FSW Chapter 31

Instead of summoning the imperial physician, Nishina requested that one more flower be wrapped and brought from her bedroom. Joy seemed startled to learn the flower's owner was him, but soon left the room to fetch it.

There was no need to request extra refreshments separately. Even without orders, the perceptive maids quickly prepared a tea set. Though not the cookies Nishina had prepared, cool mousse cakes were arranged appetizingly, accompanied by milk tea sweetened generously with sugar.

He looked profoundly uncomfortable amid the maids bustling to and fro. Nishina read this in his habitually lowered head and dismissed all the servants.

Then she seated him on the plush sofa. Only when the space fell silent did he raise his head. His gaze lifted as if he'd been waiting, and the sight was both satisfying and heartbreaking. Nishina patted his shoulder several times before speaking in a much gentler voice.

"Relax. I only brought you here because I wanted to give you something."

Nishina pressed a fork into his hand herself, then busied herself rummaging through the drawing room drawers. Though he'd refused treatment, she couldn't leave his wounds as they were. She wouldn't feel at ease unless she at least applied ointment.

'Joy always keeps ointment stocked somewhere around here.'

She finally found the familiar ointment in the corner of a drawer. Her face became as pleased as someone who'd discovered treasure as she returned—settling not across from him, but right beside him. The distance was far too close for enjoying refreshments comfortably. Close enough that Joy would have gasped if she'd seen. But only the two of them occupied the drawing room.

With no one to notice, she cupped his cheeks with both hands. His head turned toward her regardless of his will. At a distance where his trembling eyelashes were plainly visible, Nishina shook the ointment bottle.

"Instead of calling the imperial physician, at least let me apply this?"

"I'll—I'll do it myself."

"There's no mirror in this room. I can apply it well without hurting you!"

Nishina clenched her fist as if to say trust me. He raised his hands toward hers cupping his face several times, then finally gave up and nodded slowly, as though surrendering.

Nishina scooped an appropriate amount of ointment with her finger and dabbed it gently on his lips where the blood still showed vividly.

The red blood mixing with the ointment gradually dampened her mood. Nishina's eyebrows drooped. Her distress couldn't be hidden. She'd tried not to show it, as much as he'd tried for her sake. At her gaze that wouldn't leave his wound, he carefully called to her.

"...Your Highness?"

"It's nothing."

Lips pressed firmly together, Nishina carefully kept negative emotions from surfacing as she finished the treatment. On his swollen cheek, instead of ointment, she removed one of the cool spirit stones embedded in the room and wrapped it in her handkerchief to hold against his face.

Having stoically swallowed her melancholy, Nishina pressed the fork into his hand again. When she encouraged him to taste, he cut deeply into the cake with the fork. She'd never given him cake before, thinking it would be inconvenient to eat at the training grounds—but fortunately this also seemed to suit his tastes. Judging by how diligently the fork moved.

Nishina abandoned the idea of moving to the opposite seat. From beside him, chin in hand, she gazed at him steadily. His chewing cheeks were flushed for different reasons than usual. If she'd known she'd feel this upset, she should have at least slapped their cheeks in return. Nishina mashed her portion of cake with her fork while indulging in rather violent regrets.

"I should go see Sir Richard."

At the mention of visiting the commander, his fork stopped abruptly. She could have bet her remaining hydrangeas that even if he suffered worse treatment, he wouldn't breathe a word to the commander. Though she'd expected it, it was clearly an unwelcome suggestion—he shook his head immediately.

"I'm really fi—I don't mind, so you don't need to do that."

"Aren't you even angry? When they did something so cowardly...!"

"This much is nothing to me."

Does he think it's fine as long as he doesn't say he's "all right"? What Nishina hadn't wanted to hear was exactly that kind of statement—treating himself as if he were nothing. Just because her tears had stopped, just because reason had returned, didn't mean all those emotions had evaporated. The insults they'd hurled at him and the scene of them humiliating him remained vivid still.

But...

He was the one insulted, the one injured. If that's what he wanted, she'd have to stoically swallow it down even if outrage and grief kept surging up.

"Fine. But promise me something."

Nishina extended her pinky finger. Though she'd said nothing yet about the promise, he hooked his finger without hesitation. What if she made some outrageous demand?

She worried slightly about how docile he was, but actually welcomed it in this moment. She intended to be relentless about extracting this particular promise. With their pinky fingers linked, Nishina gazed straight into his red eyes.

"Don't accept insults as natural. Don't let them lay hands on you carelessly again."

"..."

"Remember that no one in this world—not even Lavi himself—may insult you or cause you harm."

Their linked fingers connected, thumbs pressing firmly together. Now you can't take it back—you must keep it. As she looked at him that way, he squeezed his eyes shut—filled with emotions he couldn't name—and nodded.

A promise wasn't one-directional but two-way. Nishina carefully clasped his one hand with their fingers still linked and made her own promise.

The promise she'd once spoken aloud, she made again. Until the day he could truly believe it—I will protect you.

The landscaping around the training grounds held a rather ironic charm. Looking at the trees planted at regular intervals encircling the stark training grounds, one might think the gardener had made some effort—but seeing the various types of grass and flowers blooming behind the trees, one ended up thinking perhaps no effort had been made at all.

They were diverse, to put it kindly; chaotic, to put it honestly. Since no one came to the training grounds for flower viewing, it seemed they'd simply planted whatever was easy to maintain.

The flowerbed brimming with summer's energy bloomed with flowers of bewilderingly diverse colors. None lacked beauty, yet only one captured Nishina's gaze. A flower bearing clusters of red petals radiated unusual presence. Was it the stimulating color, or perhaps because it was familiar?

Nishina crouched undignifiedly before the red flower. Though she hadn't brought her nose close, mere proximity brought a rush of sweetness. The familiar shape and scent resembled the one in her memory.

Salvia. A flower that had bloomed in a corner of the palace when she was young. She'd loved it so much back then. Meeting it again after so long felt almost strange.

Perhaps that flower still stood its lonely watch in that palace corner even now. But it remained forever hypothetical, because the owner preceding "palace" was "he," not "I."

She remembered how when flowering season came, she'd whine to go see the flowers. White hands plucking red flowers and blue eyes curving beautifully as he asked, "Is it sweet?" She'd suck greedily on the flowers he silently picked, satisfied only when their remnants piled thick at her feet.

She pulled out the elongated part protruding from the center. Holding the petal's tip between her lips and sucking gently, the sweetness at her nose transferred to her mouth. The same sensation as that sweetness tasted long ago. Yet simultaneously different. That subtle difference followed bitterly after the sweetness.

With the flower still in her mouth, she tilted her head back. Staring blankly at the drifting clouds, a face suddenly appeared.

Lavis.

"Your Highness?"

"You're here?"

Though they'd met just yesterday, Nishina smiled as happily as if meeting someone after a long time. His ears flushed faintly as he flinched. Eyes that had briefly lost direction belatedly settled on Nishina's lips.

'Why is she...?'

Though unspoken, his gaze was puzzled. Despite his expressionless face, Nishina easily read the question and tugged at his sleeve instead of answering. When Lavis crouched awkwardly beside her, Nishina plucked another flower and held it to his lips too.

"Sweet, right?"

His eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected sweetness. His head nodded shyly. The sight of him chewing the flower with flushed cheeks resembled how he looked when eating snacks—Nishina couldn't help but grin broadly.

Chin resting between her knees, Nishina gazed at him steadily. True to being a man who suited red well, the sight of him with a red flower in his mouth suited him excellently too. Then, as her gaze lowered to his lips, Nishina murmured abruptly.

"Your lip's almost healed."

"Yes, thanks to the ointment Your Highness gave me..."

Perhaps he'd followed her advice to find and apply the ointment every night—the wound was healing rapidly. Seeing lips bearing only faint scabs now, Nishina felt inwardly satisfied.

She'd pressed all the ointment she could find into his hands along with the warning that she'd truly be upset if scars remained—how fortunate she'd done that. Otherwise, he wouldn't have cared whether his lip scarred or not. And if scars had actually remained, she'd have ground her teeth every time she looked at him. Remembering those who paid no price. And she'd have regretted keeping silent to Hilton.

The night she'd brought him to the palace, Hilton had come looking for Nishina belatedly and interrogated her about why she'd brought him all the way to the palace. His face had been oddly pale, too.

Nishina had been seized by the impulse to immediately report their atrocities. If he learned the truth, he could punish them at once. But she'd promised him not to make a big issue of it. Highly distasteful, but Nishina could only deflect vaguely.

The more Nishina evaded, the more serious Hilton's expression became. Nishina was actually somewhat moved by how much he cared about his junior's affairs.

"You truly are a model knight to be admired."

She patted his shoulder in praise, and though Hilton's face took on a peculiar look, in any case her silence prevented the matter from escalating into a major problem. In that sense, the lack of scarring was extremely fortunate for them.

'Was there any retaliation?'

Nishina swallowed the question she wanted to ask. Seeing his face without a single wound and his neat appearance, there probably hadn't been retaliation. Well, she'd issued a murderous warning directly—if they touched him again after that, their intelligence would be in question.

Besides, hadn't he promised Nishina? Not to accept insults as natural. And not to allow them to lay hands on him carelessly. Though she'd only realized it after her head had cooled considerably, even if outnumbered from the start, he wasn't weak enough to be beaten by greenhorns. He'd let himself be beaten, that's all.

That actually upset Nishina more, but at least it allowed her one less worry. Without even that assurance, she might have been spying on the training grounds daily.

Thinking she was rather like a guardian, Nishina voiced a different question.