SPRFG 26

Chapter 26

The Runaway Lady and the Philosopher’s Stone (4)

Juaiye looked him over. Then she examined him carefully.

His clothes were disheveled, several buttons had fallen off, and there was dirt on his face. Other than those small things, there were no bruises or torn wounds on him.

She was relieved and rubbed her chest. Still, he might have internal injuries that could not be seen from outside his clothes, so she worriedly suggested,

“Shouldn’t you go see a doctor? You looked like you were in a lot of danger earlier.”

She almost added, You were being beaten up one-sidedly, but she stopped herself. She did not want to hurt the pride of someone she had only just met.

“I’m fine. I’m not hurt anywhere, and it doesn’t hurt at all.”

Philod raised an eyebrow as if it were nothing and dusted off his clothes.

Juaiye pointed at the dirty spots.

“There. No, behind there! Yes, there.”

After he brushed his clothes carefully, they looked a little cleaner.

She pointed at her own cheek and lips. He took out a handkerchief and rubbed his face clean as well.

Now that he was finished, he looked at her proudly, as if asking if that was enough.

She could not bring herself to tell him that his hair was still a complete mess. She only added casually,

“Don’t you have a hair tie?”

“I didn’t bring one with me today…”

“Would you like to borrow one?”

“Oh! Thank you.”

Philod happily accepted the ribbon Juaiye had untied from her wrist.

As she watched him skillfully reach both hands behind his head and tie the ribbon, she could not take her eyes off him.

“Wow, this is my first time lending a hair tie to a man…”

He chuckled.

It was uncomfortable to keep standing there and talking.

Without either of them deciding who would go first, they walked out onto the main street. They walked side by side.

Juaiye hesitated for a moment before looking up at him. She was just about to speak.

Their eyes met.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

He looked away first.

Had she misunderstood?

Had he simply been looking somewhere else, and she had happened to be at the end of his gaze?

If so, what had he been trying to look at?

The beautiful gable of the house across the street?

The golden dome of the Imperial Palace shining brilliantly beyond it?

The sky, divided into layers by clouds as thin as threads?

Without even knowing why she was curious about it, she slowly blinked.

She felt embarrassed that he had caught her staring.

“Would you like to have a cup of coffee?”

It was an impulsive suggestion.

Even she was confused about whether she wanted him to accept or refuse.

The man nodded without much hesitation.

“Ah, sure.”

They looked around the streets and found the nearest coffeehouse.

It was a place where they could see the stream well if they sat outside.

Fortunately for Juaiye, coffee also existed in the Ilgentavita Empire.

It was not that she particularly enjoyed the taste of coffee.

It was simply that, even after facing an unexpected and difficult situation, a person could find comfort in knowing that at least the habits of their old daily life remained.

Juaiye remembered the feeling of starting every morning with coffee, and how taking a sip whenever she felt sleepy made her head feel like it was spinning.

She also remembered the moments when she awkwardly played with her cup while talking to someone she had just met.

Sitting across from Philod made her feel as if she were simply having coffee with someone she knew, and she relaxed a little.

The oldest coffeehouse in the Empire was even older than the Empire’s history.

It was said that the owner’s family had been running it for more than two hundred years.

During all those years, while nobles visited salons and strengthened their friendships with one another, commoners used coffeehouses as places for public discussion.

Most people who considered drinking coffee a virtue were lawyers, accountants, doctors, and people in similar professions.

They talked about all kinds of things in coffeehouses.

They discussed everything from their opinions on new policies and the appointment or dismissal of ministers, to rumors about a certain countess having an affair with her husband’s coachman, or a certain female singer being so loved by both a son and his father that the two were preparing to duel each other.

All sorts of rumors went around.

For their customers, coffeehouses also provided simple information sheets about recent major events, stock trading, and other matters.

And throughout all those years, there had not been a single coffeehouse that allowed women to enter.

However, that taboo was broken on Ravilservitu Street.

There was no particularly great reason for it.

Since both the owner and the waiters of the coffeehouse here were women, the very premise of preventing women from entering did not apply.

Still, there was a risk of social criticism, with people accusing the place of being “immoral” and “encouraging a lewd atmosphere,” so the inside of the café had been divided into two sections.

Every time Juaiye saw the empty space in the middle, separating the men’s and women’s seats as if Moses himself had parted the sea, she held her forehead.

This is so ridiculously old-fashioned.

Then, in the very next moment, she corrected herself.

By the standards of this place, this was actually the most progressive arrangement.

And so Juaiye and Philod each took a seat at two separate tables with an empty space between them, like the Red Sea parted by Moses.

They were sitting quite far apart, but they were still facing each other.

The coffeehouse was called Star Deer.

Contrary to its name, there was neither a star nor a deer on the sign.

Instead, it showed a mermaid with a tail split into two branches.

While other coffeehouses took orders by the cup, this place had its own special units.

They also accepted complicated orders such as adding or removing milk or syrup, so first-time customers sometimes became confused.

Naturally, it became a place mostly visited by people from Korea.

Juaiye spoke as slowly as possible toward the table across from her.

If she spoke too quietly, he might not hear her, but she did not want to attract the attention of the other people.

“What, would, you, like? Since, earlier, you, um, did, that, because, of, me, I’d, like, to, buy, you, something.”

Even though Philod had brought the trouble upon himself, Juaiye still felt sorry that he had been beaten by the nobles’ servants.

He did not refuse.

After staring at the menu hanging on the wall for a while, he said,

“Thank, you. I’ll, have, an, Americano. Just, a, small, one.”

Another unique feature of this coffeehouse was that customers ordered at the counter instead of calling a waiter.

She stood up and walked toward the counter.

“One hot Americano in a grande size, please. And one tall for that gentleman over there.”

The clerk took the payment and stamped a star-shaped mark onto a small card.

If a customer collected fifteen of those stamps, they could get one free drink.

An awkward silence continued until the coffee came.

It would have been the perfect moment to pretend to be busy by looking at a smartphone.

But neither of them had a smartphone.

Juaiye pretended to be distracted.

How strange was it to be in a café where no music was playing?

She had been here for a year, but she still could not get used to it.

She thought she could faintly hear the sound of the stream flowing nearby.

A woman passing in front of the shop put down the instrument case she had been carrying.

What she took out was a fiddle.

The musician opened the instrument case, put a few coins inside, and began to play.

Juaiye felt that she had heard the melody many times somewhere before.

It was Arirang.

Perhaps because of the fiddle’s characteristic high pitch and the friction of its strings, it strangely overlapped with the sound of the Korean haegeum that Juaiye remembered.

She’s terrible at it.

She repeated those words to herself and turned her head as if trying to shake the memory away.

“Thank you for earlier.”

Juaiye leaned her upper body toward the table across from her and spoke.

The man blinked as if he had not understood her, then said, “Ah,” and nodded.

Philod spoke.

He, too, had leaned forward.

“Oh, no. I didn’t really do anything.”

She shook her head.

“Thank you for taking my side like that. There must have been at least ten people watching over there.”

“If you put it that way, I should be thanking you even more. I was getting beaten up, and you saved me.”

The two awkwardly exchanged thanks.

Philod was right, too.

They could not keep saying thank you forever.

Juaiye let out a deep sigh and said,

“Next time you find yourself in a situation like that, don’t step in. You probably realized it today, but the nobles here are all terrible people. It’s dangerous to get involved with them, so it’s better to just stay away from them.”

The man sneezed.

It seemed as if he were holding back a laugh.

He nodded.

“I couldn’t agree more. I’ll take your words to heart.”

Oh, right. There’s this one noble who collects guns of every type. He only has two hands, so what is he planning to do, hold and fire more than a dozen at once like some Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara? Ah, Avalokiteshvara wouldn’t fire guns. I just meant he has that many. It turns out he was actually a reformist who supported constitutional monarchy. He writes erotic novels and draws pornography every night, and honestly, he does have some talent. The problem is that when you remember the protagonist is the emperor, it’s so disturbing that you can’t concentrate… Still, isn’t killing his own younger brother just because he got caught doing that a little too much?

“But, you know…”

It really seemed like too dangerous a story to tell someone she had just met.

She had almost complained to him without thinking, but stopped herself.

She quickly swallowed her breath.

Her shoulders trembled.

Just as Philod began to wonder what was wrong, her chest started rising and falling.

She had the hiccups.

“Th… hic!”

She almost bit her tongue while trying to hold them back.

Philod stood up.

He asked the waiter for some warm water, but he could not take his eyes off her.

The waiter, looking annoyed, picked up the kettle nearby and poured him some water.

He took it and sat down directly in front of her.

Then he pushed the cup toward her.

“Try holding your breath. First, drink this all the way down.”

The water was warm.

It was not very hot, and it was lukewarm enough to drink immediately.

As the water went down her throat, it caught because of another hiccup.

She bent forward and coughed.

Because of that, Juaiye failed to notice that the original glass pitcher contained cold water with ice floating in it.

Trying to suppress both her coughs and hiccups at the same time made her cheeks sting.

She raised her flushed face.

He was looking at her without even laughing.

Just when she felt relieved that the hiccups had stopped—

“I’m sorry… Hic!”

The hiccups had not stopped.

She could not stop her shoulders from bouncing.

She gulped down her slightly cooled Americano.

After that, she felt much better.

She was finally able to look around.

Inside the quiet coffeehouse, there was only one person looking at her.

It was Philod, carefully examining her face.

Their eyes met and moved away again.

“Are you all right?”

He asked worriedly.

Juaiye quickly nodded.

All that remained between them now was silence.

Awkwardly, they looked out the window.

The fiddle player was still standing there.

The melody she was playing was familiar.

Passersby glanced over before approaching and throwing coins into the instrument case.

One or two people even stopped to listen.

Juaiye stared into the empty air.

She tried to smile, but only the corners of her mouth rose. Her eyes did not move.

“It’s a song that fits this place, and yet somehow doesn’t fit it at all.”

Juaiye said.

Philod seemed not to have been listening closely to the performance, because only then did he look toward the musician.

“What was the title of that song again?”