Fourth Arc: First Chapter

The carriage heading for the castle was wrapped in a heavy silence.

What is this. It's like the breakfast table the morning after a fight with a husband who let loose too much at a drinking party. The window outside, growing gradually brighter, was playing its part in setting the mood, somehow.

I was so happy to see him after so long, and there should have been so much I wanted to talk about, the goings-on in Lumelica and all. But the prince sat with his chin in his hand, brow furrowed, gazing silently out the window, plainly irritated and hard to speak to.

In that unpleasant air of the carriage, as for Georg... yeah, an incredibly peaceful sleeping face. The deep, dead-to-the-world kind.

Sitting beside the prince, Georg had burrowed into a mountain of fluffy cushions and dropped off in no time.

He hadn't shown the slightest sign of sleepiness until we got in the carriage. Did seeing the prince's face put him at ease?

Georg naturally rises with the sun in the morning and falls asleep the moment he's had his dinner. An almost all-night rescue must have truly worn him out. When he came flying through the window back there, I was startled, but seeing Georg's face put me at real ease.

For some reason, I'd thought, now it's all right.

It was an incident that made me realize afresh how much I truly trust Georg. Though I'll have to lecture him later for remodeling diet gear into weapons without asking!

Watching Georg sleep like the dead, mouth hanging open, I laughed softly. Drawn by the sound, maybe, the prince took his gaze from the window and at last turned toward me.

"Cosette?"

"Huh? Ah, it's just Georg, sleeping so soundly."

"Hmm... he really is fast asleep. He must be quite tired."

Only noticing then, maybe, the prince poked the sleeping Georg's cheek with a finger. Georg frowned a little, but grabbed a cushion to hide his face and started breathing in sleep again.

"Sleeping like this, he's just like a child. It's somehow nostalgic."

"Haha... nostalgic, you say. Back then Cosette was a child too, surely."

"Oh, so I was. Ahaha!"

The prince finally showing a smile softened the air with a rush. Haah, I'm a bit tired too. Just as I bit back a yawn, the prince opened his mouth as if murmuring.

"Cosette. Please never do anything so dangerous again."

"Your Highness..."

The prince gazed at me steadily, with a taut, serious look. At the seriousness of those eyes, I caught my breath despite myself. Maybe because I gave no answer of agreement, the prince sighed as if irritated and sank roughly back against the seat with a "there's no help for it" air.

"Honestly, King of Lumelica or not, why must Cosette act for a man she barely knows. She could just leave it to this country's guards."

"That's..."

It was so exactly as the prince said that I couldn't get out a second word. To those around me, who don't know the circumstances tied to Anje's and my past lives, there's no reason for me to act at all. And in the end I only spun my wheels and kept being rescued, and was no real help anyway.

But.

"You're exactly right. ...But."

If someone is suffering right in front of me, and there's a chance I could help them. I would surely do the same thing again.

I meant to say it. But I, who can't speak of the past life, realized there would be no weight to my saying I could help, and I closed my mouth partway.

At me falling silent, the prince turned a sad look on me.

"...Do you love him."

"Huh...?"

Not grasping the meaning of the words, I blinked. The prince's expression as he watched me was pained, twisted as if he were enduring something.

"Because you love that man... you wanted to save him?"

"L-love?! Your Highness, there's some misunderstanding..."

I think of Michael fondly as a friend, but there's no romantic feeling. I meant to go on, but remembering Michael's words last night, and his serious eyes, somehow I found myself feeling guilty.

"...I see."

"Your Highness, that's not..."

The carriage seemed to have reached the castle at some point. Leaving me unable to give back a single good word, the prince stepped out through the opened door.

I want to chase him. But even if we talk again, I can't explain why I tried to save Michael, the past-life thing. I can't imagine the prince being satisfied with an explanation that leaves out the crucial part. And then, do I pile on more lies?

Thoughts whirled round and round in my head. Left behind, I hung my pathetically twisted face and clenched my hand tight.