Chapter 43 - Do You Have Anything To Tell Me? (1/2)

Chapter 43 – Do You Have Anything To Tell Me?

I wanted to ask Xavier why he and Claude had such a fraught relationship, but I soon gave up on the idea. That was probably too personal for me to pry. I didn’t like it when someone asked me about my relationship with Dorothea after all.

“I see,” I said briefly, then kept my mouth closed.

Xavier stared at me, then spoke again a moment later. “You won’t ask why?”

“…Ah.” I looked at him curiously. “Am I allowed to ask about it?”

“Hahaha.”

When Xavier heard my question, he suddenly started laughing instead of answering. I was taken aback by his unexpected behavior, and I wondered if I had done something wrong.

After a while, his laughter faded away. “I’m sorry, Lady Maristella. That was rude of me.”

“No. Did I…did I make a mistake?”

“No, My Lady. That is not why I laughed.” He cleared his throat and then continued talking again. “I just didn’t expect you to do that.”

“If you don’t want to talk about something, you don’t have to, Your Highness,” I reassured him. “Doesn’t everyone have something they don’t want to talk about?”

“For you, that is Lady Cornohen, correct?” he asked.

“You’re not wrong. Clearly, she’s not the most pleasant conversation topic for me.” My lips twitched upward. “Does the Duke have the same kind of existence to you, too?”

“You are not wrong.” He continued with a smile. “But perhaps it’s alright to speak of him if my conversation partner is you.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you first visited Thurman Palace, you promised to sometimes be my conversation partner.”

“Yes, Your Highness. I remember.”

“There’s really only a few people I can talk to openly. You’re one of those few. So I thought it would be alright to talk about the subject to you.”

“It would be an honor,” I answered, but I remained puzzled.

“Of course, only if you’re curious,” Xavier added.

“To be honest…I am curious,” I confessed.

“Though when you hear it, you might think it’s actually nothing. Like I said before, the Duke and I were rivals.” He continued with a smile on his lips. “We first met at Yonas Imperial Academy at the age of nine. Claude was a very arrogant and proud boy.”

Xavier naturally called Claude by his first name, not by his title of ‘Duke Escliffe’. I was surprised by the sudden change of address. Perhaps Xavier said that unthinkingly because he was talking about the old days.

“I don’t know if he was like that because it had been drilled into him since he was a child—since he was the next Duke Escliffe—or if that was his true personality. Anyway, he was the most outspoken of all the new students.”

I guessed it was probably both. Personality was very much influenced by position.

“Amusingly enough, I didn’t hate Claude. And I don’t know if it is because I’m the Crown Prince, or perhaps because I was the top student on the entrance exam, or for another reason, but Claude didn’t hate me either. We were inseparable. If I had to define our relationship…we were like best friends.”

After speaking, Xavier must have been thirsty, so he took a sip from the glass of water next to him before continuing.

“We were like that for almost five years. He was my best friend, but he was also my friendly rival who alternated between first place and second place. Then in the summer of our fifth year, when I returned to the Imperial Palace to spend my vacation as usual…”

Xavier’s words trailed off, and a frown creased his forehead. He seemed to have touched on a bad memory. The atmosphere, which had been a calm green, suddenly turned black, and I felt intimidated.

“Your Highness,” I ventured cautiously.

“…”

“Are you alright?”

“…Ah.” His forehead relaxed and he looked at me.

“You don’t have to continue,” I said, anxious. “I guess it’s not the time for this yet.”

“…I’m sorry, Lady Maristella. I have been rude.”

“No, Your Highness. It’s alright,” I said, gently shaking my head. “I don’t want to rush you. I guess it’s still too early for you to tell me about it. Later… Tell me about it later.”

“…Yes. I will do it someday.”

Just in time, a servant brought a platter of deep-fried piglet, and the topic fortunately ended there. I cut the meat with my knife. From what I saw, Claude’s and Xavier’s relationship seemed to run deeper and was more complicated than I thought. I shouldn’t try to pry when Xavier still hadn’t finished processing it yet, for both his sake and mine.

The main courses continued to appear in a steady stream. During that time, Xavier and I struggled to shake off the awkward atmosphere from earlier and only spoke about personal matters.

By the time the meal was over, what happened before was completely forgotten. When I was about to dig into the homemade almond biscotti and strawberry sorbet for dessert, I remembered the handkerchief.

“Ah, Your Highness. I have something to give you.”