* * *
“…All.”
“Bring… me.”
Kaindel stood at the door, straining to catch the voices coming from within.
Once, waiting like this wouldn’t have fazed him.
Lately, though, he couldn’t sit still, overwhelmed by restless anxiety.
The steady ticking of his pocket watch filled the silence of the corridor, each second stretching unbearably.
Having finally acknowledged that he couldn’t find Isa on his own, Kaindel had come to Sehir for help.
Time and effort could eventually yield results, but Kaindel doubted Isa would wait forever—especially after losing him for half a year once before.
With nearly a year having passed since Isa vanished, the urgency pressed harder.
Kaindel’s gaze fell out the window, though his hands betrayed his unease as they tapped unconsciously at his elbow.
At last, the door opened, and a butler ushered him inside.
Sehir, surrounded by stacks of documents, greeted him with a smile and rose from his seat.
“Kaindel, it’s been a while.”
“Sehir.”
Kaindel glanced at the chair Sehir gestured to but didn’t sit.
Instead, he brushed back his hair and scratched at his neck—a habit formed since Isa’s disappearance whenever frustration mounted.
“Where is Isa?”
“How would I know something even you don’t?”
“I know you’re hiding him. So, speak.”
Kaindel’s sharp retort wiped the nonchalant smile from Sehir’s face.
Kaindel was certain—without Sehir’s assistance, Isa couldn’t have evaded him so thoroughly.
Before coming here, he had already learned that Sehir had briefly visited the estate the day Isa left.
Sehir, realizing Kaindel wouldn’t back down, sighed and motioned for him to sit.
“Fine. Sit down. I’ll tell you.”
“…Alright. I’m sitting. Now, talk.”
Kaindel suppressed his rising irritation with great difficulty before taking a seat on the sofa.
Even then, he perched on the very edge, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice.
“Haha, you’re acting uncharacteristically rash. Acting like this won’t suddenly make Isa reappear, you know.”
“It’s because he won’t reappear suddenly that I’m acting this way. Stop dodging and answer my question. Where is Isa?”
“I don’t know.”
He’d said he’d talk if Kaindel sat down, and now this? What the hell was this nonsense?
Kaindel cast a sharp glance at Sehir, who calmly placed a teapot on the hearth.
His composed expression didn’t seem to hint at a lie.
But having known Sehir for so long, Kaindel instinctively recognized he was hiding something.
“Stop playing games.”
“I’m not. I admit I was the one who sent him out of the mansion, but I don’t know where he went. I left that to him.”
“Sehir.”
“It’s true. If you don’t believe me, feel free to look around. If I really hid Isa, there’d be some evidence here.”
“…”
Despite Kaindel’s suspicions, Sehir’s claim of ignorance seemed genuine.
He even confidently gestured to the room.
It was full of papers and books, with no trace of anything out of the ordinary.
Seeing Sehir act so composed only confirmed it—he likely knew something but wouldn’t reveal it willingly.
Kaindel scanned the room for any peculiarities but found nothing.
Frustration mounted as he pressed his hand to the back of his head.
The persistent headache that plagued him during stressful times made its unwelcome return.
No matter how many pills he took, it never seemed to ease—vanishing only in the fleeting solace of sleep.
After frowning silently for a while, Kaindel finally spoke.
“…Was it him?”
“Hm?”
“Did Isa want it?”
“Want what?”
“To leave the mansion.”
Even if Sehir refused to reveal Isa’s location, surely he could at least answer this much.
Struggling through the pounding in his head, Kaindel forced the question that had been lingering on the tip of his tongue.
“Was it something Isa wanted?”
“And if it was?”
“…”
“Would you have let him go quietly?”
It wasn’t a direct answer, but Sehir’s implied meaning was clear: Isa’s departure wasn’t solely forced upon him—it was partly his own choice.
Kaindel rubbed his lips absentmindedly, at a loss for words.
In the same instant, a memory surfaced—Isa’s tearful confession.
“I’ve never once been treated properly since coming here. Everyone acts like I’m someone who’ll leave soon anyway, but I stayed, enduring it all because of you. I thought it wasn’t a big deal because I loved you. I was wrong. It hurt all along—I just didn’t realize it.”
What expression had Isa worn that day when he revealed his true feelings?
No matter how hard Kaindel tried to recall, the memory seemed inexplicably missing, as though someone had cut out just that part.
Snapping out of his shallow thoughts, Kaindel shook his head.
“That can’t be.”
“That’s why.”
“What?”
“That’s why I helped Isa leave.”
At Sehir’s reply, his posture shifted as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
A sharp light gleamed in his amber eyes.
“Why didn’t you recognize Isa as a comrade?”
“I didn’t reject him. I just needed time. You know why I couldn’t bring him in back then. He was drugged—”
“Right, you said you’d deal with it later. But over a year has passed since then. When exactly is this ‘later’ you keep talking about?”
“Later… I mean, the rumors…”
Later. Kaindel suddenly realized how often he had promised himself that vague future.
‘Later, I’ll take care of it. Later, he’ll understand. Later, we’ll see.’
He’d naively convinced himself that Isa would still be part of that future, blind to the reality that he might not be.
As Kaindel stood there stunned by his overdue realization, Sehir continued speaking.
“Whatever your intentions were, you should’ve told Isa. Instead of making decisions for him under the pretense of doing it for his sake.”
“I—”
“Did you ever think about how Isa might’ve felt during all this? Why is it always just about your thoughts?”
“…Then what should I have done?”
Kaindel’s voice cracked as he finally snapped.
He wasn’t acting out of selfishness—he’d made his decisions thinking of Isa.
Even if the outcome had been disastrous.
“Isa, there’s a rumor going around that you’re nothing more than a man wh*re. To be recognized as a true companion in defeating the great calamity, we need to quash that rumor first. And to do that, we need time and influence. I hated that you had to endure hearing such things. But right now, I can’t do much alone. That’s why I allied with the princess.”
“…”
It felt like floundering in a vast, uncharted sea.
No matter how much he thrashed, he only sank deeper.
He’d thought he was standing on solid ground, only to find himself neck-deep in water.
Kaindel tried to trace back to when he’d lost confidence in his every move.
Was it the day Isa disappeared after the Count of Serge’s ball?
The first argument they’d had on the Beham Plateau? The day he’d kissed Isa for the first time?
“I formed an alliance but didn’t marry her. It’s just for appearances. They needed a distraction, and I needed power—that’s all there is to it. No ulterior motives. As for the engagement announcement, I didn’t expect it to blow up the way it did. That was an unforeseen complication.”
Laying it all bare, Kaindel felt an odd sense of relief.
He smirked bitterly, catching the flicker of surprise on Sehir’s face.
“What, did I really need to say all that?”
* * *
