The light hit my face with full force and I squinted, lifting my eyelids in slow increments. Through the uneven gaps in my vision, the sun was already high overhead.
Where am I. What time is it…
I had been about to push myself up from the bed when my head erupted in a full-scale pounding. Whatever daze had still been lingering over my mind vanished in an instant.
“Ugh…”
Why does my head— oh.
Puzzling through the ache, I finally traced it back to its source — I had met the heroine Isabel yesterday and the two of us had gone drinking together.
Right. We had both keeled over after a single glass of wine.
I had had absolutely no idea that Judith’s body was this susceptible to alcohol.
Please let me not have done anything embarrassing…
An ominous chill ran through me. I swallowed hard and began, very carefully, to excavate the memories — which were buried beneath what felt like several layers of cloud.
I could remember clearly up to the part where Isabel and I were drinking together.
After that, I seemed to have gone hot and stepped outside for some air…
Slowly reconstructing the sequence of events, I went perfectly still — because something that had no business appearing in my memories had appeared.
My expression hardened by degrees.
No. Wait.
Why is Axel in my memory?
And furthermore — with my own two hands —
I had grabbed his cheeks and pulled them.
…Am I out of my mind?
The furrow between my brows was now so deep it showed no sign of releasing. I had moved past shock into something closer to a full spiral.
This — this actually happened?
It seemed too real to be a dream. The image of Axel’s startled expression was stamped onto my mind with far too much clarity.
But that was not where the horror ended.
Later in the memory, I had begun slowly, inexorably, to push my face toward his. Even as the memory played back, some part of me was screaming stop.
Stop — I said stop—!
The distance between us narrowed. We were close enough that our noses were practically touching, and then —
The memory cut out entirely.
Whatever came after that simply was not there.
I sat in the sudden blankness, blinking slowly, and then the heat crept up.
I told it to stop, not to cut off! Why does the memory end here?! What am I supposed to do with this?!
The fury of someone whose morning drama had ended on the most crucial cliffhanger possible ignited somewhere inside me.
So what happened? I pushed my face toward him and then WHAT?
I buried my face in the pillow and seized my own hair, completely unable to process the situation.
This was a lie. It had to be a lie.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I must be confusing a dream with a memory.
This couldn’t be from yesterday. It just couldn’t.
I had parted from Axel on terrible terms yesterday. He had even left the banquet hall.
Was I really supposed to believe I ran into him again after that? And not only that, but subjected him to a level of impertinence that defied description?
…Ha.
That doesn’t make any sense.
But despite the heated denial, my body was producing a cold sweat.
I pressed my lips together and swallowed.
Okay. If.
Obviously nothing like that could have happened. But — there was a concept called what if.
If, hypothetically, it was real and not a dream.
What would that mean for me?
I had no confidence in my own behavior whatsoever.
I couldn’t even be certain I hadn’t, completely drunk out of my senses, thrown myself at Axel without permission. That was how little I trusted myself.
If I was so gone that I launched myself at him and did something unthinkable…what then?
I clutched my head and suffered.
What makes me any different from those people at fan events who reach out and touch their favorites without any consent—!
My right to criticize those people had now evaporated entirely.
I was deep in my misery when the door opened and someone stepped inside.
“Oh? My goodness. Miss, you’re already awake.”
“Mary…”
Mary looked immediately alarmed at the state of me.
“My goodness, Miss — what’s happened to you? You look — oh, is your head hurting?”
Mary had come in carrying a tray with something on it, and rushed to my side. She pressed a warm cup of honey water into my hands.
“It’s honey water, Miss. It’ll help with the hangover — the headache should ease a little.”
“Thank you…”
The headache caused by the traumatic memories had been forgotten for some time now, but I accepted what she offered anyway.
Just the warmth of something against my palms seemed to settle my mind slightly.
I was sipping at the honey water in an attempt to calm my turbulent thoughts when Mary spoke up.
“Oh, and there’s a letter that arrived for you, Miss. You’ll never believe who it’s from!”
Mary’s expression was brighter than I had seen it in some time — the face of someone brimming with barely contained excitement.
In stark contrast to her, I was struck by a sudden cold dread.
A… letter?
The hand holding the honey water trembled noticeably.
“…A letter?”
“Yes! The Grand Duke has sent you a letter, Miss!”
Mary had gone and said it aloud.
Either she couldn’t see me turning to stone, or she wasn’t looking, because she was smiling warmly as she picked up a white envelope from the corner of the tray and held it out.
I received it with the expression of a person drained of blood.
Don’t tell me I actually…
And when at last I unfolded the letter and read it, I had no choice but to swallow the tears welling inside me.
Because the letter contained exactly one thing — a very short note saying that Axel was coming to see me.
In the state our relationship was currently in, there was only one reason he could possibly be coming to see me. The what if I had been refusing to entertain had just become the what is.
I wore an expression somewhere between utter despair and sheer horror, and then buried my face completely in the pillow.
…I’m finished.
My life was over.
Completely lacking the courage to face Axel, I refused the meeting initially — pleading illness from the hangover.
But the moment I sent that letter, a reply arrived almost immediately. And it came with a basket full of various items.
Mary, watching from beside me, looked radiant.
“Oh my! His Highness must have been worried about you, Miss. Sending all these precious medicinal ingredients as a gift! And Miss — they’re all hangover remedies, exactly as his letter says. Miss, this means the reconciliation really did happen, doesn’t it?”
Reconciliation.
If only it were as simple as that…
I could not make any sense of why Axel was behaving this way. His inexplicable kindness only made my unease worse.
“…Mary. Could you bring me some writing paper?”
Whatever he was thinking, I had no intention of simply surrendering and going along with it. I intended to hold out as long as I possibly could.
The next day, and the day after that, I sent him letters with various excuses, explaining why I was unable to meet.
A week passed in that manner of trading letters.
And then, at last, it happened.
My daily routine had by then come to revolve entirely around the exchange of letters with him. Mary had gone to collect his latest, and I was sitting there as usual, trying to invent a new excuse, when the door opened and she returned.
Unexpectedly, her hands were empty — no letter. Instead, she came rushing to me with a look of extreme agitation.
What? Has he finally given up? I thought — and then Mary opened her mouth.
“M-Miss! The Grand Duke has just arrived at the estate!”
For a moment her words didn’t register. Who had come?
“This is not the time to — we need to hurry and get you—”
“No.” I spoke to the flustered, fluttering Mary. “I’m not going down. You don’t need to prepare anything. Tell them I’m terribly ill with a fever and can’t come out.”
“What? Are you sure, Miss? B-but—!”
“Tell them that, Mary.”
At the finality in my voice, Mary made a crestfallen face and left the room.
Through the window, the carriage bearing the Grand Duke’s family crest was visible. The sight of it made my heart thud in irregular, unruly beats.
