128 - At the Art Gallery
Having learned that they were staying at the same hotel, Leonardo said he could not very well not greet them and went to visit Ethel, who was staying in the adjacent guest room.
I tried to tag along, but unusually for him, he clearly declined, so I obediently stayed behind.
Since I had already cuddled plenty beforehand, I was not especially lonely being apart from Leonardo.
I stationed myself in front of the fireplace and did embroidery.
It was my first relaxing time in a while.
If only the bruises did not hurt, it would be perfect.
By the time Leonardo returned from the adjacent guest room, my heart's super-clingy time had completely settled down, and when I greeted Leonardo with my usual energy, he was the one who seemed lonely instead.
...I mean, if someone clung to you all day, every hour, even if they were a cute little sister, you would find it annoying, right?
Besides, someone who is always clinging and cuddling does not feel like me.
The day after Leonardo returned, we headed to Jemian's art gallery again.
He said he wanted to go hear the details of the recent incident, and also that since it was known he was staying in the city, it would be bad not to at least say hello.
...Having a lot of acquaintances sure seems troublesome.
We stopped by on the way.
We had taken lodging because he had his little sister (me) as baggage.
It was just that simple, but apparently Leonardo had various people he needed to pay his respects to.
During the ride I looked out the carriage window, but nothing seemed particularly different from the other day.
There had been some fairly shocking incidents, a young man's body found in the river, a woman's corpse discarded in an alley, but it was as if nothing had happened at all.
...Or rather, they handled it all internally, to the point where it did not even become a rumor?
I was planning to hear the details later, but it seemed the lord of Lagarette was also moving to capture the culprit.
Perhaps no one wanted to talk about how a young man who might have tried to kidnap the lord's daughter was found dead.
"...Why did we come to an art gallery?"
If he had business with the lord (Jemian), I thought we should head to the mansion.
But the driver the hotel had arranged brought us to this art gallery when Leonardo said he was going to meet the lord.
I had heard the gallery's owner was the lord, but there was no way he stayed here every day.
"Jemian-dono's grandfather was of royal lineage..."
"Ah, I am getting a bad feeling about this."
...So "royal lineage" means going back, he is related to Alfred-sama, huh.
"...That feeling is probably not wrong, but when it comes to Jemian-dono, there is not that much to worry about."
Apparently, the royal family members of this kingdom were all intensely passionate people.
Once they set their hearts on something, they would pour everything into it to the point of being almost obsessively fixated.
Ethel and the current king were said to have similar temperaments, their vector of affection was directed at all the citizens, and conversely, they were cold toward their own families.
Alfred's affection was directed solely at Alf, and in the capital he was judged unfit as a successor.
Diet's father, the first prince, showed no trace of the royals' characteristic skewed affection, he was simply kind and that was all, while the second prince's passion was apparently directed not at people but at objects.
This trait, which could be called the royal blood, apparently also manifested clearly in Jemian.
What Jemian loved, it seemed, was art, paintings, sculptures, and the like.
Jemian's gallery displayed the artworks he loved and served as a meeting place for young artists and their patrons.
And from those meetings, apparently he felt boundless joy when new artworks were born into the world, or so they said.
...Yeah, he is still a weird guy. The royal blood is fearsome!
Jemian, who deeply loved art, apparently practically lived at the gallery while staying in the city of Lagarette.
Basilia and the rest of his family seemed to live at the main residence built in the suburbs.
Since Diet was currently staying at Cidur's hotel, Basilia was also exceptionally staying in the city to maintain a connection with Diet, apparently.
Jemian, who had a reputation for being at the gallery almost all the time, really did seem to be staying at the gallery.
When Leonardo requested a meeting, the arrangements were quickly made, and they were led to a reception room apparently normally used for business negotiations.
"...Huh?"
When I entered the reception room following Leonardo, Basilia was standing beside Jemian, wearing a big ribbon on her head.
The ribbon and dress were cute, but they seemed a little mismatched with her rather sharp features, the frills and lace-heavy dress seemed slightly off, and the big ribbon decorating her boyishly short hair felt incongruous.
...If her hair were longer, the ribbon would probably suit her, you know?
Jemian, who supposedly loved art, did not seem to think anything of his daughter's ill-suited outfit.
As I tilted my head in puzzlement, Basilia strode across the reception room and walked toward me.
Before I could brace myself, she swiftly took my hand and began pulling me toward the door behind her.
"We are going!"
"Huh? What? What is it?"
"Father said that children would be bored by adult discussions, so I am to show you around the gallery. I am kindly giving you a tour, so be grateful."
I was technically a victim, so I had wanted to hear the subsequent discussion.
But just as information had been cut off until yesterday, Jemian seemed to have judged that this was not something I should hear.
...I really wanted to hear the talk, though?
As Basilia pulled me along forcefully, Leonardo's gaze shifted into guardian-watching mode.
He was probably thinking something completely off-track from reality, like "how heartwarming, the children are getting along" or "see, they are friends after all."
"Le..."
"We are going!"
I reached out to Leonardo, trying to get him to pull Basilia away from me, but my hand was caught by Basilia instead.
With both hands being pulled, there was no hope of rescue.
...Yeah, she really is a bit rough.
Recently she had seemed quiet, being dragged around by Diet, but without Diet present, she seemed to be just as energetic a girl as when we first met.
...Well, whatever. I can ask Leo later.
Though Leonardo would probably try to hide information from me too.
Making a fuss and staying in the reception room probably would not be the best behavior.
Most of all, it would be better to walk on my own before I got pulled and fell over.
Having made up my mind, I decided to stroll through the gallery with Basilia.
"...What dressmaker do you use?"
"Huh?"
It was supposed to be a tour of the gallery, but after we had admired a few paintings, Basilia, who had been telling me about the artists and techniques, suddenly started asking this.
"What about your hair ornament? Which shoemaker do you use?"
"Um...?"
She pressed in on me with a desperate expression, and Kalisa stepped in between us.
I had been frozen in surprise at Basilia's intensity, so honestly, I was relieved.
I was grateful, but for some reason Kalisa proudly puffed out her chest.
"Tina-sama's attire today is made by Iridal!"
"...Iridal? That is a shop name I have never heard before."
Basilia, who started wondering if there was such a shop in Lagarette, and Kalisa, who was oblivious to Basilia's reaction and enthusiastically extolling Iridal's sewing skills, made a very contrasting pair.
Was this fashion talk, I wondered?
Basilia seemed interested in my clothes and shoes.
Actually, listening closely to their conversation, it seemed the recent outfits and the ribbon on her head were arranged with me in mind.
...Why copy me?
Basically, my clothes were my guardian's taste.
The concept of popular dressmakers existed in the city of Grenore too, but I had never chosen a shop by name.
My clothes were made at the dressmaker Leonardo took me to, from design sketches Leonardo selected.
They did ask for my preferences, but Leonardo would add frills and lace because my choices were "too plain", so I never really felt like I had chosen them myself.
...But I get why she asked the dressmaker's name. She wants to have clothes made at the same shop.
I felt like if I pointed that out directly, Basilia would get sulky, so I pretended to look at the paintings while eavesdropping on their conversation.
...Ah, this painting.
I stopped in front of a landscape painting stitched in embroidery. It was lovely, just as before.
The flow of vividly colored thread was so captivating that I forgot to eavesdrop and was staring at it, when at some point the fashion talk must have ended, because Basilia's voice came from surprisingly close by.
"Do you like that painting?"
"Huh? It is not that I like it... I was just thinking how wonderful it would be if I could sew like that."
"Now that you mention it, no matter how many times Dietfried-sama invited you, you kept saying you wanted to do embroidery, you wanted to do embroidery."
"Hmm," Basilia tilted her head slightly and raised one hand.
Then, as if he had been waiting in attendance somewhere, a middle-aged man in formal attire approached with graceful steps.
"A message from Father. 'I caused you trouble with a kidnapping commotion in my territory. As an apology, I will give you a painting you like.'"
Saying that this embroidered painting would do, Basilia began giving instructions to the man.
Before I could decline, the painting was being removed from the wall, and I realized just how serious Jemian was.
...A man who loves paintings so much, giving one away as an apology... and Jemian-sama did not do anything wrong.
It was probably a matter of noble and adult pride, but receiving a gift as an "apology" from Jemian, who had no fault whatsoever, felt strange to me.
The one at fault was the person who planned the kidnapping, yet only I, who got injured, and Jemian, who was completely uninvolved, were taking the loss.
"...You do not have to go that far for me."
Feeling bad, I tried to decline belatedly, but Basilia turned her nose up and rejected this.
"He says it is a gesture of apology, so as a lady, you should accept it silently."
After watching the embroidered painting being carried away for packing, we resumed our gallery stroll.
As before, Kalisa was answering Basilia's questions about my clothing, which I supposed I should be answering myself, but Kalisa was more knowledgeable than me about it, so it could not be helped.
...Oh? There is someone painting over there.
He looked about fifteen or sixteen years old.
A boy with the appearance of an aspiring artist studying hard was fiercely drawing into what seemed to be a sketchbook propped up on an easel.
I was intrigued by the boy painting in front of me, but thinking I should not disturb him, I quietly circled around behind him.
Peeking over the boy's shoulder at the sketchbook, for some reason, a depiction of Leonardo was drawn there.
"...Why is he naked?"
"Whaa?!"
I let out a voice without meaning to, and the boy flinched, tumbling off his chair.
I felt bad about startling him, but more than that, I was concerned about what the boy had been drawing.
No matter how you looked at it, it was Leonardo, but for some reason he was not wearing clothes.
"This is, well...!"
As the boy tried to hide the sketchbook, Kalisa's hand reaching from the side was faster.
The sketchbook passed through Kalisa's hands and reached me, and I took the liberty of checking its contents.
A few of the pages had Leonardo naked, but the ones that seemed drawn earlier had him properly clothed.
...These clothes are what Leo is wearing today.
According to the boy, who stammered out an explanation and apology for drawing Leonardo's nude sketch, this was apparently his first time seeing Leonardo.
He had seen him getting out of the carriage and entering the gallery, and the sculptural muscles on Leonardo's body, visible even under his clothes, had stimulated his creative desire, apparently.
At first he tried to capture what he saw directly, so Leonardo was clothed, but gradually he supplemented his imagination of the muscle structure from the wrinkles in the clothes, producing this nude sketch.
...Having a family member's nude imagined and drawn is a pretty weird feeling.
If our positions were reversed, Leonardo would definitely have inflicted some kind of punishment on this boy.
Artistic or not.
...But, this... it is so well done I cannot get angry.
Thinking about it being a family member's nude only gave me a weird feeling, but whether it was the drawing skill suppressing those weird feelings, or the atmosphere of it, somehow it was hard to complain about the result.
The sketch of Leonardo was drawn so masterfully that a surprisingly unexpected word slipped out.
"Can I have this?"
The moment I said it, I immediately corrected myself.
If I left it at that, I would just be a creepy little girl wanting a male nude sketch.
"No, I mean! Leo is my big brother, so please give me one."
I would like one with clothes on, I added, and the boy seemed to understand what I was getting at.
To put it simply, since I was a relative of the model, please give me one.
Of course I intended to at least pay for the paper.
"...Then I will give you one if you let me draw you."
"I am not getting naked!"
I answered without a moment's pause as the boy seemed to ponder for a bit.
There was no way I was agreeing to be a nude model.
"No, I can draw you without you taking off your clothes... I mean, it is not that I want to draw you naked."
Having already drawn quite a few of Leonardo, he apparently felt like drawing a different model.
So he happened to ask me, who had just talked to him, to model in exchange for a sketch.
"...If that is the case, I will accept. I have free time anyway."
I needed to kill time walking around the gallery until Leonardo and Jemian finished talking.
If it could kill time, it was not a bad deal at all.
I sat in a chair the middle-aged man who had carried away the embroidered painting had prepared for me, and faced the boy painter.
This looked like it would take time, I noticed Basilia shrugging in the corner of my vision.
-- This was the last thing I clearly remembered.
When I next regained consciousness, I was lying face-down in a place that rattled and shook terribly.