“Have we arrived?”
The one who pushed aside the curtain and came out was a young man with purple hair.
“Hoo.”
The man exhaled and frowned. The sunlight was so strong his eyes closed on their own. The sunlight glittering on the sea and the light pouring down over the deck were dazzling enough to hurt.
The man shaded his eyes with his hand and swept a quick look around the ship.
The sea breeze tossed the long purple hair covering the nape of his neck this way and that. The damp, salty air clung unpleasantly to his skin.
And yet the man smiled brightly, as if even that pleased him.
“Young Count.”
“Ah, from now on, could you call me something else?”
“Pardon?”
“Mm. You and I both need to hide our identities. This is an important mission, after all.”
The man slowly narrowed his eyes with a smile. With his rich, heavy features, when he smiled on purpose, he was certainly handsome, but also far too much to take in.
“Then... what should I call you?”
The young-faced aide asked, stammering.
“Let’s go with ‘young master.’ It isn’t entirely wrong, so it won’t feel awkward, will it?”
“Yes!”
“Then you shall be John.”
“...Pardon?”
The aide answered belatedly.
“Isn’t the key to an undercover investigation an alias?”
“...Yes. Understood. Then, how does Johnson sound for your name, young—”
“How could I call myself something other than the precious name my parents gave me? That would make no sense.”
“...Yes. Young Master Peruan.”
“Then let us disguise ourselves too.”
“Yes...”
The aide Tom, now known as “John,” felt like crying inside. His original name was ordinary enough already, so wouldn’t it have been better to just use that? Because every time his Young Count—no, his young master Peruan—called him “John,” Tom failed to react properly.
Judging by the soft smile on Peruan’s face, he was probably teasing him, but Tom had no choice but to give up. Mischief was Peruan’s old hobby, so Tom was the one who had to endure it. If he reacted, Peruan would definitely get even more excited and tease him harder.
He was certainly a kind young master, gentle, and even spoke politely to Tom despite Tom being his aide... but sometimes, Tom hated his superior.
“John! I called you three times.”
Why did he have such a nasty hobby? Young noblemen really did have all sorts of interests, Tom—no, John—thought.
“S-sorry. Young Master Peruan.”
John answered while awkwardly touching his fake beard. A bushy beard that did not suit his young face at all was no different from walking around shouting, “I am in disguise!” to anyone who saw him. John had pointed this out, but Peruan had only smiled sweetly and said that was exactly what made it good.
Only after having the fake identification they had issued in advance checked, right before boarding the ship bound for Delfona, did they get off the vessel.
“Young Master. Isn’t it too dangerous for just the two of us to search?”
“John?”
“Yes?”
At the sweet voice, John looked at Peruan with a dazed face. Peruan’s jewel-like violet eyes flashed. John swallowed.
“Shall we change how we speak too?”
“How... should I speak?”
“Like a clumsy servant.”
Peruan winked.
John thought Peruan’s wink was scarier than going to catch a slave-trading group.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we changed clothes... maybe?”
John changed his tone with a sour face. Peruan nodded at him as if praising him for doing well.
“Our current clothes look too expensive...”
“Too noble?”
Peruan finished the words John was about to say and looked down at his own clothes.
Well-crafted gold buttons, fabric whose sheen glittered even from a distance, and luxurious embroidery. No matter how one looked ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) at him, he seemed like the son of a wealthy family. Even now, the people out on the deck were staring at Peruan so much that John’s face nearly prickled.
“John.”
“Yes?”
“Look at me.”
“I am... looking.”
John said, unimpressed. Peruan lightly shook his head, as if that was not what he meant. His fine hair scattered over his forehead with the movement.
“Look closely. What do I look like?”
“...Are you asking me to say you are handsome?”
“Hahaha!”
Peruan burst into a beautiful laugh. The clear, breaking sound of it almost rang like a bright bell. John laughed along awkwardly.
Not that there had ever been a time when his superior was not strange, but today he seemed even stranger than usual. Had he not complained that he did not want this mission and that the Count had given him useless work? So perhaps that was why he was acting like this. Does our Young Count truly intend to solve this? A quiet question slipped into John’s mind.
The Count wanted the Young Count to enter politics and firmly secure a proper position, but... did Young Count Peruan not simply want a life where he spent the family fortune at ease and socialized with ladies?
John’s gaze turned irreverent.
Peruan smiled openly at him. That frank, undisguised look in his eyes was what Peruan liked, and why he had deliberately placed him in the position of aide.
“The age when I did not know I was handsome already passed in my boyhood, did it not?”
“Well, of course it would. How often do you look in the mirror?”
If mirrors got so sick of it they shattered in a row, you would have nothing to say, Young Count.
John swallowed the rest of what he wanted to say. No matter how honest he was, he knew the difference between things he could and could not say.
“I have no choice but to look.”
“I-I suppose so...”
“Look closely.”
“.......”
Since he had no idea what answer Peruan wanted, John felt like he was dying. Women might enjoy gazing at a handsome man’s face, but John, being a man himself, gained nothing from looking at Peruan’s. No, he was handsome, but that did not put food on John’s table, did it? There had been more than one or two times when Peruan had made things difficult by thrusting his face close.
Peruan let out a deep sigh as he looked at John’s face, which still had not realized anything. Seeing Peruan act disappointed after giving him a problem that was impossible to solve, John clenched his fist for a moment, then released it. Endure it. He is your superior.
“Do I not look refined? Refined.”
Peruan pointed to his own face.
“If someone like me changed into worn-out clothes, it would only look more suspicious. So it is better to behave as I usually do.”
“Then why am I...”
“Now then, John. Shall we set foot on land? Let us go, to the harbor city of Delfona.”
“Yes...”
John sighed heavily as Peruan dragged him along.
He wanted to ask the king. Wasn’t the mission to eradicate a slave-trading group a rather important matter? Was it truly all right to entrust such an important mission to a loafer like Young Count Peruan?
But John had neither the status to meet the king nor the standing to ask, so he had no choice but to do as Peruan said.
John did not forget to offer his deepest sympathies to those who had been taken by the slave-trading group. Along with a prayer that if Peruan failed, a far better person suited to the task would surely save them, so they should remain safe until then.
***
When Ren did not answer, the boy asked again. Partly because he had nothing else to say, but also because the way Ren startled was rather funny.
“So why did you smash your nose?”
After he asked several times, Ren furrowed his brows.
Being grateful was being grateful, and not wanting to talk was not wanting to talk!
“Do I have to tell you?”
Ren asked sullenly. Thinking of Lady Gannion made him feel even gloomier. Because he remembered the letter he had not even gotten to read. The letter from Coco, and the one from the old apothecary too... He had found out Luman had left, so he meant to read them later, and then this happened.
“By any chance.”
“What?”
The boy answered indifferently.
“Do you know where the luggage I had before is?”
“If you’re asking my name, forget it.”
The two spoke at the same time, then fell silent for a moment.
“.......”
“.......”
The boy, who had jumped to conclusions, flushed red from the neck up.
He had thought Ren was going to ask his name. It made sense, didn’t it? He had even kindly given him a lap pillow. And from the way Ren had called the man who threw him in here “Brother!” with such innocent trust earlier, and then even had a nightmare, he had assumed Ren was soft and too quick to trust people. So he thought Ren wanted to make something like a friend even here and was about to ask his name, so... he had answered like that.
Didn’t that make him seem like someone who had been waiting for Ren to ask?
“......Do you want me to ask?”
Ren asked sourly.
For a moment, the boy felt wronged. Was it not an easy situation to misunderstand? It was a little absurd, too. Ren’s attitude was colder than he had expected. He had thought Ren would cling to him and act friendly. He was using the offered lap just fine, but he was not even going to ask his name?
“Yeah.”
The boy wanted to hit his own mouth the moment he answered instead of saying no.
What kind of pathetic nonsense was this, when he had been kidnapped? The boy decided to blame Ren’s eyes. He had not expected someone who had been curled up like he was dying to have such clear eyes.
Ren stared up at him and moved his lips.
“What’s your name?”
It was no different from begging for a compliment and then receiving one. His voice was unexpectedly dry, clear, and pretty.
After listening for a moment to Ren’s voice as it scattered faintly, the boy opened his mouth.
“Secret.”
