Chapter 31. Not yet (3)
I don’t remember when, but it has become a habit.
“Are all habits like that? Or is it just me? I’m not sure.”
Chase muttered quietly as he filled his now empty wine glass.
The days of sitting on the roof of a building and drinking like that increased from one day to two or three days, and I don’t know when it started, but it became a habit.
Teilan, who was watching Chase without saying anything, answered in a low voice.
“Yes or no.”
“is it.”
Chase responded in a meaningless voice and shook his head. Beneath the silver moon and blue stars, blue-silver feet of similar color swayed and sank together.
“Unless it’s a habit you deliberately adopted to follow the tastes of the Third Prince Kairis, I think there are more things I don’t remember.”
I am referring to the mint tea that I suddenly put to my mouth out of habit.
Chase turned his head at those words that continued quietly and looked at Teilan blankly. The wine wasn’t that strong, so Chase didn’t get drunk at all. So, what Teilan said just now couldn’t have been a mistake.
“Oh, you got caught.”
So Chase said this and smiled. A deep, sad sigh hung at the end of the laughter.
The original Chase was someone who never showed that kind of face.
Whoever it was, it was always smiling. He was a person who did not have an expression that looked like a cold chill or a mist that seemed like it was about to disappear.
Teilan, who had seen and taught Chase longer than any of his servants, knew this.
So, there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed something about the sudden drinking of mint tea.
“Chase.”
Therefore, instead of using the polite words he always used, Teilan opened his mouth like this. I held on to Chase, who was smiling like dry leaves falling one by one.
Chase looked at Tailan with a slightly surprised or amused expression at the name he had never heard since sitting on the chair.
“I guess it’s true that I was drunk…. My teacher called everyone by their names.”
And then he said something like a joke.
It was an attempt to divert the conversation by asking him to stop asking and not pay any more attention, but Teilan shook his head resolutely and opened his mouth again.
“Aren’t you doing this because you’re worried?”
Chase let out a soft laugh. He then looked down at the rooftops of the small city below his feet and said,
“I drink like a habit, and my teacher stays by my side like a habit. I dream like a habit, and my teacher worries about me like a habit.”
There were so many things that became habits during that time, so many things came to mind. Therefore, Chase’s violet eyes, which were reciting various habits, moved towards Teilan.
“That’s enough, Master. Not the mint tea.”
They say that they can’t even tell their teacher, Teilan, why Chase is following Calian’s tastes. What I’m saying is, don’t worry or wonder about that.
“Shouldn’t you help me by telling me what’s going on? Don’t sit there looking like you’re going to jump down there right now.”
I can no longer see a person like that who seems to jump without regret towards the things under his feet. Teylan’s face was deep as he said that while looking at his only disciple.
Since Teilan was treating Chase as a student, Chase also took on the appearance of a student for a while and spoke in a quiet voice.
“I stopped wanting to jump down there right now. It’s been a long time.”
Ah, wasn’t it a long time ago?
Chase added these words and laughed quietly again.
“So you don’t have to worry about that.”
“But Chase.”
Teilan opened his mouth once again, thinking that he would never back down this time. But this time, Chase just shook his head and laughed.
I knew that even if my dream was overwhelming, I should not forget it and that I should not fall even if I stumbled. Now I know that my life is not light enough to let go of everything just because of something like this.
A silent wind blew once and then dispersed, like silent laughter. Chase, who had been following somewhere in the distance with his eyes as if following the end, opened his mouth again.
“It’s really okay.”
* * *
I said I would raise my sword to protect you.
Do whatever you want.
Whether you protect it or endure it, give it a try.
If you do it.
Save that guy and put him in my place.
As you want.
* * *
He didn’t get irritated or close his eyes.
I just sat still and stayed in my seat until the person sitting in front of me stopped laughing.
To stop not knowing if it’s laughter or something else. Until the bright burning red eyes looked into bright green eyes.
“…… Initially.”
Calian laughed for a while, took a breath, and then laughed again for a while, barely able to breathe again.
“I wondered if I was dreaming. I wondered if the day would come when everything would become a dream after I sleep.”
He lost an arm, was bleeding, and had a hole in his chest. I wonder if I will go back to that moment when I slowly cooled off and died, losing even more things.
“Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I longed for it rather than thought about it.”
Did I hear or not hear what was hidden between words?
Plantz quietly turned his head and took his eyes away from Calian’s gaze.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t a dream.”
I met the old Calian in a dream, and I met Chase in a dream.
That’s how I met and parted ways with people who no longer exist. I met and lost people in my dreams who passed by without me being able to catch them.
Now Calian no longer had any dreams.
How can someone who does not dream wake up in it?
So for Calian, it was not a dream, but the end.
– Calian
took a sip of his cooled black tea and put it down and looked at Plants.
“… I heard that half of the Secretia Sejak who stayed here died some time ago.”
He was talking about a dream and mentioned someone’s death.
Still so suddenly and consistently.
“I wasn’t really surprised. If it were me, I would have done that, so I immediately understood why he made that decision. However, I was not a person who could do such a thing, but now I found out that he had no choice but to do it. I guess I should say that it was a little unfamiliar. .”
Calian, who spoke so calmly about harvesting the three crops I had raised with his own hands, continued as if he had no intention of listening to Plantz’s other comments.
“You must have felt the gap between the past and the present. And now you must have realized that you have to fill that void yourself, so I think you made that decision.”
Chase was still wise.
It was just wise. That became a problem and cracks appeared here and there.
So Chase must have realized what Bern had done in his memory. You may have felt that there was no one else to do the work for you.
In order to leave Chase alone in the light of what Bern had done to leave Chase as a wise saint, he would have found out where Bern had been living.
How big that empty space will seem.
How difficult it would be to fill that position alone. How terrible is the nightmarish reality that comes when you wake up from an endless dream.
“I don’t know that.”
Calian also knew that Bern’s empty seat would be a rift in Chase.
Instead of saying that it was because of you that he was looking for Chase, Calian picked up the tea and took another sip.
“I’m asking you a favor because I know.”
Nevertheless, I am looking for the chase because I know that the current chase will be several times stronger than the past chase.
The situation may be worse than when Bern was there. It must be hard to realize now just how awful the smell of blood must have been on Vern on behalf of Chase. However, I am confident that the empty space will be filled in the end.
– If you want to take the opponent’s hand, you have to bet yours first. Didn’t you say that? To get what you want, you have to have something to bet on. So, give it a try. You said it was your dream to protect that guy.
Bern, who walked in the shadows on behalf of Chase, was younger than Chase, younger than Plants, younger than Calian. Nonetheless, it was okay.
Although it turned around, it didn’t collapse.
because.
“Because he is a strong person who has lived as that person’s son until now.”
Aren’t Chase and Vern very similar brothers?
That hellish Devlan.
It was something that would not have changed at all regardless of whether Bern was there or not.
“So, I know that although he may be shaken, he will not collapse.”
– Dalkak
Plantz lifted the teacup without answering.
Calian immediately stretched out his hand and took the cup as if taking it from him, setting it down at a distance.
It was only after the teacup was put away that I realized that the sweet smell of overly steeped apples was wafting out of the cooled black tea, as strong as the scent of flowers.
“…Besides, you’re not someone who needs a lot of work like everyone else.”
Should I tell you not to bark? Should I tell you not to bark?
While Planz was thinking about it for a moment, Calian took something out of his pocket and put it down on the table.
“Please be Jeon Seo-gu one more time.”
Plantz, seeing what was placed on the table, let out a silent sigh.
It was a silver bracelet with no pattern that would have been on the wrist of Alan, who gave a similar-looking ring to Calian as he left Rosellita.
It may be of no use when inside the palace, but outside, it will transmit voices regardless of how far away they are from each other. Plantz, looking at it, quietly opened his mouth.
“You’ll need a hawk.”
They said that since they would have to carry something heavier than a letter, pigeons would not work.
Plantz let out a small sigh as he answered with the intention of granting Calian’s request.
This was because it was difficult to estimate how often my younger brother, who was already prone to running away from the palace, would now run away more often. If you want to have a conversation, wouldn’t you have to go outside the palace?
Calian, who noticed this, shook his head and said.
“You won’t have anything to worry about.”
They said they didn’t have enough time to spend time talking to each other.
So, that bracelet was Kalian’s promise to create a day that was leisurely enough, and it was also a message to me to come to my senses and help to create such a day. It was also a selfish request not to be separated from me because I would always talk to him and ask for help with anything whenever I needed it.
“Because I’m not that gullible little brother.”
A person who can no longer dream laughed out of habit, gifting a voice to call out to someone who is lost between a nightmare-like reality and a real-life nightmare.
Looking at someone who wishes he had a better dream than raising a cat.
