Edited by Arina
EN: There are some things that I think could be phrased better, so just comment if you have any suggestions. (*´꒳`*)
Then to say if the relationship between Griedrich and Sakura changed, it was not so.
Sakura treated Griedrich just like everyone else, like any other woman, not treating anyone more special than the other. Griedrich, whose condition had returned to normal, never took the trouble to approach her. And when Griedrich came to the cafeteria, searching for Sakura, it was also without a change, but from the day when he caught a cold, the feelings that cause the difference in his behavior are different from what he had had before.
It was due to the thought that it was not his concern, but thinking about it now, Griedrich frowned as he ruminated over it. It was difficult to give a name to the feeling, he thought, it was a kind of curiosity, but it seemed unnatural to end it only with that. However, he could not name this feeling properly, so Griedrich decided to ignore it and lived his life as usual, though he was still puzzled by his emotion.
It was because of this mixed feeling that he couldn"t meet her eyes, but at the same time, he couldn"t really looked at her as much as he wanted to. He often stole a glance at the corner of his eyes when she wasn"t looking
Uh, that black eyes.
Still, when other boys finished eating and returned the dishes to the washroom, they were talking to Sakura getting in a word or two, so he could see her smiling face each time.
"I would like to try to talk with her again, but I do not have anything to talk about in particular."
The only opportunity was when they were putting the tableware back to the washing room, but the cla.s.smates, who knew that Griedrich was avoiding Sakura, always removed his dishes instead of him.
What were the other boys talking about with her? He couldn"t even imagine what kind of things they could talk about to make her laugh like that.
As a result, Griedrich never interacted with her other than the day he caught the cold.
It was a terrible night when it slowly started to rain.
He thought as his roommate loudly opened the door of the room and cried out, “It is an emergency meeting!"
Raising my eyebrows on the words. — At last, I thought.
He heard that the current condition at the battlefield was not bad, but it was not good either.
It seemed that they were finally putting an end to the battle that
just began to cut down on each other’s physical strength.
It was still a mystery of the reason why they were called, whether it was to raise or worsen the mood, he didn"t know for sure. It seemed that the country wants to see how well the knights, that they"ve invested quite a lot of time and effort to, had grown and would fare in the real battlefield.
Griedrich, of course, didn"t refuse it. He was a little excited to try out the martial arts that he had learned to be applied in real combat.
A few days later, the equipments prepared for fighting were put on a number of carriages with few people riding on it. Several alumni are also riding on the carriage and Griedrich was also placed here. Among them was a prince with silver hair, and he stared at the dormitory direction from the window.
There are teachers lined up in front of the dormitory to see them off. He could see the figure of the girl, and Griedrich felt a little thump in his heart which was not from the excitement of war.
One of the boy was teasing her by tapping lightly on her shoulder and playfully confessing their love, fl.u.s.tered, Sakura could only shout "Noisy!" to the boy. When the boy told her that it was a joke and laughed, Sakura laughed along with him.
While watching this, Griedrich resolved himself to protect this peaceful sight with his own power.
Then, the horse-drawn carriage carrying a few boys knights including Griedrich started moving with the sound of whips accompanying the ride. A number of carriages carried on, and they went along the street.
After finally pa.s.sing through the forest, for some reason, only the carriage in which he was riding was going in a different direction — to the kingdom. It seemed that it was only him who was confused as to the reason why, no one in this carriage seemed to care about this.
One was even leisurely reading a book and he felt unbalanced in this relaxed atmosphere when they were supposed to go to war.
He kneaded his eyebrows anxiously, only then did the student took his eyes off the book and glanced at Griedrich.
“When you return to the kingdom, what will you be doing, Gried?”
“Kingdom? — Why”
“Why … Have you not heard? We"re not going to the battlefield, there was an order for us to return back home.”
"We are being ordered to return home!?” I have not heard of such a thing. Griedrich was stupefied.
However, one of the students who rode on the same carriage turned their eyes toward me.
“What are you talking about now”.
The prince also looked at Griedrich as if he had slurred and said,
“Why don"t you understand the value of your life a little more?”
"The value of life. — How much is my life worth?"
Compared to others, I do not have anything special that could be considered excellent.
There was someone else who could swing a sword better than me, shooting accurately at a distant object better than me and I also couldn"t swallow up the world"s knowledge like some people.
Gried clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, and sat deeply. It is such a thing that the duke’s blood line should not be extinguished in such a battle.
He could understand the meaning of his bloodline, that he could not go down the horse carriage and head to the battlefield with everyone else, but even so. Even so, I am —.
Griedrich clenched his teeth and gripped his fist until his knuckles turned white.
The resolve I had made before had lost its meaning, he jumped out of his seat making a lot of noise.
Even after the war ended and he got the news that everyone else went back to the cavalry, he didn"t want to return.
He did not have the face to see any of his alumni. And, compared to anyone else, he did not want to see Sakura.
He felt as though everyone had been fighting for the country and all he had been doing was run away.
It was disgusting to excuse himself that it was not so.
But after a while he received a letter from his roommate who was in the same room as him.
The letter began with "suddenly you were and I was so suprised." There was a series of the current events and so on, like the fact that no one suffered any major injuries, being alone in the room is boring and then..
“Sakura?”
His roommate wrote that Sakura had disappeared.
They couldn"t find her no matter how far they had searched. If he had found any clues about it and please protect her.
Griedrich was driven by frustration, but he couldn"t do anything. If he had the opportunity to go out to the city he
would always try to look for the girl with black hair, but in the end he had never found her.
Ten years had pa.s.sed and Griedrich was currently asked to run an errand, usually something so simple would be done by the servants, but he knew that today was the usual day of his mother trying to make him meet his fiancée candidates that he had been refusing to talk about.
It has become a common practice for her mother to ask him to do some meaningless errand to make him meet the candidates. When he turned 24, it was once a month an not that he turned 25, it had become twice a month.
As I headed to the place my mother ordered me to go and there she was— a young girl around my age.
“We are sorry for the inconvenience, we"re currently preparing the tea, so please take your time."
It was the same thing every time. He met the girl his mother had set him up with, returned home and his mother had asked him "How was the meeting with the girl?" dozens of time and he had answered in refusal every time.
He didn"t expect that his mother would cry
Tears that his mother cried, he was scolded, he was astonished.
Griedrich, to be honest, was tired.
He was tired enough to think that he wouldn"t be able to find a suitable woman to marry anymore.
He had come this far and he still didn"t know what kind of woman he should marry.
Even if he married anybody, he did not feel like doing conversations that a husband and wife would usually be doing, or something that makes them touch each other, so he felt that everyone were OK.
Despite that thought, he couldn"t bring himself to say yes.
He knew of his parents" shortening patience and had thought that he would be doing as he was told, but he just couldn"t find the will to do it.
As far as 15 years ago, the distrust caused by the two girls, Anri and Lilu, still remained in his heart. He would probably have a wife but he still couldn"t imagine of who it could be and he was at a loss on what to do.
The man turned his head as he heard the voice of his mother. His mother slightly smile as she called out to him again, she was holding a doc.u.ment as she walked towards him.
“Griedrich, I wonder if I can ask for a favor?” It was probably going to be a very troublesome matter, but he couldn"t refuse it. In the end he decided to head to the house of Louis Arven, who he was also acquainted with in the Aedergart Knights Academy, as his mother told him.
“Oh yeah, Louis-san got himself a wife, you were friends with him, right? So you should go greet his wife properly.”
"We are not friends. We were barely acquaintances 10 years ago and we haven"t seen each other faces since then, not even writing one letter to each other."
He kneaded his eyebrows, thinking why he should give a greeting to such a man’s wife, when his mother called out to him.
“Griedrich, you need to do it.”
Unwillingly, he nodded to his smiling mother.
“She"s a pretty one,and seems to be a foreigner, but Liliel said that she is a very honest and cute girl"
“Is that so?”
Not interested at all in this information, Griedrich nodded without any expression.
However, mother finally sighed as she started describing to his old friend’s wife.
The first woman is a married n.o.blewoman.
For Griedrich, h.e.l.l had just started from there.
Because he didn"t agree, no matter how many people were introduced to him. The age of the partners was widely spread at first, from women in the late forties to a girl barely ten years old.
He didn"t really care whether by being with this girl, would improve or worsen his position as a n.o.ble. His mother even brought intelligent and beautiful from everywhere and he still turned them down. Now, mother is finally trying to introduce me to a married woman.
A woman who was good in bed, he didn"t want someone like that, he felt nauseous just thinking of holding her hand.
Finally it seemed that the wife of his old alumni will be introduced. Griedrich closed his eyes to turn away the painful past and breathe deeply.
— Ah, so troublesome.