The Voice Behind the Sunflower
In the settled silence, the clink of tableware rang out with unusual loudness.
"Cough, cough!"
The Count, whose coughing had shattered the stillness without warning, accepted a handkerchief from a servant with an ashen face and dabbed at his mouth. Swallowing a sigh, he steadied his breathing before speaking again in a grave voice.
"...My strength is not what it once was. I have summoned every renowned physician from the capital, yet there has been no improvement."
The Count's clouded gaze, which had been drifting through the air, came to rest on Gale.
"Gale. Has it truly been two years since you took charge of the family's affairs?"
"Yes, Father."
"Then that is enough. To hold the position any longer would bring shame upon us both."
"...Surely you don't mean—Father?"
At the calm tone of a man whose mind was already made up, Gale's eyes went wide.
"In two months, I shall formally pass the headship to you. You are still young, but... well, there is no fixed age for bearing a family's name, so it should be no matter."
"Father!"
"In return, bear in mind that I shall be watching you from behind the curtain. Do you understand?"
"Yes. There will never be a single blemish upon your name. I swear it!"
The countship—the title he had craved with every fiber of his being. An achievement won at nearly the youngest age in the family's history.
Gale bit his lip, struggling to contain the emotion surging up within him. At last... at last, I'm a count too!
But it took less than a few minutes for that soaring euphoria to come crashing down to earth.
"Managing the count's duties while also overseeing the trading company would be too much, I imagine."
"...I beg your pardon?"
The voice continued, as though every decision had already been made.
"From this day forward, the trading company shall be entrusted to my second son. Isn't that right, Noah?"
"Understood."
"Our trading company has changed a great deal from its former shape, but it seems to have found its footing. It would be the perfect time for you to learn the business."
"Now hold on. Father, wait a moment, please."
His lips trembled so violently he seemed on the verge of overturning the table itself, but Gale forced his fury back down.
"You want me to hand over the trading company I built with my own hands... to this?"
"Noah is eighteen now, and his marks at the Academy were excellent. I know you are attached to the company, but it is time you learned to set ambition aside."
"It isn't ambition! The company is mine!"
The fury he could no longer suppress reared its head. It was his company, built by his labor. Just as his efforts were finally bearing fruit, he was meant to surrender all the credit to his little brother? Absurd. The countship and the trading company alike belonged to him—and to him alone.
But the Count's eyes had already gone cold and still as he listened.
"...Yours?"
"Yes! Mine!"
Gale had lost all reason, so he did not see it—but there it was all the same.
"Ha. Don't tell me, Father... Was that your plan all along? Hand me the company just so you could shower everything on that brat?"
"I appear to have been mistaken. I thought that with experience enough behind you, you might have gained some maturity."
"Don't dodge the question! When exactly do you intend to stop coddling him? Hmm, Father?!"
"Chamberlain."
At the calm summons, an old man with pale white hair, who had been standing at the edge of the wall, quietly stepped forward.
"Yes, my lord."
"Halt the inheritance proceedings. Burn every notarized document as well."
"As you command."
At the Count's bolt-from-the-blue order, Gale let out a scream of pure desperation.
"Wh-what? No! You can't!"
But the Count's gaze had already gone ice-cold.
"We will speak of inheritance another time. And remove yourself from the trading company's affairs as well, Gale."
Putting his weight on the tip of his cane, the Count rose to his feet.
Toward that unyielding retreating back, supported by the chamberlain's arm, Gale cried out in desperation.
"Father!"
"...Finish your meal and retire. I shall take my leave."
"Father! At least hear me out—Father!"
Gale still had not realized from whom he had inherited his own obstinate temperament. Though the Count of Pistachio coughed with such agony it seemed his breath might fail him at any moment, he left the room with a face composed to the last inch.
Impossible. How could Father do this to me...?!
From behind Gale, who stood rooted in blank despair, a sneer burst forth as if it had been waiting for precisely this moment.
"Imbecile."
Doubting his own ears, he turned—and his eyes fell upon Noah, seated with his legs crossed in insolent triumph. The hypocrisy he had worn in his father's presence was gone without a trace, replaced by a vicious, gleeful smile.
"That's your problem, you know. You're just too stupid."
"...What did you say?"
"Congratulations on cooking up that elaborate feast and handing it all to the dogs."
Noah rose from his seat, gave Gale's shoulder a light pat, and strode out of the dining hall without so much as a backward glance.
Gale's belated shout accomplished nothing.
"You little bastard! Hey! Get back here!"
His scream echoed through the empty hall, but there was no one left to receive his fury. Left alone in the dead silence, Gale finally grasped it: everything had slipped through his fingers.
"...This can't be real."
A short while later, the strength left his legs, and he collapsed to the floor where he stood.
"This can't be happening. This can't be happening..."
Seated in the middle of a room without a single candle lit, Gale murmured to himself, his face a portrait of despair. All around him, shattered furniture lay strewn across the floor. Among the wreckage lay a crumpled contract—the last one he had signed before going down to dinner.
The sight of him hiccuping again and again from the drink, his back turned to the door, was unmistakably that of a soldier from a routed nation.
"Do they really think... do they really think I'm just going to sit here and take this?"
A faint ember flickered for a moment, then died out, helpless. No one knew better than he did his father's punishing stubbornness—a man who never once reversed a decision once it was spoken aloud.
How did it come to this? This morning, everything was still...
But regretting what was already done would change nothing.
"..."
The green eyes that had been chasing after traces of hope drifted, almost without thought, to the sunflower painting on the wall.
"The Box That Brings Wealth..."
The moment the title touched his lips, the painting seemed to respond like a beast answering to its name, giving off a strange glow beneath the moonlight.
Crawling forward on hands and knees as though bewitched, Gale seized the canvas against the wall as if to tear it free.
"...You're the one who's been bringing me luck all this time, aren't you? Aren't you?"
Gale was certain of it. This painting held some indescribable, special power.
"I need more luck. More wealth, and luck so overwhelming it crushes everything in its path..."
Never once in his life had he given religion the slightest thought. Leaning on illusions that did not exist was, he had always believed, the exclusive province of the weak.
But tonight was different. Driven to the very edge of the cliff, the only rope left to him was this painting.
"You're the only one who can help me now."
At that instant, the safe inside the painting flashed with light.
"...!"
Had he imagined it?
As if to prove he hadn't, the safe's golden dial glinted once more.
"Wh-what is...!"
A chill crawled over his skin, and Gale cautiously extended a trembling hand.
At the same moment, a wind stirred through the room's closed windows.
It was impossible to believe.
And yet—perhaps, deep down, he had been waiting for this very moment to arrive. The strange, unsettling aura of the painting with no known sender; the unbroken chain of good fortune that had followed it. Every night he had sat before it for hours on end, staring, until at last intuition whispered to him that beyond this flat world of canvas, something transcendent might well exist.
Could there be an angel in there—an angel sent just for me?
Gale's eyes wavered. His green irises flooded with the image of sunflowers radiating white light, vivid and overwhelming.
"...You're telling me everything I want has been prepared for me?"
Gale's fingertips came to rest lightly upon the canvas.
"Then you'd better take responsibility for those words."
In that fleeting instant, a laugh seemed to thread itself through the phantom voice tickling his eardrums—or was that only his imagination?
With a bone-deep chill climbing up his spine, Gale lost consciousness then and there.
"That's right. Of course I will."
Where he had vanished, nothing remained but a single overturned wine bottle lying alone in the empty room.