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“You know me well enough.”
“Is that Your Highness’s wish?”
Looking closely at that beautiful face, which was provoking me so spitefully, made me feel twice as displeased as before. I took a moment to think once more. After some deliberation, I kept a brief apology to my mother in my heart and opened my mouth.
“You are… the benefactor who rescued me from a room on fire. Moreover, I heard you acted as my knight for several days after that? How can you possibly claim not to know me?”
Valentin’s gaze, which had been staring intently at my face, finally shifted for the first time and returned to the front.
A short silence followed. Before long, with an expressionless face that betrayed nothing of his thoughts, Valentin shook the envelope—and then proceeded to pour the contents of the paper bag into his mouth. It was an act so shockingly petty that it wouldn't be strange if he had aged backward!
“Wait! How can you just swallow them all at once like that!”
“One, two… seven left. So, did you come to express your gratitude to me?”
Seven? He ate through all those raspberries? Does this wicked brat think gold just pops out of the ground by the hundreds! Flustered, I sprang up from my seat, blocked his path, and shouted.
“Why on earth are you pushing me away like this?”
“…….”
“I… the Valentin I’ve seen, however briefly, is someone who might play other pranks on me, but not someone who would leave a prophecy saying ‘you have no future’ with the intention of scaring me. That’s why I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days. If it wasn't to torment me, then what on earth were you thinking when you did that? Why did you whisper it secretly only to me, even going so far as to avoid the gaze of others?”
“…….”
“It turns out you already gave me the answer a long time ago.”
Yes, he had already said it before me. A few weeks ago, during a conversation with Vasily, Valentin had clearly stated:
[The future is not fate. It is different from karma, which must be accepted because it is immutable. If my prophecies contained spirit words that could not be resisted, over five thousand citizens of the Cherensko Kingdom would have been drowned in the Great Flood. But are they not alive and well?]
[So. Was the reason you tipped me off in secret also to be considerate of me?]
[I simply considered it the most optimal move to avoid the worst possible future.]
The answer was surprisingly simple.
“Because my knowing of my own death was the optimal move to avoid the worst future.”
Valentin’s eyebrow twitched. I smiled, squaring my shoulders with a triumphant expression.
“Well? I hit the nail right on the head, didn't I? You thought I’d be depressed after receiving a terminal diagnosis and just shed tears while being angry at you, but you're surprised that I'm not, right? Right?”
Try and wiggle out of this one. Just as I was glaring at Valentin with wide eyes—
“Was that answer derived from Your Highness’s own head?”
“Yes.”
He let out a rare, deep sigh.
“You are clever. That is the correct answer.”
I was pulled by Valentin’s hand and sat upon his lap. As I leaned my back against his broad chest and stared straight ahead, I recalled the day we rode horses. Though I didn't show it, I was quite surprised. There was no way Valentin would admit it so readily.
“…Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“Can I really avoid dying if I know my future? Vasily too? Tanya and Ivan as well?”
Pulling me closer and patting near my arm, he answered in a voice that was unusually soft.
“It should be possible.”
“Then why are you running away? You said your study abroad schedule was moved up? What do you expect me and Vasily to do after you tell us such a depressing future and then bolt away? Do you have no sense of responsibility? No, of course you do, but still.”
“I am not running away. I am going to save them.”
“Save? Who?”
“Anyone. It is my, how should I put it… it is a word I dislike using, but the expression ‘long-cherished desire’ or ‘destiny’ would be appropriate.”
A long-cherished desire, and destiny.
I lifted my head and looked at the statue of the holy woman towering behind the podium. At first, I felt that her calmly descending gaze was embracing Valentin’s shoulders, but now it looked somewhat different. Was the woman not embracing his shoulders, but rather monitoring the heavy burden placed upon them?
I thought of the power of foresight Valentin possessed, the oracle. And I slightly regretted my childish behavior. How many people had Valentin saved?
Even to my young mind, foresight was an ability that didn't need to be used altruistically at all. Every adult I knew used people to seize greater power and wealth in the future. They wielded power.
But today, the Valentin reflected in my eyes was different from them. Not only different, but I could feel an obsession that he must be so. With a short phrase he let slip…
“If there were no such reason for me to enjoy this power….”
Trailing off, he rested his forehead against the top of my head. A short silence passed, and a murmur like a warm sigh settled over my head.
“I’ve grown old. Here I am, lamenting my own soft behavior toward a child.”
“I can hear you.”
“Then hear more. I am uncomfortable being with Your Highness. I never know what you will do. When I am with you, I feel as if I’ve become seventeen.”
“Just in case you forgot, you are seventeen. And I am thirteen. A genius thirteen-year-old who is mentally your equal.”
And we are four years apart. But they say age is irrelevant between friends. I spread four fingers wide and spoke toward the earhole that must be leaning somewhere against my head.
“I understand how you feel. I also feel like I'm twenty-three, not thirteen. As you know, there is no child in Ohalla as mature, adult-like, and clever as I am, right? So don't worry, Valentin. I won't die young; I'll live a full life and save Vasily and Tanya. And Ivan as a bonus.”
“…….”
“Actually, it might be too early to judge, but reading 《About Heaven》 to Vasily seems to be quite effective.”
For a moment, a familiar sentence echoed in my mind.
[You should never have been born.]
You know, Valentin. Did Valentin want to tell me that I had no future?
The fleeting future of a noble imperial who could not easily reveal it to anyone… did he want to utter it, if only in front of a baby? Did he want someone to listen to the future he had seen?
Now might be the best opportunity to hear the answers to these numerous questions. After clearing my throat and organizing my thoughts, I opened my lips.
“Valentin, when you saved me as a child….”
“I wondered what sudden whim made you bring up heaven again.”
The sound of a door clicking open and my startled reaction—jumping up from Valentin’s lap and standing frozen—happened almost simultaneously.
Among the many doors lining the holy hall, the double doors, which were among the widest and heaviest, were pushed open without hesitation. The person who walked in at that moment was none other than my brother, Vasily, who should have been waiting for me in the central prayer room on the first floor.
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