Chapter 56
Setting out aimlessly, hoping to clear his troubled mind even a little…
“Look at this! Come see an amazing sight!”
“Fresh goods just arrived today!”
“Hey, how much is this?”
The imperial capital was truly bustling with people as tea party and trading season arrived.
Even in areas restricted to nobles, carriages and passing servants crowded the streets. But beyond those zones, people flowed like waves.
“Perfect for clearing my mind.”
People doing their best at their jobs, others laughing and chatting or shouting and fighting loudly.
Lione wandered here and there among them without a destination.
Amidst the various human figures exuding all sorts of scents, a vivid red color flickered at the edge of Lione’s vision, like a burning flame.
He stopped abruptly and followed its trajectory with a sense of disbelief. Before long…
“Lady… Bolshevik?”
As Riina raised her head at the voice she’d heard quite often in recent days, sure enough, there was Lione.
“We meet again… like this.”
At Lione’s words, tinged with faint bewilderment, Riina swallowed a sigh and nodded.
“So it seems.”
On the surface, she nodded with utter indifference, but red waves rippled near her shoulders.
As if entranced, Lione followed that vivid flame with his eyes and spoke.
“Is it alright for you to be out like this… No, I mean…”
Would there be anyone other than Riina who could make him, universally praised for his conversational skills, stammer like this?
“Bol…”
He was about to say “Bolshevik” but quickly closed his mouth, focusing his gaze on Riina’s bright red hair.
Realizing what he wanted to say without hearing it, Riina raised one hand, and he opened his mouth only to close it again.
“It’s fine not to wear a robe hood. As long as I cover below my chin, people won’t recognize me unless they look closely at my face. And as for my hair…”
She flicked the end of her hair and added:
“It’s the season when red hair and blue eyes are becoming quite common.”
At her simple and light answer, Lione finally looked around and sheepishly hunched his neck for a moment.
Indeed, as she said, the distinctive bright red hair of the Bolsheviks was swaying here and there like flowers.
Lione awkwardly opened his mouth and murmured a fact that Riina obviously already knew.
“Though it’s not a festival, people wear wigs without hesitation during this period of festive enjoyment.”
As he closed his mouth, the surroundings were noisy enough to hurt one’s ears, but a tomb-like silence fell between the two.
Riina narrowed her eyes and examined Lione and over his shoulder.
What a coincidence.
Of all people she’d rather not run into, Lione would be among the top five.
Yet in this vast capital, at this exact time, among all these people, she encountered him?
By chance?
Well… it must be chance. An extremely unlucky one at that.
She thought it would be better not to run into him, so perhaps misfortune was playing tricks, causing many such chance encounters.
In a way, Lione, caught up in this, could be considered a victim too.
Unless he had meticulously planned to deliberately bump into her, unable to hide his flustered state.
If it were such a meticulous plan considering even this impromptu outing, she could applaud without reserve.
“May I ask you one thing?”
“Yes? Yes, of course.”
“Did you plan to meet me by any chance?”
Riina asked straightforwardly without beating around the bush.
If he had something he wanted from her and had made such an impressive plan to succeed in meeting her, she was willing to listen.
“No. Absolutely not. No, I mean… It’s not that I dislike meeting you.”
Lione waved his hands emphatically saying it absolutely wasn’t the case, then gesticulated differently.
His answer might be misunderstood as saying he absolutely didn’t want to meet Riina.
But before he could say anything more, Riina cut him off.
“So it wasn’t planned, right?”
“Yes. And I certainly didn’t mean that I dislike meeting you.”
As Lione corrected himself seriously, a very faint smile spread across Riina’s lips before disappearing in an instant.
Though he was someone she didn’t even want to meet, let alone get close to, because he brought trouble wherever he went, even if he seemed useful…
She couldn’t deny that he was quite decent as a person.
That the end of such a person would be…
A feeling of pity, written as regret but read as sympathy, which she thought had already withered away, suddenly raised its head, but Riina deliberately ignored it.
“Well then… I’ll say goodbye here.”
As Lione spoke up, having endured the awkward atmosphere to the limit of politeness, Riina nodded as well.
“Yes. I’ll be going too.”
Just as the two were about to go their separate ways, their steps halted simultaneously.
“Haha… Are we going in the same direction?”
“It seems so.”
“I don’t have to go this way, I mean…”
Lione, who was about to say he’d go another way since he had no particular destination, was at a loss for words.
Wouldn’t it be like telling the person in front of him outright that he didn’t want to be with them?
Of course, it wasn’t that he wanted to go with Riina, but…
Riina didn’t particularly answer and clicked her tongue inwardly.
This must be coincidence too.
Given the situation, rather than keep running into him like this, wouldn’t it be better to have him by her side, so that misfortune, which seemed to do the opposite of her wishes like a contrary frog, might leave him behind?
Of course, even before her regression, she had tried such shallow tactics a few times and failed completely, but…
Unlike before her regression, it didn’t matter if she failed now, so it might be more comfortable to go with Lione rather than keep running into him like this.
“No. Let’s go together.”
“Pardon?”
“It seems our paths will overlap anyway.”
Her unspoken words were clear.
If they went separately, they’d likely meet by chance again, and exchanging greetings each time would only make things more awkward.
Lione couldn’t confidently say he wouldn’t meet her again either.
As long as he didn’t quietly return home right away, the possibility of chance encounters remained.
If one could predict chance, it wouldn’t be called chance at all.
“Alright.”
Thus began their unexpectedly smooth joint journey.
-Thud.
“Hey, watch it!”
“I’m sorry.”
A burly man with a fierce face, whose shoulder had collided with them in passing, just frowned as if in a hurry and disappeared.
-Swish.
“Oh? Oh, thank you.”
“Sure.”
The wallet Becky had been holding was snatched by a pickpocket, only to be immediately retrieved and returned by a guard who appeared out of nowhere.
After such a surprisingly peaceful journey, they arrived near their destination.
“I’m planning to go somewhere a bit further in from here.”
Lione tilted his head, following Riina’s gaze.
“It doesn’t seem to be a back alley.”
“No. It’s one of the places where goods brought in by foreign merchants are stored.”
“Goods… If it’s not too presumptuous, may I accompany you? I’m looking for a gift that will catch the eye at first glance.”
A smile spread across Lione’s lips as he thought of his friend and that friend’s secret crush.
“Of course.”
Naturally, Riina nodded in permission.
Even if she said no, he’d probably follow anyway, so why bother refusing?
It’s not like Lione would interfere with what she was trying to do, which was to buy undervalued goods cheaply.
And not long after, their peaceful companionship came to an end.
“Well, well, isn’t this a fine time.”
A strange man with a gruff voice looked Lione and Riina up and down alternately.
Lione instinctively stepped forward, placing himself slightly ahead of Riina, in response to the man’s clear intent to pick a fight, obvious even to a passing monkey.
“Oh ho? Trying to act tough, are we? Hey, did you see that?”
More men, similar to the first, appeared in a line behind the snickering man.
“Yeah. Well, they’re about the same level, both of them.”
At the man’s words, pointing first at Riina then at Lione, an unpleasant laughter erupted, like the sound of scraping metal.
It was a mockery beyond humiliation, to the point of feeling contempt, but Lione neither flared up nor trembled with anger.
As they said, his physical strength was pathetic.
But he didn’t feel particularly ashamed of that.
He had other advantages that made up for his lack of physical strength.
It was just that at times like this, he infinitely regretted not having that ‘strength’.
But even if he were to be knocked down in one go after being laughed at, he couldn’t back away from this spot.
Because behind him was none other than Lady Bolshevik.
Unlike the utterly grave Lione, Riina was examining the burly men blocking their path with indifferent eyes, as if she had expected this.
No wonder it had been too peaceful.
Whenever she went out like this, incidents and accidents were bound to happen.
Just as it was natural for a carriage to break down when she rode in one, tripping over a stone was a very trivial everyday occurrence when Riina went outside.
