The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 114

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 114
Shaper found himself face to face with Pejin, who had summoned him with something to say while April was briefly away at the estate.
Unable to guess what he meant to discuss, Shaper narrowed his eyes and asked.
“You have something to talk to me about in private?”
“Don’t I?”
“What… are you worried I might be interested in April? Is that it? You’re going to warn me off?”
At Shaper’s question, Pejin’s face twisted into something between disbelief and mockery.
“Me? You? Why would I bother?”
That expression, that tone—it provoked Shaper’s indignation. His voice rose.
“What’s that look? Do you think every woman alive is going to fall for you?”
“I’m not that arrogant. I’m simply saying that between you and me, she’d choose me.”
“What the hell, you bastard!”
Shaper let Pejin’s provocation get to him and grabbed him by the collar—but then remembered that he’d said he had something to discuss, and with effort, he forced himself to stop. It wasn’t Pejin who had something to say; it was him.
“You’re going to use her, aren’t you?”
At Shaper’s words, Pejin simply watched him in silence, waiting for more. Shaper continued.
“The conversation between Miller and my father—I heard all of it. April is being used.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Neither do I, honestly.”
At Shaper’s response, Pejin quietly folded the switchblade he’d been holding in the hand behind his back.
Shaper, unusually reserved for his nature, had been suppressing something, but now he finally burst forth.
“Damn it, what’s going on in the Grand Duchy? My father’s always talking to your brother, and our family’s supposed to move to the Empire next year! I’m a Grand Duchy soldier—what am I supposed to do in the Empire? I have no idea!”
“So Maier is going to the Empire too.”
“Yes! And apparently I absolutely have to marry an Empire woman. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Shaper’s complaints poured out.
Pejin found the noise too much; he covered one ear with his hand. Lately his nerves had grown sensitive, and even small sounds made his head ring.
As he listened to Shaper’s unsolicited grievances, Pejin heard April’s footsteps approaching from behind him—very quiet, barely perceptible.
He preferred places where the Twin Mountains were nearby. April never became loud.
Not like this fool before him, who at twenty-five still hadn’t mastered the Grand Duchy language perfectly despite a lifetime of study.
Pejin closed his eyes as April’s soft hand brushed the blade he held.
Shaper, absorbed in his own complaints, only noticed her arrival late.
“When did you get back, April?”
“You. What did you want to tell me?”
“Huh?”
“You said you had something you wanted to tell me. What was it?”
At her question too, Shaper furrowed his brow and muttered.
“How do you both know I have something to say? I get it from him—he’s a cop—but you too?”
Pejin answered in his place.
“Because of that anxious look in your eyes and everything you do.”
“Me?”
While Shaper turned inward to examine himself, Pejin let out a soft laugh. April was slowly opening the Knife again behind her back.
Her unfolding the blade seemed to mean: if you’re going to kill, kill us both. But she would close her eyes, knowing the truth.
Shaper went on.
“Anyway, he’s using you, April.”
Then Pejin spoke first.
“I was going to, but I’m going to stop.”
At his words, the other two looked toward Pejin. He continued in a calm voice.
“The Empire told me to find out about the Dye. If the Empire produces it and can sell it to the Grand Duchy, it would be profitable—it’ll become essential. I was going to look into it for them.”
Shaper’s expression twisted.
“What? You damn bastard! You were going to divert it?”
“No. Our Section One chief has already gone to file a report. I’m stepping back from the Dye matter.”
“…Ah, already?”
Shaper’s expression softened somewhat, and he replied.
“Right. You’re from the Grand Duchy too, so I suppose you wouldn’t want to do anything that favors the Empire like that.”
At his words, Pejin gave a hollow laugh and asked.
“Do you think you’re from the Grand Duchy? Your mother is from the Empire. Your father is Grand Duchy Police, sure, but even they have less autonomy than our Special Investigation Bureau. So why would you be from the Grand Duchy?”
“What are you talking about? I was born and raised on Right Island. I’m a Grand Duchy soldier. So why wouldn’t I be from the Grand Duchy?”
Shaper’s response surprised Pejin somewhat.
As Pejin frowned, unable to accept his words, April spoke to both of them.
“Have something to eat, and both of you go. Your subordinates are getting too loud.”
“Ah, come to think of it, I am hungry.”
Shaper left looking like he still had more to say, though he’d heard enough explanation to satisfy him for now.
After he left, April turned to Pejin and asked.
“You really aren’t going to say you found nothing?”
“I already have.”
“That’s okay?”
“It’s not your concern.”
“Right.”
The two spoke as businesslike as strangers, and April too took her leave.
Only after both of them had gone did Pejin relax his arms from where he’d held them behind his back.
He stared at the blood pooling on the open blade.
April had deliberately brought her hand to the Knife he held, deliberately drawn blood. The vivid, dark blood flowing at the blade’s edge numbed Pejin’s mind.
Depending on the situation, he could have killed Shaper. Perhaps he should have, to keep him quiet.
April was the same. Pejin had tried his utmost to fold away every feeling, to keep himself working for the Empire without emotion. His body had been trained to respond first, to cut off breath without thought.
The blood left on the blade was a vicious poison that nearly destroyed the reflexes his body had barely managed to condition.
* * *
April was so absorbed in thinking about the Dye that she hadn’t even noticed the blood flowing from her own hand.
Bauman, finding her in the hallway, nearly panicked and rushed off for medicine.
After first aid, she sat in thought on the porch of the estate, until Shaper finished eating and caught her eye as he prepared to depart with his subordinates.
Shaper grumbled.
“There’s barely any alcohol in the dining room.”
“And?”
“How can a family like the Lunos Family not have enough alcohol?”
“We have plenty. We just didn’t serve it to you.”
At her answer, Shaper’s face fell in exasperation.
“Just marry Pejin. You two are so equally insufferable, you’d be perfect together.”
Even as he said it mockingly, he perched himself on the armrest of her chair. Watching him pull out a stick of Smokeless Tobacco, April asked.
“You said I shouldn’t trust Pejin, and now you’re telling me to marry him?”
“Well, he was going to divert the Dye, but he’s not now. So that’s settled, isn’t it?”
“You looked so troubled earlier. Was that really all you had to say to me?”
“All?”
Shaper opened the container and laughed emptily.
“From overhearing Miller and my father talk, apparently you’re supposed to sacrifice yourself for the Empire. Is that ‘all’?”
“…”
“I’m a soldier too. I know what can and can’t be said. But you should know.”
“Does Pejin know?”
“What?”
“That Miller and Chief Devin think that way. That there’s something I’m supposed to sacrifice for the Empire.”
“He gave off that impression.”
“I see.”
April’s mind became endlessly complicated, but for now she tried not to think at all.
Wasn’t this something she’d anticipated anyway?
There was no need to be too disappointed. She simply couldn’t afford to let her resolve weaken.
In the larger sense, if her sacrifice could benefit the world, that was acceptable.
She had no desire to do good for its own sake, but honestly, she did want a reason to stop this tedious existence.
“Want one?”
Shaper held out the container, which had roughly ten Smokeless Tobacco sticks remaining.
On Right Island, when people said “tobacco,” Smokeless Tobacco was more common than Leaf Tobacco. Leaf Tobacco didn’t come in many varieties, but Smokeless Tobacco had endless options.
Men like Shaper—soldiers, hunters, those who prized masculinity—carried Smokeless Tobacco with such high nicotine content that others would collapse after chewing for just a moment.
April replied.
“It’s too harsh.”
“Just spit it right back out.”
At Shaper’s words, April took one stick of Smokeless Tobacco and examined it, speaking.
“When people talk about tobacco with me, they mean this, but Pejin smokes Leaf Tobacco.”
“Well, he was raised as an Empire man. Not that he wanted to go to the Empire.”
“What do you mean, he was raised?”
There was something in Shaper’s phrasing that bothered April, so she asked. With the Smokeless Tobacco in his mouth, Shaper answered.
“Pejin. He wanted to become a Grand Duchy policeman himself. His original dream was to reform the Grand Duchy Police.”
“He didn’t leave for the Empire to avoid running into Heidi?”
“Not at all. If he didn’t want to see the Grand Duchess, being stuck in a Grand Duchy military academy would be enough. It’s residential anyway. Miller sent him.”
“…”
“You didn’t know?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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