RS 09

Chapter 9

Throughout the dinner Anais had prepared, Dolores was overwhelmed by a difficult-to-describe feeling.

Was this what it felt like to realize that the younger sibling you had always thought of as a child had grown up?

Come to think of it, at seventeen, Anais was certainly old enough to be considered a young lady. If they had been a proper aristocratic family, she would have already made her debut in society.

If that had been the case, Anais would probably have been extremely popular.

If only she didn’t have strange hobbies like making secret codes.

Anais, who had been flipping through the pages of a book, suddenly asked bluntly,

“You’ve been looking depressed these past few days because of Xavier, haven’t you?”

Dolores instinctively turned her head toward her sleeping father. Fortunately, he didn’t seem likely to wake up.

Her father disliked Xavier to an almost unreasonable degree.

“Dad already knew that Xavier had finished studying abroad and come back. Apparently, everyone in town was talking about it. As soon as he came home earlier, he started cursing him.”

“Did you tell him about what happened today?”

“No. What’s the point? It would only ruin the atmosphere at home.”

Only then did Dolores’s shoulders relax slightly.

It couldn’t all be blamed on Xavier.

Well, yes, some of it was Xavier’s fault, but her father despised and detested people from the wealthy classes.

His absolute distrust of people who were intoxicated by capital, talked about revolution, or tried to cling to the established powers was what drove him.

Because of that, her father had developed an excessive obsession with pursuing tradition in order to survive in this messed-up world.

His long-standing dream was to join the Blue Raccoon faction of the Platypus Party.

“I don’t particularly like that guy either, but regardless of that, it’s not even funny.”

“What isn’t?”

“It’s not as if we’re actually treated like true Bellofs just because of it.”

“…Whether those people recognize us or not, we’re still the daughters of a count. Ana. That’s going too far.”

“We can’t even afford to employ a live-in cook, and we have to eat the bread left over from breakfast again at dinner. I don’t understand what being a count or whatever is supposed to mean. Look at Claudia. She uses expensive gold-leaf stationery just for an unimportant letter.”

“Money isn’t everything in life. Everyone has their own life to live.”

Anais’s eyes looked especially deep and complicated today.

Dolores found that expression on Anais’s face somewhat uncomfortable whenever it appeared.

“Do you have something to say?”

“I do, but I’m not going to say it now. And, Sister, saying that money isn’t everything in life is the kind of slogan only people who have money are allowed to use. It’s ridiculous when people like us say it.”

“Not in front of Father.”

“I’ll say it when I hate Father so much that I want to make him faint.”

Anais answered indifferently before slowly turning her head to look outside the window.

The world, which had been dyed pink by the sunset, had gradually deepened into purple. Soon, it would be swallowed by the dark blue of night.

Clatter.

Dolores pushed her empty plate aside and stood up.

“I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Then I’ll wash up first. I was in front of the oven, so I’m hot and sticky.”

Dolores finished cleaning the rest of the kitchen.

Afterward, she wondered whether she should move her father to his room.

It was difficult to wake him, but his large frame was far too heavy for her to move by herself.

In the end, Dolores compromised by simply covering him with a blanket.

That was the best she could do.

But then—

A creaking floorboard sounded from upstairs.

Pablo was already out, and Dolores had just confirmed that Anais had gone into the bathroom rather than her bedroom.

She raised her head and looked at the ceiling.

A faint sauce stain from last year was still visible there.

Her steps up to the second floor were fairly confident, but the moment she stood in front of the door, even her hand became cautious.

Creeeak.

The door slowly opened, revealing the inside of her bedroom.

Unlike when she had left it, the room was immersed in darkness because she hadn’t lit the oil lamp.

She could make out only faint outlines, and the only thing she could clearly sense was the cool breeze.

Creak. Creak.

It was the room where she slept and woke every day, yet seeing it in the darkness made it feel strangely unfamiliar.

Dolores’s cane came to a quiet stop as she entered.

Tap.

The chiffon curtains hanging in front of the window fluttered like waves.

…Had she left the window open?

A tense sensation tightened along Dolores’s spine.

She thought she should turn on the light first.

She tapped the floor directly in front of her with her cane and began walking toward the desk.

That was when—

“You’ve become such a scaredy-cat.”

A chill ran through her entire body.

The man whose firm grip caught her when she nearly collapsed was—

The scent of musk and lime drifted toward her.

Dolores brushed her disheveled hair aside.

A familiar young man stood directly in front of her.

It was Xavier, though he was dressed slightly differently from that morning.

Realizing what was happening in an instant, Dolores roughly pushed him away.

“Are you out of your mind? What are you doing?”

She couldn’t raise her voice too much.

Her family was downstairs.

She tilted the candlestick and transferred the flame to the wick of the oil lamp.

Xavier was sitting on the edge of her desk, staring at her.

He was dressed in another sophisticated party outfit, different from the one he had worn earlier, though his sleeves were rolled up.

The scratches on his hands and wrists made it obvious that he had climbed through the second-floor window.

“I came to visit.”

His green eyes were as mischievous as ever, and Dolores felt both relief and anger all over again.

“Do you have any idea where you are to be acting so shamelessly?”

“Shameless? What an expression.”

“Get out. Don’t stay here…!”

As though he hadn’t heard her reproach at all, Xavier smiled and took the oil lamp from her hand.

He shone the light toward the bookshelf and glass cabinet.

The framed photographs inside the cabinet glittered as they reflected the light.

“The pictures have changed.”

“Xavier.”

“This isn’t even the first time I’ve secretly climbed up to your room. Why are you making such a serious face?”

Xavier set down the lamp and spun around to face her.

Just as Claudia had remarked, Xavier seemed to have grown at least another five centimeters in the year and a half they had been apart.

The difference was much more noticeable in person.

“That was then.”

“It was fun back then too, sneaking around and knocking on your bedroom window behind your father’s back. I remembered it today after such a long time.”

When Dolores had been in her late teens and often spent time with Xavier, they had frequently climbed through windows to avoid her strict father’s watch.

In fact, it wasn’t only Xavier. Her other friends had done it from time to time as well.

It wasn’t something she could proudly boast about, but Dolores had once engaged in quite a few extraordinary acts of rebellion.

That probably had something to do with why her father particularly despised the young people of Lange.

“So we’ve become the kind of people who reminisce about the old days now. How long are you going to keep acting like a child? We’ve both grown up.”

“You’ve become quite the lady while I was away.”

As though trying to suppress a laugh, Xavier bent slightly forward and looked up at her through half-lidded eyes.

Whenever he looked at her that way, his eyes resembled a murky summer-night landscape painted by a realist artist.

If she looked into that transparent light, even though she knew she was standing in darkness, the boundary between reality and illusion seemed to blur.

There was something decadent about it.

“You need to grow up a little.”

“I’ll mature someday.”

“Are you really acting like this because you think we can just go back to how things were before?”

“You said we’d see each other again in a little while.”

Dolores stared straight at him in disbelief before finally shoving him away.

“Go.”

“I will. With you.”

“What?”

Xavier casually walked toward her wardrobe.

Startled, Dolores quickly shoved Xavier aside and closed the wardrobe door.

“What kind of manners is that?”

“Why are you so surprised? You’re making me embarrassed.”

Dolores had forgotten that her leg hurt as she had practically rushed over to him, and even Xavier seemed slightly surprised.

“Well, fine. Your leg seems to be all right, so I suppose you just need to change clothes roughly and then we can leave. It would be better to go out through the window, so let’s ask Pierre to get you some clothes instead. His younger sister should be about the same size as you.”

But then—

Perhaps because the two of them had been arguing and making noise, Anais’s voice rose from downstairs.

“Sister, what are you doing?”

Dolores hurriedly opened the door and poked her head out.

“It’s nothing!”