Chapter 13.1

“What?”

The guest room wasn’t ready yet?

Realizing that my voice just now had been pretty loud, I hastily lowered it.

What are we supposed to do if the room is not ready?!

When I mouthed this to Rita, she furrowed her eyebrows and answered with her eyes.

We didn’t know they would come here this early.

“Emily accidentally smeared soot on the bed, so just until we’ve cleaned that up…”

“Haa.”

Hearing Rita whisper with a pitiful face, I rubbed my forehead, troubled.

“Noah, I’m sorry. The guest room is not ready yet, but if we sat back in our seats…”

“Oh… I don’t know.”

“You don’t really like that idea.”

I nodded as if I understood.

“Now what?”

It wasn’t like I could keep someone here when he didn’t want to stay.

When I agonized over this while glancing at him, Noah lowered his head a little and made eye contact with me.

“Then would it be alright if I stayed in your room for a while?”

“What?”

Noah quickly added on to his words. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Reigning in my thumping heart, I considered this.

Bringing an outside man into my room was a bit burdensome, but for some reason, I felt like it would be okay if it was Noah. Since Dad was over there, it was also my responsibility to serve the guests.

Right. Serving guests. There wasn’t any other significance to this other than that, right?

“… Alright.”

Get the room ready as quickly as possible, I told Rita with my eyes before I led Noah into my room.

“A moment, please.”

With that one phrase, I went into my room and roughly shelved all the books that had been scattered all over.

Only after I re-inspected the bed, once Rita had already arranged and shoved all the other stuff into the closet did I open the door again carefully.

“Come in.”

I quickly scanned the room again. The wrinkles on the bed from where I touched it bothered me, but the rest seemed fine.

“I didn’t know anyone would be coming in, so I haven’t had the time to clean… Haha.”

When Noah stepped in with careful deliberation, I slid the door closed.

“Please have a seat.”

After guiding Noah to the sofa that didn’t seem as messy, I scampered to the opposite sofa to sit down.

“You have a pretty room,” Noah said with a slight smile after he looked around the room.

… Rita, nice!

I smiled back at him awkwardly.

By the way, has Noah become more talkative lately? Before, he only spoke this much if Flora was around.

Thinking as much, I was sitting there with him with a kind of blanked-out face, when I saw the book I had roughly thrown to one side of the sofa. The red hardcover was very familiar to me.

When I looked up, Noah was sitting with his back as straight as ever.

“Um, Noah.” I licked my dry lips.

With trembling hands, I spread open the first page in which the beginning was written, then slowly lifted it up.

“By any chance… Can you see this?”

I had already been treated like some crazy person by countless people I’d met when I asked if they could see this, but I was curious what Noah’s response would be as one of the two protagonists.

If he said he could, then since there wasn’t any important information in the first chapter, it would be okay.

“… There’s nothing written there.”

Blinking, Noah even took off his glasses as he spoke.

Feeling my heart thump loudly at the purity of Noah without his glasses on, I hastily closed the book.

“Right?”

“Do you have an answer you are unsure of?”

Though I started a little at Noah’s keen question, I laughed and glossed over it.

“No, I was just pulling a prank on you.”

There could have been no answer vaguer than this, but as of now, that was my best.

With this, I now knew that even the main character could not see the book. As embarrassing as the process made me feel, I now had a solid answer.

“By the way, how did you end up here? I was surprised when I first saw you, you know.”

Trying to force a conversation may be a bit difficult, but it was better than an awkward silence.

“The Master of the Tower was looking for someone to go with him.”

“Goodness, but you should rest during the holidays.”

“I said I’d go.”

“Oh,” I murmured, raising an eyebrow.

Coming all the way here by carriage was quite a toll.

But really, why did Noah come here? Other than superficial reasons, our fief was small and didn’t have much of a presence, so there would’ve been nothing to gain by coming here.

“Excuse me, Noah, but by any chance, when you came here…”

I opened my mouth as I glanced at Noah, who had a peaceful expression on his face.

“Did you know that it was our fief?”

I was in the process of regretting the question even as I asked it.

“…”

And Noah was in the process of moving his lips as if he was about to say something, when…

“Miss, the guest room is ready,” came Rita’s voice, along with a knock. Perfect timing.

Unable to hide my joy, I sprang up.

“Let’s go!”

Once Noah was up, I quickly began pushing his back towards the room door.

“Rita will take you to your room. Rest well, Noah.”

Noah seemed to be taken aback for a second at the aggressive behavior he’d never seen before from me, but he was soon heading out obediently.

“See you later.”

“Ye-s! Yes.”

Noah glanced towards my direction a few times, then turned and walked away. Through the gap of the open door, his silver hair tied up into a ponytail swayed behind him.

“Sigh…”

I sat down and leaned against the closed door, sighing, then threw the red book across the room for no reason at all.

What a situation, really.

***