In the middle of his regret, a soft rustling sound reached him from behind.
He instinctively turned his head toward the sound — and then stopped himself.
He had only just remembered that Judith was standing behind him, and the realization made him tense.
To her, right now, he was no different from a criminal. What he had done to her was not something that could be forgiven easily.
After all the cruel words he had inflicted on her — what right did he have to be here, doing this?
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her directly. He was afraid of what her face might show — afraid she would ask, coldly, why he had come now, of all times.
With an expression he had never seen from her before. One without warmth.
If she can’t find it in herself to forgive me…
While his conflict grew, a presence drew slightly closer.
Axel caught a glimpse of Judith peeking around to his side.
“…Oh, Broccoli is gone.”
Axel easily understood that broccoli referred to the green-haired noble who had just left.
The tone of her voice was, inexplicably, a little wistful.
A jolt of urgency swept away the deliberation of a moment ago, and Axel turned toward her before he’d quite decided to.
“…Are you disappointed?”
Finally facing her — those bluish eyes meeting his — he felt a strange, quiet satisfaction. And then immediately worried that the small mouth before him was about to say yes.
His chest beat with anxious irregularity.
And then — Judith, eyes now meeting his, looked at him steadily and blinked. Her face shifted slightly, as though startled.
“Wow…”
The intense, unwavering gaze held for a long moment before a sound of genuine wonder escaped her.
Judith took one bold step toward Axel. And then, without any warning, she reached up and grabbed his face in both hands.
There had been no time to stop her — the action was over before he could process it. Axel’s expression dissolved into pure bewilderment. He didn’t even think to pull away.
“Wh-what is this—”
“The perfect version of my ideal type!”
“How can someone this kind just appear right in front of me? This has to be fate, doesn’t it?”
Fate, she said? About him?
The outburst was so unexpected that it took him a moment — and then the abbreviated speech patterns reached him.
Belatedly, Axel noticed: Judith’s face was flushed. Her lips were slightly parted. Her pupils, vaguely unfocused.
That was when it registered. Judith was drunk.
Which was why she was looking at him and showing no reaction.
Axel registered that fact and felt a strange, almost physical relief — before immediately frowning at himself.
Feeling relieved about that. What kind of garbage am I.
Even in his own assessment, it was cowardly beyond measure.
When Axel said nothing in response to her words, Judith pushed out her lower lip in a pout. Then the hands still holding his face stretched his cheeks outward in opposite directions.
What — what is she doing—
Whatever turmoil had been weighing on him vanished without a trace. A petulant voice came out of Judith.
“What. You don’t want to be fate with me?”
“…That’s not what I said.”
“Then why aren’t you answering?”
It wasn’t so much that he wouldn’t answer as that he couldn’t. Judith, at this moment, was so thoroughly drunk that she couldn’t recognize him. He was concerned she might wake tomorrow and see his silence as deception.
He still hadn’t answered, and Judith’s expression shifted into one of complete and total sulking.
“Fine then. Never mind.”
She withdrew her hands from his face entirely and spun around. The immediacy of the movement sent his heart lurching.
He knew it came from the drink. And yet he couldn’t settle the unease.
He was about to reach for her before she got too far — when she stopped after just a few steps, crouched down at the edge of the nearby pond, and didn’t move.
The round back of her head filled his view. For a moment, Axel was simply bewildered.
What on earth is she doing now?
She appeared to be trailing her hand in the water — from the outside it looked something like play. Eventually Axel walked over and crouched beside her.
“…What are you doing?”
“You’re still here?”
After staring at the silent Axel for a moment, she let out a small sigh — and then grabbed his wrist and pulled.
The force, surprisingly not small, drew him down to sit beside her before he had entirely decided to.
“If you have nothing better to do, help me look.”
“…Did you drop a necklace into the pond?”
Given how scatterbrained she could be, and given that she was drunk, losing a piece of jewelry in the water seemed entirely plausible. But she shook her head.
“No. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“…No. I just — it feels like I lost something important. But I don’t know what it was.”
Judith’s expression, unlike before, was deeply troubled. The way she bit down on her lip made her look faintly anxious.
Her dark expression, the way she kept stirring through the water — it was an image that overlapped with another day. The day Axel had hurt her.
When he had struck Judith’s hand away, and the vision orb and the photo cards had fallen and rolled into the water. She had worn exactly that expression then too, raking through the pond with a stubbornness that bordered on heartbreaking.
The understanding of what she was searching for came to him at once. Something sharp and immediate ached in his chest — as though a blade had gone through it.
Axel reached over and pulled Judith’s hand from the water. Spring had not yet fully arrived, and her hand was cold as ice.
“Stop, Lady Melberine.”
“…I haven’t found it yet.”
He took out his handkerchief and began to dry the water from her hand, but her eyes stayed fixed on the pond.
She tried to pull free of his grip — and couldn’t. Only then did her gaze shift to Axel.
She looked up at his face, and her eyes went wide with something that looked like a small shock.
“Why do you have that expression?”
“…What expression am I making?”
“You’re the one who lost something — but you look sadder than me.”
Axel didn’t seem to realize it, but his expression had twisted into something painfully visible.
“Did you lose something too? Do you want me to help you look?”
Judith tilted her head to one side and looked up at him with worried eyes. Axel stared at her and pressed his hand into a fist.
The apology…
Even if she didn’t remember today — even so, he had to apologize to her. For the enormous hurt he had caused.
That was the right thing to do.
I have to apologize…
But what do I even say?
Axel was not practiced in the giving of apologies. He had always been the kind of person who received them — not the one who offered them.
The words refused to come easily. He forced his mouth open.
“…I don’t know quite where to begin, but — I want to apologize to you. I ignored every plea you made, and hurt you with my own wrongheaded judgment. I know it’s foolish and belated to have realized it was a misunderstanding only now. So I’m not asking you to absolve me out of charity. Only…”
The slow, careful words stopped.
Judith’s face was gradually going still as she listened.
Was she sobering up? Axel felt a flash of urgency.
“…I won’t make excuses. I want to apologize to you. I’m sorry, Lady Melberine.”
He lowered his head slightly, turning his gaze away from hers. He could not find the courage to look at her face directly.
He had never been this nervous. Every second spent beside her moved with excruciating slowness.
His palm was damp when an unfamiliar sensation landed on top of his head. He startled and looked up to find Judith’s hand, gently patting his hair.
“I said you were a little suspicious, but you were the one who took my things? I’ll forgive you anyway.”
“…You’ll forgive me?”
He knew it was the alcohol speaking — that she hadn’t quite understood the weight of what had just passed between them. And yet the words somehow filled him with warmth. He thought himself a little mad for it.
“But.”
“…But?”
“Come closer.”
At her instruction, Axel shifted just slightly to the side. The unimpressed look she gave him made clear that was not nearly enough.
“More.”
“…More than this?”
His hesitation seemed to try her patience considerably. She reached out, took hold of his arm, and pulled.
In an instant Judith’s face was directly in front of his. A sweet floral scent brushed past him.
Her small white face — delicate features gathered neatly together — was turned entirely toward him. Close enough that their noses might have touched.
Too close…
He turned his head aside just slightly and was about to lean back — when Judith was already moving toward him, faster than he could dodge.
A soft, gentle pressure. A quiet sound.
Her lips had met his.
Judith drew back slowly, a smile spreading across her face — guileless and bright, like a child’s.
What — what—!
His thoughts ground to a complete halt. And then — delayed — the understanding arrived, and his face went scarlet.
Axel raised an arm and covered his face, but there was no covering all of it. Every inch of him had gone red, while Judith looked at him with no particular expression at all, and said lightly:
“Hm? You went red.”
