Chapter 47

“Hey, hey! Nathan, stay still. He’ll be here soon.”

“My heart is beating so fast that I can’t stand still.”

“In that case, take a deep breath and you’ll feel a little better.”

“Bessie, really? All right. Heup!”

Through the cracks of the open door, a familiar and disparate voice which he had never heard before, came out. After that, the light laughter Raynald had always wanted to hear in his dreams followed. It was Yurina’s laugh.

Raynald stood still because he couldn’t believe what he saw through the crack of the door.

Aiden’s dorm room, which had always been a mess, was neat and tidy. In the middle of the room, which was always littered with clothes and books, there was a table he had never seen before. On top of it was a pile of cute imperial desserts.

It was noticeably smaller in size, but it looked very similar to the birthday party that Carthia held for him five years ago.

There stood Yurina. She was much taller than when they first met but small enough to fit into his arms. When she heard the door open she turned her head.

“Ray.”

Then she closed her eyes and smiled softly towards him.

“Happy birthday. I really wanted to tell you this.”

I came all the way here because I wanted to tell you this.

Her smiling face which only he could see was so pretty and lovely as ever. Pieces of paper scattered from her tiny white hand fell onto Raynald. Yurina’s smile, which appeared and disappeared through the cracks of the glittering colored paper in front of him, was tantalizing.

Raynald stretched out his arms to hug Yurina, without realizing it. Behind his back, Aiden wrapped his arms around Raynald’s neck and clung to his back.

“Hey, Raynald! Happy birthday! This little guy grew up so big!”

“Happy birthday, Brother Raynald!”

Nathan, who sprinted to Yurina’s side, looked up at him with round eyes and grinned.

“Happy birthday!”

“Brother, congratulations!”

Then Raynald saw Bessie, Thomas, and Alex smiling and waving.

He didn’t feel like crying at all. However, tears that had no sense flowed down his cheeks once again.

“Still a crybaby.”

Yurina muttered as she wiped Raynald’s cheeks with the end of her sleeve, which became damp.

* * *

Aiden giggled while holding his stomach, saying Raynald always cried whenever he had a birthday party. Nathan came up to Raynald with his favorite cupcake and held it out to him.

Aiden took the cupcake instead and smeared a ton of white cream on Raynald’s cheek.

“Hey, how come you’re still handsome even if I put cream on your face?”

Raynald also smeared cream on Aiden’s cheeks, who muttered as if he was dumbfounded and then headed to his room to clean up his face.

“Brother Aiden! This is really delicious!”

“Yes, yes. Eat a lot. It’s an imperial dessert, so it’ll be hard to eat unless it’s today. By the way, how long has Lady Carthia known Raynald?”

“For five years. Since Ray was twelve years old.”

“Wow, his personality was no joke back then. Wasn’t it difficult to get close to him?”

The room he returned to was much noisier than before. Raynald leaned his back against the door and looked at it.

It’s a place I’ve been going in and out of every day for the past five years, but just the fact that Yurina is there made me feel special. The scene full of warm smiles had a more golden color than the golden sunlight of autumn coming through the window.

Seeing her with his dear friends and more dear than that, Raynald felt like he was getting a fever somewhere in his heart.

“Ray, what are you doing there? Come here quickly.”

When Yurina, who was wiping the cream off Nathan’s lips, smiled at him, Raynald’s heart began to beat faster and faster.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

A pleasant sound that started from his heart spread throughout his body. Raynald felt a slight motion sickness as he felt the ground shaking.

It’s strange. It’s really, really strange.

Raynald couldn’t tell if he wanted to cry or laugh when he saw Yurina’s smile. His heart was about to burst so he felt like he was going to cry, but strangely, the corners of his mouth kept rising uncontrollably.

Raynald didn’t know love. His parents, who were supposed to teach him the world, never told him they loved him. So it was only natural that he didn’t know what that feeling was. The love between a man and a woman was even more foreign to him.

I don’t know what my feelings are, but from a certain moment, whenever I saw Yurina, there was a feeling that swelled in my heart.

I want to see Yurina’s smiling face. I want to hold her soft hand and enjoy a walk alone. I want to hug her small warm body in my arms and kiss her smiling lips.

I want to swallow her warm breath that is sweet like honey, share my breath, and become one with her body and mind.

I want to do everything with her. I want her everything.

And I also want to be her everything.

Is this what love is? I don’t know. I’d rather have someone tell me.

“Ray?”

However, Raynald realized the moment he looked into Yurina’s blue eyes was the moment he felt greedy for wanting those eyes to always turn towards him instead of elsewhere.

I don’t know if this is love. But maybe I’m…

“Yurina.”

It seems that I have always held you deep in my heart.

* * *

After the day they gathered together and enjoyed the birthday party, Yurina was able to learn more about Raynald’s daily life. Nathan, who followed her well, was a very good informant who told Yurina every little thing without asking.

Yurina and Raynald took classes together during the day, and in the evening when classes were not in session, they went out downtown and had dinner together. Although it was nothing special, Yurina was never bored. Rather, it reminded her of the memories she spent with him when they were young.

‘It was quite fun to find out how Ray had changed.’

Raynald took notes in beautiful cursive, concentrated on the professor’s words, answered questions quickly, sat in an unobtrusive posture during a long class, and looked at the professor with clear eyes.

Every little change touched her heart.

Yurina no longer saw him writing squiggly letters in a posture that looked like he was about to lie down, enduring the constant yawning.

Yurina was proud of him, so she laughed for no reason, but when he made eye contact with her in the middle of class and smiled, she had a strange feeling, like something tickling in her stomach. Whenever that happened, Yurina pretended to read a book and avoided his gaze.

​​On the last day before leaving the capital, they ate at a famous restaurant in response to Aiden’s statement that it would be a shame to leave like this. That day, Yurina was able to observe Raynald and Aiden a little more closely throughout the dinner.

“Raynald was stuck at the Academy because he couldn’t go to the Empire during vacation, right? So, a few years ago, I once persuaded Raynald to go to my estate together. Then one of my younger sisters fell in love with Raynald and made a fuss about getting married to him…”

“Aiden, stop talking and eat your meal. Yurina, don’t worry about it and eat quickly. The food is going to get cold.”

“Since when did you start caring for people like that? Lady Carthia, I work so hard to keep up with this guy’s rhythm.”

Aiden continued to care about Raynald and tried to lead the conversation, and Raynald, who was somewhat bothered by Aiden still answered him. At first glance, they seemed to have polar opposite personalities, but the two got along very well.

Raynald would have said no when he heard that thought, but it seemed to be the case in Yurina’s eyes.

Although Aiden was talkative and nosy, he was smart enough to not get on Raynald’s nerves. Even though Raynald was annoyed by him, he didn’t really push Aiden away.

Rather, Aiden was a necessary friend to Raynald because he was actively guiding him to not stay alone in the room.

‘Thank goodness, Ray has a good friend.’

Yurina looked back at the first letter Raynald had sent from the Academy. It was a short and clumsy reply that was more like a note than a letter, but his squiggly handwriting was still clear in her mind.

[Everyone is good.]

Maybe that good guy was Aiden. If he has Aiden now it would be a little reassuring to leave him and return to the Empire.

As the cruel hands of the clock went by, the day Yurina had to leave the kingdom approached. Yurina was about to say goodbye to the capital, but Raynald said he wanted to see her off at the border this time, just as he had picked her up at the border.

Yurina happily accepted his offer.

The atmosphere inside the carriage going to the border was very different than when she came. Raynald gradually spoke less, so he spent more time looking at Yurina without saying a word. Yurina, who was trying to keep the conversation going, also couldn’t find anything to say as she got closer to the border.

‘Today is the last night.’

After today, she would truly part ways with Raynald and leave for the Empire. Yurina, who was staying at the place where she and Raynald had been reunited, felt so uneasy that she could not sleep.

Yurina, who had been wandering around the room for a long time, suddenly approached the window and opened it. She reached out her head to take a closer look at jewel-like stars in the black sky when someone next to her spoke.

“Yurina?”

It was Raynald. He was sticking his head out the window just like Yurina.

“Ray, why aren’t you sleeping? You have to go back to the academy tomorrow.”

“That’s what I want to ask. Why haven’t you slept yet when you have to leave for the Empire tomorrow? It only takes me a minute to get to the academy, but it takes you over a week to get to the capital.”

“I can’t sleep… and if I’m sleepy, I can sleep in the carriage. But you ride a horse to the academy. Come on…”

You should sleep soon. Those simple words couldn’t come out of her mouth easily. It was the same for Raynald, so he kept his mouth shut and remained silent.

Unlike the daytime when there were a lot of people, there were no people passing by at night, so there were hardly any lights to illuminate the town. A dark night with a faint moonlight.

Yurina inadvertently lowered her upper body to see Raynald’s face, a little closer, which was difficult to see in the dark. Then Raynald put his hand on the window sill and leaned out as if he was jumping out of the window.

“Yurina, it’s dangerous!”

An urgent cry rang out in the quiet town where everyone was asleep. Yurina crouched reflexively in surprise. Woof woof, she heard a startled dog barking loudly from somewhere. Under the dormitory, meow, a cat cried and hid in the bushes.

Yurina took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart that was beating like a bat. It was dark, so it was hard to see, but she smiled calmly at Raynald.

He was still looking at her, half leaning over the window, screaming loud enough to wake everyone up.

“I won’t fall off. Don’t worry. I’m not a child.”

His face was serious even as he joked.

“You haven’t even had your coming-of-age ceremony yet. I’m glad you didn’t fall. What would I have done if you had accidentally fallen?”

“It’s not even that high. Are you nagging me now that you’ve become an adult 3 years older than me? And if I fall, you can save me. Can’t you do something like levitation magic?”

“I can. But what if you fell to the ground before I could use my magic?”

“It’s not going to happen. I trust you. You said you would protect me.”

As he said, it could have been a groundless belief. It was not even the 30th floor, but the speed of falling from the 3rd floor was probably faster than Raynald’s awareness of the situation and memorization of magic spells.

If she was lucky enough to get hurt, he would use healing magic, but if she was unlucky and died instantly, everything would be over.

But strangely, Yurina had the belief that Raynald would protect her no matter what. The words he swore to her when he was young:

–Yurina, I will protect you.

Even though it was a promise from a 13-year-old boy who had just learned magic, he kept that promise in his heart. And as she spent time with him, her trust in him grew stronger.

He would protect her. As she had always wished from the moment she met him.

‘Should I be happy?’

The question came to her mind without realizing it. No, I should be happy, but strangely, rather than being happy, my heart just felt heavy. Yurina couldn’t guess what this heavy and bitter emotion was.

‘Can I be this selfish?’

Five years ago, the worries Yurina had when she met his eyes popped up again. 

Is it okay to be happy that I won’t be able to die anymore after driving him, who was young and very clumsy because of my own greed, to such a distant place?

A slight sense of guilt gripped her conscience, which she had never felt when she had first met him and made him an offer.