Chapter 98
The fact that he had not been able to accompany Agnes even once on a walk that she had desired continually remained on one side of Lionel’s heart.
Like an unpaid debt.
Therefore, it would be good to take this opportunity to walk together concurrently.
Only, since the weather was still too cold for Agnes to stroll outside for a long time, it would be best to take Agnes to the observatory where the early-blooming camellias could be looked down upon at a single glance.
Fortunately, the path heading to the observatory was not very far from the Bardo trading company.
Lionel, instead of boarding the carriage waiting in front of the trading company, chose the side of walking directly.
Because the face of Agnes, who had been feeling stuffed, came to mind.
Even if it were a short distance, he thought it would not be bad to let her feel the outside air directly.
Lionel slowly walked the street while pushing Agnes’s wheelchair.
In the cold air, the sound of the wheels brushing the pebbles resonated clearly.
If it were usual, it was a sound he would not even have been conscious of, but today it struck his ears strangely so.
Once they broke away from the front of the trading company and turned past one street, the alley heading to the observatory appeared.
Along both sides of the path, rustic stalls were lined up.
They were stalls selling candies, nuts, warm beverages, and the like.
Lionel, inadvertently looking at her side, noticed that Agnes’s gaze stayed upon one of those places.
It was a very brief moment.
However, he did not miss that short hesitation.
When they arrived at the entrance of the observatory, Agnes opened her mouth cautiously.
“Duke, I…… have one request.”
‘Duke.’
At that title, Lionel’s eyebrows went up minutely.
However, without showing it, he nodded his head.
“What is it? Speak up.”
Agnes closed her lips for a moment, then cautiously continued her words again.
“It is nothing much. The candy I saw on the path earlier. That…… I want to eat it.”
“Right now?”
As Lionel asked back, Agnes nodded her head.
“Yes. Is it perhaps too sudden?”
He could not dare to say it was not, but one side of Lionel’s chest, unexpectedly, fluttered lightly.
Because it was truly a long time since Agnes had spoken of something because she wanted it.
“If you wait here for a moment, I shall go and come back quickly.”
Lionel caught hold of his outer garment that he had put on Agnes again.
And then, so that the cold wind would not permeate, he fastened the buttons even more tightly for her.
In that process, the faces of the two people naturally became close.
Lionel lowered his eyes and stared quietly at Agnes’s lips, then very slowly tilted his head.
It was because a feeling arose that it would be alright to approach Agnes if it were right now.
Or else, it might have been an illusion conjured up by his own desire to touch Agnes.
Fortunately, Agnes did not avoid him. She merely asked.
“Is it the price for today’s outing?”
In an instant, Lionel’s breath was thoroughly choked.
It was a word calculating the price yet again.
Agnes was still measuring herself only in that manner.
Just before their lips touched, Lionel barely swallowed his breath.
“……I told you.”
His voice sank lowly.
“That in all the actions I do, from now on, there is no such thing as a price.”
Lionel forcefully bit the inside of his cheek.
A fishy taste of blood spread inside his mouth.
Slowly moving his hand that had been cradling Agnes’s cheek, he brought his thumb against her forehead.
And raising his head, he left a very light kiss above his thumb.
Agnes did not avoid him this time either.
Lionel decided to cling to that single fact.
Right. This much was enough.
For now, even this much is sufficient.
He turned around after telling Agnes to please wait for a moment at the entrance of the observatory.
And he hastened his steps toward the candy stall where Agnes’s gaze had stayed a short while ago.
No, he walked to the point of almost running.
Though she was an Agnes who was still pushing him away, if there was a different point, it was that today she did not avoid his touch either.
It was just that it would still take time.
If it goes on like this, if he exerts more effort.
That Agnes would be able to return to the past again.
That the current Agnes was merely pushing him away for a short while because the wound was too deep.
Lionel wished to believe so.
During the short distance heading to the stall, inside Lionel’s head, a hope that had not yet been extinguished was raising its head.
☆☆☆
Agnes watched without a word as Lionel’s back figure gradually grew distant.
As soon as he disappeared, she felt a sensation as if a heavy burden that had been resting on her shoulders had fallen off.
In truth, she did not want to eat something like candy.
She was not craving sweet things either.
She merely wished to be alone, even if it were for a short while. Because confronting Lionel’s face was so very difficult.
She had thought she had killed all emotions, but the sharp words that came out of his mouth at every moment. The chilly gaze. Breaking past her will, they kept reviving as if being ruminated over.
Perhaps if she could run, she would have run away even right now to a place where Lionel’s eyes could not reach.
However, that was impossible.
Even if she fled in this kind of state, once Lionel returned to the observatory, just how far could she possibly have gone.
Agnes raised her head and looked up at the sky.
Cleaving across the clearly cleared firmament, birds were flying leisurely.
Cutting through the wind as if they knew nothing of restriction.
It was too contrasting with herself, who could move only when there was a wheelchair, so she envied them.
Lionel’s changed behavior did not approach Agnes as happiness.
Rather than being grateful for his kindness, she was afraid of it.
A trust that had broken once did not attach again.
As she looked toward the side of the observatory entrance, a gentle upward path without steps was continuing beside the staircase.
Agnes turned the direction of the wheelchair above that path.
No matter how smooth the path was, it was not easy. The wheels kept hovering in place, and strength rapidly left her arms.
Despite that, Agnes ascended the path while exerting effort.
Very bit by bit.
When she finally arrived at the summit of the observatory, Agnes exhaled a gasping breath.
Arriving at the low ledge wrapped along the edge of the observatory, Agnes laboriously raised her body from the wheelchair and sat perched atop it.
As expected. It felt as though she could know why Lionel had come to this place.
The scenery of the capital where the red and yellow blooming camellias came into view at a single glance was truly beautiful.
However, the appreciation ended at that.
Agnes rapidly lost interest, and tilting her head back, she looked at the sky.
She felt as if the birds were flying in a place much closer than a short while ago.
Agnes quietly watched that sight, then closed her eyes.
“……I feel like I can breathe a little.”
It was a faint soliloquy, brushing past like the blowing wind.
A chilly winter wind wrapped around Agnes once and passed by.
Due to that, the shoe that was slightly larger than her foot loosed and shook.
As if it would fall down below right now. Perilously.
☆☆☆
Lionel, holding the candy bag in his hand, was returning to the observatory while wearing a small smile.
“I wonder if she will like it.”
Looking back, Agnes had liked sweet things since childhood.
If he occasionally took care of the candy that came out as a snack and brought it to her, the face that used to hold that in her small hand and melt it down slowly to eat came to mind.
With his mood loosened up a little at that memory, Lionel carefully held the bag and hastened his steps.
Then he discovered a light yellow muffler placed on a roadside stall.
It was a color resembling Agnes’s hair.
Perhaps because of that, an impression arose that it would suit her quite well if Agnes wrapped it around herself.
Since it would inevitably be a bit chillier if one goes up above, it seemed it would not be bad to have at least one muffler as well.
No sooner had such a thought arisen than a muffler was held in his opposite hand before he knew it.
Holding the candy and the muffler in each of his hands respectively in that manner. Lionel, who finished his business, increased his stride more than usual and headed toward Agnes, who would be waiting for him.
Right around the time he just came close to the entrance of the path ascending to the observatory in that manner.
*Thud.*
Some light sound was heard from beside his foot.
The moment he inadvertently turned his head toward the side where the sound occurred, blood drained from Lionel’s face in an instant.
The thing fallen upon the ground was a single piece of the light pink flat shoes that he himself had directly shod onto Agnes’s foot before leaving the mansion.
“…….”
His heart dropped with a thud.
Why is this here……?
Forcibly pulling back his gaze that was trying to head upward, Lionel urgently ran to the spot where he had parted with Agnes.
However, at the beginning of the observatory where Agnes ought to be, only the jacket and the blanket he had put on her were fallen forlornly upon the ground.
An uneasy premonition struck his Adam’s apple and rose up yet again.
Chilly sensations surged from the upper side of his head.
Suppressing the instinct that wished to turn away, Lionel forcefully raised his trembling head.
Then, the scenery visible at the end of his vision made his breath halt.
Above the ledge wrapped like a fortress wall along the observatory, Agnes was perched precariously.
As if she would fall at any moment.
Inside Lionel’s head became blank white in an instant.
As the bag that slipped from his hand which had lost strength hit the ground, the multi-colored hard candies scattered disorientedly into the surroundings like beads.
“Ag…… nes?”
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