Designs and materials faithful only to covering the body. Those were at least worn out. Items so shabby that they not only didn’t arouse desire, but cooled any existing desire.
Dresses? Cosmetics? Jewelry? That woman had never once wanted such things. She had no interest in looking pretty. Even if dressed up beautifully enough to make everyone turn and be amazed, she would look at her face in the mirror with an indifferent expression.
“Sh, should I throw that away too?”
Wilson, sweating profusely, asked about the luggage that Cheshire was glaring at. Cheshire was about to naturally say to throw this away too, but he glared at the luggage once more.
The fact that Sahara had left it behind and discarded it—.
It was so outrageous he couldn’t bear it.
The state of this room, himself who had frantically searched the room thinking maybe Sahara hadn’t left, the insensitive act of leaving such trash behind when leaving—all of it he couldn’t bear.
The truly unbearable thing was the fact that the woman wasn’t in front of him, but Cheshire said with darkly sunken eyes.
“One shouldn’t throw away items that have an owner.”
Cheshire, who said it as if grinding his teeth, added coldly.
“But to the female Countess who considers such trash as luggage, I suppose I should give new gifts.”
§ § § § §
“What the hell is going on? Didn’t you notice the Captain acting strange? What the fuck are you doing?”
Even in the face of Penelope’s tearful outburst, Buzz had nothing to say.
“No, earlier she seemed fine…”
He had been worried when she was suddenly chased away, but Buzz also had personal matters piling up suddenly, so he couldn’t attend to her meticulously. But even if there hadn’t been personal matters, would he have noticed that Sahara was sick? He wasn’t sure.
It had been seven years since Buzz had known Sahara. Sahara had never once been sick. Even after fighting battles without sleep for days on end, even the day after dragging her broken leg to fight and defeat Knut, Sahara was fine. She went out for morning training even with bandages on her leg. She was the kind who never caught a cold even in that freezing snowy land. It was too difficult for Buzz to anticipate her fever. Of course, that didn’t excuse it.
Sahara might have been suffering since they parted in the afternoon, the sheets and clothes were soaked with cold sweat. Penelope, sniffling and saying what if the Commander dies, changed her clothes. Buzz brought the doctor, and while waiting for the doctor’s examination results, Penelope grabbed Buzz by the collar and shook him.
“Can’t you be quiet? What are you doing next to the patient?”
The old court doctor who had come to examine Sahara stood up, picking his ear.
“I’ve checked everything, but there’s no particular trauma. It seems like she was startled by something.”
At the court doctor’s words, both Penelope and Buzz shut their mouths. It was just as expected, it was confirmed to be wisdom fever.
“Was last night the first time? The partner was His Highness the Crown Prince, right?”
At the court doctor’s unnecessary curiosity, Buzz blocked Sahara’s front and said.
“Just give the medicine and go.”
“How impertinent. I don’t care about gossip even if you protect her like a baby bird. I’m asking because the prescription changes.”
“Why ask about the partner?”
Does the prescription change depending on the partner? He thought it was a lie, but the doctor was straightforward.
“If the partner is His Highness the Crown Prince, we give contraceptive pills before sleeping together. It would be troublesome if just anyone bore the imperial heir. Anyway, if she took something like that for her first experience, her body might have been more shocked, so we need to detox it, that’s what I mean.”
Is that so? Contraceptive pills. Buzz scratched his head.
“So? What is it?”
Buzz was troubled by the doctor’s question, and Penelope said.
“What does it matter to you, the boss’s superior, whether she has experience or not, or who she slept with? Just prescribe everything and go. We’ll give her the fever reducer, and once she’s a bit more alert, she’ll choose what to take herself.”
At Penelope’s words, the doctor seemed to think that made sense, furrowing his brow but still writing the prescription.
“Go to the second floor and show this to get the medicine. The top one is the fever reducer, so give it to her as soon as you get it, and if it was her first time, have her take the one above. Well, if not, give her the one below.”
Theo, who had gone to fetch water on his way out as the doctor left, returned. Penelope told Theo to get the medicine and sat straddling the chair next to the bed. Buzz looked at Sahara, who was sleeping like the dead.
It was the first time seeing Sahara asleep like that. How sick must she be for her, who walked around with a fine face even with a broken leg, to be lying there like that. Her pale blue face looked just like a corpse, so Buzz wetted a new towel.
“How old are you to get wisdom fever?”
Penelope grumbled while wiping her still lingering tears.
“I thought she had fainted from shock. Why the hell was the Commander in my room?”
At first, she really thought she was dead. She knew it wasn’t right away because she was so hot, but she was that shocked.
“Ah, that is, since I thought you wouldn’t come in today. I told her to use it until another room is prepared.”
“Why not in the Crown Prince’s residence?”
“I don’t know. She said… she was chased away.”
Buzz changed the towel on Sahara’s head, which was like a fireball. Even though the cool towel would soon become warm, her two cheeks were exceedingly pale.
“? Chased away? Not that the Commander stormed out?”
Penelope asked back, unable to understand. It was she who had changed Sahara’s clothes, soaked with cold sweat. Traces of intercourse were densely left all over Sahara’s body, to the point where one might think the Crown Prince was a pervert.
In fact, leaving such traces wasn’t just once or twice, but to bite and suck her whole body to that extent required considerable obsession. It didn’t make sense to obsess like that in one night and then chase her away, but Buzz scratched his cheek.
“He said to go to her home territory. That he didn’t want to see her, or something. I was late for a promise so I didn’t hear everything. We agreed to talk after she came back.”
“But?”
“I also have a complicated head with various things. Since evening training time had passed, I thought she was resting.”
Moreover, since it was a matter of man-woman relations, he thought it would be unnecessary meddling, so he didn’t say more. If he had usually interfered in Sahara’s private life, it would be different, but Sahara was someone who had no private life at all. At best, tending to her monthly visitor was a bit secretive. But she didn’t even have stomachaches, and it wasn’t for several days, so there was nothing to tend to.
A brief heavy silence flowed between the two.
“…Hey, just in case.”
Penelope hesitantly voiced the thought neither of them wanted to have.
“The Commander didn’t really want to, but was it forced on her?”
Forcibly…—At Penelope’s added words, Buzz couldn’t easily answer. He hadn’t thought of that.
“Well, until morning, the atmosphere wasn’t like that. His Highness even escorted her to the training ground in the morning, and while you were away, the Prince picked a fight with the Captain, and His Highness got hurt blocking it.”
Of course, considering Sahara’s endless loyalty to the imperial family, even if she had been subjected to something harsh, she might not show resentment, but even so, the atmosphere seemed good. Thinking about how Sahara usually treated rapists, it seemed unlikely to have such an affectionate atmosphere.
When he told her about the daytime events, Penelope turned to Sahara with surprised eyes.
“Such a thing happened? Isn’t that why she was chased away?”
“?”
“No, right? With the Commander’s personality, if the Crown Prince got hurt because of her, she would have thought the sky was falling. The Commander has that stubborn side, you know.”
Holding back the words that she had a blocked side, Penelope inferred.
“She might have said something frustrating after he heroically saved her.”
That seemed likely. Sometimes Sahara would show strange stubbornness, like not reading the Emperor’s letter because there was no one with a noble title. Even after fighting all night, she had to do morning training, and no matter how annoying, she wore her hair down and blue. Even if he couldn’t understand why, there were things Sahara just had to do.
“That could be.”
Buzz could only guess it was probably something like that.
“I still feel depressed thinking about how I got scolded for suggesting she cut or tie her hair.”
“……”
“Still, since there’s no malice toward the Commander, she could just accept it a bit.”
Penelope, who ultimately concluded that the Crown Prince was petty, peered at Sahara next to Buzz. It was a thought she had never had before, but seeing her lying there with her eyes closed, she looked exactly like a slender lady.
It wasn’t that she was subjected to something harsh, they just had a bit of a fight? It was more comforting to think that than to think she had suffered something bad.
Even after giving her the fever reducer that Theo brought back crying, the fever didn’t go down for a while, so they gave her other medicine too.
Sahara, who had made two of her subordinates cry, suffered for a full day more.
She opened her eyes at the morning training time the next day.
§ § § § §
When she opened her eyes, Buzz and Theo were dozing off with their heads down on one side of the bed, and Penelope had even crawled right into the same blanket.
“Captain, you’re awake? Are you feeling a bit better?”
Buzz woke up groggily at the sound and asked.
“Why are you all here?”
“Because the Captain was sick…, you seem a bit better now?”
At least her eyes are open. —At his words, Sahara nodded. Her body wasn’t completely light, but the strange heat and pressure that had been crushing her whole body had somewhat subsided.
“Rest more. I’ll bring some soup.”
“I’m fine. I’ll eat on my own.”
“…Why are you trying to get up? You’re not thinking of going to morning training, are you?”
Buzz asked sharply. Sahara turned her eyes to look out the window.
“Because I couldn’t do it properly yesterday or the day before. I even skipped evening training.”
Perhaps her body felt bad because she couldn’t do her daily routines. It was the first time she had been sick like this. To be so sick that she didn’t even notice the three people around her. No, since she didn’t even have the awareness of being sick, it seemed like she had just fainted for a moment.
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