RS 13

Chapter 13

Her heart began to flutter again.

She couldn’t explain it.

But then—

“How did you two end up here?”

The question came at an absurdly unexpected moment.

Dolores stiffened.

He wasn’t asking how she had come to attend the festival.

He was asking about her very identity—her origins, something she herself was still struggling to understand.

It was fairly well known in Aquine that the Count Artois family had immigrated there. But did Xavier, being from Lange, not know that? Could she hide it from him? If she didn’t tell him the truth, would he really never find out?

Even if she had to lie.

“You came from Victoria Island, didn’t you?”

“Not anymore.”

She answered thoughtlessly in her confusion.

As soon as she realized what a pitiful excuse that was, she felt so embarrassed that it seemed as though the sky were collapsing on her.

She had never been this ashamed of being an immigrant rather than a Belovian.

“H-How… did you know?”

“It’s not exactly a common name. Your father is fairly well-known in Aquine too. It seems like he’s been following influential people around, trying to climb his way up somehow.”

“My father… yes…”

She hadn’t wanted to, but Dolores’s voice naturally shrank until it seemed to crawl into an anthill, becoming nearly inaudible.

Seeing her reddened eyes, Xavier continued casually.

“My family isn’t exactly settled either. We’re staying here because of our parents’ work this time, but we’ll be going back soon. I stay in a dormitory during the semester, and I travel around during vacations.”

“…You’re here because it’s vacation?”

“Something like that.”

“You attend the Le Havre Conservatory, don’t you?”

Xavier narrowed his eyes and turned toward her.

“…That’s creepy.”

“No, no! I only asked Miss Marguerite once!”

Dolores hurriedly defended herself before immediately changing the subject.

“What’s Le Havre like?”

The moment she finished asking, Luca’s performance came to an end.

Despite having given such a ridiculously terrible performance, Luca finished with a bow to the audience without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

The audience didn’t know whether they should applaud or not and began awkwardly shuffling around.

Xavier boldly raised his thumb as if to say ‘Great!’—

“It’s terrible.”

But then he immediately flipped his hand over and gave him a thumbs-down.

‘The worst.’

Luca, who noticed him, muttered something from the stage, but Xavier wore an utterly shameless expression.

Then, keeping his eyes fixed on the stage, he asked,

“Are you interested in Le Havre?”

“It’s a good place, isn’t it? I heard you enrolled very young.”

“I suppose I did. Why are you interested? What instrument do you play?”

“No, I mean, not the conservatory. The dance academy…”

Xavier looked at her as though she were saying something ridiculous.

Then he went,

“Oh.”

Judging by his expression, it seemed he had never even considered the fact that Le Havre had a dance academy.

“The dance academy is famous too, famous…”

“That’s what I’ve heard. I know some people who attend there. Do you think the dance academy would be fun?”

“I like ballet.”

“That wasn’t what I asked. I asked whether you thought it would be fun.”

“‘I like it’ is my answer. Ballet is difficult, but I like it.”

Dolores’s cheeks puffed out slightly as they flushed red.

“That’s what it means to be fun.”

“No. Fun is momentary, but… liking something lasts a lifetime.”

“Nothing lasts a lifetime. You can like something and then come to dislike it.”

“Something you love has the only power capable of changing you. The only things that have the power to change me are the things I love.”

The moment she said it, Dolores realized her mistake.

It was a proverb from Victoria.

Why had she brought that up?

Saying something like that would only reinforce the idea of her being an immigrant in the boy’s mind.

Xavier didn’t seem particularly bothered by it, but Dolores couldn’t stop worrying.

“No, it’s just…”

The moment Dolores’s lips stopped moving, a page turned.

Xavier’s green eyes were staring directly at her.

His gaze, which had previously seemed distant and indifferent, as though a river lay between them, had suddenly gathered and focused entirely on her.

Dolores didn’t look away.

This time, Xavier was the first to turn his head.

“I don’t think your skills are bad.”

“Do you… like ballet?”

“My family sponsors a ballet company. There’s also a youth ballet company.”

Dolores’s face brightened slightly at the words ballet company, but Xavier seemed determined not to let her imagination get carried away.

He firmly shattered the illusion.

“It’s nothing particularly impressive. Just one of my father’s little hobbies. Anyway, Le Havre isn’t an interesting place, but if you’re not looking for fun, it might suit you.”

“But you enrolled there.”

She meant to ask why he spoke so poorly of the conservatory he himself attended.

Xavier answered somewhat irritably.

“I wasn’t originally going to.”

“…Why?”

Dolores genuinely couldn’t understand.

It was Le Havre!

“I wasn’t particularly interested.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I enrolled because I wanted to annoy someone, but now I regret it.”

Xavier answered briefly.

Then, as though he had suddenly remembered an unpleasant memory, he launched into an unusually long complaint.

“There are no boundaries in art. But the professors at Le Havre are idiots who think they have to be strict and severe for their musical interpretations to be recognized. If masters like Ravel or Dossent had come from Le Havre, they wouldn’t have been able to leave behind great works. There are also plenty of kids who act unnecessarily conceited.”

For the first time, Xavier looked like an ordinary boy his age.

Dolores gave him a fresh, curious look.

Perhaps feeling uncomfortable under her gaze, Xavier’s momentum faltered, and he added one more thing.

“But if you want to learn the fundamentals properly, I suppose it’s worth that much.”

Dolores smiled bitterly without realizing it.

“Why?”

“It would be wonderful to enroll in Le Havre, but I probably couldn’t.”

Dolores turned her head and stretched out her legs.

“My father doesn’t even know that I do ballet.”

Her father was still an old-fashioned adult who spoke endlessly about the roots of Victoria, even though Dolores herself could barely remember her homeland anymore.

The only ballet her father approved of was ballet as something to consume.

Ever since leaving Victoria and immigrating to Belov, her father had always felt the need to prove that he was a ‘proper aristocrat.’ Her mother had told her that the family needed to understand him because of that.

“So your father must be confused too.”

Because of those reasons, there were many things imposed upon their children.

Everything from their friends to the course of their education.

Dolores’s passion, her love for movement—none of that was ever taken into consideration.

Xavier asked casually,

“Is it because of the tuition? The scholarship system is pretty good. You have to have the ability, though.”

“My parents don’t talk to me about money. But I don’t know if that would matter. I’m attending the parish school I’m at now because they send me there to take care of my youngest brother, Pablo. If it weren’t for Pablo, I would have been taught at home by a private tutor. …The tuition there is expensive too, isn’t it?”

Xavier fell silent, wearing an expression that suggested he had never thought about it before.

Then, suddenly, an arm reached out and wrapped around Xavier’s neck.

“This is your punishment!”

It was Luca.

“Ah, damn it!”

Luca practically hung off Xavier as he wrapped an arm around his neck and vigorously messed up his hair.

Luca was much taller, so Xavier was helplessly overpowered by him.

“You think you can act so disrespectfully toward your big brother? Huh? Huh?”

“Get off me. If you don’t, I’ll kick you.”

“Go ahead. I dare you.”

Luca was such a bright and cheerful boy that it was hard to believe he and Xavier were brothers.

After spending quite some time bickering with Xavier, pushing and pulling each other and generally fooling around, Luca finally noticed Dolores.

“You’re the girl I saw that time, right? Hello. I watched your performance from the back. It was amazing.”