The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 39

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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 39
After the music ended, Pejin escorted Heidi back to her table.
Heidi spoke to Miller with flushed cheeks.
“Whose brother is he? He dances so well.”
“Still, I’m better, aren’t I?”
“Mm.”
“Just tell me I’m better, for now.”
“Let’s leave it at that.”
Miller laughed along with her, charmed by Heidi’s face full of laughter.
Pejin clicked his tongue as though disgusted.
“I went to the Empire to get away from seeing this. I should go back.”
“Don’t go. I’ll stop.”
Miller made a gesture of catching Pejin’s arm, and Pejin, playing along, turned again to search for April.
There was no real danger of her fleeing, but as the party deepened, the number of drunken men who posed a threat to her only increased.
Pejin swept his gaze across the entire ballroom, thinking it was time to take April and leave.
“Lunos.”
But that conspicuous dress never entered his field of vision.
Pejin hurried to check various corners of the party venue.
It would be no exaggeration to say the biggest topic of tonight’s party was the Witch Hunt.
Fragments of conversation drifted throughout the ballroom—how the Church had discovered the witch, how they had tortured her until she confessed.
There was no one there who didn’t know whom those words were aimed at.
Just as Pejin’s urgency had begun to turn into anxiety, a Noble Lady spoke to him.
“Excuse me, but Miss Lunos left the ballroom a little while ago.”
“Ah… yes, I see. Thank you.”
Pejin bowed politely and stepped out of the ballroom.
* * *
April had tried not to react to the talk of the Witch Hunt.
But when Heidi was dancing with Pejin, she could no longer bear the increasingly vicious tone in which they spoke of her—voices sharp with mockery. The clearly threatening conversation aimed at her made her stomach churn.
April needed fresh air and turned at once toward the ballroom doors.
Once outside, she made her way toward the Forest Path to find somewhere deserted.
The snow around the ballroom was continuously cleared by the Grand Duke’s Residence staff, so even where it lay undisturbed, only footprints remained shallow; but the places where it had not been cleared were different.
Snow had piled up to April’s mid-thigh.
She had not walked far through the snow before stumbling and falling as though her feet had caught—she no longer had the strength to continue.
She was angry, but there was no way to resolve that anger, so powerlessness overtook her. It seemed humans always did this—trapping themselves in the cage of their own helplessness.
She knew that time would eventually calm this wave of rage.
When the wave subsided, she would find strength to take the next step, but she could not endure the time until then.
When April lay in the snowy field like someone resigned to everything, including life itself, Pejin, who had come searching for her, approached and spoke.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m tired.”
April spoke and pushed away his arm.
Pejin looked at her as though bewildered, clicked his tongue once, and then simply lay down in the snow beside her.
April opened her eyes from where she had been curled up, and there was Pejin’s profile directly beside her.
“…What are you doing?”
“I’m tired.”
The same question returned the same answer—though Pejin’s carried a note of mischief.
Her mind told her she ought to say something—ask why he’d followed her out, or tell him to go back—but the words wouldn’t come. Physical exhaustion simply made her body unwilling to move.
Pejin glanced at April, who seemed about to drift off, and spoke.
“Move over just a bit.”
April opened her eyes reluctantly at those words.
Pejin was removing his Jacket and laying it on the snow—he wanted her to shift only her cheek that was touching the snow onto it.
When April narrowed her brow, Pejin bent down and said,
“If you don’t move, I’m starting again.”
“Starting what?”
“My epic about my face. It’s never enough praise, never enough to do it just—”
Before he could finish, April snatched the Jacket from him, shook off the snow with sharp movements, spread it out, and lay down on it again.
Once settled, both her own actions and his self-aggrandizement struck her as absurd, and despite herself, a quiet laugh escaped her.
It was bewildering—how quickly laughter could come, even after such anger.
Pejin was dressed in only a Shirt and Vest, and lying in a snowfield didn’t seem particularly warm.
April herself was fine, but Pejin, who had grown up in the Empire, looked as though he might catch cold.
April finally propped herself up on both arms and raised her upper body.
“Get up. You’ll freeze to death.”
“Now that I’m lying here, it’s so soft and comfortable. I understand why people fall asleep and die in snowfields.”
“Don’t say such things.”
Fall asleep in the snow and die.
April despised the idea that his words might hint at something, so she gripped his Vest. She tried to pull him up, but he was far heavier than he appeared.
Perhaps he was deliberately resisting. He wasn’t the type to be a real troublemaker, after all.
April exerted herself, then gave up midway. As her strength gave out, she found herself lying atop his chest—cold as it was, she was drawn by the warmth radiating from his body. Or perhaps she was simply blaming the warmth for her inability to resist.
There had been times when she fled from all warmth in this world, and yet April couldn’t understand why she suddenly found herself longing for his warmth.
Actually, she did understand.
She knew the answer well.
April thought it would be better if he rejected her completely.
But Pejin didn’t resist her sudden movement with words or gesture, and her body, melted by his warmth, couldn’t move away easily.
What little comfort there was came from the fact that he didn’t reciprocate either.
Pejin was silent as a corpse, neither affirming nor denying. In fact, from a certain point onward, she felt his breathing grow shallow, then stop altogether.
April couldn’t turn away from even that, so she raised her head and spoke.
“Why aren’t you breathing?”
“Just pretend you didn’t notice.”
“What?”
“That I can’t breathe.”
“Am I too heavy?”
“…Is that why?”
At his reproach, April’s eyes moved in confusion for a moment before she spoke.
“I can’t pretend I don’t notice. You’re barely breathing.”
“God, you’re difficult.”
As he spoke, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her deeper into his embrace.
His hand stroked her shoulder in a way that seemed to soothe her. The touch was unexpectedly gentle, and it felt good.
After holding her like that long enough, Pejin sat up and brushed the snow from his Jacket, then draped it over her shoulders.
“Let’s go in. I’m cold.”
“I don’t want to go in yet.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like?”
“That I can’t win against you.”
Stubbornness glimmered in April’s eyes as she spoke.
Pejin wanted to see her eyes directly, so he lowered his head. There were small predators in this world—poison, for instance, or beasts armed with sharp fangs.
Pejin thought April’s red eyes gleaming in the night were bleak. Yet strangely, that bleakness satisfied him. Her gaze was that of a warrior.
“This is how it should be.”
At his murmured words, April’s brow narrowed as though asking what he meant, and she tilted her head slightly.
Then Pejin lowered his head further, meeting her eyes at very close range, and spoke.
“Only with eyes like that can you win against anything.”
He continued slowly.
“When you were young, I disliked that way you had… no, not arrogance in someone of the Lunos Family.
“Right, it wasn’t.”
“I disliked those eyes, the way you looked like you knew how superior you were, but now I find them… rather agreeable.”
“…”
“I hope you don’t crumble.”
Pejin couldn’t tell whether he was speaking truth or falsehood.
It ought to have been a lie, yet it rang so true that he was exasperated with himself.

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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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