My Childhood Friend Is An Archmage Chapter 59
Translated by d6y (ko-fi)
Chapter 59
* * *
"Lancer!"
Arriving at the Soli Duchy, I ran straight to Lancer's room. The servants I blur past by shrieks while bowing to me.
Knock! Knock!
After speeding up the stairs, I stand in front of Lancer's door and knock. "Lancer, can I come in?"
"...Skyla?" Hearing his voice inside, I burst open the door.
My sudden entrance leaves him frozen in place, unable to continue what he's doing as he lies on his stomach on the carpet in the centre of the room, a pile of crumpled paper balls beside him.
"What are you doing?" I ask, instead of greeting Lancer. We don't do that sort of thing, perhaps because we've been close since childhood.
"Oh… I was thinking this was you."
"Isn't there too many of me?"
"I crumpled one up every time I thought of you and this happened…."
Lancer stands up and sits straighter in his seat. I walk over to take the seat next to him.
"What have you been up to?"
"I've been breathing." There's no life in his voice as he responds. Not only that, but he's avoiding my gaze for some reason.
No, it's more accurate to describe it as running away than avoiding. He's crouched down, hugging his knees tightly together, as if he vows to never make eye contact with me.
"...." I pause at his uncharacteristically lethargic appearance.
What's wrong with him. "Did you do anything besides breathing?" I ask in a deliberately lighthearted tone, hoping to cheer Lancer up.
But his reply gets more gloomy. "I slept… bathed, ate…."
"What else did you do?"
"Nothing… I just stayed in my room the whole time."
I glance around Lancer's room. Seems like he's not lying. It's already late afternoon, but the quilt on his bed still bore traces of a body. After the maids had made his bed in the morning, he climbed back into it.
What has Lancer been doing in his room all this time?
I stare at him without a word. He stares back at me, too. Without averting his eyes. His lips remain shut.
"...."
I wonder what he's thinking right now.
If only I could hear the thoughts running through his head.
When I met him just two days ago, he was fine. He didn't care what it meant to be exiled to the north. As is typical of an archmage with a different mindset, he was consoling his parents, telling them that being banished was no big deal.
Yet now he's resigned like a jellyfish washed up on the sand by a wave.
"...."
No more words are exchanged between us.
Tick, tick, tick. The room is silent, the only sound being the hands of the clock on the wall moving.
I need to say something….
Nervousness whirls in my stomach. All the bullhorn spirit I had when I breezed into Lancer's room was gone.
I've never seen him depressed like this. For a while, I wondered what I could do to brighten him up, but then I decided to just confront him instead.
"Lancer, what's going on?"
"...?"
"Why are you so depressed right now? Is it because of your rampage?"
"...I'm depressed?"
"Yeah, you are right now. Why are you so droopy? You're usually always smiling, but your expression looks so gloomy now. Your speech is low and slow. Your posture is slumped. If you aren't depressed… then what are you?"
Then comes an unexpected counter. "This… this is what it means to be depressed?"
"Huh?" I don't know how to respond to that. I stare wide-eyed at Lancer in a moment of speechlessness. He merely nods his head slowly in understanding. "I see… this is depression…."
"...You really didn't know what it was?" Instead of answering, he, again, nods slowly. His face is cast by a shadow, hardening like dried clay.
Seeing that abnormal look on him makes my gut tell me that something had happened in the last two days.
"Why didn't you come looking for me?"
"...?"
"I thought you'd come to see me yesterday since you always do at least once a day, but why didn't you?"
I think back on the thirty-six hours when Lancer wasn't present. I was so used to him visiting me every morning that it felt strange not to see him yesterday and today.
"...My brother was here yesterday."
"Who, Hubert?"
"No, not the second brother, but the eldest."
"Ah."
Lancer was the youngest of the three sons of the Soli Duchy. Besides Hubert, Lancer's second brother, there was another one.
Lancer's eldest brother. He had married and left for the provinces a few years ago to learn how to manage a territory from a nobleman close to Duke Soli, in hopes of inheriting the duchy.
"Isn't he in the provinces now?"
"He came here yesterday."
"Oh."
Right. Lancer made a big incident, after all. He must have visited to make sure he was okay.
"So, did you get in trouble with your eldest brother?"
"...." Lancer hugs his knees even tighter. It seemed like he'd been scolded pretty badly by him. "...Do you think I'm a bad friend, too?"
"What?" I blink at the random question.
"He told me that if I keep troubling like this, Skyla, you might hate and leave me one day. No, maybe you already do hate me."
His voice is barely a whisper, trembling faintly like a candle by a window, as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
"Maybe I really am as bad a friend as he said."
"Lancer…."
"I went to Kaerun's every day to see you, even though you told me not to. Even though I knew you were busy. Yet I still did it because I wanted to see you. I shouldn't have done that, I should have known you wouldn't like it."
His words quiver. "I thought that if I like you hard enough, you'd like me back. I thought that since you didn't like me, I'd have to like you even harder, but I guess he's right…."
"...."
"I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused you, I'm not going to go near you anymore-"
"Lancer." I cut him off. "I don't know what your oldest brother said to you, but listen, do you remember what I said to you before I knocked you out with my head?"
"...Yes."
"Think of them again."
His eyes widened. "When… you said something about liking me, w-was it true?"
"Why? Do you not want it to be?"
"Oh, no!" Leaning toward me, Lancer scrambles to grab my arm. "I-I thought it was a lie you made up on the spot to appease me!"
"I don't play with people's feelings."
I snort. He stiffens for a moment before shaking my arm, as though he's protesting.
"But you said no every time I told you I liked you! What happened to rejecting my confessions before?"
"That's because the 'like' you say is different from the 'like' I know," I say slowly, like tea leaves settling under a teapot. "Listen, Lancer. You only like me as a friend, but I like you as the opposite sex."
Lancer looks like he'd been hit in the back of the head with a hammer.
"What's the difference?"
"They're poles apart. To be precise, what you feel for me is an obsession, but what I feel for you is… i-is love."
I blush profusely when saying the last sentence. I'm not a child anymore, yet I'm still embarrassed at something like that.
Lancer still looks confused after my explanation. "What's an obsession?"
"For example, suppose I'm taking a trip to the southern estates with a friend other than you. How would you feel about that?"
"But you don't have any other friends."
"Shut up. So, what do you think you would do in this situation?"
"Hmm." Lancer ponders, his hands cupping his chin and his eyes closed. Until he wakes them to exclaim,
"I'm going to put that friend to sleep for a month, and I'm going on that trip with you instead!"
"That's obsession." I pinpoint what's wrong with him.
"So… what's the difference between obsession and love?"
Wow, he has no clue, no common sense, and probably morals. I'm thankful he hasn't committed a crime thus far.
With a sigh, I glance at Lancer. Prince Cade's words echo in my head.
"My sister, Princess Bliss, was remarkably obsessed with Count Diern, almost to the point of compulsion."
"Compulsion?"
"Yes. Similar to how Lancer clings to you."
They make me uneasy. No offence to Prince Cade, but I didn't want to hear that Lancer was similar to the already-dead Princess Bliss.
What if Lancer meets the same fate as Princess Bliss?
That fear began to burn like a slithering snake around my body.
"Now that I think about it, she never had any interaction with anyone other than Count Diern." Prince Cade continued. "I think it's safe to say that Count Diern was the only thing that mattered to her, which is why it came as such a shock when he told her that he wanted to break up…."'
He trailed off and turned to me. "I wish my sister had a friend besides Count Diern with whom she could share her feelings. Don't you agree, Princess?"
Prince Cade was right. I'm Lancer's only friend. Without me, he has no one.
A friend he could talk to over a cup of tea, a friend to ask for advice when things get tough.
He has no one but me.
This is no way for him to be happy.
So, "Listen, Lancer." I declare, rolling up the sleeves of my shirt. "Starting today, you're going to make friends other than me."
"Okay." Lancer nods, and immediately enchants his hand.
The next moment, a human-like doll appears in the centre of the room.
He points at it. "Here's the friend."
After saying that, Lancer gets a slap on the back by me.
