Three days passed after Aresh left with the Egorovan delegation. Given that it took about six days to reach Egorova via carriage, they were probably only about halfway there. In the meantime, Seiichirou worked like he always did. No, if anything, he worked harder than usual—he had been away from the Accounting Department for a while.
“Are you…okay, Sei?” Norbert asked worriedly.
“What are you talking about?” Seiichirou responded flatly, not even bothering to stop his hand.
“Well, you know…” Norbert and the other Accounting Department members watched Seiichirou uneasily as he threw himself into his work.
Pretty much everyone close to Seiichirou knew about his relationship with Aresh, especially after that lapel pin incident. And then, out of nowhere, Aresh went off to guard the Egorovans.
In most scenarios, the idea would have been for him to part ways at the border, but Aresh was hand-picked for this job to establish diplomatic ties. There was no better candidate, after all, than the capable commander of the Romany Kingdom’s Third Royal Order, who could slay monsters and make long treks abroad with ease. Some were also aware that, as an individual with political influence, Aresh had received a marriage offer from the Egorovan royalty…
The servants at the mansion, Valtom first and foremost among them, spoke up on Aresh’s behalf and tried to comfort Seiichirou. Even Erene, who had gone back to her own mansion after her husband’s job concluded, came all the way to the house to tell Seiichirou: “That boy has never been good with words.”
But Seiichirou pretended not to notice how they were looking at him. He simply nodded and got back to work.
“It’s time for a break, Sei! Lunch! Let’s go to the dining hall!” When Seiichirou continued his toils even after the lunch bell sounded, Norbert forcefully dragged him away into the dining hall.
Norbert must have thought it his duty to look after Seiichirou in Aresh’s absence. Surely the man would neglect his meals if left to his own devices. Yet before he could shovel any food onto Seiichirou’s plate, the workaholic in question wordlessly ate. He had not picked just anything without thought—they were all dishes that were low on magicules, just as the doctor (Aresh) ordered.
“Sei…” Norbert gasped.
Seiichirou did not normally bother with anything not work-related and simply took things in stride, and yet here he was, properly internalizing Aresh’s devotion.
“Hey, are you guys going to eat?” said a familiar voice.
Seiichirou turned around and saw a man with a black cloak over his left shoulder. “Oh, Orjef.”
“Vice Commander Rhoda!” Norbert squeaked.
Orjef chuckled at these two very different reactions before taking a tray himself. Seiichirou wondered in dismay if the vice commander was planning to eat with them, though he soon resigned himself to it. Although Orjef had finished playing his part as Seiichirou’s bodyguard, Seiichirou knew that Orjef was looking out for him in Aresh’s absence.
Besides, Orjef was a good-natured guy. Easy to talk to. Best of all, his sensibilities matched Seiichirou’s, as demonstrated when he apologized for Aresh’s handling of the lapel pin incident.
Norbert was tense, but the three of them ended up eating together.
“Ugh, Aresh is such a pain in the neck! You won’t believe how busy we got after he pulled that vanishing act.” Orjef complained lightheartedly about Aresh, which was probably his way of easing the weight on Seiichirou’s shoulders. He and Aresh genuinely had no time to talk before the latter departed on his guard duties, though Orjef would probably get by. He’d done the bulk of the administrative work before Aresh met Seiichirou.
“I suppose that was inevitable, given that the Egorovans left in haste.” Seiichirou, for his part, kept his face blank. He even sounded like he was sticking up for Aresh.
Orjef exchanged glances with Norbert, who was, to him, only a casual acquaintance at best. They’d both assumed that Seiichirou would be depressed or angry, yet he seemed to be neither. Orjef had thought he was a weird guy when he showed no emotion after that incident with the Third Royal Order members, but when they talked during that recent tour, he got the impression that Seiichirou actually was as expressive as a normal person. Now he swung right back to his initial persona.
The conversation went on. Seiichirou gave proper, full-sentence responses. Although it didn’t reach the level of “friendly chatter,” it was still a pleasant enough conversation over a meal. They were interrupted, however, by a wave of murmuring around the entrance of the dining hall. When Seiichirou looked over his shoulder to see what was going on, a girl who looked very out of place in the hall in her white and golden skirt was sprinting toward him.
“Good! I found you, Kondou!” cried Yua Shiraishi, the kingdom’s Holy Maiden and the only person who could pronounce Seiichirou’s name correctly. Her finger was pointed right in his direction.
Seiichirou finished chewing on his vegetables, and then said, “Shiraishi, were you not taught how rude it is to point at people?”
“Oh, sorry!” Yua apologized as she hurriedly lowered her arm.
But then she seemed to remember something.
“I heard the news, Kondou!” she declared as she slammed her hands against the table. “Aresh is going to marry an Egorovan princess!”
All eyes were on the Holy Maiden after her sudden appearance, and they went wide at this outburst.
Aresh Indolark, commander of the Third Royal Order? True, he was neither married nor betrothed. A prince had been part of the recent Egorovan delegation. And now Aresh was accompanying them, supposedly as a guard.
Seiichirou heard the whispers, but he kept a stone-cold face.
“You are incorrect,” he refuted Yua bluntly.
“B-but he went with the Egorovan prince after he received a marriage offer, right?”
“Who told you that?”
“Oh, Prince Yurius did.”
That infernal prince…! He was reasonably competent in general—except when it came to Yua.
Seiichirou gripped his fork so tightly that a stronger man would have bent it. Mercifully, it remained intact in his grasp, but the fact that he was shaking in anger got across nonetheless.
Orjef rushed to interject. “Your Holiness, please calm yourself! You do not have all the facts.”
“Y-yeah!” Norbert chimed in. “Commander Indolark would never entertain marriage talks…”
Yet despite their arguments, Yua’s brow remained furrowed.
“But it is true that he was scouted for marriage, and that he’s gone to accompany them, right?” she retorted.
““Urk.”” The two of them flinched.