At his request, which was almost breezy in its delivery, Beatrice was rendered speechless.
‘Hanging by a thread… what is?’
Don’t tell me he means something like he’s about to lose his mind?
With slightly wavering eyes, she gazed steadily at Clyde.
Though he wore a faint smile, the tension around his lips as if he were biting the inside of his cheek, his strained expression, and his eyes cast in shadow, perhaps beneath his lashes.
“Why no answer?”
“….”
His appearance—seeming to suppress something tightly beneath that faint smile—was unfamiliar.
Beatrice had never seen Clyde look so precarious before.
Because the Clyde Dalton she knew was not a person who expressed anxiety in this manner.
Watching him, Beatrice had a sudden thought.
‘…I’m glad I know you regressed with me.’
Had it not been for that, Beatrice would have suspected whether the Imperial Princess had done away with Clyde and sent someone pretending to be him instead.
Rubbing her arm with her hand to shake off the eerie feeling, Beatrice looked down at the floor for a moment.
‘Just what on earth happened before the regression to leave him in such a state?’
Briefly recalling the memories she had folded away piece by piece and buried deep down, Beatrice let out a soundless sigh and spoke.
“Since we agreed to be honest, I won’t hide anything either. I can’t do that.”
“….”
“Cassian’s offer? I can reject that. It’s hardly a big deal. But what you truly want isn’t for me to just reject the offer, is it?”
Clyde’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Beatrice did not look away from his gaze.
“Am I wrong?”
“….”
No answer came, yet both knew her words were not wrong.
“I can’t do that, Clyde.”
“…I’m not telling you to do nothing. Facing danger head-on isn’t the only way to build your strength. Can’t you just immerse yourself in research with Her Majesty, like the lie you told me?”
Clyde’s blue eyes swirled with intense emotion.
“You always say you’re lacking because you weren’t properly educated, but you know. Uncle Jedaric didn’t teach you half-heartedly. That alone is more than enough to….”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Clyde, it’s that no matter how hard you try, a greenhouse is still just a greenhouse.”
When looking at reality beyond glass, distortion is bound to occur in one’s field of vision, and that distortion inevitably creates an error.
‘And error is the variable most guarded against in alchemy.’
Because sometimes, that error leads to an uncontrollable tragedy.
‘Just like my end in the past.’
Gathering her thoughts for a moment, Beatrice took a step closer to him and spoke again.
“As I said at the beginning, I cannot grant your request. I know all too well that it won’t lead to a good outcome. But just because I refuse doesn’t mean I intend to dismiss your anxiety. Nor am I trying to blindly dodge the issue.”
“….”
“So tell me. What is making you like this?”
Clyde’s lips parted slightly, then closed once more. A shallow, trembling breath leaked from between his lips.
“You…”
Starting in a voice that had turned hoarse in that brief span, he trailed off into silence again.
Beatrice silently watched Clyde swallow his words, his face contorting.
Clyde was hesitating to even give voice to the truth.
Like someone terrified that the moment it left his lips, it would become real.
“…Ha.”
Letting out a dry, self-deprecating laugh as if exasperated with himself, he pressed a hand over his face. The veins stood out sharply across the back of his hand.
“Damn it…”
Mutters spat low beneath his breath, he wiped his hand down his face and took hold of Beatrice’s shoulders.
Before Beatrice could even raise an eyebrow at his somewhat rough touch, Clyde buried his face against her shoulder.
“Just a moment.”
Catching his breath as he quietly felt Beatrice’s pulse thrumming beneath him, he finally forced out the truth in a faint, cracked voice.
“…I was the one who received you at the end.”
At that moment, Beatrice’s body stiffened slightly. In a voice trembling with raw vulnerability, he slowly continued.
From how he had scoured the entire Empire searching for Beatrice after his family was executed, to being captured in place of the Crown Prince and their comrades, to Valoa making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. And…
‘Clyde Dalton, I’ll make you an easy offer. It doesn’t matter if it’s an empty promise; just say that you’ll become mine. Then, I’ll hand over Beatrice Hartwell, whom you’ve searched so desperately for.’
‘…If you keep your promise, then so be it. I will become yours.’
‘Can you truly become mine? When I tell you to laugh, you’ll laugh; when I tell you to weep, you’ll weep; and when I tell you to die, you’ll have to die.’
‘…If you tell me to laugh, I will laugh; if you tell me to weep, I will weep; and if you tell me to die, I will die.’
‘Ahahaha! Haha! Yes. That’s how it should be. But… honestly, I have no use for someone like you anymore. You’ve become too worthless to keep for myself, and I’ve grown bored of you.’
‘….’
‘Still, I’ll keep my promise. Take it. It’s my gift. I put quite a bit of effort into decorating it as a farewell present—I do hope you like it?’
And how, as if to mock him, she had handed her over packaged like a gift box in return.
“At the time, the Princess held many family members and loved ones of the Crown Prince’s faction hostage. It was a kind of bait. So I… I thought you were one of them, too.”
“….”
“So the moment Valoa Crawford let me see you, I intended to use the last means available to me to send you to His Highness, but…”
His dry, cracked voice drifted around Beatrice’s ear.
“I still remember you on that day as vividly as ever.”
A body grown cold, a heart that no longer beat, a ribbon stained and discolored with blood.
Burying his face a little deeper into the crook of Beatrice’s neck, he muttered low, as if making a vow.
“I will never let you end up like that again.”
Whether it was Valoa Crawford, the Princess, or any other threat.
“….”
Beatrice was unable to utter a single word for a long time.
It was partly because the truth was as horrific as he had warned, and partly because Clyde’s raw emotions bled into the warm breath brushing against the nape of her neck.
‘…It’s difficult.’
While no death was free of shock, Beatrice’s death must have held an entirely different weight for Clyde.
‘Because to Clyde at that time, my existence wouldn’t have been merely his childhood friend, Beatrice Hartwell.’
Back then, Beatrice would have been proof of the individual known as ‘Clyde,’ and the very last tether tying him to a past that had not yet been shattered.
Beatrice could easily understand the terror, the despair, and the dizzying abyss he must have felt.
‘It must have felt like his last remaining breath was being cut off.’
Inhaling and exhaling deeply while held fast in Clyde’s grasp, Beatrice raised a hand and ruffled his hair.
It was a brisk touch, like ruffling a puppy’s fur, but it was her own way of offering comfort.
After mussing Clyde’s hair a few more times, Beatrice deliberately raised her voice, putting on a show of outrage.
“Come to think of it, that’s completely infuriating! A gift? Packaged? Seriously, aren’t they absolute freaks! Ugh, when we catch them this time, I ought to make them stitch their own clothes out of gift wrap!”
“….”
“Hey. It’s fine. Just, um… think of it as some tasteless Halloween prank. In truth, I was alive, and I was just playing dead to escape from them. All right?”
It was yet another deluge of nonsense, but Beatrice paid it no mind and kept on talking.
Except, unlike a moment ago when her chatter had served the purpose of an excuse, this time it had no particular aim.
She simply felt that continuing to let him hear her voice like this would help.
How long had she rambled on like that?
At last, the weight upon Beatrice’s shoulder lifted.
“…Ahem.”
“Ahem….”
Meeting each other’s eyes once more, the two gave soft, slightly awkward coughs.
Having almost never held a conversation like this before, neither of them knew how to bring it to a close.
Awkwardly fiddling with the glasses the Empress had given her, Beatrice spoke quickly.
“Um, er… let’s talk about the rest later. How about that?”
“Yeah. All right.”
“For today, um… let’s just get some rest.”
“Yeah…”
That was the end of their conversation.
After tidying up the conference room in silence for the very first time, the two parted ways with a brief farewell.
So awkwardly that anyone watching would have thought they had just had a fight.
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