She replied with an expressionless face, “I was riding a horse.”
As he could see. She had come here for a stress reliever, but it appeared she was going to get more stress. The biggest source of stress that she had received was right in front of her eyes.
She readied her posture to get back on the horse with a weary look. It must have been a day of bad luck since she had been bitten by the horse and even met the Emperor.
Then, he suddenly stopped her.
“Wait a moment.”
“…”
Why was he stopping her? She asks him with a clearly apparent bad look.
“What is the problem?”
“That hand.”
“…”
Ah, she had shown a side that she shouldn’t have. At least in front of this man, she didn’t want to look like this. So Patrizia exaggeratedly pretended that it was nothing.
“I am fine.”
“It does not look okay.”
His face was frozen and she couldn’t understand his expression. Whether she was hurt or not, it was none of his business. Because she wasn’t Rosemond. Patrizia, like a really nice person, cut off his attention with a voice that showed how trivial it was.
“It’s just a light bite. It’s really nothing.”
“…”
He stared blatantly at her with no response as if he hadn’t heard her, or maybe he had heard her but was pretending he hadn’t heard it, and soon got off his horse.
Up to this point was fine. It was after this that she embarrassed her.
He started to approach where she was. She took some steps back without realizing she was, but it was pointless.
“I am really curious when the meaning of ‘light’ has changed.”
“…”
She turned her gaze silently in another direction. The sound of his sighing reverberated in her ear. She waited for him to go, but he seemed to have no intention of doing what she wanted.
A familiar white handkerchief came into the eyes of Patrizia who turned her gaze. She laughed as if to ridicule. He was pretending to worry which didn’t fit him at all.
“I see that handkerchief often.”
“… ”
He grabbed her hand toward himself without responding back. She tried to get her hands out of his grasp but it wasn’t easy. He did not let go of her hand. She grumbled in a voice to complain.
“It hurts.”
“…”
He shook off some of the power in his hand, and she silently watched what he was doing. His hand-wrapping skills of the wounded hand with a handkerchief was surprisingly good. She smacked her lips without her knowledge and spoke.
“You are doing this well.”
“…I am used to it.”
He replied with a restrained voice. At that time, he must have mistakenly touched the wrong side, and Patrizia was overcome by an enormous amount of pain. She spits out a sharp moan without realizing she was hurt.
“Ah ugh!”
“Ah…”
He was noticeably taken aback when he heard her moan. She bit her lips to the point of almost making it bleed to deal with the pain. He apologized quickly.
“I am sorry.”
“…It is fine.”
In fact, it wasn’t okay at all, but she had no desire to tell the truth. It was a shame to look like this in front of this man, but she let herself get more ruined here. She barely endured the pain and watched him tie the wound with a trembling hand.
“It is done.”
It was a word he said a long time later. She pulled her hand out carefully. The part tied with the handkerchief was hot and stung. She stared at the hand tied with the handkerchief, and at one point opened her mouth.
“Handkerchief…”
“Hm?”
“You had said it is important.”
She said this in a bothered voice.
“Even if I try to wash out the blood, it will not erase well. Your Majesty did not have to do this…”
“I can not just pass on by when the patient is in front of me.”
Patrizia’s mouth closed from the words that felt beyond firm.
“I am not so heartless to leave an injured person that is in front of me.”
“…”
She said nothing. She wasn’t sure what to say rather than she didn’t want to say anything.
It felt strange. A long time passed before she opened her mouth.
“… I’ll wash it up as clean as possible.”
“It is fine. Do not waste your effort on this.”
“I feel strange as if I feel like I owe something.”
At that, he sighed.
“How demanding.”
“…”
She wanted to tell him that it was the demanding one. It was because of him that she was being demanding. No, it was because he, and no one else, was at the heart of all this misery. She spoke to him with a slight frown.
“Thank you anyways, Your Majesty.”
“You don’t need to say that. I owe you something for the other day.”
“…”
Was it the story of the night when it had rained? Patrizia’s expression turned blank thinking about that day. A strange, night of the full moon.
-PLIP PLOP, PLIP PLOP.
At that moment it started to rain. Up until earlier, the sky had been clear, and at some, it was rapidly darkening now. Patrizia looked up at the dark sky with raindrops falling on her face. It was definitely a clear sky until just now, and now there was sudden rain, so for sure, she must have been receiving a lot of bad luck today.
“Ah…”
It was then she made a dry sound as she was dragged to the side of Lucio. Before she could panic and ask what he was doing, his mouth opened first.
“It is unreasonable to go back on horseback now. There is a place that serves as a shelter from the rain, so let us go there.”
“…”
Just a little further, was the Imperial Palace, but the problem was that they couldn’t drag the horses there. She had no choice but to follow his words.
They arrived under a large tree. Patrizia’s mouth opened at the immense size of the tree, the biggest one she had seen since she was born. It was a magnificence that seemed to be a few hundred years old. She muttered in a voice that was full of marvel.
“It is very big, this tree.”
“This is a thousand-year-old tree. It is a tree that comes down from the time of the founding Emperor.”
During his explanation, she was forced to be surprised again. The tree was large enough to boast a thousand years of greatness, and thanks to this, the two people and two horses were provided with enough space to escape the rain.
Patrizia sat anywhere, and Lucio followed, sitting by her side. She didn’t try to stop this.
“…”