“Oscar-sama?” Break muttered.
He crossed to the door and opened it. Standing behind it was a big man in his prime with splendid whiskers: the head of the House of Vessalius, Oscar Vessalius.
Oscar raised a hand, greeting him with a frank “Hey.” Then he gave a long, long sigh tinged with fatigue. “Haaaaaaaaah…” It was so late at night that the date had changed. According to Oscar, his meetings and interviews had gone on and on, and they’d just now let him go.
“…Well, well. You’ve been working very hard indeed.”
“Ah, never mind that, the work’s over and done with. More importantly… Xerxes.”
Oscar called Break’s name in a stern voice. He fixed him with a sharp, level stare.
Although, as the head of the House of Vessalius, Oscar was in a position of power, his consideration for his subordinates and his friendly personality made him the idol of many. However, as you’d expect from one at the top, his glowers carried enough force to make any ordinary Pandora employee flee in tears.
That said, Oscar’s severe, imposing look didn’t seem to faze Break.
As if repaying him in kind, he stared right back with cold, sharp eyes.
When the head of the House of Vessalius came calling this late at night, it could only mean—
“—Oscar-sama.”
“…Xerxes.”
The air between the two of them sang with tension. It was as if they stood on a completely unpredictable battlefield.
In the midst of an atmosphere in which the first person to move seemed liable to get killed, Break…broke into a fearless smile.
“Want to go?”
He mimed tipping a glass to his lips.
At that, Oscar gave a cry of joy—“Oho!”—and grinned hugely.
He pulled Break into a hug and thumped him on the back.
“Do I! Do I ever! I tell ya, things’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t gotten a drink. I can’t take it!”
“I was drinking with Reim-san up until a little while ago,” Break told him, with no hesitation.
“Whaaat?!” Oscar cried.
He turned a reproachful glare on Break. “Call me when you do this stuff. That’s not very friendly of you two.” Oscar sulked. When all was said and done, he wasn’t dignified or anything like it. Just a middle-aged guy who liked his liquor.
Break gave a small, wry smile.
“Reim-san wouldn’t be able to relax and drink if the head of one of the four great dukedoms were in our midst, you see.”
Oscar met that explanation with a dissatisfied “Tch!”
“There, there.” Break soothed him, inviting him into the room. Fortunately, there was still plenty of liquor left. Break had already returned the bottles to the wardrobe, and as he took several out again, Oscar put his hands together in front of his chest and danced a little jig.
If he was this happy, Break thought it was probably true that he hadn’t had a drink in a while.
“I bet I’ll be able to shoot the works tonight, Xerxes!”
“You mean ‘tonight, too.’ Drinking with you is always an ordeal, isn’t it.”
Although it didn’t happen often, Break had drunk alone with Oscar a few times.
Drinking with Oscar was completely different from drinking with Reim. Summed up in a few words, the difference lay entirely in the phrase Oscar had used: “shoot the works.” There were still about ten bottles of liquor left, but Break wasn’t sure it would be enough.
…AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER.
As expected, it hadn’t been enough. Several emptied liquor bottles lay on the floor. Oscar seemed to have gotten hot; he’d stripped to the waist and pressed Break to do the same.
“I refuse. I won’t strip.”
“What’s this? Do I hear a lack of confidence? Your gut isn’t pooching out, is it?”
Oscar gave a snorting laugh, as if he’d just visualized his own words.
Break sighed.
“What are you talking about? I don’t have any extra flesh on me.”
“Ohhh, I dunno about that. Heh. In contrast, take a look at my stunning physique!”
Oscar struck a macho pose, flexing the muscles in his upper body. It was overwhelmingly oppressive.
Break looked deflated.
In the midst of this festive atmosphere, Oscar resettled himself heavily in his chair. He picked up a nearly empty bottle of red wine and poured himself a glass. He knocked back a swallow, then took a breath.
“…Say, Xerxes.”
“What is it, Oscar-sama? You’re going too fast, slow down a bit—”
“Look after Oz and Gil, all right? Please.”
“—Oscar-sama,” Break murmured. Oscar’s face was red all the way down his neck, but his eyes held, not only drunkenness, but intense concern for the two he’d just named.
“I’m looking out for them as much as I can, too, but…it doesn’t feel safe to send either of ’em out on their lonesomes yet—”
With an almost empty glass in his hand, Break answered quietly, “Yes, you’re right.”
As he spoke, Oscar’s expression was pained.
“Care about them, watch them… That’s about all I can do, though. It’s pitiful.”
“I think that’s fine. It’s enough.”
Break wasn’t saying it just to console him. He knew Oscar thought of Oz and Gilbert as his own sons, even though they weren’t linked by blood. He also knew the two of them looked up to Oscar like a father.
How reassuring must Oscar’s very existence seem to them?
Break drained his glass with a theatrical gesture, then continued: “…And so.”
“I’d say all you have to do now is give them advice once in a while, as someone who’s seen more of life.”
“……You think?” Oscar looked dubious. His expression could have belonged to a worrywart father who doted on his children.
“Heh-heh.” Break gave a small laugh.
“Yes, adults say it with their backs. Just stand tall and tough!”
He raised his glass, lightly.
“I see,” Oscar muttered, smiling a bit wryly. The two of them clinked their glasses together gently.
Tink. The clear, small sound echoed through the room.
…THIRTY MINUTES AFTER THAT.
“Oscar-sama. Look, the liquor’s all gone. It’s about time you went home.”
As Break spoke, he cast a mildly appalled look at the empty bottles scattered across the floor. From his left shoulder, Emily jeered, too: “Yeah, listen to the man!” Compared to Oscar, Break had sipped his drinks, but even so, he’d had quite a lot. He was close to his limit.
However, Oscar, who’d drunk twice as much as Break, said, “I know there’s more. Get it out here, c’mon,” and wouldn’t budge.
“I’m telling you there really isn’t, Oscar-sama. Just so you know, I won’t be escorting you home.”
Break’s warning didn’t seem to reach Oscar’s ears. He stalked over to the wardrobe, opened the doors, and began rummaging around inside. Finding the mystery liquor—which Break and Reim had drunk about half of before putting it away—he pulled it out happily.
“Hey, there was some. All right, let’s have a toast.”
“None for me, thank you. I wouldn’t drink that if I were you, Oscar-sama.”
As Break checked him, Oscar took a good look at the bottle of liquor, perplexed. Then he said, “Ho-hoh.
“You’ve got some pretty rare stuff here.”
Apparently Oscar knew what it was.
According to Oscar’s explanation, he’d bought some from a foreign merchant a while back, just once. The thing inside was a lizard found only on a distant southern island, and, according to the sales pitch, the liquor in which it was preserved had restorative properties and promoted perennial youth and long life.
Oscar said he hadn’t felt much effect from it, so he’d only bought it that one time.
Break wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or appalled.
>
Oscar also explained that the liquor was meant for the elderly, and it wasn’t supposed to be given to young people. On rare occasions, it didn’t agree with their constitutions, and then it caused vomiting and the paralysis of bodily functions. I knew it, Break thought, recalling how Reim had reacted.
In the end, Oscar emptied that bottle on his own and went home, looking satisfied.
After Break had seen him off in the corridor, he wondered whether he’d be all right to work tomorrow. Still, when he remembered his previous experiences of drinking with Oscar, he thought that, after a good night’s sleep, he’d be back at work as if nothing had happened, no matter how much he’d had to drink.
“I suppose you might even call that sort a ‘model drinker’… Well, I’ll take care not to emulate him.”
As he spoke, Break was conscious of a faint headache deep inside his skull.
“All right. Even I had a bit too much to drink. Let’s have some water, then—”
As he turned around…
“………………Break.”
Even though she should have been asleep long ago, Sharon was standing just behind him.
She wore a cardigan over her nightdress, and a dark, ominous aura over that. There was a tic at her temples, and as Sharon looked up at Break’s face, her eyes were steady and cold.
“Well, if it isn’t my lady. There’s a beautiful moon tonight, isn’t there.”
At Break’s cheerful greeting, Sharon said:
“…………………………”
Silently, she pointed into Break’s room: Get inside.
4
As soon as she’d followed Break into the room, Sharon grimaced. “…I smell liquor.”
Then she looked around the room, counting the bottles scattered over the floor.
“There are ten of them… What is the meaning of this, Break?”
“Oscar-sama is truly unmanageable. He just barged in and helped himself to—”
“Be quiet. There’s quite enough liquor on your breath, too.”
Break had half been telling the truth, but when Sharon checked him sharply, all he could do was hold his tongue.
Ordered to “Sit down for a moment,” Break lowered himself into a chair.
Sharon took the other chair, across the table from him. She seemed amazed and disgusted more than angry, although she was probably that as well. Looking around the room once more, Sharon gave a long sigh. “Haaaaaaaaaah…
“—Break.”
“Yes?”
“I won’t tell you not to drink. I won’t say that, but…”
“Ah, I’m sorry, my lady.”
When Break raised his hand, interrupting her lecture, Sharon asked, “What is it?” Even as she spoke, she was glaring. “I’m thirsty, so I’m going to get some water,” Break informed her, getting up from his chair.
Watching the discontented Sharon out of the corner of his eye, he walked to the bedside shelf and poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher that sat on top of it. Returning to his chair, he drained it without coming up for air. Inwardly, he marveled at how plain water seemed like such nectar after one had been drinking.
“…Listen to me, Break.”
After waiting for him to finish his water, Sharon once again turned her sharp gaze on him. Break, who was feeling more like himself now, thought it would be prudent to listen like a good boy, and obediently looked small.
“I’m well aware that adults enjoy their alcohol. However.”
Sharon raised a brisk index finger and began the sermon.
“Although there is no problem with consumption in moderation, if you drink enough that the effects linger into the next day, it causes various issues. In any case, I hear that heavy drinking isn’t good for you… If you ruin your health with alcohol, believe me, no one will have any sympathy for you. And besides—”
Break had intended to at least look as if he was listening seriously, but the sense of intoxication that enveloped him was beckoning him to the depths of slumber, and his concentration kept breaking up.
Every time his mind strayed, the sharp-eyed Sharon would scold him:
“Break!”
And every time, he’d defend himself:
“I’m listening, I’m listening.”
After awhile, possibly because Sharon realized it was pointless to lecture a drunk, she murmured, “You’re a terribly hopeless adult…” and fell silent. He knew Sharon wasn’t just angry with him. She was worried about him.
Break himself was grateful to her for caring enough to get mad at him.
“However, it would be very odd for me to say that…”
As he murmured the words silently to himself, Break chuckled faintly. At that, Sharon said:
“What are you laughing at, Break?! You do realize you’re being scolded, don’t you?!”
“I do, I know. I’m sorry.”
I’m just like a child being lectured by his mother, he thought.
The thought almost made him laugh again, but he managed to choke it back somehow. When he cast around for something else to think about, something suddenly struck him as odd. Sharon had been lecturing for quite some time, and she was just catching her breath. “By the way…” Break began.
“I thought you’d retired quite some time ago, my lady.”
It was already nearly three in the morning. Sharon had stopped by to tell him good night at about eleven that night, and she’d been yawning then. Sharon seemed at a loss as to how to answer Break’s question. She looked down, very slightly.
“Once I…got into bed, I found I couldn’t sleep.”
“Is something troubling you?”
Sharon shook her head, telling him that wasn’t it.
“I was thinking, but it wasn’t about anything important. This happens sometimes.”
…This sort of oddly sleepless night.
“Mm.” Break nodded.
True, at present, Sharon was frequently in the public eye as the next head of the House of Rainsworth, and it was likely that she sometimes fell captive to various concerns and was unable to sleep. Her earnest character made this seem all the more probable.
At such times, the thought that not resting would interfere with her work the next day would make it even harder to sleep.
“…I might be able to sleep if I drank a little myself—” Sharon murmured.
Hearing her, Break thought:
That would be a bit of a problem.
He didn’t say it, though. Instead, he said something else:
“Shall I sing you a lullaby?”
A lullaby? Sharon’s lips moved, very slightly. Break nodded.
“It’s a melody Shelly-sama used to sing to you, long ago. I just happened to remember it today.”
On hearing Shelly, her mother’s name, Sharon looked taken aback. She might have remembered those nights when she was small and had drifted off to sleep to the sound of her mother’s lullaby. Sharon lowered her eyes to her knees and murmured something, too softly for Break to hear.
He was sure it had been her mother’s name. Presently, Sharon shook her head slowly.
“I’m fine.”
Her voice was quiet. She didn’t sound angry or displeased.
Break gazed at Sharon. Sharon continued:
“A lullaby—I’m no longer such a child that I can’t sleep without relying on something like that.”
“I see. Shall we test it, then?” Break asked.
“Wha—?” Sharon was startled. If it didn’t make her the least bit sleepy, that would be that. If she did get sleepy, she could just go back to her room at that point, he told her, and he began to sing right away.
It was a slow, soft melody that flowed through a distant, nostalgic scene. A gentle song Shelly would hum to the young Sharon when she tucked her into bed. Lyrics that he’d managed to remember completely, thanks to Reim.
“Wha… Break!?”
Sharon started to rise, calling his name, but Break paid no attention. He
kept singing.
Although she’d spoken, Sharon didn’t actually try to stop him. …She didn’t seem able to. She resettled herself in her chair, holding still, looking vaguely bewildered. She might have been embarrassed. She couldn’t look straight at Break as he sang, and her gaze wandered restlessly through space.
That said, after all, Break’s recollection was dim, and the song came out a bit unsteadily.
He also thought that lullabies were effective only when mothers sang them.
But, well—
Even if he couldn’t hope for an immediate effect.
It should at least serve to divert her…
Cradle of light
Cradle of light
Blown by the winds of time
Drift on waves of dappled sunlight
And, before you know it,
Reach the shores of “a happy tomorrow”
…“A happy tomorrow.”
I see, he’d thought, when Reim had told him the lyric. No wonder I couldn’t remember it. The words were practically foreign to him. How much time had passed since he’d stopped wishing for something like that? Since he’d begun to think he wasn’t qualified to wish for such a thing?
In an attempt to protect the people of the house he’d served as the knight Kevin Legnard, he’d tried to twist their deaths into another destiny. As a result, he’d lost everyone who was important to him.
They’d been lost because of what he’d done.
He’d thought it could never be all right for someone like him to wish for “tomorrow.”
But if it wasn’t for him… If it was for someone else…
If his wish were simply that she would be visited by a happy tomorrow…
He thought that might be permitted.
“…My.”
After he’d repeated the short lyrics and the leisurely melody a few times, Sharon was breathing peacefully, sound asleep, still seated in her chair. Break was startled that it had worked. Sharon must have been sleepy to begin with, but still.
That said, the plan had been for her to return to her room if she began to feel sleepy.
Her face looked so young as she slept that he was reminded of when he’d met her. He thought it might be nice to gaze at that face for a while, but then thought better of it.
For a short while, Break thought, but there was only one answer.
PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 Page 17