Hyderlin stopped walking.
Sarg, who had been following Hyderlin one step behind, approached her side and stood next to her.
Hyderlin looked pained. Someone had hurt her. Whoever it was, he hated them.
Sarg gripped her hand more tightly.
“Hyderlin.”
The second time calling that name was more natural.
Hyderlin flinched like someone stabbed in the back. And she turned to look sideways as if to confirm who had stuck the knife in her.
Hyderlin looked at Sarg as if he were a stranger.
Shock, distance, unfamiliarity, bewilderment. Such things were revealed on her glass-like face.
She smiled brightly as if belatedly recognizing an old friend.
“You’re drunk.”
Hyderlin let go of Sarg’s hand and walked ahead with heavy steps. Sarg quietly followed behind Hyderlin with staggering steps. Hyderlin seemed angry. He didn’t know why. Sarg became anxious.
“Hyderlin.”
“……”
“Are you… angry?”
“……”
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
“I’m sorry.”
Sarg apologized vaguely without knowing the reason. Hyderlin, who had been walking ahead, said in a voice pretending to be cheerful:
“Don’t apologize. I’m not angry at you. Sir, just go home, wash your feet, and sleep.”
Sarg clenched and unclenched his empty, lonely hand for no reason. But Hyderlin had shoved both hands into her pants pockets.
She didn’t say a single word until they returned home.
When they arrived home, Hyderlin checked on the baby. The baby was sleeping soundly.
In the meantime, Sarg lit the lamp and turned over the firewood in the stove. Then he gathered up his shoes and outer garment and took them off. He opened the wardrobe and hung the outer garment on a hanger. Instead of closing the wardrobe door, he took out a sword from inside.
It was a sword whose hilt and scabbard were both jet black like darkness.
Hyderlin, who had at some point been sitting in a chair by the window watching what Sarg was doing, was offered the sword by Sarg.
“It’s your sword.”
Hyderlin only looked at the sword Sarg was holding. She didn’t take it. Sarg carefully placed the sword on Hyderlin’s lap and stepped back a few paces.
“You treasured that sword a lot.”
“……”
“I remember seeing you maintain the sword every day. So I polished it every day too. So it wouldn’t rust.”
Hyderlin lowered her head and stared intently at the sword.
She looked at the sword that should have long since rusted and corroded after losing its owner, but had not rusted.
Hyderlin raised her head and looked at the man standing before her.
She looked at the man who had once been as clean as a rustless sword but was now trash crawling at the bottom of life.
Hyderlin tried to find in that man traces of the holy knight she had known well. Traces of that man who had been as clean as if he knew neither compromise nor impurity. Traces of that man who had despised, abhorred, and hated ‘Count Biche.’
It was quite difficult.
The man’s ashen eyes were gloomy and his face was covered with rough beard. His hair was tangled like smoke and his clothes were wrinkled.
On his face, one could find no contempt, abhorrence, or hatred toward ‘Count Biche.’ Unless it was longing for ‘Hyderlin.’
Hyderlin asked the rusted knight:
“Sarg.”
“Yes.”
“Do you… miss Count Biche?”
Hyderlin chuckled at her own words. It was absurd even to her.
Does that even make sense?
Once upon a time, Sarg had cursed to Hyderlin’s smiling face:
“Disgusting human. Even demons would shudder at your cruelty.”
“I pray for the eternal damnation of your soul.”
There was no reason for such a person to miss her.
After all, all of this was… just a manifestation of responsibility.
It must be guilt from just watching Hyderlin die under false accusations.
That’s why he got a house where he could see Hyderlin’s grave, planned to kill the king, and carefully maintained Hyderlin’s sword.
It must be that.
“I asked something pointless. Forget it. Just go to sleep.”
Hyderlin shook her head. She picked up the sword that had been on her lap and stood up from the chair where she’d been sitting. She walked past Sarg toward the wardrobe. She put the sword inside the wardrobe and closed its door.
She felt a presence behind her. The shabby, pitiable man had approached behind her.
Sarg, who had been silent, suddenly opened his mouth.
“Yes.”
Hyderlin realized a little late what question he was answering.
“The four years without you… were too long.”
It was truly… an unfamiliar voice.
Hyderlin stared at the wardrobe handle. She wanted to turn around and at the same time didn’t want to turn around. The mutually contradictory desires clashed.
The former won. After all, she couldn’t spend her whole life just staring at a wardrobe handle, could she?
Hyderlin turned around.
Sarg was two steps away.
Not far, but not close either—an ambiguous distance. Sarg didn’t seem satisfied with that ambiguity. He erased the distance between them in one breath.
“Too long.”
Now Sarg was one step away.
Not far. Close. Hyderlin couldn’t step back to maintain distance. There was a wardrobe right behind her.
No, saying there was no way was a lie. If she couldn’t step back, she could just step aside.
But Hyderlin didn’t move.
Sarg said to Hyderlin in a voice as low as despair:
“You can’t even imagine… how lonely I’ve been…”
Now Sarg was half a step away. Too close. Even their breaths could touch at this distance.
Though the room was quite cold, Hyderlin suddenly felt hot. Sarg had a high body temperature. She was hot because a body radiating heat was right nearby. That must be it. If Hyderlin stepped aside, she would immediately feel cool.
But Hyderlin didn’t step aside.
He was still half a step away.
Sarg reached out and slowly caressed her black curly hair. Then he caressed the shoulder where her hair rested. The man’s hand felt through the cloth was rough, hard, and hot.
Hyderlin looked at the large hand resting on her shoulder, the thick arm wrapped in muscle, the broad and solid shoulders, the sharp and angular chin, and finally the man’s gray eyes.
Something glinted like an ember remaining in burnt-out ashes. Some kind of heat swirled. Wavered. Swelled. It began to spread uncontrollably like fire set to a dry field.
Hyderlin suddenly opened her mouth.
“…You’re going to regret this.”
Sarg shook his head.
“I’ve had enough regret to be sick of it. About the things I didn’t do, always…”
Sarg said in a voice lower than hell and as dry as a dead tree. If his words had shape and texture, crumbs of withered sadness and regret would fall from the surface.
“So refuse me instead.”
Sarg lowered his eyes.
“So I can… give up.”
Hyderlin’s sternum swelled. Those were just the delirious words of a drunk person. So it would be right to step away immediately.
But she wanted to know what Sarg would ‘do.’
Reason that said she should step away immediately clashed fiercely with irrationality that wanted to confirm until the end.
Hyderlin didn’t step away.
The distance was right at hand. Their toes lightly touched.
The large hand that had been caressing her thin shoulder lightly brushed Hyderlin’s cheek. The hand directly touching bare skin was hot. She felt like she might get burned by body heat.
He gently grasped her chin and made Hyderlin face him. When Hyderlin looked straight at him, he grasped her shoulder again.
Hyderlin saw Sarg’s ashen eyes, his silver eyelashes, getting closer and closer.
She saw the heat seeping into his ashen eyes.
Their foreheads touched and the tips of their noses brushed. His chest pressed against Hyderlin’s chest. Their wet breaths mingled.
Their breath smelled of hard liquor. Between the strong alcohol smell, she caught a whiff of a cool fragrance. It was as cool as the breeze that brushes the tip of your nose when walking on a forest path.
Those who received God’s kiss often had this kind of fragrance. Margarite had a similar scent. Even without using special balm or perfume.
Perhaps it was the scent of the soul.
Whatever his state, Sarg was apparently still a holy knight beloved by God.
Hyderlin closed her eyes.
Sarg, whose nose bridge was touching hers, let out a long sigh born of tension. Sarg looked at Hyderlin’s closed eyelids. The woman’s pale eyelids were trembling slightly.
“You.”
Sarg, who had been looking at Hyderlin’s long, thick eyelashes, murmured the fact he’d just realized:
“Your eyelashes are red.”
Hyderlin’s eyes flew open. Her heart seemed to sink. Flustered, she moved her lips but ultimately couldn’t utter any words.
Fortunately, Sarg didn’t seem inclined to dig further into the difference between Hyderlin’s hair color and eyelash color. He just stared intently at her eyelashes. Sarg murmured:
“I like your red eyelashes.”
Each time he spoke, a faint breath touched Hyderlin’s lips.
On the back of Sarg’s hand that grasped her shoulder, Hyderlin’s black curly hair rested. When Sarg wiggled his fingers, the black curls twitched in response to his finger movements.
“I liked your red hair too.”
“……”
“You said you didn’t like it, but…”
“……”
“I always liked your red hair. I always did.”
Hyderlin felt as if someone had stuffed a wad of cloth down her throat. Otherwise there was no reason for her throat to be this choked up.
So Hyderlin had no choice but to ask like a person being strangled:
“…Since when?”
“Since… the first time I saw you.”
His low voice could only be described as miserable. He was someone who shouldn’t speak to Hyderlin in that way. Hyderlin moved her lips. But none of her thoughts came out as words.
Sarg said, cruelly, as if it were nothing:
“Since then, always.”
