Once a Week, Rain or Snow
"Levin, it's all right."
"Forgive me, Your Highness. With so much happening of late, I fear he simply didn't hear us."
If we went on waiting outside the office like this, we would knock until the day was gone. After a moment's hesitation, I said I would go in anyway.
"But if you enter without knocking, His Grace will surely—"
"Say something unkind to me again? It's fine. This is hardly the first time."
"……"
"And knowing his temper, he might take it out on you as well, Levin. I'll open the door myself."
I shrugged as I said it. Levin startled and insisted he would open it for me, already pushing at the door.
The hinges gave a thin creak.
The door opened. I moved forward slowly, and as I stepped inside and let my gaze travel the room, the quiet of the office met me first.
Far off, someone sat buried in papers at the desk.
"Alpheus."
The man working in a frenzy was my fiancé, Alpheus.
At the sound of my voice he lifted his head and looked at me, and he was beautiful. Faced once again with a beauty that stole the breath, I lost myself for a while and simply stared.
"Isabel."
But the moment that cold voice called my name, I came sharply back to myself.
His icy expression and tone startled me, yet I hid the surprise at once and smiled. He frowned, as if the sight of me displeased him.
"You came in without knocking?"
At the chill directed at me, Levin's hand froze for an instant before he rushed to speak.
"Your Grace, we knocked several times, but you—"
"Levin, would you close the door?"
I tipped my chin toward the hall, as good as telling the man who meant to defend me to leave.
Even if Levin pleaded my case, Alpheus's displeasure would not fade. He would only scold Levin for it.
Go on.
Levin caught my meaning and hesitated, reluctant to withdraw. But at the firmness of my face he closed the door at last, worry written all over his own.
The latch fell with a dull thud.
Once the door was shut, silence filled the office.
It was always I who broke the quiet between us, so today, too, I cut through that heavy stillness and spoke first.
"Have you been well? It's been a week."
I offered the greeting and looked at him. He regarded me with a rather tired face, and instead of answering, he said something else entirely.
"When, exactly, does His Majesty mean to withdraw the order that we meet once a week?"
Since the engagement, by my father's command—the Emperor's—we had been required to face each other once a week without fail, rain or snow. The point was to show the nobility that relations between the head of the Aristocratic Faction and the Emperor's daughter were amicable.
Alpheus had never wanted this engagement. He hated the order and wore it like a shackle.
"……Have you been very busy lately?"
When I asked, steering the talk aside as best I could, he lifted his head, looked at me a moment, then drove his gaze back into the documents and muttered.
"Do you ask because you truly don't know?"
He let out a short, incredulous breath of laughter. One glance at the desk told me he was buried in preparations for the coming ceremony marking the founding of the empire.
"Can't Your Highness tell at a glance?"
Yes—when there is too much to do, a person grows sharp. Even so, I could not keep my expression from hardening at words so thick with sarcasm.
He was already exhausted beneath a mountain of work, and my arrival seemed to irritate him more than usual.
"I……"
I opened my mouth to say something, then swallowed it, afraid it would sound pathetic. After a brief silence I squeezed my eyes shut and apologized in little more than a whisper.
"I'm sorry."
It was not my fault, and still I had no choice but to apologize first.
If I seized on the tail of his words, we would only fight.
I'd hate it too, if I were him.
This engagement had surely brought him more than one or two difficulties. Of course he disliked me. Knowing that well, I tried again, hoping to soften his mood.
"Next time, I'll speak to Father."
"About what."
"Whether, when you're busy, we might meet only once a month."
He narrowed his eyes as if weighing whether I meant it or was only speaking from habit, then looked away.
"……Never mind. He isn't the sort to listen merely because someone asks. You know that, don't you?"
He gave a short laugh, as if he had expected nothing. The pen he had paused began to move busily again, and he said nothing more to me.
I watched him behave as though I were not in the room at all, let a bitter smile rise, and wiped it away before he could see. Then I crossed the office at an unhurried pace, sat on the sofa as if nothing were wrong, took a piece of the dessert from the table, and chewed it mechanically.
I don't know why my stomach turns every time.
His coldness was something I ought to have grown used to by now, yet each time my heart stung and my insides lurched.
The greatest fool in the room was me. Wounded by that neglect again and again, I still could not let go of the hope that things between us might improve.
If only my heart were free, it would be all right.
If I had never given it to him, I would not hurt like this. I……
Why did I come to like him?
Because I did.
Lost in the thought, I stared blankly into the air and turned my head—and met his eyes, as if he had been waiting.
He looked away at once. As if meeting my gaze displeased him, he frowned and turned his head.
I must be irritating him. Well, he's always hated sharing a room with me.
To hide the hurt, I smiled more brightly, and made a show of waving the dessert in my hand.
"Don't mind me. I'll finish this and leave right away."
"……"
"Was I chewing too loudly?"
He stared at me for a moment, then sighed, turned away, and fixed his eyes on the papers.
After that, only the scratch of his pen signing documents and the occasional soft clink of porcelain broke the quiet. We did not speak, and the office sank into a long silence.
"……Does it taste good?"
I had been chewing a cookie in a daze. At the sudden address I looked up, eyes wide.
The man who had been buried in paperwork was looking at me.
"Were you speaking to me?"
"Who else did you think I was asking?"
I had not expected him to address me at all, and for a moment surprise stole my words.
He never spoke to me as a rule, so this only flustered me. Whether I ate dessert or a meal, he was the sort who would not spare me a glance.
He spoke to me first.
The fact was strange, and it made me glad.
How happy such a small thing was—that the man who had paid no mind to anything I did in this office had noticed me.
"It's delicious. It's one I like."
So, without meaning to, I laughed like a fool and answered brightly.
My face must have looked idiotic.
Even knowing he disliked that face, I could not hide what I felt, and I smiled at him. But at the words that followed, I froze with the smile still on my lips.
"Unlike me, you have the leisure to enjoy dessert. The life of royalty…… how enviable."
The tone was elegant and soft. The look in his eyes was not. For a while he regarded me with open contempt, then went back to clearing the papers.
As if the exchange just now had been an illusion, silence filled the office again.
Of course. He dislikes me—that's only natural. What was I expecting?
I lowered my head and picked up the teacup. My hand was trembling.
Idiot.
To be glad merely because he had spoken to me once, and then to chatter without thinking. Shame burned. The moment was so mortifying that I bit my lip hard and let it go.
I ought to say something……
To ease the awkward air, I forced my mouth open and spoke to him.
"I think this every time, but the ducal house's desserts are excellent. When you have a moment, Your Grace, you ought to try one yourself."
"Sweet things disgust me."
Alpheus refused at once.
Disgusting……
I could not tell whether it was only my imagination, but the word seemed aimed at me.
I pressed my lips together and managed a smile, and then I noticed that the only thing on his desk was a single cup of tea.
I heard he hadn't eaten this morning, either.
Levin's words from before I came in returned to me. Alpheus had skipped breakfast and done nothing but work until now.
"Alpheus."
When I called, he lifted his head and looked at me. I set a breakfast roll and a fork on a plate, rose, and went to him.
He'll hate this.
Even as I approached, I knew Alpheus would dislike the gesture, and my hands trembled of their own accord.
I barely reached him before I set the plate carefully on the desk.
"I heard you skipped breakfast. I'll pour the tea, so at least have a little of this first……"
"Your Highness."
In that instant he called me in a voice cold as hoarfrost, as if to rebuke me.
"If I had time to eat, do you imagine I would have gone hungry until now?"
As if the very idea were absurd, he snorted at the bread I had set down. Then he tapped the desk twice and laughed shortly.
"Though it must be different for a princess so fond of her tea parties."
He spoke as though every word were edged with a blade. The moment I met those glittering Jewel Eyes, the color drained from my face and I bowed my head.
So my actions had grated on him after all.
I shut my mouth tight, lowered my head, and clutched the fabric of my dress. His gaze alone felt as if it had killed me a thousand times.
My pride is wounded, and so is my heart. I only wanted him to eat something, out of worry……
I wondered, suddenly, whether others bound by political engagements lived like this.
Isn't it only natural to urge a fiancé who skipped breakfast, at least this much? I was worried he'd worked without even a meal……
Of course our relationship had to be worse than that of ordinary people joined by politics. I was the Emperor's daughter, the head and symbol of the Imperial faction; he stood at the vanguard of the Aristocratic Faction as its leader.
Father had forced this engagement through in order to check the Aristocratic Faction, and so Alpheus hated me fiercely.
If only we had met in some ordinary way.
The season for hoping he might love me had passed. Now I did not even hope much for his attention, let alone his love. But when words cut me like this, I found myself thinking that even if I asked nothing of his regard, I wished he would be just a little kinder.