Chapter 106

Lucio hasn’t had one psychotic episode occur after that one night. Fortunately, unlike the nightmares, the episodes were not very frequent. If this had happened constantly, rumors would have spread immediately. That ‘the emperor is crazy.’

He wanted to prevent any danger of the collapse of his Imperial authority, so unless he died, he thought there was no other way than to crack down on the mouths of the nearby servants. Thanks to his thorough management, few were aware of his condition, including the maids of the Central Palace who were serving him.

He had intermittent migraine headaches for a few days since the day that he had an episode. This was a disease that didn’t show much improvement even with medication, so he took a quiet nap during the day, and took a walk alone at night. His head felt a little refreshed when he felt the cool night air. Sometimes the stark white moonlight solved what medicine could not solve.

The place he most often visited as a walking spot, ironically, was the very place in the garden that Patrizia loved in her past life, and even loved in the present life. Naturally, Patrizia didn’t know this fact, and Lucio also just thought that the encounter between the two of them had just been a coincidence.

Patrizia liked the garden for aesthetic reasons, but for Lucio, it wasn’t for that reason that he frequented it. It was a deeper, and more mental reason, than that of Patrizia’s. Patrizia could go anywhere, even if it wasn’t that place, but Lucio only went to that garden. There could only be one place of solace, not two.

Anyways, the two of them always headed to the same place when they remembered it, so it was honestly natural for the two to run into each other.

“…”

“…”

The two people met, they were silent. Lucio was taken aback, and so was Patrizia. This garden, whenever she came here, she met him. Patrizia did not reveal her flustered expression, but she was taken aback internally.

What should she do now? Should she avoid him? Should she leave this place first? Patrizia paused with her gaze, and slowly stepped away. It was best to just pass by him. Patrizia stepped slowly away, very slowly. Just like this, it was not bad to pass everything by.

“Are you avoiding me?”

“…”

He had talked to her first. She wanted to avoid it, but the question itself was about evasion. If this happened, she couldn’t leave. She replied after closing her eyes.

“… I am, at least, not the one to do the avoiding.”

“Then should it be me?”

“…”

Well, if he asked like that, then it was not. If so, should she do the avoiding? While hesitating at his cryptic answer, his words came back to her.

“Or should both of us?”

“I thought Your Majesty’s desire to avoid might not be pleasant, because it could damage your Imperial dignity.”

Patrizia, who spit out that long sentence, slowly looked to the side. She could see his side profile. There was not even a handful of moonlight in the night. Even a piece of starlight. His face only looked dark.

“So that was why I had avoided first.”

“You guessed wildly. Or just passed over the responsibility.”

“…”

Patrizia thought that it might be the case. But if she avoided him, what could be the reason for that? She wasn’t disgusted by him. It was just a sense of discomfort. Disgust and discomfort were different, and with only one syllable, but they had very different meanings. At the very least, she was not offended by him. It was just a little awkward and uncomfortable. If she was ‘disgusted’ by him, that would then be a big deal.

Anyways, their bodies had to come together to give birth to a child in the future.

So it was okay to say that it was just unfamiliarity. The feeling that one felt while in a space with a stranger. It was not unpleasant, but it was also not pleasant. Just a little foreign feeling. Or an uncanny feeling.

“Is it not.”

So she just asked him back like this. ‘My feelings for you are like this. But are your feelings not like this?’

“… I thought it wasn’t enough for both of us to avoid each other, at least.”

“…”

“Is it not?”

“Well… that may be so.”

She finally turned around fully and looked at him, and he also turned his body and looked at her. The night was dark, and there was no moon in the sky, so they barely saw each other’s eyes, nose, and lips. Patrizia opened her lips and soon tried to say something, but he was faster.

“That time…”

“…”

“Do you remember?”

“…”

She instinctively realized that ‘that time’ was the night of that day a few days ago, and then held her breath. Patrizia nodded quietly. He asked again.

“You, are you scared of me?”

“What… do you mean?”

Patrizia was slightly puzzled by the unexpected question, and he continued to ask the question without being shaken.

“I showed everything to you, from my lowest. It is not a dream, what you saw.”

“…”

“I am asking if after having seen me gone crazy, are you not scared now?”

“You speak as if you were hoping I would be afraid of Your Majesty.”

“… what?”

Patrizia stood still and spoke further.

“Because… you looked like that. You seem to want me to be scared of Your Majesty, speak about this fear, and to react like that.”

“…”

“I guess I am the strange one, after all?”

It could not be. For ordinary people. Patrizia quietly asked that, and he said nothing for a while. Intuitively, she realized that he was confused internally. So she also waited for him to clear up his mind, and opened her mouth again after a certain amount of time.

“There is no one that would not be afraid and remain in fear after witnessing such a scene.”

“…”

“However, strangely to my ears, Your Majesty’s question does not seem to mean entirely just that.”

“…”

“My words, are they wrong?”