Episode 26
Our gazes collided. And from extremely close at that.
“Eek, I’m sorry!”
Come to think of it, I had hugged Aidan because I was far too happy, hadn’t I? When I startled and backed away, Aidan too lightly raised both arms and cleared his throat.
“Ahem-hem, it’s fine.”
The laboratory that had been boisterous until a moment ago grew quiet like a burned-out filament. While I was looking down at the floor for no reason, Aidan opened his mouth first.
“Still, it stayed lit for five minutes.”
“R-Right!”
Feeling flustered, I too quickly chimed in with Aidan’s words.
“It’s the longest among everything we’ve experimented with so far! The other threads couldn’t last even a few seconds, after all.”
“If so, it means the bamboo thread idea was a success, then.”
Aidan lightly stroked his chin and looked at the burned bamboo thread.
“Then wouldn’t the glass tube be the problem, I wonder?”
“The glass tube?”
“Because the filament using bamboo certainly lasted longer than before. We have to look for the problem elsewhere.”
Aidan lifted the glass tube slightly and examined it left and right.
“The lamps used until now burned gas, so they were made to allow air to pass in and out of this inside. However, this electric lamp you conceived doesn’t need air, does it?”
“That’s right. Rather, if there is air inside the glass tube, the bamboo thread will continuously react with oxygen and burn up. We aren’t trying to burn the bamboo, but simply make it heat up red-hot, but…”
“Yes, so that might be why it couldn’t hold out for long.”
Placing the glass tube back in its spot, Aidan spoke.
“So we have to remove all the air inside this. Because if there is air, the bamboo thread will continuously burn up.”
“Then we have to draw out the air inside, but…”
I rolled my lips inward.
“What should we do?”
We can’t pour it out like bailing water, nor can we grab and pull it out with our hands.
Aidan too had spoken easily, but because he didn’t know the method, his expression was dark.
“I have heard a story that storage containers for storing wine for a long time have a pump that draws out a portion of the air.”
Aidan spoke like that and looked at me.
“Since there is a wine vineyard owned by the family, I’ll have to go there and check.”
A few days later. Aidan brought an air pump for wine storage from the Winslow family. Its size was smaller than expected. It was a structure where moving the handle up and down moved a piston, sucking in air.
“Is this the device that draws out air?”
Feeling amazed, I examined the pump this way and that.
“Originally, it’s used to slow down the oxidation of wine, but I don’t know if it will work.”
Aidan too slurred his words as if lacking confidence. Still, he skillfully connected one end of the glass tube to the pump.
“I heard that you just have to keep pumping like this while heating it.”
At any rate, the only thing we could trust was this device.
“Shouldn’t we seal it now?”
“No, let’s heat it a little more.”
On the fifteenth attempt, Aidan seemed to have gotten stubborn too. But it felt like we should detach it soon now. Right at the moment I thought so, a small cracking sound of snap was heard.
Crack.
The crack spread to the entire glass tube in an instant.
“It’s dangerous!”
Clatter-crash!
The glass tube shattered into pieces, and fragments scattered in all directions. Instinctively, I closed my eyes.
After the short burst sound passed, I carefully opened my eyes.
“Y-Young Lord!”
His arm wrapping around my face. And startling at the red fresh blood spilling down over it, I grabbed his hand.
“I’m fine.”
Though he said he was fine plainly, looking at it, he was not fine at all. The wound looked quite deep.
Furthermore, it wasn’t just glass fragments, but hot, heated glass that had scattered, so a red burn was even sustained.
“Where on earth is this fine!”
“It’s merely scratched by glass.”
“It’s not merely glass!”
Was it because I saw blood? The last attack by Aclo came to mind.
Once again, I only received help.
Back then too, Aidan hugged and protected me, yet I couldn’t do anything again.
My fingertips trembled continuously. I couldn’t keep receiving help like this.
At the continuously flowing blood, I first blocked the wound with the handkerchief I always carried around.
“Hold it down for a moment.”
It was right at the moment I gave the handkerchief to Aidan and was about to let go of his wrist. Aidan grabbed my wrist.
“…Ah.”
Surprised, when I looked up, his green pupils panicked, looked around in all directions, and before long he let go of my hand.
“S-Sorry. Because more blood came out than expected—that is to say, because I was surprised.”
“Ah, no. It’s fine.”
With this much blood, it was no wonder he was surprised. Brushing over the wrist Aidan had grabbed, I examined the cupboard.
Surely there was a first-aid kit somewhere.
Rummaging through the medicine box in the corner of the laboratory, I pulled out ointment and bandages. Whether misfortune or fortune, because of Dad, I knew well what ointment to apply to wounds and what emergency treatment to perform.
“It’ll sting for a moment.”
And here, there was plenty of clean water. Because Aidan had prepared even the drinking water as the finest quality. Soaking sterile cotton in clean water, I carefully wiped away the wound. Red bloody water spread across the cotton.
“…I’m sorry.”
It was a wound sustained while protecting me. At my muttering, Aidan raised his head.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“You were hurt because of me, after all.”
“What nonsense. Do I look like the sort of fellow to get hurt because of the likes of you?”
Though it was a statement thrown out as if flabbergasted, calling it absurd, strangely, the tips of his ears seemed to turn a bit red.
“Even so. Being sorry is being sorry.”
Speaking like that, before I realized it, I examined the neatly cleaned wound this way and that. Fortunately, the blood stopped quickly, but perhaps because of the heated glass, the wound was deeper than expected.
Even though it should naturally hurt at a glance, Aidan maintained a calm expression without a sign of pain until the end. Seeing that face made me feel a bit resentful for no reason.
“I’ll apply the medicine. Endure it even if it hurts.”
Fitting for a first-aid kit Aidan prepared, the ointment was quite a good product. When I placed the ointment over the wound, the hand full of veins twitched for a moment.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
“…No.”
“Liar.”
I spread the ointment a little more gently. The more I spread the ointment, the heat from his hand felt strangely vivid. It would be fine to let go, but under the pretense of wrapping a bandage, I held on a little longer for no reason.
“Now I’m all done.”
Over the wound where medicine was applied, I wrapped the bandage slowly.
“You’re quite accustomed to this.”
Looking at my appearance, he muttered softly.
“It’s because of my dad.”
“The legendary hero must have gotten hurt often as well, it seems?”
“Ha-ha, of course.”
Dad got hurt often while working as a mercenary. One day a scraped wound, one day a torn wound, there were times he was stabbed with a sword, and there were times he sustained burns like Aidan.
Because there were also times he ate poisonous herbs by mistake and fell ill, I became a master of treating various wounds.
“Even if you had studied medicine, you would have done well.”
Looking at the neatly tied bandage, Aidan continued speaking calmly.
“Still, we learned one thing.”
“What?”
“That if you heat glass for too long, it breaks?”
“Do you really have to learn that to know it?”
When I grumbled without realizing it, Aidan lightly raised his shoulders.
“In the future, even if something like this happens, don’t shield me. It’s better that I get hurt instead.”
What if even the crime of regicide or noble-slaying were established?
“What? Nonsensical talk.”
“Still, how can a commoner receive protection from a Young Lord?”
“How can I become a gentleman and watch a lady get hurt in my place?”
“Do you actually have awareness that I’m a lady?”
I asked playfully, but Aidan avoided his gaze for a moment.
“…I have no such awareness at all, but still, I have no intention of letting you get hurt. Because you are my subordinate.”
“Ha, I don’t want to become a subordinate who let her superior get hurt either, you know?”
I had heard that darn ‘subordinate’ talk from Aidan several times, but the feeling was strange. A strangely lingering regretful feeling?
Did I want to be treated like a colleague while working together?
‘There’s no way that would happen.’
I lightly patted both cheeks with a clap-clap. It was time to wake up from the dream.
