WNC SS 110

Even amidst the typhoon, the teacup inside the greenhouse remained serene.

Mikael would not permit anything beyond a kiss. As a result, the number of days I spent playing with myself while thinking of him before sleep increased. I could now swallow up to three fingers. I didn’t dare try more, not knowing exactly how large Mikael’s member was.

Young Lady Philodendore entered the Magic Tower, claiming she wanted to learn Black Magic. Mikael liked Young Lady Philodendore very much. Because of this, I intentionally let Mikael know about Young Master Claudian’s true intentions. I sincerely hoped the two of them would work out.

I read and replied to dozens of reports written in the form of letters. Mikael also wrote letters every day to mend the interpersonal relationships he had neglected. He easily showed me the letters he received or sent. While I felt relieved by his transparent attitude, I was equally anxious.

What made me most uneasy and restless was a splinter I had forgotten about.

「Well then, stay healthy and well, Mika. I’ll see you in the capital next time.

—Your First Navigator.」

…Shayden Rose.

I hadn’t particularly liked him since our Academy days. Back when Mikael had just enrolled, Shayden was quite desperate to protect Mikael from me. It was the same years later, even after Mikael had opened his heart to me. And it was the same now.

Your captain, your first navigator.

There was no place for me on that ship where only the two of them existed. Shayden Rose was always like that. Even while I was within Mikael’s sight, he acted as if I were invisible and pulled Mikael’s hand away. Life-saver? A childhood friend? I am not someone to be fooled by such hollow lies.

Perhaps it was…

Unpleasant imaginations tormented me endlessly.

I always became easily violent and sensitive when it came to Mikael. To comfort me, Mikael promised he would no longer use that title. However, Mikael remained conservative regarding the progress of our physical intimacy. I had subtly dropped hints about marriage, but nothing much changed.

I was afraid that if I wore myself out, there would be nothing left. I truly couldn’t understand why Mikael kept pushing me away and why he continued to feel distant, even though we were together all the time.

Restless, I spent the new year festival at Duke Withrow’s castle.

I set out on my second expedition. We discovered traces of Black Magic.

We smuggled ourselves into Owen, which had been blocked by a Divine Revelation.

I was kidnapped by people presumed to be Black magicians.

Mikael killed people to rescue me.

An unidentified person, rescued—or rather, purchased—from an auction house due to the coercion of an unfamiliar Spirit, called Mikael by another name.

‘Jeongyeon.’

* * *

Mikael remained silent for a long time.

His pale complexion, his avoiding gaze, his slightly labored breathing, and the anxious curling of his fingertips—all of it signaled Mikael’s panic.

I was truly glad that Young Lady Philodendore was there to fly into a rage on my behalf. If she hadn’t shouted first, I would have been the one pressing Mikael.

Mikael hesitated for a long while. He agonized over it. Then, with a devastated expression, he spoke.

“…It is… my name from a past life.”

“…What?”

“A past life… before I was born as Mikael Ernhardt…”

A powerful shock crushed me. I couldn’t move a single finger. My gaze was fixed on Mikael’s lips as he mumbled, squeezing out each syllable and word. Though I was clearly hearing him, the words—which I couldn’t immediately comprehend—tangled together, insisting they belonged in this moment.

“…In my past life, I was a Sword Master of a certain clan. The skills I have shown were the talents I learned back then. In that land, there were sword arts designated for each clan to use… I lived as I was born and as I was taught.”

A past life?

Mikael is living a second life?

“…Somehow, my skills were recognized among them, and I spent my life wandering through great nations… killing wicked enemies and demons. The Demonic Cult… that is, a religion that took a powerful martial artist as its god. They raised an army of a hundred thousand to seize the land, and a great war broke out… I died there, and when I woke up, I had just been born.”

“…Wow.”

“I was afraid that demons might invade again, so I began training in swordsmanship as quickly as I could… but the Sierran Empire has been peaceful all along, so… that’s how I entered the Academy… and after that, it is as you all know.”

Mikael lacked imagination. He wasn’t the type of person to play a prank like this at a time like this. He was so nervous that beads of sweat formed on his pale face and flowed down his soft jawline. I followed the trajectory of those droplets with my eyes.

The first thing that came to mind was, as expected, that night. The sword that drew a chillingly beautiful straight line and the sorrowful sound of the sword crying. So, that didn’t contain your current life.

You really intended to go meet the Oasis. Even if you had to go alone…

Alone.

Now I finally understood why Mikael had felt so distant. It was only natural that I knew nothing about him. Facing a stranger whose gender, age, family, and even the world he lived in were unknown—things a Nobility Yearbook could never uncover in a lifetime—I was lost for words.

Mikael did not look back at me.

The group was noisy, but they soon accepted it. Miss Marianne Philodendore comforted and coaxed Mikael with a few jokes. The numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence presented before them added credibility to Mikael’s words. If one wanted to believe, they could believe endlessly; even if they didn’t want to, they had no choice but to believe.

“Hah, then was that why you asked about time magic while reading a book before? Asking if regression actually exists?”

“…Yes. However… I hope you will continue to treat me as comfortably as you have until now.”

“Oh, that’s a given! Who cares how old you were in your past life? Anyway, you were reborn, so your current age is seventeen. Even if you know the experimental values, if you’ve reset, you have to measure from the beginning.”

“…Ah.”

I wanted to laugh along. But the laughter wouldn’t come.

Measure from the beginning? That couldn’t be. No. Until now, Mikael had not lived solely as Mikael.

Now that I knew where that unfathomable distance he occasionally showed came from, I was afraid that he might vanish if I even breathed too deeply. I slowly took Mikael’s hand. Mikael did not hold my hand back.

…Why?

Was it Jeongyeon who told me he liked me, or Mikael?

Is this why you didn’t give me your all? How much did you leave behind in a past I don’t know? Did you experience ‘real’ love there? With a woman who was better than a young and arrogant boy like me?

I felt like I was going crazy with jealousy. No, I was already, fuck, crazy. My fingertips curled at the violent impulse I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I was desperate to tear apart and swallow everything and everyone you liked or could have liked, so that I could possess you all to myself.

Unable to endure it, I pulled Mikael’s hand. Mikael looked down at me with a troubled face. Slightly drooping eyes, firmly closed lips, trembling pupils. Eyes that had never once feared me were trembling faintly.

How do I look in your eyes? Do I look pitiful? Do I look pathetic?

I just want you to love me.

As soon as the gathering dispersed, I grabbed Mikael’s wrist and pulled him.

I was always impulsive when I was in front of Mikael. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. I didn’t know what words I could even use. I didn’t want to lay bare my unplanned, disordered, messy self before Mikael.

But I wanted to be alone with him. I wanted Mikael to make some kind of excuse to me. To tell me what he had been thinking, and that he really does like me. I desperately hoped he would tell me that he had given me even a tiny fragment of his heart.

And as soon as we entered the room, Mikael said this.

“Actually… there is a bit more.”

“…Huh?”

“I’m sorry. All this time, I…”

What? A person you dated before? A wife? A lover? A concubine? A child?

“No, more than that. What, what is there more of?”

“…My age is a bit more than I mentioned.”

Is that important right now?

…

…Of course, that could be important too. What did he say earlier? Thirty? If it’s more than that, how much? Remembering how Mikael had treated me like a child all this time, I momentarily forgot my next words. I… was sixteen when I first met Mikael…

Uh… uh-huh. …Yeah.

How must I have looked in Mikael’s eyes? Lucilla said I had finally learned what love was, and Matt Nico claimed I had definitely gone crazy. Mac Weaber cackled, saying I deserved it, Justin Barret said I had become disgusting, and Kelly Hawkins commented that my aegyo had improved a lot.

I swallowed once. Would it be better to be a bit more polite?

“First… please, sit.”

“…Honorifics.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have to… use honorifics.”

I looked up. Mikael avoided my gaze again. Through the gap where the blue gaze that always looked straight at me had shifted, I first saw his earlobes, which were flushed bright red.

As if he truly couldn’t bear this moment, Mikael bit his lower lip hard, then let out a hot breath and swept back his long, flowing wig with one hand. When he glanced this way, the corners of his eyes were slightly moist.

…Eh?

I sat Mikael down. I wasn’t surprised by the teacup and teapot flying from a distance. I was already used to the way Mikael handled tea. Mikael handled tea roughly. Even when pouring water into the teapot, he poured from a higher position than he should have, and the time he let the tea steep or brew was very short.

As I took a sip of the tea offered to me, the bitter taste snapped me awake.

“…How much?”

“…”

“How much more? Than what you said…”

Mikael didn’t answer immediately. No, he couldn’t answer. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to. He was sitting quietly before me, feeling embarrassed and distressed, yet he had brought up the story himself.

He made a desperate effort to speak in the most cautious tone possible.

“…About five years?”

“…”

“Ten years?”

“…”

…More? First, that, I mean…

“T-twenty years?”

“That…! Is about…”

Ah.

You want to seem young to me.

Mikael covered his face with both hands. The tips of his ears were still bright red, and the breath he exhaled was searingly hot. I couldn’t tell if my fingertips, which had grown cold from confusion, were warming up because of the tea Mikael served or because of the heart he had subtly revealed.

Mikael still had his head bowed. Though he lowered his gaze, he didn’t close his eyes, and while he licked or bit his dry lips a few times, he didn’t clamp them shut. It was clearly visible that a part of his heart was open toward me. For some reason, ah, my tailbone felt itchy.

“By any chance, did you marry—”

“I didn’t! …I didn’t.”

“…Anyone you dated?”

“There was no one.”

“…Even kissing?”

“…”

“Huh?”

“…There was… none.”

In the Sierran Empire, most people married at twenty. I didn’t know what the world Mikael lived in was like, but since he was treating me as if I were fragile and breakable because of his age, forty must have been a significant age. And yet, he spent his whole life just swinging a sword, dying without ever dating, let alone marrying.

And I am the only one in this world who knows that.

In an instant, an uncontrollable euphoria surged. There was no way Rose would know a fact that even Philodendore didn’t know. Only I knew exactly how old Mikael was in his past life, and the fact that he was a novice who hadn’t even thought about dating from his past life to his current one.

Because Mikael likes me. It was a weak side he showed only to me.

Goosebumps broke out all over my body. It was thrilling.

I didn’t feel that this was an emotion that could be expressed with the two syllables ‘I like it.’ It felt as if four hundred fireworks exploded in my head at once. My heart pounded so hard that my lungs and sides hurt. My fingertips tingled, and my tailbone tightened. I wanted to lean into Mikael’s tense body immediately. I felt like I could only breathe properly if I did.

As I sat close to him, Mikael turned his head a bit further away. But he didn’t avoid me.

Cutely.

I rested my chin on that shoulder and pressed close. I wanted to bite and swallow Mikael’s bright red cheeks and his loudly pounding heart. I quietly wrapped my hand around Mikael’s.

I was always afraid that Mikael would run away from me.

But look, Mikael doesn’t run away. He has been waiting for me. Now, and before.

“Mika.”

“…”

Now I understand why Mikael was so cautious with me. So, you…

“…Am I still too young… to date you?”

You really wanted to protect me. Because you… like me.

What you were giving me was truly, really love.