NOVEL NEXT #57
#57
Thump thump.
The sound of the window pane shaking could be heard. Was the wind blowing outside?
Thump.
“……”
Jersian’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as he lay motionless like a doll, covered by a blanket on the large bed.
“……r.”
Thump thump.
Again. Jersian wrinkled his brow and opened his mouth.
“What’s going on.”
His voice was rough and unpleasant, having been forcibly awakened from sleep.
Thump.
Damn, was his voice too quiet? Swish- Jersian finally had to sit up on the bed with a crumpled face. He was already fully awake due to that annoying unwelcome visitor.
“Who is it?”
Jersian spoke first, not wanting to hear that irritating knocking sound again. However, it was quiet outside the door.
“……”
What the hell, waking up a sleeping person and then… Just as Jersian’s red eyes filled with disbelief,
Thump thump thump.
“Jersian.”
The voice calling his name didn’t come from the direction of the door. Jersian turned his gaze from the door he had been facing to the window right next to the bed.
There…
“Good morning.”
Kain Starchis was standing on a tree branch outside the window. His long platinum blonde hair reflected the dim dawn moonlight, almost blinding.
…But good morning? Are you joking? Jersian glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Morning? It was still early enough to be called dawn.
Kain, with a slightly smiling face, tapped the lock part of the window with his finger. The sound of his neat fingertip hitting the transparent glass could be heard.
“……”
Jersian, realizing the meaning, slightly moved the corner of his lips and got up. He had to completely leave the bed to open the window. He removed the blanket covering his body, put on the slippers placed right next to the bed, and walked to the window.
Creak, click.
As soon as he unlocked the window, he could feel the cold dawn breeze blowing through the gap. Swish- Jersian’s black hair, disheveled from the night, swayed in the wind.
“…What brings you here at dawn? And.”
Jersian spoke with a blank face, then added with a chuckle,
“If you’re going to come, knock on the door normally like other people.”
“Ah, because walking through the mansion corridors would be noisy?”
Since the night of the engagement ceremony, when he said he didn’t need to use honorifics anymore in front of the door, Kain often mixed formal and informal speech. It was clear he was using it out of habit due to the time they had spent together until now.
Anyway, you came through the window to find me because you were worried about waking others? Are you considering the other people in the mansion? Suddenly bringing up such a common-sense thing makes one unable to say what they were going to say. The emotion ‘Are you serious?’ flashed across Jersian’s red eyes.
“…It’s okay to wake me up?”
“The sun will rise soon anyway.”
“Fine. So what business do you have in my room?”
“Ah, I was wondering if I could borrow some medicine.”
“Medicine?”
Jersian’s head snapped up. If that was the business, there was no need to grumble about being woken up at dawn. Leaning his upper body slightly out towards Kain, who was still sitting lightly on the huge tree branch outside the window, Jersian asked,
“Are you hurt?”
There was a hint of urgency in his voice. He reached out and grabbed Kain’s shoulder, which was right in front of him with an untroubled face.
“Where are you hurt? Hm?”
As he said this, he gripped the arm tightly. Kain Starchis, who was at least twice as big in build, was slowly pulled into the window by the force of Jersian’s hand.
“……”
“Why aren’t you answering?”
The words came out full of irritation.
Kain’s face, which had entered the room with a thud, looked fine, but it was uncertain about other parts of his body.
“Ah, it’s not that I’m hurt…”
Kain took out something he had carefully kept inside his shirt. Then he held up something wrapped in a white handkerchief, cradled in both palms. The handkerchief moved up and down regularly as if something alive was inside, and bright red blood had spread on the left side of the handkerchief.
“It’s this that needs Jersian’s help.”
Kain Starchis’s long fingers stroked the top of the handkerchief as if feeling sorry.
As he removed one layer of the fluttering cloth, what was inside was revealed.
It was a bird. Smaller than a fist, the bird was trembling and moving its beak on Kain’s palm.
“……”
After looking at the scene for a moment, Jersian brought a box from a corner of the room. He felt drained after realizing it wasn’t Kain Starchis who was hurt.
“Here.”
Jersian rummaged through the box that Kain had seen before and handed over a few medicines.
“Thank you.”
“…But will the medicine be of much help?”
Jersian asked carefully. Kain slowly placed the bird on his palm, handkerchief and all, onto the table. The bird, bleeding from its body, made a dying sound, “Peep-” Hearing that sound, Kain slightly furrowed his brows and muttered,
“We have to try.”
As much as we can do. When he poured disinfectant on the bird on the table, it flapped its wings, probably in pain. Shh- Shii- Worried that the wound might open further, Kain scratched the bird’s head with his fingertips.
“…I’ll go fetch some clean wat-“
Jersian, who had been watching the scene, stopped abruptly on his way to the bathroom. He had noticed something strange about the bird Kain was examining.
“…Wait.”
At Jersian’s voice, Kain’s neat fingertips, which had been applying disinfectant, stopped.
“Yes?”
“No. I didn’t mean for you to stop the treatment.”
Then? Kain Starchis’s eyebrows shot up. Meanwhile, Jersian went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of clear water. He seemed to feel that a glass of water was more important for now.
Returning from the bathroom, Jersian put down the glass of water near Kain and the bird with a thud, and asked again.
“…This bird, where did you find it?”
“Just below the left side of the mansion’s outer wall. It was hiding in the grass, crying since dawn.”
Kain answered Jersian’s question while moving his hands delicately and quickly. He gently pressed a white bandage on the injured body and pushed the bird’s wing feathers to the side. Between them, a peculiar feather appeared. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a feather, but an artificial ornament carefully made to look like one at a glance. Kain gestured to the ornament hanging between the feathers, strung alternately with yellow and black beads, and said,
“Is it because of this? I was also concerned about this thing tied to its wing.”
“…It’s a decoration typically used for carrier pigeons.”
Jersian looked closely at the tip of the bird’s wing spread by Kain’s fingertips. Then, pointing to the ornament strung alternately with yellow and black beads hanging between the feathers, he said,
“This is evidence that it belongs to a particular family or individual.”
“Ah, so it was a bird from the Gerold family?”
“No. If it were, there would have been the Gerold family crest.”
“Then?”
As Kain’s gaze turned towards the stiffened Jersian,
Peep-
A sound came from the bird that had been just breathing softly on the table.
“Ah, it regained consciousness.”
Peep- peep.
“…You’re feeling a bit better? That’s good.”
Peep- Peeep—
“It wasn’t that difficult. You’re welcome.”
Peep-peep.
“Rest a bit more and you’ll be able to fly.”
“……”
If you just listened casually, it sounded like Kain Starchis talking to himself, but it wasn’t something that could be ignored no matter how much one tried. Jersian raised his palm to block Kain.
“Wait.”
Is what I’m thinking correct? Jersian shook his head with a dubious expression.
“Wait, wait a moment.”
“Hm?”
Kain Starchis seemed not to understand why Jersian was acting this way.
“You… did you just have a conversation with that bird?”
Kain nodded and said,
“That’s right.”
“You can… communicate? With a bird?”
“Well, just like I’m talking to you right now.”
Kain shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing special.
“But I can’t find out who its owner is right now. It can communicate with me, an elf, but it can’t understand or remember human language.”
“……”
Tch, I was going to ask exactly that. Jersian’s lips closed tightly and then paused slightly.
Wait. Right now? There was something off about what Kain had said.
As Jersian raised his head saying, “Then…?”, Kain Starchis nodded with a slightly smiling face.
“We can’t right now, but once its wounds are healed, we can find out when it returns.”
“That’s enough. We just need to find out who is exchanging messages with someone from the Gerold family using this carrier pigeon.”
The moment Jersian said that,
“…!”
Kain quickly turned his head towards Jersian’s room door.
“Why?”
“…Someone is trying to enter this room. I’ll be somewhere else for a moment.”
With his gaze fixed on the door, Kain moved his hands. He carefully picked up the bird he had placed on the table and slowly backed away to the wall that would be out of sight from the door.
“What? Why are you hiding-“
Just as Jersian was about to call out to Kain,
Knock knock knock.
There was a knocking sound.
“…Who is it? What’s the matter?”
Jersian said, looking towards the direction where Kain had disappeared, now hidden behind the wall.
“Jersian. It’s me.”
The voice from outside the room was that of Elmerila Gerold.