Luna glanced fearfully at Raytan as she moved to hide Sezh behind her back. Sezh knew that Luna was not a bad person and that she wasn’t normally so frightened or mistrustful of others, but she was only acting out of instinct. The dutiful lady in waiting had only wanted to protect Sezh.

At the sight of Luna’s wary expression, Raytan pressed his lips together again and turned to leave through the library’s entrance.

“Big, big brother Raytan…”

Sezh, who had been hiding behind Luna, peeked her head around Luna’s skirts and called out to him with a small voice. The sight of Raytan’s backside walking away somehow seemed so lonely and desolate. At that moment, her eyes caught sight of his bloodied hands.

I think Luna brought something with her earlier.

She looked around hurriedly.

“Princess…?” Luna wondered what Sezh was up to.

“Please wait a minute.”

Ah, there it was. Sezh picked up a roll of bandages that was rolling on the floor. She carried it as she ran towards Raytan whose long strides were bringing him further and further away from her.

“Big brother!”

At the sound of Sezh’s voice, Raytan stopped in his tracks. Sezh managed to catch up to him rather easily because he had been walking slowly.

“It’s bleeding,” she pointed to his hand as she approached him.

Raytan did not respond to her comments and just stared at her as she neared him. She hesitated a little at his unresponsiveness, but she plucked up her courage and reached out to carefully hold his bloodied right hand in hers.

“It might get worse if you don’t treat it,” Sezh continued. She then withdrew the roll of bandages she had been carrying and started to wrap his hand with it in order to stem the bleeding.

But at that moment, she realized one slight problem with her plan—one that she hadn’t even thought of before. Sezh had no idea how to properly bind a wound.

… Is this how it’s usually done? Screw it, I don’t know. I’ll just keep winding it around until it works.

Eventually, Sezh completed wrapping Raytan’s hand with the rest of the roll, albeit a bit haphazardly and in an admittedly disorganized fashion. As she stepped back to observe her handiwork, she realized she had turned his hand into a mummy—like the ones she had read about before in history books.

Raytan frowned slightly as he held up his hand to scrutinize what she had done to it.

“… Mine,” he muttered.

“Eh?” Sezh blinked in confusion.

“It’s not my blood.”

“Ah.”

Ah, is that so? Then you should’ve told me earlier.

Of course, Sezh didn’t say those thoughts out loud. She simply opted to nod her head as if she knew all along.

“…”

All of a sudden, Raytan narrowed his eyes and fixed his gaze on Sezh’s face. She looked back at him with a puzzled expression, wondering what he was looking at so intently, but then she realized that he was probably watching her because of her nosebleeds.

The bundles of cloth that had been stuffed into her nostrils to stem the blood flow had all but lost their function by now. A stream of lukewarm blood trickled from her nostrils, down her philtrum, and then to her lips. She frowned at the metallic taste of her own blood.

“Well, I wasn’t hurt from the fight just now… This is just from when I got slapped in the face by my mother—!”

Sezh abruptly shut her mouth.

Earlier, I had lied to him and told him that I was tardy because I woke up too late after falling asleep late last night… Now I’ve gone and told him this sort of thing.

Raytan, however, displayed no surprise nor exhibited any sort of reaction to her unexpected explanation. It was as if he had already known about the reason behind Sezh’s condition beforehand.

“Anyway…” Sezh tried to continue as if nothing was wrong. “For some weird reason, my nosebleed keeps going when it should have stopped by now…”

“Wipe the blood,” Raytan initially replied to her in the same detached manner as he usually did, and then he continued with his sentence.“Don’t worry about me. Just worry about yourself.”

What did you say? Who should I be worried about?

Sezh stared at him with a clueless expression before wiping the blood from under her nose.

“In any case,” she added, “I really appreciate the fact that big brother took the time to teach me Kazaki, today. Really, I mean it.”

“…”

“Of course, there’s not enough progress for big brother to see, but I’ll do my best to learn more Kazaki. Okay?”

Raytan simply turned around and started walking away again instead of answering her. He walked so fast that Sezh didn’t even dare to chase him this time.

Is it because he has long legs?

Sezh shouted at Raytan’s retreating backside.

“You’ll be in the library tomorrow too, right?”

Of course, he offered her no reply, but she kept shouting at him anyway.

“Sezh will—come tomorrow—and wait—for you!”

She called out with as much force as her little lungs could manage while cupping both her hands on either side of her face, just to make sure he could hear her.

I don’t know if I really succeeded in winning his favor or not… but I feel relieved.

Additionally, Sezh had been able to release so many of her pent up frustrations against Bern, and now she felt so much better as a result. Especially when she remembered how Raytan had beat him within an inch of his life.

I had asked Bern to not hit Raytan, too. My teeth seem a little wobbly, but that’s okay. And then there’s that…

The edges of Sezh’s mouth curved up slightly.

Raytan had helped me get away from Bern. Of course, he only did that because Bern had claimed that Raytan and I resembled each other, but either way, this was the first time someone helped me out in such a situation. And, it was the first time I really showed I’m on his side.

So, at least for now, I feel a bit better. I did try to win his favor but, judging by his reaction just now, it seemed to have had the opposite effect. Well, a lot of things happened, and it’ll be okay. This is enough for today.

Sezh shrugged her shoulders and walked back down the quiet corridor that she had just made noisy only a few minutes ago. She made her way back to Luna.

Luna, whose face had turned blue, muttered, “Princess, what is going on…?”

“I’m okay,” Sezh replied. “I’m really okay, alright?”

She patted Luna to briefly comfort her before adding, “But, Luna, will big brother come here again tomorrow?”

Luna, whose face was already quite blue, became even bluer than before. But Sezh didn’t care about that.