WYDM 36

Beside her, hearing such words together, feeling what she felt, she’d done nothing but warmly hold her hand. So it wouldn’t remain as another pain, so she could quickly forget it as an unremarkable day…

“Of course… I heard such words too, so how much worse must it have been for Sehera?”

Ethan understood Sana’s anger. Just hearing about it now seemed to make him plenty angry.

But the child who’d looked ready to pour out more suddenly stopped talking and this time stared intently at Ethan’s face.

“…What is it?”

“You heard such words too, Your Grace?”

Ah, she’d reacted to what he’d said. Ethan nodded.

“Well, I didn’t hear it often since I was at war and didn’t meet nobles much… but when nobles gathered, they’d say such things mockingly. That I was mad with war and didn’t care for my family… so my wife fled to a place with no family connections or ties.”

“Oh my! Goodness! Not all nobles have refined tongues, do they!”

Sana spoke truly without restraint. Even with a duke right before her. Still, seemingly knowing she’d spoken a bit carelessly, she bit her lip slightly and watched Ethan’s reaction.

He could see why Sehera liked this child. Until just now, the air had been so uncomfortable even moving a finger felt awkward, but after exchanging a few words, it felt quite easy to talk.

“Nobles can’t physically fight, so they fight with words. Rather than harsh words… they’re masters at saying things that make you feel bad.”

That’s why he could understand how upset Sana must have been, how angry, hearing such stories beside her.

And… thinking of Sehera exposed to such words each time made him grind his teeth in rage.

“Ah, anyway!”

Suddenly Sana raised the knitting needle in her right hand upward and raised her voice. If she’d meant to change the subject, it was quite successful. Ethan’s shoulders even flinched slightly at her high-pitched voice and large gesture.

“So you heard such stories, Your Grace. That’s why everyone knows you divorced, so what husband? You’re strangers.”

Thinking she’d almost been fooled, she glared at Ethan slightly again.

Right, what even this child clearly knew, he might have postponed using war as an excuse. With Sehera… he might have thought she’d wait until he was ready, ending this whole situation.

Without even knowing the source of that belief… Ethan had just believed it.

Like she’d be waiting for him.

Even though she was the one who’d left.

Had his head hardened from continuous war? Had he really been living possessed by something all this time?

“I… was going to come here. Someday…”

“Someday?”

At Sana’s voice reacting to his muttering, Ethan focused his eyes and looked at the child.

Realizing it made him extremely embarrassed to say it aloud, Ethan closed his mouth and kept those words inside.

“You never told the young lady you’d come someday.”

While Sana’s face remained full of dissatisfaction, she listened well to Ethan’s words and responded. Come to think of it, she could have just decided he was a man who’d troubled her young lady and simply done what she was told.

Sitting beside him pretending to nurse while not really caring, just watching to make sure nothing serious happened.

But once she started talking about Sehera, she answered enthusiastically.

From how she seemed to emotionally sympathize when he said he’d experienced what Sehera had, this child seemed to have opened her ears to listen to his story.

Which meant her heart had opened slightly.

“I was in the middle of war. Continuing for three years… ah…”

Ethan stopped mid-sentence about the war, suddenly realizing something. Like the girl before him had done earlier, casually starting to speak then closing his mouth with an ‘oops’ feeling.

“Huh? War for three years? So what? Were you badly injured?”

As expected, she realized he’d started to say something and stopped, then immediately asked with shining eyes. Fortunately, she was a child with both deep affection for Sehera and much curiosity.

“Ah… you can’t tell others I was at war. This is… something even most nobles don’t know.”

Ethan entreated her with a serious face. Though he spoke like it was some scheme, it truly shouldn’t be told. Why else wouldn’t he have told even Sehera that he was going around fighting as a member of the imperial knights?

“Wow… like classified information? Huh? Does the young lady know?”

Seemingly having completely forgotten she’d been knitting, the ball of yarn, the square of knitted wool, and the needles rolled about carelessly on her lap.

She placed her hands on the bedside and poured out questions to Ethan.

“Well…”

Ethan trailed off slightly, raising the girl’s curiosity further.

Knowing her care for Sehera was sincere, hoping she’d please spread this around, Ethan opened his mouth.

“Sehera knew nothing about it. There are various reasons I can’t tell you, but… anyway, for similar reasons, I didn’t tell Sehera either.”

“Th-then… every time you came back injured and sick… it was because of war?”

Sana handed him that story like revealing a very careful secret. He felt here how truly close Sehera considered this child.

Those related matters… were parts Ethan regretted. Even if not being able to tell her about the war was unavoidable… he’d been thinking there was no need to get that angry at her…

“That’s right. Nevertheless, even injured and sick, I thought stopping by the ducal estate would inform Sehera, who didn’t know what I was doing, whether I was alive or dead.”

Looking at it now, that statement had many ironic parts too. If he’d gone in worried she’d worry about what he was doing, he should have at least gone when he was fine.

He’d entered severely injured and sick, making her worry, then yelled what nursing when she tried to nurse him.

Even after speaking, he turned his gaze to look out the window. Because instead of shedding tears, his eyes seemed to be turning bloodshot, he tried to avoid Sana’s gaze.

“B-but… you got angry, they said. Told her not to come during treatment, that you didn’t need nursing or anything…”

While carefully watching Ethan’s reaction, Sana brought out everything she had to say. It felt like she was now thinking she was conveying Sehera’s words on her behalf.

Rather, it would be fortunate if she thought that way. Ethan needed her thoughts. There clearly seemed to be things he didn’t properly know and feel about emotions, both his own and others’.

He’d originally had a blunt personality, so there were misunderstandings, but now wasn’t the time to pass it off saying that’s just how his personality was.

Even if it was a personality defect left by war’s scars, it was the same.

He needed to… turn her heart back.

It felt like fog that had been thickly settled before his eyes and in his heart for the past year was lifting.

It felt like his vision, which had been so hazy he couldn’t tell what he’d been blindly chasing, had cleared.

“I… didn’t want to show that I was sick. I didn’t want to show my thigh deeply cut by a sword with all the inner muscles exposed, and I didn’t want to show needles and thread piercing through flesh to stitch it up. The treatment process of war wounds is too stimulating for a refined young lady.”

At Sana’s reaction beside him, hugging her own arms and going “ugh,” he nodded. It was that difficult. Sometimes the injuries were less severe, but often they were more terrible.

Actually, when it was that bad, he couldn’t even return to the ducal estate and would get treated outside.

“C-c-can’t watch that. Even if Lady Sehera is stronger-hearted than she looks… of course it must have been hard for her.”

Sana said this while trembling more herself. But the question mark serial killer’s questions weren’t over yet.

“But when you were just sick, you could have asked her to nurse you.”

Of course, she was right. But…

“I didn’t want to show myself sick and ailing and struggling. Just… that was all.”

It was a man’s pride. Admitting it now… because he’d thought of Sehera specially.

A boy who couldn’t properly read even his own heart had placed a girl in his heart. Already long ago, apart from their parents’ friendship, their relationship had begun from when they’d met.

He was impressed by his own thoughts. He was at least someone who could say such things.

The problem was what he hadn’t been able to say to her.

While spending time these past few days focusing on his body so he wouldn’t think about war at all, feeling Sehera by his side, he’d felt the things binding him melting away and disappearing.

He’d tried moving his body to approach her, conveying correct facts to those who loved her, and trying to properly recognize her emotions.

Because her saying she no longer needed him had been quite a shock.

“There were my own reasons for doing that to Sehera. So…”

But he knew he shouldn’t repeat it. If it was wrong, he should just thoroughly lock it away. Or… he needed to completely break the chain of bad things that kept repeating.