Chapter 75
Late in the night, just before dawn.
Carmilla had raided my bedroom.
“Victor.”
Had she just washed?
The girl stood there wearing only a wet shirt.
Water dripped from the ends of her silver hair.
“······Your Highness?”
I immediately realized that something was seriously wrong with her.
Carmilla was normally embarrassed even to show her forearms.
And yet, she was dressed so boldly.
It was enough to make me think that something had gone terribly wrong.
Swish, snap-!
“Eek···!”
Sure enough.
The moment our eyes met, the princess unleashed Blood Weaving.
Red ropes bound my limbs so tightly that I couldn't move them.
I ended up fixed to the bed just like that.
“Stay still.”
A chilly warning.
Carmilla slowly approached, then sat down as if climbing onto my body.
A thin shirt. Even that was wet fabric. A somewhat improper sensation reached me.
The girl lowered her head as though she didn't care.
The hem of her unbuttoned shirt drooped loosely.
Beyond that flimsy fabric, pale skin and delicate contours shimmered.
“······.”
As Carmilla's face drew closer, her uniquely sweet body scent wafted over me.
Beneath her pale neckline, a swell that shouldn't have been visible was exposed.
Naked··· no, should I call it half-naked?
At least the very tips were covered by the fabric.
“Your Highness, why all of a sudden···?”
“I told you to stay still.”
Her hair fell loosely around her.
Our skin pressed together, and our temperatures slowly mingled.
I did not resist, just as the princess had ordered.
I merely looked up at her in silence.
A soft, lukewarm, intensely blatant sensation.
And yet, even in the midst of it, I felt nothing lewd.
“Hng···.”
Because she was crying.
“Hic, hnn···.”
A watery line traced across her snow-white cheek.
Drip, drip— the princess was shedding tears.
A falling teardrop touched my cheek as well.
For some reason,
the girl looked as though she might break at any moment.
“······.”
I held my breath.
I let the dark-red ropes continue pressing against my arms and legs.
“Ugh, ngh···.”
Her pupils looked as though they had been soaked by waves and left on the verge of shipwreck.
Those red eyes were looking down at me.
Complicated emotions lay across them like shimmering ripples.
I waited.
Until Carmilla swallowed her sobs and parted her tightly bitten lips.
“······.”
I added no urging or questions.
I simply waited, as if telling her to speak.
The girl's fist clenched tightly.
Without realizing it, she tightened the Blood Weaving until the ropes' pressure began to ache.
“······Victor.”
A snow-white hand came to rest on my neck.
“You too···.”
A long silence.
At the end of her fading sobs came one precarious question.
“You too, will you leave me···?”
“······.”
Her posture resembled that of someone strangling me.
Perhaps she couldn't bring herself to apply force, because she only held the position awkwardly.
Even with those slender fingers around my neck, I did not resist.
I simply lay still, as though I had never intended to shake her off in the first place.
“Answer me.”
At my reaction, the girl's brow furrowed.
Her eyes held a little more sorrow and seemed a little more filled with spite.
But no matter how I looked at it, that expression was closer to pleading than anger.
I remained silent.
‘······She knows.’
The words I kept turning over in my mouth.
They concerned the first lie I had ever told her.
-My name is Victor.
-By order of the late king, I am the knight assigned to guard Your Highness.
When had she realized?
Where had I made a mistake?
Had my acting simply not been perfect?
‘No···.’
It was something that would have happened someday.
She was innocent, but she wasn't foolish.
Only the timing had come sooner than I expected.
“······.”
“······.”
For a moment, silence settled between us.
Carmilla had noticed my lie.
And I had noticed that Carmilla had noticed.
We both knew, yet neither of us directly brought it up.
“Didn't you ask me?”
“······.”
“Answer me.”
“······.”
Carmilla didn't point it out, either.
She only asked whether I would leave her; she did not question me about the lie.
Perhaps she thought that the moment she pointed out the lie, this entire relationship might fall apart.
The girl's shoulders trembled.
Tears fell one after another like raindrops.
Carmilla spoke as though trying desperately to maintain her dignity.
“Are you also planning to do nothing but betray me···?”
Her sharp tone was quickly blurred by the moisture in her voice.
Even the Blood Weaving binding my hands and feet had grown loose.
Regardless, her red eyes remained fixed on the clown mask.
“The things you said to me, the time you spent with me··· Were they all lies? Are you going to laugh at me and leave?”
“······.”
“I told you to answer me.”
“······.”
Jersian.
The betrayal of a retainer she had trusted and relied on for half her life.
‘No··· Calling it betrayal is strange too.’
The man had never once been on the girl's side.
Carmilla had been thoroughly deceived from the very beginning.
It was impossible for me to even guess.
What she had thought, or what emotions she had felt.
“······.”
“Please, answer me···.”
Carmilla.
The girl's face was a mess of tears.
A single shirt draped over her like the shell of a completely shattered egg, the pale skin beyond it, and even her wandering pupils seemed as though they might be torn apart by a single faint breeze.
Thin, shimmering ripples.
Her wavering red eyes looked down at me.
She was pleading with me.
“Your Highness.”
I slowly reached out my hand.
By then, the ropes that had bound my arms and legs were hanging limply.
Rustle-.
I gathered up her disheveled silver hair.
In the space between, I placed my palm against her snow-white cheek.
Her small face fit entirely within it.
“······.”
“······.”
For a moment, the scene seemed to slow, as if the world had stopped.
My fingertips became suffused with a lukewarm temperature.
Though her body was cold, her tears were hot.
‘Even a vampire's tears are warm.’
With that pointless thought, I wiped away the moisture.
Carefully,
gently,
tenderly,
I tidied the girl's disheveled appearance.
In an even voice, I murmured my answer to her question.
“Didn't I tell you?”
“······.”
“That I would always remain by Your Highness's side.”
“Liar···.”
“I meant it.”
“Liar.”
“Your Highness.”
“Bad retainer.”
“I will not leave you.”
“Bad retainer, hic··· bad, hng···.”
“I will not betray you.”
Your Highness.
Your Highness.
My poor princess.
“Because I am Your Highness's retainer.”
“Hic, ngh···.”
I hoped I could give her a happy ending.
With that flimsy prayer behind me, I wrapped my arms around her waist.
Flop-.
The girl collapsed helplessly into my arms.
Carmilla did not resist.
She merely buried her face against my chest and sobbed.
Each time I patted her pitiful back, I could feel her breath trembling faintly.
“I still belong to Your Highness.”
An answer delivered with each word pressed full of sincerity.
I wondered whether my voice had brought her any comfort.
Even while sobbing, Carmilla clutched my sleeve tightly.
“Victor···.”
“Yes.”
“Victor, Victor···.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I am here.”
“At least you, Victor. Don't abandon me.”
“I won't abandon you.”
“Don't leave me alone in this deep mire.”
“Whether it is a mire or an abyss, I will walk after Your Highness.”
“If you must betray me··· then poison me instead.”
“······.”
“Don't make me go through this pain again.”
“Your Highness will live a long life.”
To ask me to kill her instead if I was going to betray her.
How many thoughts had she wrestled with alone?
How much had she allowed to fester inside her?
‘Carmilla Blandir.’
Alone.
The last princess of the Blandir dynasty.
I held the sobbing girl tightly.
I gently patted her fragile back.
“I will not leave until Your Highness orders me to.”
“Just stay. Even if I order you to leave, ngh··· don't leave···.”
“Understood. I will stay by your side until the end.”
“Bad retainer, hic, you made me anxious···.”
“······.”
The tears continued.
I held her until she grew exhausted from crying and fell asleep.
It was a night that left my heart heavy in more ways than one.
***
After the somewhat tumultuous hours before dawn came morning.
Carmilla awoke to sunlight tickling her eyelids.
She was still dressed in a shirt that left her practically naked.
She was even lying with my arm beneath her head instead of a pillow.
“······.”
Perhaps she hadn't fully grasped the situation yet; the girl merely blinked sleepily.
Lying beside her, I offered a light greeting.
We were close enough for our breaths to mingle.
The clown mask was reflected in her hazy red eyes.
“Your Highness.”
“······?”
“Are you awake?”
“······Mweh?”
A brief silence.
Carmilla slowly checked her own appearance.
A few seconds later, heat rushed across her white face.
“Vic, Vic, Vic, Victor···?!”
A satisfying reaction came in return.
Although I had woken up early, I had remained lying down instead of getting up first.
I hadn't wanted to wake Carmilla while she was sleeping with her head on my arm.
And after what had happened before dawn, I thought it might be best to stay in front of her for at least another day.
“Sob, sob··· Even so, how could you pounce on your retainer?”
“W-what do you mean···!? P-pounce, p-pounce, pounce···!”
“Are you pretending not to know now?”
“I, I had no such intention at all···!”
Carmilla covered herself with the blanket.
When I pretended to cry, the girl's flustered expression grew even more pronounced.
Since she had put me through such a hard time yesterday, teasing her a little was perfectly justified.
“Are you even going to deny responsibility now? You won't take responsibility either, sob, sob···.”
“Nothing happened! Even though I was dressed in a, a rather embarrassing manner···!”
“So you are aware of it.”
“Y-yesterday, I wasn't in my right mind!”
“There it is! The bad man's classic one-night-stand line!”
“I don't know what a one-night stand is, but it, it wasn't anything like that···!”
Her face was flushed hot enough to burst.
Thanks to that, the awkwardness that might have lingered after dawn seemed to wash away.
Right. Things like this were meant to be laughed off.
If they weren't treated lightly, they would become a counterweight that dragged down everyday life for a long time to come.
“It was just a lighthearted prank.”
“Q-quiet···! There is no retainer more disloyal than you!”
“But Your Highness was definitely rather bold yesterday···.”
“H-how shameless! Stop talking about yesterday···!”
“So you do know it was shameless.”
“Ugh, uuuugh···.”
Her face was boiling with heat.
Her eyes wandered without finding anywhere to go.
It was the cute reaction I had expected.
“Ahem.”
Of course,
I thought she might sulk if I teased her any more, so I decided to let it go at that.
I reached toward Carmilla, who was buried beneath the blanket.
Squirmy was wrapped around my wrist like a bracelet.
I sent a signal to the wriggling creature.
“Activate. Coat.”
Flap-.
Squirmy soon spread wide and transformed into the shape of a coat.
I draped it over the girl's shoulders.
“Cover yourself with this.”
“Ngh···.”
“You need to take care of your body. And you mustn't casually show it to some strange man.”
“I know! Victor, Vic, Victor is the first person to see me like this···.”
“From now on, not even me. Do you understand?”
“I, I understand···.”
Her lips moved uncertainly.
She clutched the edge of the coat tightly as she answered.
“······Thank you.”
“Don't mention it.”
After that, the atmosphere gradually settled.
Carmilla slipped out of the room and got dressed in the other room.
Then, for some reason, she returned to my room and lay down beside me···.
“Oh? You're back?”
“I will stay beside you.”
“Why?”
“Because this disloyal retainer might run away.”
Unlike her usual obedient self, she was being uncharacteristically snippy.
Her slender fingers were clutching the hem of my clothes tightly.
I wondered if she was merely being petty, but I saw that her eyes were trembling ever so slightly.
-You too, will you leave me···?
Was she still anxious?
Though she pretended to be fine, the trembling red eyes looked rather pitiful.
I had no choice but to let her do as she wished.
““······.””
We lay in bed throughout the morning.
Since it was the weekend, there was no reason to go out.
We spent the time lying side by side without doing anything in particular.
Perhaps because we had just resolved such a major incident, this boring daily life felt precious.
‘Lunar Eclipse, the New Kingdom··· How nice it would be if things could just remain this peaceful.’
Before I knew it, the clock hands were pointing toward noon.
I thought it was about time to get up.
I was planning to go outside the academy for a while in the afternoon.
Just as I was raising my head, Carmilla's fingers poked my cheek repeatedly.
“Victor.”
More precisely, she was poking the cheek of my mask.
When I tilted my head, the girl began speaking hesitantly.
“Did you call?”
“It just occurred to me, but I don't think you've ever shown me what you look like without the mask.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“It is.”
This made even me pause for a moment.
We had already been living together for more than two months, yet I hadn't shown her my face even once.
I wasn't particularly fond of showing my bare face, but it wasn't as if I could never show it to anyone.
‘What is this···?’
Was it because of a habit I had formed early on?
My body was so fragile that, after obtaining the mask, I had always worn it wherever I went.
‘······Or did I unconsciously not want to show it to her?’
In any case,
there was no reason to take it off only after she pointed it out.
And Carmilla didn't seem like she would be particularly surprised if I showed her.
“Would you like to see?”
I asked casually.
At that, Carmilla's eyes sparkled with surprise.
“C-can I?”
“Why wouldn't you be able to?”
“I thought you wore it because there was some personal circumstance···.”
“It isn't anything like that, so it's fine.”
I tilted my head toward Carmilla, indicating that she could remove it herself.
The girl seemed to hesitate for a moment, then reached out her hand.
Tap, her slender finger touched the clown mask.
“Then, I shall remove it···.”
The girl slowly took off the mask.
My bare face was revealed in full.
And the next moment.
“······Huh?”
Carmilla's eyes met mine.
The girl's pupils trembled in surprise as she saw my face.