DESPITE warnings from Selena and Vigo not to overexert herself, Yuki felt it was a waste to rest when they were going to leave tomorrow and decided to play with the children after she finished packing her meager belongings. As long as the children were cooped up inside the orphanage they would make their way to Chiruka’s room, disrupting her much-needed rest, so Yuki brought them out to the nearby forest to have lunch.
The children were fast asleep under the rustling treetops. The ruckus they caused earlier had drowned out the sound of the wind and leaves. Yuki and Pasch had split up to play different games with different groups of children and found themselves yanked from one side of the play area to the other and passed around like a favorite toy. After playing to their heart’s content, their energy switch snapped off and child after child curled up to sleep until finally the forest regained its former quiet.
Toys they brought from the orphanage were strewn across the ground. Shovels and buckets lay forgotten next to castles built out of mud. Straw dolls were tightly grasped in their owner’s hands, while toy carriages found themselves hidden behind a gnarled tree.
Yuki picked up the toys without complaint as she stole a look at the sleeping children. The younger ones sucked on their thumbs and used the older ones as pillows.
“I feel like we just got sucked into a whirlwind of play only to be spit out by it after it leaves,” Yuki remarked, rubbing the dirt off a doll’s face.
Pasch looked up from where he bent down to dislodge a toy from a hole in the tree trunk and strained a smile. “Yeah. It’s been a while since I last moved around this much.”
“Oh? Do princes not exercise? Do you only study or something?”
“No, no. We learn how to fight with the sword too. We have to be able to protect ourselves when we find we’re in a situation without a guard or have to take care of things on our own. But I haven’t moved around much since coming here,” Pasch explained, stretching his hands over his head under the afternoon sun.
Sounds tough to be a prince.
“Did you hate training?”
“Nah. I actually enjoyed it. What I hate is studying,” he admitted with a smile, bringing out a smile in Yuki too. His smile suddenly faded. “You know the best part about becoming strong? I was able to beat some sense into the shitty nobles who flattered me to my face but spread rumors behind my back.”
Yuki wasn’t expecting such an admission. She had the impression nobility treasured the royal family.
But I guess Pasch always had a thing against the nobility.
She recalled what he said to her in the tower when he thought she was a nobleman’s daughter. Pasch and nobles were an incompatible pairing apparently. Laughter escaped her as she imagined him laughing over the nobles groveling on the ground before him after he won the battle.
I bet he laughed harder than any other point in his life.
“It was loads of fun seeing the look on their faces after they lost when they were the ones who underestimated and mocked me. Humiliation was written all over their plump faces.”
“Ahaha, you’ve got a terrible personality.”
“Obviously. No one could survive in the palace if they had a happy-go-lucky personality like you.”
“You think so…? For your information, I’m not happy all the time,” she demurred as she folded up the cloth napkins sitting on the blanket they spread out for their picnic lunch.
“You only continue to confirm how strange of a woman you are.”
“Hey!” she protested and looked up from the napkin at Pasch kneeling on the blanket across from her.
“You aren’t ingratiating like the palace royals. Nor do you bow to me, just like the people of Rvydom don’t. You seriously are a strange woman.”
“What reason do I have to ingratiate myself to you, Pasch? I’m not obligated to bow to you either,” Yuki stated matter-of-factly and suddenly realized he had been helping her clean up all this time. “Thank you for helping me pick things up,” she said, bowing her head to him.
An amused laugh escaped him. “Is that where you bow to me?”
“Now is the only thing worth bowing to you for,” she replied honestly as she put the utensils into another bag. A small sneeze came from where Rita slept; she was curled in a ball to warm herself from the cold.
“The wind has gotten chilly.” Yuki pulled a blanket out of the bag she brought and spread it over Rita and the kids sleeping beside her. She gently pulled their arms from under the blanket and put them on top of it to keep the wind from blowing the blanket off them. Once she saw their expressions relax from the warmth, she got to her feet.
Ah!
The blood rushed from her brain and numbness took over her senses. Buzzing filled her ears and white blurred her vision. Anemia—the second it clicked, she had already lost her sense of balance and her feet became unreliable as the world spun around her.
Strength left her body and as she was about to fall backward, a hand grabbed her right hand and pulled her upright. Searching through her spinning sight she caught a glance of ultramarine hair swaying next to her. Shutting her eyes to keep the spinning from making her nauseous, she clung to what supported her.
“Wh-What’s wrong with you?” Pasch asked, panic causing him to stammer.
“Ah, sorry. Anemic,” she barely answered through the cloud numbing her brain to reassure the panicked voice. Depending on the arm supporting her, she let her legs go slack—the dizziness zapped her control of her limp limbs.
I’m an idiot. Vigo told her she looked pale. Selena said she should rest. I’m such an idiot.
The ground made contact with her knees, but it didn’t hurt because of the slow descent. Her head didn’t loll back to the ground because it hit Pasch’s broad chest, and he had his hands around her arms holding her upright.
“Hey! O-Oi! Wh-What should I do for you?!” he asked, panic mounting.
“Mn…” Even as she held on to her consciousness, the numbness blaring through her brain didn’t go away as it extended its reach to her toes. Dizziness shook everything. “Let me sleep.”
He must have heard the soft words she mumbled, because something touched her under the armpit. Warmth pressed against her back.
“I’m going to drag you,” said a voice tickling her ear. With all the strength she could muster, she nodded.
Pasch pulled her back under her armpits, her heels dragging across the leafy dirt. How long did he drag her for? Just when she felt the warmth leave her, she was slowly laid on her side. Rugged and cool terrain pressed against her back under the soft blanket from lunch they hadn’t folded yet. He brought her to the blanket instead of letting her fall on the ground.
“A-Are you all right?” Pasch inquired, concern coloring his voice.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
It no longer felt like her whole body was going to pivot forward, but the world still spun behind the darkness of her closed eyes.
“I’m okay. My head is still spinning, but I’m conscious,” she consoled. Breath from a relieved sigh felt hot against the back of her head.
“Ah, your head. Aren’t you supposed to keep your head up when you’re anemic?” he asked, gently lifting her head up. It was slowly lowered on top of something soft and warm. She opened her eyes to see Pasch’s face directly above her. Even in the haziness, she knew he let her use his lap as a pillow.
“Isn’t it more comfortable this way?”
Dazzling sunlight trickled down on them through the verdant leaves.
“It is. Thank you.” The numbness in the center of her brain seemed to subside. The voice she heard over her sounded tender. “Sorry. My head must be heavy.”
“Huh? Nah, not really,” Pasch brusquely brushed off. She giggled at him.
He’s kind, but too awkward to let it be taken as kindness.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s so funny?” he protested, lightly thumping her on the head with the palm of his hand. Gentleness marked even that gesture as he stroked back her hair.
“You’re kind, little Pasch.”
The older children who stayed at the orphanage in the past were the first to call him that. Those children had long since left to face the horrors of war.
“…Don’t call me that. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Everyone else calls you that.”
“I won’t let the brats get away with it anymore either.”
A futile endeavor. Everyone at the orphanage only knows him as Pasch.
“You’re naïve if you think you can make them stop.”
“…Whatever. Just sleep already. You’re as white as a ghost.” Pasch shaded her face with his hands, obstructing the direct beams of sunlight from infiltrating her eyelids.
“…Yeah,” she muttered and took a deep breath. “Thank you, Paschwell…”
Yuki let the dizziness take her.