Chapter 129, If Such a Day Comes (8)

Translator: Hedge

Editor: Lizzz

 

Kalian ate his meal.

 

He did not explain why he had reduced Heisia Palace to such a state. He did not say what he had in mind when causing trouble. He did not talk about what plans he was concocting. He did none of that. He really just ate. He tore bread and put it in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed bacon, picked at his salad, and drank water.

 

Despite having come up suggesting they eat together, he had completely forgotten about the ‘together’ part. He was acting as if he had the world’s finest feast spread before him.

 

He was eating so quietly, elegantly, and thoroughly.

 

After staring at that absurd sight for a while, Plants suddenly curled up one corner of his mouth.

 

[‘How uncouth.’]

 

It was because he remembered having said such words once before. (Chapter 2)

 

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

 

Kalian, who had put down his water glass, asked while looking at Plants.

 

Strictly speaking, it was not that he had not eaten, but rather that he had finished eating. Plants had certainly had his meal too, just not eating as if he might die after today’s meal like Kalian.

 

“I’m done.”

 

“Alright”

 

So when he replied with the meaning ‘I am done eating,’ the response came as if Kalian had been waiting for it.

 

Kalian, who had given such a dry response, picked up the neatly folded napkin and wiped his mouth. Then he stood up from his seat and walked toward the terrace. It was clearly the posture of someone who had finished eating and would now go back downstairs.

 

Plants let out a sound that was a mix of a short sigh and laughter, then spoke.

 

“Kalian.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Sit down.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Kalian, who answered immediately, walked back and sat in his original seat. Seeing this, another hollow laugh escaped from Plants’ mouth.

 

[Really, does he listen well or not at all?]

 

Outside the window was quiet and inside was still.

 

While the maids approached and carefully cleared the dishes from the table with cautious movements, Kalian was gazing steadily at Plants.

 

“Thank you. You may leave now.”

 

Soon, after the maids had placed tea and dessert on the table and stepped back, Kalian dismissed them with these words.

 

With the sound of the door closing with a click, Plants’ words burst out.

 

“What’s gotten into you?”

 

It was the same question he had asked before the meal, but the meaning was different. He was asking for the reason why Kalian was going to such lengths to keep him alive.

 

Kalian, who understood Plants’ words remarkably well despite their incomprehensibility, tilted his head slightly and spoke.

 

“Must I explain?”

 

Moment by moment, Kalian had continued to keep Plants alive.

 

He knew how desperately Kalian had struggled not to kill him at that first breakfast. From revealing the Aura he had hidden to block Sillike’s dagger, to lending his own strength, and even yesterday’s events.

 

Plants quietly closed his eyes. Then he asked.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

He knew this was not someone who would cause such trouble out of mere sympathy.

 

To begin with, he was not someone who would pity him, nor was Plants someone who would not recognize such an ill-fitting emotion.

 

So couldn’t he say something now?

 

At least the reason for wanting to keep him alive even while destroying Heisia Palace.

 

Kalian’s gaze dropped downward.

 

A cool yet sweet fragrance came from the pale green mint tea. The mint leaf floating in the tea slowly swirled around.

 

Kalian, who had been quietly staring at it, opened his mouth.

 

“Just. Because I’m scared.”

 

It was not a plan for future events, nor an explanation of what he was thinking.

 

Plants frowned at the unexpected answer.

 

* * *

 

Whether blueberries are purple or blue.

 

There had been a time when discussing this eventually turned into an argument. Of course, it was when they were very young.

 

It was around the time when Hina had just started learning sign language.

 

Hina, who was explaining with clumsy hand gestures that it was ‘blue,’ could not argue back against Kyrie’s words. Her hands were slower than speech, and she did not know that many words. In that frustration, young Hina burst into tears.

 

So, Hina won.

 

After that, for Kyrie, blueberries were unconditionally blue, so ice cream with blueberries was naturally sky blue.

 

“Hina.”

 

Kyrie, who had brought two sky-blue ice creams made by Chermil Palace’s head chef, called to Hina, who was waving a carrot in front of Raven, who was exercising with a noble posture.

 

Hearing Kyrie’s voice, Hina ran over with a delighted face, took a bite of the ice cream in Kyrie’s hand, and moved her hands.

 

‘Delicious.’

 

None of the three Princes enjoyed ice cream, but the head chef always made various flavored ice creams from time to time. It was because Kalian, who had learned how much Hina loved ice cream, had made the request.

 

Of course, even without such a request, he would have gladly made the effort if Hina liked it, but anyway, that was how it unfolded.

 

‘Did you come to give me this?’

 

Kyrie nodded and smiled.

 

It was quite a refreshing smile that he only showed in front of Hina.

 

‘Good timing. I have something to tell you, older brother.’

 

Saying this, Hina walked toward the walking path in Chermil Palace’s rear garden where Kyrie and Ian had once talked together. Kyrie sat on the bench, placed both ice creams beside Hina, removed his sword and placed it on his knees, then said.

 

“What’s the matter?”

 

Hina did not answer for a moment, then pulled Kyrie’s hand over and wrote the letters ‘Valkan’ on it.

 

‘The kind Prince said if I want to work there, I should tell you.’

 

It was a name he had not expected.

 

Kyrie, who had been looking down at his palm and thinking about something for a moment, asked.

 

“Valkan? Did he tell you to work as a healer?”

 

At those words, Hina made a surprised face. It was surprising that bear-like Kyrie had immediately understood Kalian’s intention without Hina explaining.

 

‘How did you know?’

 

Kyrie smiled.

 

He smiled with a feeling slightly different from the refreshing smile he had shown a moment ago. He briefly looked at the dark-colored sword he had placed on his knees.

 

‘It’s meteorite iron.’

 

Kalian had said only that when handing over the sword, and Kyrie understood the meaning behind handing it to him.

 

Kyrie knew well what meteorite iron was.

 

Was it not one of the few precious materials that could hold Aura? So, giving him a meteorite iron sword also meant he hoped Kyrie would quickly become the Seventh Sword Master.

 

So, he practiced harder and overcame a wall. And he defeated Kalian.

 

Though Kalian’s body was not in its peak state, and he had not used Aura, it was certain that he had defeated Kalian with his pure swordsmanship.

 

It was probably because of this that Kalian thought of showing Hina a different path. Kyrie defeating Kalian meant he had taken a step closer to becoming Kalian’s ‘sword.’

 

After all, who knew when death might come.

 

“If you’re okay with it, I think it would be good to try.”

 

Kalian knew Kyrie well.

 

He knew he was someone who would sacrifice his life just for the reason that he had been trusted and given an opportunity.

 

‘Why do you think it would be good to try?’

 

Kalian had not told him about his past, but Kyrie definitely believed he would have died before Bern. He thought he would have died protecting Bern, regardless of method or reason.

 

Kyrie thought this time would not be different either. Of course, Kalian was probably thinking the same thing.

 

“You don’t know how long His Highness will be able to help you, so this is better than continuing to be a Royal Palace maid. You need to think about ways to live without help.”

 

He understood through this, even if Kalian was not there, and even if Kyrie was not there, a path had been opened for Hina so she could continue to live and take care of herself.

 

Hina, who had been looking at such a Kyrie for a moment, said.

 

‘Why are you both like this?’

 

Two ice creams were melting, one intact and the other barely touched. Without even glancing at the ice cream turning into sky-blue water, Hina spoke.

 

‘Both older brother and the kind Prince are strange.’

 

“His Highness and I are strange?”

 

When he asked this, Hina nodded. Then she vented to Kyrie the anger she had tried to hide in front of Kalian.

 

‘Why do you live thinking about dying?’

 

Hina’s hand gestures quickened.

 

‘The kind Prince doesn’t want to have anything. He even told me to erase the name from the cat’s collar. He doesn’t want to leave anything behind. But older brother is the same. Why?’

 

“Hina. It’s not like that.”

 

A Prince who lived in the safest Royal Palace in Cyries yet always lived ready to give up his life. Was that not the Prince he guarded?

 

The Prince was merely just preparing because he did not know when something might happen. He was not living with the thought of dying.

 

Though he could not know exactly what Kalian was thinking, he tried to say at least that much. But Hina stopped Kyrie from speaking.

 

‘I’ll go. I’ll work as a healer there. Until I die of old age, I’ll live helping both older brother and the kind Prince.’

 

Kyrie just looked at Hina’s hands without answering. He had forgotten all the words he had been thinking of to comfort Hina just moments before.

 

When Kyrie did not respond, Hina spoke again.

 

‘You two idiots really think dying without regrets is really cool?’

 

Then she got up and went back to Chermil Palace.

 

The ice cream that had turned into sky-blue water rippled briefly.

 

* * *

 

The Great Dunes in the north are said to be always frozen solid.

 

If someone said flowers bloomed and butterflies fluttered there, he would rather believe those words.

 

But Kalian says he was scared.

 

He just said it like that without beginning or end. While picking at the mint leaf floating in his teacup with a teaspoon, without saying anything else.

 

Plants, sixteen years old, who had been quietly pondering his younger brother’s single sentence, whose age he did not even know, spoke as if spitting it out.

 

“So my dear little brother, who is so fearful, destroyed my mother’s Palace yesterday.”

 

“It wasn’t where my mother stayed.”

 

Kalian, who said this, made a small laughing sound.

 

“There were other reasons too, and it was convenient.”

 

It was not as if he had destroyed it just because of Plants alone.

 

Having roughly gauged what he might have been thinking when he caused trouble throughout the night, Plants brought up the original topic again instead of asking what those reasons were.

 

“How many times are you going to make me ask?”

 

Since this was the first time he had asked questions so persistently, just when Kalian, who had been trying to brush it off appropriately, opened his mouth.

 

*Meow!*

 

‘I am Prince Kalian’s cat, who likes Prince Plants more.’

 

The cat entered Plants’ room. Then, unusually, it climbed onto Kalian’s lap instead of Plants’ and settled down.

 

Kalian, who had picked up the cat and looked down at its collar, chuckled. It was because he saw that the content had not changed.

 

“You said you didn’t like it. Yet you didn’t erase it.”

 

“… How annoying.”

 

Kalian understood Plants’ short words very well, and Plants read Kalian’s inner thoughts very well. He had noticed what was in Kalian’s heart again.

 

Kalian looked up at Plants, then grinned and spoke.

 

“You’re so smart that I can’t say a word in front of you, older brother.”

 

“Stop barking.”

 

He had even gone to Chase and busied himself telling him to prepare this and that, only to realize that the younger brother in front of him had no attachment to life.

 

That was why he was trying to save Plants.

 

So that if by any chance Kalian was not there, Plants could sit on the throne in Kalian’s place.

 

Plants leaned back against the backrest.

 

Sitting like that and staring at those red eyes, Plants opened his mouth.

 

“I refuse.”

 

“I know you have no interest in the position. Just. I keep having such thoughts.”

 

“What thoughts.”

 

“Because of Serenty’s accursed actions, whether they were based on mischief or consideration, I’m moving around borrowing this body that might as well become a corpse…”

 

Kalian smiled.

 

“If such a day comes when my usefulness ends. No, when such a day has come. Whether my life will continue after that. I don’t know.”

 

He said he was scared of that.

 

He was not scared of dying, but he was scared that an empty space might be revealed.

 

After meeting Blue Warbler, meeting Syspanian, meeting Chase, and experiencing the White Hawk incident.

 

After feeling the empty space left by Bern’s disappearance, Kalian was now laying out before his much younger enemy-like older brother the thoughts he had been nurturing all along.

 

“I’m already living more desperately than anyone. I have no thoughts of easily disappearing or dying. But still, what if.”

 

Still, if by any chance such a day comes. If such an unavoidable day comes.

 

“I hope my smart older brother, like when you came to Siegfried mansion, will somehow handle things.”

 

Kalian smiled.

 

Plants did not smile.

 

He silently lifted his tea. Kalian’s annoying attendant had brought tea that perfectly suited Kalian’s taste. The unfamiliar mint fragrance lingered in his mouth.

 

“Stop barking.”

 

Plants, who had taken a sip of mint tea and put it down, spoke like this.

 

“… I’ll live as my little brother wishes.”

 

He would eat as Kalian wanted but live in Arpia Palace for life. That was what he meant.

 

Though he did not know if Kalian understood.