When Raha finished speaking, Grey didn’t react at all, just staring intently at his wound.
Raha felt a strangely awkward and uncomfortable sensation and began to look around deliberately, but luckily the doctor arrived just then, so he was able to avoid the incredibly awkward atmosphere.
“You’ve been scratched by a sharp fragment.”
“Ah, yes.”
“To be scratched to this extent, it looks like it was swung from close range, aiming for the arm.”
He should have just applied medicine and left, but the doctor kept talking, speculating on the cause of the injury.
Raha felt the seat he was sitting on was like a bed of thorns, as he could feel Grey’s brow furrowing from time to time.
‘BANG!’
Just then, the door to the reception room flew open noisily, and Teore entered.
The look of intense tension on his face, perhaps startled by the news, was quite a sight.
“Are you hurt? Where? How?”
He walked toward Raha with long strides, becoming a “question-mark murderer” just like Grey had been.
“He was scratched by a sharp fragment.”
The doctor, who had been reporting quickly to Teore, who was striding toward Raha, bowed his head, packed his medical tools, and stood up, saying the treatment was over.
Teore stood before the bed and immediately grabbed Raha’s arm to check the wound.
“It’s impossible that you did this to yourself.”
“To call it a self-inflicted wound, the length of the wound is too long and the depth is constant.”
At the doctor’s words that even if one closes their eyes and swings with all their might, it is impossible for the force to remain this constant to the very end of the cut, Raha’s face stiffened slightly.
Looking at the doctor with an expression that asked why he was explaining everything in such detail, the doctor, who made eye contact with Raha, bowed quickly and went outside.
“Whose doing is this?”
Suddenly, Teore asked Raha in a deeply sunken voice, grabbing his wrist and pulling him toward himself.
“Answer me, Raha.”
“Calm down, Teore.”
Just then, Grey, who had been standing with his arms crossed a little way from Teore, said to him, furrowing his brows.
Teore raised an eyebrow, as if he had just discovered Grey, and asked him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I have business with the High Priest.”
“What business do you have with Raha again?”
“More than that, why don’t you let go of his hand? The High Priest is in pain.”
At Grey’s words, Teore, seeing for the first time that Raha was in pain because of him, immediately let go of the wrist he was holding.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine.”
Raha rubbed his wrist, which had been held tightly, and gave an awkward smile.
Then, he rolled his eyes to look at Grey.
Since Teore was not the type to stay still after seeing his wound, Grey had promised that if Raha told him everything that happened in the greenhouse, he would handle it on his end so that Teore wouldn’t go berserk.
‘You said you’d handle it, so why aren’t you?’
When Raha caught Grey’s eye and pointed at Teore with a slight chin gesture, a strange smile appeared on Grey’s lips before vanishing.
It appeared and disappeared so quickly that Raha wondered for a moment if he had seen it wrong, so he stared blankly at Grey.
Then, without fail, Teore’s hand grabbed Raha’s chin and turned his face toward him.
“Who are you looking at, Raha?”
“Ah…”
“It’s High Priest Edrion.”
“What?”
‘You’re saying it just like that?’
At Grey’s words, Teore and Raha’s eyes widened in shock at the same time.
“What do you mean by that?”
Teore, in particular, stared at Grey with an expression that asked what kind of nonsense he was spouting.
“What do I mean? I mean that the High Priest’s wound was caused by your old friend.”
“What?”
When Teore looked at Raha with a shocked face, Raha instinctively avoided his gaze and glanced at Grey.
‘You said you’d handle it, but it feels like you’re just making things worse!’
As Raha’s eyebrows twitched instinctively, Grey gave him that faint smile again, then looked at Teore and continued.
“While they were having tea together, High Priest Edrion let the teacup slip from his hand, and it shattered. Both the High Priest and High Priest Edrion picked up the broken pieces, and in the process, High Priest Edrion cut the High Priest’s arm with the shard he had picked up. Of course, High Priest Edrion claims it was a ‘mistake’.”
At Grey’s words, Teore looked at Raha with an unreadable expression.
Raha, feeling like Teore was about to explode, gave an awkward smile and agreed that it was indeed a mistake.
“It really was a mistake. High Priest Edrion was surprised on the spot, too…”
“I don’t know how one picks up shards of a teacup and causes a wound of that magnitude, but since High Priest Edrion said it was a ‘mistake,’ I suppose we must treat it as a ‘mistake’.”
As Grey interrupted Raha’s words and spoke calmly, Teore stared at Raha for a moment before turning his body sharply.
Feeling uncomfortable about letting him go like this, Raha grabbed his arm.
“Wh-where are you going?”
Teore’s eyes flickered strangely as he looked at Raha.
Teore looked at him silently for a moment, then placed his hand over Raha’s hand that was holding his arm, squeezed it tightly, and then let go as if pulling his hand away.
“You’re hurt, so rest.”
He then headed toward the reception room entrance and said to Grey:
“You, go back to your duchy quickly.”
“I’ll leave when I’m finished talking with the High Priest, even if you tell me not to.”
“Even if the sky falls, I wouldn’t tell you to stay, so don’t even put those words in your mouth.”
Teore spat the words out irritably without even looking at Grey, then walked out.
“You said you’d handle it.”
As soon as Teore disappeared, Raha raised his eyebrows and asked Grey accusingly.
“I did handle it.”
“You call this handling it? You just told him exactly what happened!”
“I told him the facts ‘as I’ said them.”
Grey pointed to himself with his index finger. Raha frowned at him.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it. Thanks to that, Teore didn’t lose his mind and go berserk, did he?”
“Yes?”
When Raha kept his brow furrowed, looking as if to ask what he meant, Grey stepped closer, naturally grabbed his injured hand, and checked the treated area before speaking.
“If he had heard it directly from the High Priest’s own mouth, things definitely would have escalated.”
“…”
