Chapter 12
Right after Agnes disappeared behind the stage curtain with Kain.
Lionel’s expression, as he gazed at the rippling navy-blue curtain, strangely distorted.
He slowly raised the champagne glass and poured it into his mouth, but he felt no taste at all.
His throat was burning.
Some unknowable, hot and heavy emotion was pressing down on something below his heart.
The hand that had been holding Agnes.
The arm that had supported and embraced her.
That contact, which had merely been assistance, kept replaying before his eyes.
Lionel did not know the reason for this unpleasant sensation rising within him.
His straight brows gradually distorted.
Even until then, his light blue irises did not detach from the curtain where Agnes had disappeared with Kain.
***
Backstage.
At the end of the dimly lit corridor away from the lights, Kain carefully supported Agnes and led her into his waiting room.
“Can you sit?”
“Yes, thank you…….”
Agnes sat on the sofa, breathing heavily.
Her shoes, which seemed about to fall off, and her right leg wrapped in bandages were already swollen to the point where its shape was hard to recognize.
Kain looked even more urgent than Agnes and didn’t know what to do.
“The state of your ankle……! Miss Agnes, if it hurts, don’t hold it in and tell me right away.”
His face, deeply furrowed, was focused as if worried she might be in pain, but it was in vain.
Anyway, no sensation was felt at all.
Pain, touch. Nothing.
As if the previous pain had been a lie.
She intellectually recognized that cold fingertips were touching bare skin.
But at the actual spot, there was no reaction at all.
As if everything below the knee was severed.
It was truly a horrific and unfamiliar feeling.
‘Really…… it was the last.’
On stage, the pain that felt like tearing. That was not pain, but a farewell greeting.
From the leg that had become forever unusable, to its owner.
The doctor’s voice, earnestly warning her, revived in her ears once again.
“No small impact at all. If you do, you really might never use your leg again. For the time being, be careful, and careful again. Don’t walk as much as possible!”
However, she couldn’t keep that advice. And the result was truly devastating.
Kain made a serious expression and then stood up from his seat.
He opened a small cabinet and took out ice and a handkerchief.
“I often get injured usually. So I always keep an ice pack ready.”
Kain, adding as if excusing himself, returned holding the ice pack in his hand.
Then, he gently placed it on Agnes’s red, swollen ankle.
“Ah, I’ll do this myself.”
“Yes……? Ah……, ah!”
Only then realizing he had placed his hand on her bare leg, Kain flinched in surprise and removed his hand.
“S-sorry! I was too…… rude, wasn’t I?”
At his flustered appearance with his face red to the tips of his ears, Agnes smiled faintly.
And naturally turned her gaze to look around.
A narrow but cozily organized waiting room.
In front of the mirror, a towel for wiping sweat, ballet shoes, and yellowish worn practice clothes were piled up.
On the desk, a broken metronome lay half-open.
It was a scene she had vaguely dreamed of.
Even if not such a wonderful room, scenes of chatting cozily with fellow dancers in a small waiting room.
Leaning in a suffocatingly narrow space, imitating each other’s dances while waiting for performance order.
However, that scene had now become a world Agnes could no longer reach.
Suddenly, sorrow rising from the bottom of her chest tightened her throat.
‘I must not cry.’
Because it seemed tears would leak out.
Agnes lifted the ice pack and placed it directly over her eyes.
As the cold ice rubbed against her eyelids, Kain urgently stood up and stammered.
“Uh, uh…… why are you doing that, Miss Agnes? Could it be, your eyes are injured too?!”
At that fussing reaction, Agnes slowly removed the ice pack.
“No. It’s just that heat rose to my eyes too. I’m embarrassed remembering falling on stage.”
At her joking tone, Kain blinked his round eyes and soon softly melted his mouth.
“Miss Agnes is a cheerful person. And strong too.”
When the atmosphere softened a bit, swept by that smile.
Agnes suddenly frowned as if something was strange.
“……But, how did you know my name?”
Kain’s smile stopped right there.
Agnes opened her mouth again.
“Is it because of rumors? Lately, I…… seem to be quite famous in the capital.”
Then Kain hurriedly waved his hands and denied with his whole body.
“No! It’s absolutely not that! It’s not that, but…….”
And after hesitating for a moment, Kain stammered as he opened his mouth.
“Actually, I went to the Lotus small theater before.”
“……?”
The Lotus small theater was the place where Agnes had once, just once, stepped on stage as a substitute.
It was a level where calling it a theater in the countryside was embarrassing, a stage for residents to show off their talents. That’s why Agnes had been given a chance to perform.
“At that time, I happened to see Miss Agnes’s dance, and the dance…… was really wonderful. So I remembered the name.”
Kain’s earlobes turned red as if burning again, shyly.
“Since that day, I’ve become a fan. So actually, I was really happy to be on stage with you earlier.”
“My dance was wonderful……?”
Agnes couldn’t continue her words at the unexpected confession.
It had always been a life where only mockery and whispers came back.
Yet the fact that she could appear so shining in someone’s eyes was surprising.
It was unfamiliar, and at the same time strangely warm.
Like long ago, when she had been comforted by Lionel.
A faint smile bloomed on Agnes’s face.
“……Thank you. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard such words.”
☆☆☆
Unable to overcome the unpleasant burning in his throat, as if he had swallowed something hot.
Lionel left the banquet hall right after the performance ended.
It was an excuse to cool off the alcohol, but Lionel soon realized that he was unconsciously searching for Agnes.
“Am I in my right mind? What is she planning by going on stage with that leg.”
Agnes’s pale face kept lingering in his eyes.
“Greed should be in moderation.”
No matter how much it was the stage she desired, she wasn’t a child who couldn’t distinguish heaven and earth.
No.
What lacked more discernment was himself.
Knowing full well what kind of person the emperor was, leaving Agnes alone with that bastard.
His emotions fluctuated wildly.
Agnes, blinded by desire, seemed pathetic, but that reckless struggle was also pitiful and heartbreaking.
When his thoughts reached that point, one side of his chest tingled.
Then, as if reminding him not to forget.
Cedric’s dying eyes, and the screams of soldiers collapsing from bullets came to mind.
“Not even a madman.”
He himself recognized that this wildly jumping emotion was not normal.
The contradiction of emotions that he could not understand nor accept tightened his nape moment by moment.
If things continued like this, even if he found Agnes, kind words wouldn’t come out, so Lionel turned his steps toward the terrace.
The desire to push fresh air into his frustrated chest surged.
Then, by chance, through the gap of an open lounge door, chattering sounds spread out.
In the laughter-filled gossip, the name ‘Agnes’ was mixed.
Lionel, stopping his steps, casually turned his head toward that direction.
At first, he intended to just pass by.
But the moment he realized the voices talking about Agnes were not in a friendly tone, he changed direction.
Inside the lounge were the principal dancer who hadn’t appeared on the banquet stage and her colleagues sitting there.
The principal dancer who had supposedly collapsed from high fever looked perfectly fine.
Moreover, the vitality on both cheeks made her look like a fresh flower petal.
They were sitting in a circle like swans. With sneers disguised as elegance at the corners of their mouths.
“She fell just like this, watching that, I got embarrassed for her!”
One dancer imitated the fallen Agnes, spreading her arms and staggering.
The rest giggled and clapped.
Lionel’s eyes gradually narrowed.
They seemed unaware that someone had approached close by.
With arms crossed, leaning leisurely against the lounge doorframe, Lionel lowly opened his mouth.
“What’s so funny?”
☆▪︎▪︎☆
