481 - Side Story: Leonardo's Perspective - Me and Tina 2
"...That's a good thing, isn't it? What's the problem?"
When I consulted Alf about Tina's declaration that she would become my wife, Alf answered as if it were nothing at all. No problem, he said. Probably even if I consulted Alfred, who's in the capital, he'd give the same answer. Perhaps because they've been switched for so long, the two of them think very similarly and even though Alfred and Alf are supposed to have switched places, there was absolutely no sense of incongruity.
"Still, Christina's finally hit puberty, huh. If she's really saying that after falling for you properly, there's no problem."
"...Does that look like she's fallen for me? Her expression was more like a soldier on the battlefield than a lovestruck maiden. A ghastly, desperate look on her face."
This isn't actually the first time Tina has said she wants to be my wife. Every time marriage came up before, she declared she'd become my wife as an escape route, or as the best result chosen by process of elimination. Each time this topic came up, I'd hedge with things like "if you can still say the same thing when you're grown up" or "if Tina comes to like me as a member of the opposite sex," putting off the answer. But it seems putting this matter off has reached its limit. To keep Tina by my side as long as possible, I think the current brother and sister relationship is best, but Tina apparently doesn't think so. She's started saying she wants to change our current relationship, that if we become husband and wife instead of brother and sister, even our meddlesome grandfather would shut up.
...I think brother and sister is fine, though.
Lovers can grow apart. Spouses can divorce. When you think about it, the family relationship of siblings is unchanging.
I wonder what Tina is dissatisfied with, I thought, then immediately got shot down. I remembered the time Tina declared to me with a dead-serious face that "calling you 'big brother' was a service." That was truly a shocking statement. I can recall plenty of my failings and mistakes as a brother, but still I thought I'd been a good brother in recent years. I never imagined she'd been calling me "Leonardo-san" in her heart all along from the very beginning. Tina is one or two steps ahead of me, and in this regard she really was a "woman," I suppose. A man can never see through a woman's hidden intentions in his entire life.
As I hung my head remembering Tina's dead-serious declaration, Alf laughed and said that's how lovestruck maidens are. For a maiden, love is war, he said.
"...Does Tina really love me?"
"Ask her yourself."
Alf pointed out that I was told to call her "Christina," and I couldn't help but furrow my brow. I have no objection to dropping the nickname and calling her "Christina" to encourage her growth, but I resist being forced to call her "Christina" in order to consciously see her as a woman.
"If I ask Tina if she loves me, I feel like she'd just list the pros and cons, then at the end say this is the best choice."
She'd give me a detailed explanation of how it's convenient for me and for herself, but I don't feel like she'd give me sweet words like "I love you" or "I adore you." I can tell that much, at least. Tina is that kind of girl.
"A girl's 'I love you' always cools down eventually..."
From the look on Tina's face, she probably does like me. I think so, but I know all too well from experience that a woman's "I love you" can cool down one day. Even though Tina says she wants to be husband and wife now, there's no guarantee she won't use that same mouth to say "it would've been better to stay brother and sister" someday. I can already imagine it happening, and it terrifies me.
"For me, I can't even forget my first love..."
When I complained that girls are fickle, Alf shrugged and said that thing really left a deep scar on my heart, huh. Though he's switched places with Alfred now, back then he was watching over me and the princess as the elder prince brother, so Alf should remember how wild I was.
"Do you understand how I felt? Being chased around every single day, every day, every day by someone who was a nuisance until I finally gave in, only to have her suddenly say 'I'm bored of you' and 'I found someone else I like'? And to top it off, she started saying she was pregnant with another man's child..."
In a certain sense, it was quite an experience, I said, recalling those days with a distant look. For those of us involved, it was simply a story of a princess changing her heart and having relations with another man, but those around us made a huge fuss.
The most common rumor was that the child in her belly was mine.
It was a rumor insulting to the princess, to me, and even to the child's father, saying that I had relations with the princess without waiting for a formal wedding, and that with me not returning from the battlefield, the princess, whose belly was starting to show, panicked and prepared another man to be the baby's father. A rumor where truly no one benefitted. Where do rumors like that come from and how do they spread? Thinking about it makes me sick. But there was a small silver lining to the whole affair with the princess.
At the time, there were too many people wanting to become my adoptive parents, but after that incident, many of them backed off. People who believed the rumors judged that I, having knocked up a princess and abandoned her, would incur the king's displeasure, and decided it was dangerous to take me into their house. For this alone, I truly am grateful to the Seventh Princess. Being the king's favorite, a man with no parents who could marry a princess, and with meritorious deeds to boot, the competition over me had been intensifying. Even though I was a Silver-White Knight, I was an orphan in a weak position, and I was truly at my wit's end.
"...I always found that whole affair strange. For starters, the child's father doesn't have enough charm to make you switch over from him."
Alf tilted his head, saying that should have been outside the Seventh Princess's tastes too. Something was off about this story from the very beginning, he said.
"Come to think of it, that Eighth Princess Claudine, a Leonardo devotee, never interfered with your engagement to the Seventh Princess. In her own way, the Eighth Princess must have accepted the Seventh Princess as your wife."
For the Seventh Princess to suddenly change her heart was strange in itself, Alf said. I'd only thought of it as a simple change of heart, but Alf seems to have been thinking about this matter in the capital for a long time.
"The Seventh Princess's actions have been a mystery for a long time, but watching you and Lord Rannvald, I think I might understand now."
"Lord Rannvald? ...Well, I suppose he does look a bit like me."
I think he looks similar, but that's all. Just because Rannvald looks like me doesn't give the princess a reason to betray me.
"...I did once wonder if perhaps my father was a distant relative of Lord Rannvald's."
"Rather than that, what if Lord Rannvald himself is your father?"
"Lord Rannvald is Teo's father. He said so himself. He's too close in age to be my father."
There's only a six-year difference between Rannvald, who is thirty-six this year, and me, who will turn thirty at the end of spring. Surely it's impossible for a six-year-old to father a child.
...There's plenty of proof that Lord Rannvald can't be my father.
Age aside, Rannvald fled the royal castle roughly twenty years ago. Around that time, I was either barely still with my parents or already at the Dupre Orphanage in the capital. If I were truly Rannvald's child, there's no way the royalty wouldn't have caught on. Furthermore, if a six-year-old prince had been the father, there's no way Ethelbert, who was king at the time, would have taken his eyes off him, and I can't imagine he would have entrusted his grandchild to a prostitute.
"Lord Rannvald certainly does say he's 'Teo's father' himself... but I don't know your old name."
Alf asked me what my real name was, and I made a thoroughly sour face. I'd told Alf before that it was probably better not to tell anyone my real name.
"...It's a perfectly common name."
So common that even among Tina's limited circle of acquaintances, there's someone with the same name, I continued, and apparently that was a satisfactory answer for Alf. He started saying that Alfred in the capital had mentioned he might have found my family.
"When things were in chaos with Christina's kidnapping, Lord Alfred said something. Later, he got permission from Lord Christoph and was rereading your background investigation report..."
"I saw that report too, when I was in the capital."
There was a time when Tina, rare for her, said she wanted to go out with me, so we went out actively to see a play, to visit an acquaintance's grave, that sort of thing. At that time, I felt a bit curious and looked into my own background too.
"If you looked it over, didn't you notice? The report had some unnatural points. To be precise, there are discrepancies with the story you yourself told."
"Discrepancies?"
"There was that story that made you the protagonist, but unlike that story, you said you were sold by your parents and became a slave, didn't you?"
"I did say that."
I continued that I'd told Tina the same thing, then suddenly remembered. Alfred should have asked me the same question.
"In the report written by the White Knight Saromon, who saved you, it said he rescued a child who had been 'kidnapped' as a slave."
"That can't be... no, you're right. I think it did say that in the report."
Since the outcome was the same, I'd never paid attention to the difference between Saromon's report written without my knowledge and my own memories. I certainly told Saromon that I'd been sold by my parents, but apparently Saromon judged that I was mistaken or something, and wrote the report as if I'd been kidnapped as a slave. When I think about it carefully, about twenty years ago when Saromon saved me was around the time when laws regarding the buying and selling of people within the Ivisia Kingdom were being revised after the reincarnator from Mey Village was sold. It's not impossible that Saromon dismissed my account as a 'child's misunderstanding' and corrected it in his report as the 'right' information that I was 'kidnapped by slave traders.'
"...There are other unnatural points too. For starters, it's strange that the White Knight was able to save you at all. You said before that you remembered being stuffed into a slave trader's carriage and crossing the border, didn't you?"
"I did. I told Lord Saromon that too, but..."
"If that were true, why was the White Knight in Imperial territory?"
"...Huh? Now that you mention it."
When laid out like this, it certainly is strange. I have a memory of crossing the border, yet I was saved by Saromon, a knight of the Ivisia Kingdom. If both are true, then Saromon must have chased the slave traders across the border. If that's the case, it's more than a little problematic. A soldier would have invaded another country, likely without permission.
"Twenty years ago... well, it's closer to thirty years ago now, but the border area back then was a very delicate time. So delicate that if the White Knight had secretly crossed the border, it could have hastened the start of the war."
Furthermore, in terms of ability, there's no way the White Knight could have secretly crossed the border. The fact that he was near the border at all suggests he was distinct from the White Knight who was only trusted with gatekeeping at the capital, but it also means he didn't have the strength to become a Black Knight.
"Your testimony and the White Knight's report contradict each other. If you had crossed the border as you say, the White Knight couldn't have saved you, and if it were within Ivisia Kingdom, the White Knight could have saved you, but then you shouldn't have any memory of crossing the border."
Alf asked which border I'd crossed, and I answered that it must have been Mair Fortress. I don't clearly remember the name, but the sound of it was short. There are three fortresses along the border, Lugmilama Fortress, Grenore Fortress, and Mair Fortress, and I rule over all of them. Among them, the one with the shortest name is Mair Fortress.
"According to the White Knight Saromon's report, you were rescued before Restham Fortress, around the middle of Anheim and Potsdahl. At the time you were rescued, the border with the Empire was not Mair Fortress, but Restham Fortress."
Furthermore, the report doesn't mention Saromon crossing the border at all. And that makes sense, at that time, Anheim and Potsdahl were within Ivisia Kingdom's territory. Saromon didn't cross the border. My memory is the one that's wrong.
"Speaking of Anheim and Potsdahl, that's exactly around where Teo's trail went cold."
"...What are you trying to say?"
Alfred had been investigating Teo's whereabouts, so it wouldn't be strange for that information to have been passed directly to Alf. It's information I'd heard from Alfred too.
"Lord Rannvald has been playing that game with Christina lately, right? If you switch the perspective to Teo, doesn't it overlap with your own memories?"
When you do that, the contradiction between my memories and Saromon's report connects, Alf said. Teo was taken away at the border at Mair Fortress, and the border in my memory is also Mair Fortress. I don't know exactly where he was abandoned, but he was left behind along the way as wolf bait, and then rescued by Saromon.
"...Wait. That would mean Saromon was alive when Teo was sold. I saw Saromon pass away with my own eyes."
If Saromon hadn't died, I would never have taken Tina in. And then I would never have met Teo through Tina.
"The White Knight Saromon didn't cross the border, so he rescued you twenty years ago as the report says. If you try to connect your memory of crossing Mair Fortress with the White Knight's report, then the time around Anheim and Potsdahl gets about twenty years out of whack. Under normal circumstances, I'd laugh this off as impossible, but..."
"Seeing Tina, you think a little strangeness might be possible?"
"Between leaving Mair Fortress and being rescued by the White Knight, do you think the twenty-years-ago you might have been taken by spirits or something?"
Alf's theory was that some phenomenon occurred during that time, which is why I was told not to tell anyone my real name. The two contradictory stories, through the existence of Tina, a little sister caught up in strange phenomena, connect, even if only as a hypothesis. My reason tells me it's impossible, but seeing Tina, I can't say it's absolutely impossible. As a matter of fact, my name is...
"...?!"
The name I normally keep buried at the bottom of my memory floated up, triggered by my thoughts. I tried to read out the name that surfaced in my mind, but at that moment, a sharp pain ran through my shoulder along with an intense gaze. I reflexively grabbed my shoulder and searched for the owner of the gaze. A piercing gaze was stabbing into me, and it seemed there were multiple gazes. Not just multiple, it felt infinite. I could sense I was 'being watched' from everywhere, the corner of the room, behind the curtains, the shadow of the ink pot, the gaps in the drawers.
'Being watched' might be too gentle a word.
To put it precisely, 'being surveilled' fits better.
I was being surveilled by the 'world.' I could tell that 'invisible ones' were watching me, waiting for the moment I carelessly let my real name slip.
"Leonardo? What's wrong?"
"...Nothing."
I clenched my teeth and endured the pain that threatened to make me scream, ignoring the cold sweat running down my back. Alf calling out to me was honestly a help. Thanks to being distracted by that, my thoughts strayed from both the gazes and my real name that I wasn't supposed to tell anyone.
...The gazes disappeared.
As the real name that had been about to surface dissolved back into mist, the intense gazes that had been stabbing into me vanished as if they were a lie. This was the first time I'd experienced something like this just from thinking about my real name a little. What was different about me now compared to before? If I think about it, I've been interacting with spirits more than ever. Tina is frequently taken by spirits, and I myself have been helped by the Divine King. Either one of those is probably why the spirits have taken notice of me.
...What does this mean?
Though I don't understand the reason, one thing bothers me. If Alf's theory was correct, then my first love was Tina. And the person who was trusted completely by that first love I'd wanted to become is now me myself.
...Really, what does this mean? What's going on...?
For now, the thought that came to mind was, is there any problem with me taking Tina as my wife? but I immediately denied it. No matter how much Tina is a being caught up in strange phenomena, I can't consider myself the same. Alf's hypothesis is just a hypothesis, something that forcibly connects two contradictory stories. As long as the hypothesis about the twenty-year time discrepancy can't be explained, these contradictions don't connect.
...And besides, what would it even mean to start seeing Tina, whom I raised as a sister from age eight, as a woman now?
Tina has been changing how she addresses me, telling me to see her as a woman, but to me, Tina is Tina. Just because the way she calls me changed a little doesn't mean I can suddenly see her as a woman.
...Ah, no. If Tina is that girl from my first love, then the person I love is also Tina...? Huh?
My thoughts started spinning in circles, and no answer-like answer came out. I was so confused that in response to Tina's proposal, I hedged with "let's say we're engaged for now." Tina shot back with "You're stubbornly refusing to give up. That's running away," but she seemed to accept this answer for the time being. She responded with a lady's curtsey, saying she would make an effort to be seen as an adult in the three years until she turned twenty.
I suppose I'll have to reform my consciousness over these three years, to learn to see my little sister as a woman.
When I calculate the characters' ages again, I'm surprised. Leonardo apparently turns 30 at the end of spring.
Typos and omissions to be fixed later.