* * *
He barely lifted his heavy eyelids, and Ashard’s figure was dimly visible.
He couldn’t tell at all whether the crimson color was his hair or his blood.
“A… shard-nim…”
The voice he used to hear when he called him didn’t answer.
He couldn’t see the golden eyes that would meet his gaze directly when he quietly watched.
He couldn’t feel the warmth that would grasp his hand when he reached out.
A chilling coldness seemed to penetrate deep into his bones.
The sound of the strong wind blowing was loud.
Along with it, he heard the sound of someone walking, thump, thump.
As the sound drew near, the approaching figure abruptly stopped.
“I told you not to let him get scratched.”
Perhaps because he had hit his head when he fell to the ground, he couldn’t tell whose voice it was.
He couldn’t even make out exactly what was being said.
Just as his mind began to fade, he felt his body being lifted.
He was held quite skillfully, yet Eren realized it clearly: it was the embrace of a stranger, not the familiar one.
With that, Eren lost consciousness.
Not long after the man who had embraced Eren disappeared, Ashard’s consciousness slowly returned.
Confirming the wreckage of the carriage, shattered into pieces on the ground, Ashard struggled to stand up.
The sensation of damp, cold mud was distinctly felt on the hand he placed on the ground.
“Ugh…”
He wiped the blood flowing from his eyes with the back of his hand, and his vision cleared.
Ashard, quickly realizing he had lost consciousness due to the accident, frantically looked around.
His usually calm golden eyes shook with distress.
“Eren. Eren…!”
No matter how many times he called, no answer came.
Worried that he might be lying unconscious somewhere, he dragged his aching legs and looked around, but he couldn’t find Eren anywhere.
He was out of breath.
Unable to breathe properly due to the choking sensation in his throat, Ashard barely managed to lean on a tree and let out rough breaths.
The fear he thought he had forgotten began to constrict his whole body.
The memory of the day his late Duke and Duchess parents died tormented Ashard.
When he rushed to the site of that accident, the first thing he saw was the wreckage of the destroyed carriage.
There was no trace of blood nearby.
His mother’s corpse lay far from the accident site.
His father’s corpse was found on the opposite side.
The last birthday gift the two of them held tightly in their arms.
Eren was nowhere to be seen, but the situation unfolding before his eyes was chillingly identical to the scene of that day.
The ominous thought that Eren might also be dead somewhere, just like his parents, rushed in uncontrollably.
Feeling as if his neck was being choked, Ashard untied his cravat.
The blood on his hand left a red stain on the pristine white cravat, but he didn’t care.
Just as Ashard finally managed to steady his breathing, the knights, who had belatedly realized his location, urgently rushed toward him.
“Your Excellency the Duke! Are you alright!”
“Find Eren, find Eren first…”
The knights hesitated for a moment after checking Ashard’s condition, but soon began to search the surroundings as ordered.
Before long, what caught Ashard’s eye was a bloodstain not far from where he had been lying.
“We searched the entire vicinity, but Count Nefendis is nowhere to be seen.”
At those words, Ashard struck the tree with his fist.
The memory he had seen before losing consciousness came back to him.
A single carriage, definitely speeding straight toward the one Eren and he were in.
The bloodstain that clearly marked where Eren had fallen.
All the circumstances pointed to one thing.
The person who deliberately caused the carriage accident had taken Eren.
“Find him. Find him by any means necessary.”
The knights, with their faces completely covered by masks, bowed their heads and disappeared one by one.
Ashard’s gaze turned chillingly cold.
How long had he been unconscious?
Eren slowly blinked his heavy eyelids open.
‘Is this the Fridit estate…?’
He raised his body and looked around, seeing a familiar sight.
Given that his whole body was aching, the accident was apparently not a dream.
His arms and legs were tightly wrapped in bandages.
“You’re awake?”
He turned to the side where the voice came from and saw Ashard looking at him with a gentle smile.
Like Eren, his body was wrapped in bandages.
Judging by his movement, he didn’t seem to be badly hurt.
“Ashard-nim, are you alright?”
He nodded slightly when Eren asked worriedly.
‘Thank goodness.’
Eren murmured softly.
Tears of relief traced a path down his cheeks.
“Why are you crying?”
“It’s nothing.”
He didn’t even know if it was relief or guilt.
As Eren wiped his tears with his hand, Ashard, who had been watching for a moment, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to him.
“…?”
He stared blankly down at it, and Ashard placed the handkerchief in his hand.
He took the handkerchief with a puzzled expression, but a sense of incongruity couldn’t be helped.
Whenever he cried, Ashard had never once given him a handkerchief.
If anything, he would wipe them himself.
Eren looked down at it with suspicious eyes.
“You carried a handkerchief?”
“Of course.”
He raised the corner of his mouth playfully, as if asking why he would ask such a thing.
Because it was the smile he saw every time, the doubt that had momentarily sprouted in his mind melted away like snow.
‘What am I thinking?’
This was the usual Ashard, and this was his bedroom, where Eren always slept with him.
Nothing at all had changed.
“This is…”
Seeing the medicine placed near his head, it seemed a doctor had visited while he was sleeping.
Ashard, following Eren’s gaze, picked up the medicine and a cup of water, offering them as if he had forgotten.
“I forgot. You’ll feel a bit better if you take it.”
Eren nodded and swallowed the medicine Ashard gave him with water.
Although it was in his mouth for only a moment, a bitter taste spread throughout his mouth.
Ashard chuckled when Eren unconsciously narrowed his brows.
Feeling his somewhat hazy mind return, Eren got out of bed.
His previously broken ankle was also wrapped in bandages, making him wonder if he could walk.
It would be a problem if he couldn’t walk properly, as he needed to leave Ashard before the banquet began.
As his foot touched the floor, Eren let out a groan from the unbearable pain.
He stumbled, but Ashard quickly supported him, allowing him to stand properly.
“Are you alright? Sit back down on the bed.”
“…I’m alright.”
Despite saying he was alright, he went back to the bed under Ashard’s persuasion.
Although he was suddenly in the position of having to lie down again, he really was alright.
The pain wasn’t coming from his bandaged ankle, but from his head.
Barely holding onto his consciousness through the throbbing headache, he looked at Ashard.
Then, the memory he had seen just before losing consciousness suddenly surfaced.
Ashard, lying unconscious and fallen.
And the embrace of a stranger who had lifted him up beside Ashard.
Eren slowly examined Ashard.
The bandages wrapped all over his body.
It was clear he was as hurt as Eren, whose entire body was aching.
No matter how used Ashard was to enduring pain, there was no way he could have immediately lifted him up right after the accident.
‘It wasn’t Ashard-nim…’
It also couldn’t have been a knight from the Fridit family.
No matter how good they were at tracking, they wouldn’t have been able to arrive so quickly after the artifact was used.
The doubt that had risen refused to disappear.
The person who moved him to the mansion was not Ashard.
It was certain that there was someone else besides him and Ashard at the accident site.
It was strange. Ashard’s actions and words were subtly different from usual.
Yet, the person he saw was clearly Ashard.
Eren was confused by the inexplicable strangeness.
“You’re really alright, aren’t you?”
“Ah… Of course.”
Startled by Ashard’s question, he reflexively nodded.
An awkward silence lingered.
Whenever he was with Ashard, even silence was welcome and felt ticklish, but now, he felt a somewhat clumsy atmosphere.
‘What is it…?’
He didn’t want to doubt, but his instincts told him that the person in front of him was not the Ashard he knew.
It was quite embarrassing to harbor such thoughts about Ashard.
He had never felt this way before, and he couldn’t understand why these strange thoughts were coming to him.
He even felt sorry for finding him strange.
He tried hard to ignore it, but the doubt that had taken root in his mind simply wouldn’t go away.
Eren tightly gripped the blanket covering his legs.
‘I need to check, just check.’
* * *
