, and your slate paying for it