GC | Chapter 2.1

“Good morning. It’s clear out, isn’t it?”

The next day, Shey sat in the second-floor parlor with wide-awake eyes, as if he had never behaved strangely at all. A blonde servant smiled and spoke to him. Her gaze lingered for a moment on his right hand wrapped in white bandages before slipping away again, as if she had seen nothing.

“Would you like to go outside? Days this cloudless come only once a month.”

The second-floor parlor had originally been used for guests, but Ruslan could tell that Shey felt relatively comfortable in this room, so he had opened another room as the reception room and given this one entirely over to Shey. Even so, Shey was always stuck in the farthest room and only used it occasionally, when Ruslan or the servants had to drag him out by force.

“I wish it were this sunny every day.”

With a soft sigh, the servant drew back the curtains and threw the window open wide. This was a country where even in summer it was hard to work up a sweat, yet for once the sunlight was warm and the sky, usually a dull blue-gray, was clear.

Seeing that Shey, who usually looked indifferent no matter what was brought before him, seemed to show a little interest, the blonde servant stepped closer with a bright smile.

“Go on, take a look outside. Days like this aren’t common, are they? Hurry up!”

She gave the shoulder of Shey, who was leaning back on a one-person sofa, a friendly shove, and he got to his feet in a daze and walked to the window. Sure enough, it was a rare day, just as she had said.

The style of the buildings, the quality of the soil, even the height of the sky and the trees planted here and there all reminded him that this was a foreign land, but the sunlight alone made him think of his old homeland.

The wind was not as cold as it had been yesterday, so Shey, leaning against the window frame, stretched out an arm toward the view outside. He looked unusually lively, and the blonde servant was inwardly congratulating herself for having decided to talk to him after all.

But at that very moment, Ruslan, who had been standing in the courtyard with his back to the manor and discussing something with the chief steward, had no idea what Shey was up to.

The chief steward, who had been reporting to Ruslan about the manor’s repairs, suddenly spotted a figure in his line of sight and went white.

“M-Master!”

For once, the chief steward, who was usually calm no matter what happened, had gone pale, and Ruslan frowned as he turned around.

The moment he saw Shey half leaning out over the window frame, he instinctively sprang into motion and started running.

He had ordered that when Shey came out of the far room, someone was to stay by his side at all times and never leave him alone near windows or staircases. Then why the hell was he standing there looking like that in front of him again?

He took the stairs two or three at a time and slammed the door to the second-floor parlor open. The servant inside jumped in shock and opened her eyes wide.

Ruslan was breathing hard, having run here like a madman as if he would drag Shey away from the window the instant he arrived, but now that he was here, he could only stand frozen in place.

“Shey. Come here. Now.”

“……”

“I said come here right now.”

Ruslan still couldn’t even bring himself to get close, but he reached out his hand. The fingertips were trembling faintly. It was such a weak tremor that no one but Ruslan himself would have noticed it.

“Shey!”

In the end, unable to hold back his anxious heart any longer, Ruslan shouted. Shey, who had been blankly looking out the window, took a step forward. Whether it was lingering reluctance or a meaningless glance, he still headed toward Ruslan, only to turn his head and flick a look over his shoulder, and it practically drove a person mad.

At last, when Shey had put some distance between himself and the window, Ruslan strode over and pulled him into an embrace in one swift motion. It would have been more accurate to say he had trapped him in a vise of hard arms than to say he had embraced him.

“Why were you…… over there?”

His voice, trying to sound casual, was tightly strained.

“I just wanted to look because the weather was nice.”

“……Right. It’s warm for once today. Let’s go outside. That would be better.”

If anything, going outside would have been better for Ruslan. Shey was tired of this energetic man poking and prodding him from one side and then the other, and would have preferred to just have one quiet servant with him while he looked out the window.

But Ruslan acted as if Shey himself had wanted to go out, and gripped his wrist tightly. It was a force so firm it said he would never let go, no matter what happened.

Shey found the strength that held him by the wrist painful and difficult to bear, but it was too troublesome and too tiring to even resist breaking free, so he chose to keep his mouth shut instead.

Even though three years had passed since that happened, Ruslan still could not bear to see Shey standing somewhere high up.

On the day of that accident, the doctor had said that Shey’s narrow neck not being broken was nothing short of a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of luck. Out of a hundred people, ninety-nine would have had their neck bones broken and died instantly, but Shey had not, which meant he had been fated to survive.

Ruslan, listening beside him, had to clench his shaking fingers into a fist until they ached. What if Shey had not had that stroke of luck? What if Shey had simply been one of those ninety-nine?

He could still see it vividly, Shey hanging from a long rope around his neck, swaying at the window right in front of him. When he had instinctively yanked on the rope to pull him up, even the screams of the servants shouting and trying to stop him outside the manor still seemed to stick in his ears like something wet and heavy.

The more Ruslan tried to save Shey, the closer Shey came to death.

If not for that stroke of luck, Shey would have died on the spot the moment Ruslan lost his grip on him. There would have been nothing Ruslan could have done. Not even the slightest chance.

Just thinking about it still made Ruslan break into a cold sweat, as if a ghost had clamped its hand around the back of his neck.

“I’ll have the servants prepare some light food. The weather is pleasant, so we can go a little farther. Shall we take a walk along the coast?”

“Do whatever you want.”

Shey was irritated by even being given a choice, but Ruslan only curved his eyes in a smile. In a cheerful voice, as if nothing had happened, he gave the servants their orders as usual.

But when smiling Ruslan cast a brief glance at the blonde servant, another servant clearly saw the face that turned cold for an instant.

That day, everyone in the manor expected the blonde servant to be quietly dismissed.

But this manor always remained perfect, as if nothing had happened. The obedient servants who followed their master and his lover on a rare outing drew impeccable smiles onto their faces.

Ruslan seated Shey in front of him and rode along the coast. The sea was already a place where the color of the water was murky, so clear weather did not make it turn blue, but at least the sky was bright and clear.