APIBAGS Chapter 58

Gabriel looks at me with strange eyes.

What I'm reflected in is blue—pristine to an uncanny degree, not a single blemish. I always thought it was a cloudless sky, but seeing myself projected in it now, it could just as well be an untouched water surface.

"My convictions, my philosophy, my ideals—everything I've built from the ground up—it all feels pointless."

All this time it had been Gabriel's story, not Misha's.

What—suddenly setting the atmosphere like this—

My chest itches. I must be allergic to rofan.

Gabriel continues as if he can't even see me being put off.

"You broke into my world. You inserted yourself. And now you seem to be rebuilding it from scratch, entirely at your own will."

The body turns, and the hem of the dress spreads low and wraps around me. Gabriel says he is helpless before me the way someone facing a natural disaster is helpless.

Something that shakes the world—close enough to a heartfelt love confession that you'd almost take it for one.

"That sounds like a confession."

I said it to tease. Gabriel didn't deny it.

A confession.

That.

I knew Gabriel liked me.

I knew that clearly. And I knew that the most ideal method for escaping a death sentence or an unhappy ending was to reach an ending with Gabriel, the male lead.

But having it shoved in my face without warning—for a moment I feel dizzy.

I feel sick.

Discomfort rises at having to face this feeling so suddenly. Something drops flat in my chest, and my feet go heavy.

"You like me?"

What I feel is that Gabriel's words weren't a love confession. They were self-flagellation. His eyes downcast in docile meekness, he looks not ecstatic from being in love but pitiable—crushed by guilt.

If Gabriel had put on a sweet face and whispered romance, I wouldn't feel this wretched.

That would be love stamped flat onto the page—the kind that's been pressed down and fixed there. The male lead performing his role. Nothing more.

So this is the creepiness you feel when a ghost that existed beyond the monitor reaches its hand out.

Like looking at an open page and watching the black marks you'd taken for letters begin to squirm, sprout limbs, become ants, and file toward you in a line until they arrive.

Not the default-setting love for Evangeline, but—actually liking me?

"Without even knowing who I am."

I meet Gabriel's eyes.

What's reflected in that clear glass is Evangeline's face. All Gabriel knows is that I'm a possessor. That's probably why the confession came out with such anguish. But is that really Gabriel's sincere feeling. Not a default setting. Not just being taken with Evangeline's appearance.

Gabriel's body locked up and the dance slowed to almost nothing. 

This time it was the reverse—I led.

Gabriel can't even bring himself to answer. He presses his lips together and looks away from my gaze. That he wants to flee this instant but keeps dancing because he promised—that's quietly very Gabriel, rigid about rules.

Even without an answer coming back, I feel relieved instead.

Right.

My heart settles again.

"Sir Gabriel just needs to get along with me appropriately."

Heavy sincerity is not something I want. I'd rather avoid it.

My associating with Gabriel is to receive his protection. To avoid a potential future fate. That's all he needs to match.

I may have pushed too hard—Gabriel's complexion is noticeably pale. Someone watching would think it's Gabriel who's dead, not Evangeline.

"Shall we stop here?"

Any more and Gabriel might collapse. Only two songs, but since I can follow well, I could probably manage the others. And I'm not going to be dancing back-to-back without pause anyway. This is enough.

Ah.

Come to think of it—I planned to pull the fishing ground tight today.

I forgot my objective and put up too much of a wall.

I over-immersed.

From Gabriel's position: he was laying groundwork for a confession and I suddenly cut him off—we're not there yet. He'd be thinking: why is she suddenly acting like this. Is that why he lost his words.

"I quite like you—you know."

The waltz that seemed like it would go on forever ends. I whisper it while curtsying, holding my hem.

This won't fix it—but saying something is better than not. Push him away too much and that's not fishing ground management. Lip service, at least.

Gabriel definitely likes Evangeline's face, so I strain to produce a smile. The smiling muscles don't usually get deployed, so something feels off...

My lip corners might be cramping.

I glance at the mirror to check I'm doing this right. Instead of anything pretty, what I see is a smile that looks prepared to kill someone.

I lower the corners.

As expected. No talent for acting whatsoever.

While Lady Rohanson was briefly away for the fitting, Gabriel had a short exchange with Daisy. It looked exactly as though Evangeline had deliberately vacated the space to let them talk.

"I received your message regarding Ms. Fonor. It seems her ladyship intends to keep her close."

"Yes. Her ladyship says she seems to be genuinely repentant—that seems to have settled it for her."

Keeping someone sent as a spy by Bishop Jabaniya close. She must have her reasons. The fortunate thing: Evangeline's information hadn't leaked.

Dolly Fonor's letters had never arrived, and Jabaniya was apparently very restless over it. Restless enough that he had subtly asked Gabriel about the tutors Lady Rohanson had employed.

"I deflected Bishop Jabaniya."

"Is that so."

Daisy organized what she needed to pass to the butler. Then looked at Gabriel with strange eyes.

She wondered why this knight who ought rightly to follow the sun god was taking her ladyship's side. Unlike someone like Daisy, who had received help.

According to Kanna, Gabriel had expressed a favorable position toward her ladyship from the very beginning. Hearing that, she had realized that when she was at the convent, the person she'd intended to report Lady Rohanson's wrongdoing to was the wrong one. It was because of that error that she could now protect her ladyship's secret.

"Why does Sir Gabriel stay by her ladyship's side?"

At Daisy's sudden question, Gabriel moved to avoid answering. Before he could deflect, she asked again.

"Do you want something from her ladyship?"

Or was it really, as Sir Raphaela said, that he'd been bewitched. Daisy pressed hard. Gabriel recognized she was determined to extract an answer.

Something he wants.

"Yes. There is."

Laughably, it was true.

Gabriel was not someone who acted without purpose, and there was something he wanted from Lady Rohanson. Publicly, it was to manage the influence of the summoning circle. Privately—

That day of overflowing fire. White hair stained with firelight spreading into vermilion. Vivid still.

If his heart had stopped at the very first moment of encountering Evangeline, he would have handed her information to the temple instead of protecting her. Long since.

It was curiosity at first. Certainly.

Like a flowerless bloom opening on a dry, ancient dead tree—a corpse moving while ignoring God's power. Strange.

Then fear.

He feared what she might do—she who wore Evangeline Rohanson as a mask.

So he had tried not to go against her inclinations—to tend carefully to her moods and keep from disturbing them.

Change happens suddenly.

When he heard that Lady Rohanson had saved the orphanage children—against her character—a faint expectation formed. When he felt the slow pulse and understood that Evangeline was alive.

When she said there was no method to save the young marquis, he had the shamelessness to feel disappointed. Because he had been overlaying his own past onto the young Toten marquis without realizing it.

He had imagined Evangeline Rohanson promising salvation to his younger self—so when she said there was no method, he was disappointed without permission.

He had assumed an omnipotent being beyond reason would perform miracles beyond human capacity. He had on his own decided she was human, and then in a moment like this, decided she wasn't.

He had arbitrarily expected Evangeline Rohanson to be different from everything that came before.

Paradoxically, it was through that disappointment—the kind born of not knowing his own place—that Gabriel realized he had been slowly opening his heart to her.

"Sir Gabriel?"

So he hadn't wanted to let go of the hand she had extended first. Not noticing himself doing it—refusing to release her hand like a child—that was shameful.

Before Gabriel could collect himself, Evangeline returned, fitting done.

"Sir Gabriel, what do you think of my lady?"

Gabriel looked at Evangeline.

"It suits you well."

The dress Artemisia had labored over for days seemed to clearly know who it was made for. It suited its owner very well.

He tried not to let his gaze go to the openly bare white neck. He and Lady Rohanson were not in any great relationship—looking felt like theft.

Without knowing Gabriel's feelings, Artemisia continued demanding he look at Evangeline. When he couldn't produce a proper assessment, she poured out all manner of praise as examples. He wondered if she'd simply wanted to praise for her own sake.

Schmitiana circled Evangeline with flushed cheeks, fearless. The sight was exactly like Michel this very morning—teary-eyed and whining about wanting to be in Lady Rohanson's presence. Raphaela had clicked his tongue: blood tells.

Unlike Michel, Artemisia had seemed to have no particular reason to be charmed. Something must have happened to her during her time at Rohanson Manor.