The Escape of Layla

Then about a month later, Lewis and Miss Leila's engagement was dissolved. This would have happened sooner or later now that Miss Leila wouldn't wake up. Lewis' fiancée, who will be the next king, will not serve as Sleep Princess.

Instead, it was Miss Rose, Miss Layla's sister, who became Lewis' new fiancée. She was the most beautiful girl in the social world and the famous Miss Rose, but unfortunately I don't hear many good rumors about her. Naturally, he was not a courtier who could heal Lewis' heartbreak.

No, I'm sure only Miss Leila can save Lewis. As sure as that was, Lewis was slowly starting to break.

One day Lewis' study was brought in a large portrait of Miss Leila, and Lewis, who was forbidden from seeing Miss Leila, seemed to be stuck in the study if he had time, looking at Miss Leila in the painting.

If I stayed in the study like that, Lewis would go really crazy. I managed to keep Lewis sane, listening to the sound of my friend's heart breaking. I try to get Lewis out of the study for some reason, but he doesn't quite respond.

"Lewis, why don't you go get some air outside once in a while? The leaves in the Royal Castle's backyard are colored and beautiful."

Even that day, I took Lewis for a walk for a reason that I had no such other love. The first study I visited in three days was full of sweet floral scents, and I looked around to see if even the flowers were decorated, but when I put Lewis' figure in my sight, I was stunned.

Lewis was sitting in a chair facing Lady Leila's portrait, gripping and dropping a stunning pink anemone flower. I can easily imagine that there are so many discolored anemone petals falling off around Lewis that he chopped them a thousand times.

"Lewis... you..."

Anemone flowers are Miss Leila's favorite flowers. Lewis got engaged to Lady Leila and found out that Lady Leila preferred anemones, forcing her to plant the Royal Castle greenhouse with the most stunning variety of anemones in the country. I also know that Lewis, who does not give a single mouthful to the management of the greenhouse, had ordered the gardener to pay special attention so that only anemones would never wither. I also took it to see Miss Layla, it was supposed to be a cherished flower.

"If you pick so much, the greenhouse anemones will be gone..."

"... If Layla doesn't wake up, it's a flower that means nothing anymore. Rather, the quality is poor for a reminder of Leila"

So he shrugged, and Lewis threw away the anemone flowers he was gripping. If Miss Leila, who is merciful of flowers, sees it, she's going to frown.

"Stop, you can't help but hit the flower..."

I know I can't reach Lewis right now. That doesn't make it a good reason to give up on keeping him sane.

Lewis looked with a vain eye at the anemone petals falling zero out of his palm, but eventually looked up at Miss Leila's portrait and laughed small. Never a comfortable grin. It was a grin that made me suffer watching, trapped in madness and scratching my feet.

"... it's your fault, Leila"

With an obvious hate voice, Lewis groaned pompously. Whatever it is, it's a voice that even lets you look at it. Unexpectedly, I show myself to Miss Leila, who is still asleep.

Perhaps Miss Leila would be happier to stay asleep. Until just now, when Miss Leila said she hoped to wake up as soon as possible, I couldn't help but be anxiously driven by this look at Lewis.

That madness of Lewis goes beyond scattering anemone flowers and hurting Miss Leila one day. Hoping it was just a bad feeling, I was just worried about the fate of my friend in front of me.

And only one day, about two years after Miss Layla fell asleep, the news came suddenly.

Miss Leila woke up. After about two years of sleep, he finally, finally woke up.

I didn't have much direct involvement with Miss Leila, but as a friend of Lewis, I'm already happy with that. Honestly, the feeling that Lewis would be saved was greater than the emotion that his first lover had woken up.

Miss Rose was in possession in those days, so it was clear that Lewis and Miss Leila couldn't reconnect their engagement, but even if Miss Leila was just alive and laughing at me, Lewis should be saved a lot. In fact, for the first time in about two years, Lewis, who received the news that Miss Leila had woken up, had a calm look and I remember feeling terribly relieved, too.

But the joy was between the bundles, and Miss Leila disappeared from the Duke's house around the time of the month and a little. It's too pitiful of Miss Leila to call this the trigger of tragedy, but I'd say it was this behavior of Miss Leila that broke Lewis' heart to the point of irreversibility.

"There's no way Leila can get away from me. It will be only a matter of time before we find him."

Lewis laughed as he gently touched Miss Layla's portrait. Unlike the disappearing grin I've been showing for the last two years, it was often a willingly perceptible look.

"... what are we going to do about finding Miss Leila? Duke, are you going home?

"No way."

Lewis smiled and glanced at the tower by the royal castle peeking through the study window. That was a creepy tower that I had heard was certainly a place to capture sinners of noble stature and such, but had not been informed of much detail.

Are you going to lock Miss Leila up in that place? Little is known to exist, in that lonely tower where the moonshadow is just beautiful.

That's what I asked, and Lewis would just tease the answer. Most importantly, I felt like this was a question I shouldn't have put to my mouth, and I really didn't get a voice.

If you're in a position to name his best friend, maybe you should have said "stop" here. But it is also true that I have had the intentional idea that if Lewis were to stabilize by keeping Miss Leila at hand, It may have been an idea as one's subordinate, but also one that comes from pity that Lewis, who has suffered for the past two years, may be rewarded.

"Aaron, you're smart. Don't say anything extra."

Lewis gave me a cold glimpse and laughed all the time, sending his gaze again to the tower outside the window. Lewis reads this idea carefully just not in his mouth. It's someone I don't really want to turn to.

"... Looking forward to it, what Leila will look like"

Lewis smiled with distorted, feverish eyes, somewhere resembling a trance, as he tried to lean lightly against the windowsill and disoriented himself.

Will that poor girl be able to take this distortion of Lewis out?

Second, I'm attacked by such anxiety. You don't just want to see the end of breaking them both, I guess this tragedy can't stop already when I've tried.

At this point, I didn't care how Miss Leila was feeling anymore. Miss Leila is my first love, but before that, I was a friend of Lewis'.

Miss Leila, pathetic, but fall into Lewis' hands as soon as possible. If I were to pray to God, I'd just run out on that one point. At the time Lewis loved her, there was no way Miss Leila could have been free.

Unexpectedly, I wanted to cry for some reason when I thought of a future that was supposed to be greeted by Miss Lewis and Laila, once a light-hearted "queen drowned by the king".

I saw those two, and I was looking to make fun of them. If you say, "As always, Lewis isn't being honest," Lewis will give you a chilling glance, and if you compliment Miss Leila on her beauty, she will give you a poor grin.

There should have been such a future. Yet the happiness of scheduled harmony scattered without a trace on the day of that accident.

"... Miss Layla, I hope we find her soon"

That's how I shrugged. My voice was trembling. I'm not sure if I'm sad or sorry, myself. I wonder where to turn this inexorable emptiness. I followed Lewis' study with a bite of bitterness.

Then, I'm not really sure what happened between Lewis and Miss Leila. Maybe it's just an excuse because I was being chased to work at the Duke's house, but I didn't get to see Lewis face to face much. Besides, it's also true that, in case they told me that they had captured Miss Leila, they would have avoided it because they didn't know what look to give her.

But I, in the end, may have been ordained by God to see this tragedy. Because even though I was avoiding Lewis, I ran into him that decisive night.

That day, I stayed in the royal castle until the research and discussions were prolonged and the dates were unusual. It was a beautiful night on the moon, when I was walking down a quiet royal castle hallway with a servant.

I ran into Lewis in the hallway at midnight. He took two of his immediate knights and seemed on his way to the study.

There are also the eyes of knights and servants, so I show my respect to Lewis here as a proper Duke family person. Folding his hips deeply, he uttered a wording that seemed familiar.

"Good evening, His Royal Highness the King. It's a beautiful night on the moon."

"Oh, it's a good night"

I couldn't catch Lewis' expression because he stayed thankful, but he had a strangely good voice. Even though I hadn't seen Lewis these days, I find that voice uncomfortable with the difference between when he was showing all the volatile aspects.

"You guys stay back. Enough for tonight."

With his face up, Lewis seemed to be giving instructions to the knights who were beside him. He seems to be a thick knight of loyalty, and as soon as he returns a short reply, he leaves the scene.

"... stay back first, we'll have a little talk before we go"

"Yes, sir."

It has been decided that it is time for Lewis to pay people to talk about private stories and Lady Layla tangles. I also read the air and packed the distance from Lewis where I lowered the servant.

"... good night, really"

Lewis looked up at the moonlight through the hallway window and deepened his grin somewhere satisfactorily. The look is very similar to what Miss Leila had shown before the accident. Has there been any change in mood? I find relief in the expression of a steady friend I haven't seen in a long time.

"You have a clear look. Anything good..."

When I tried to ask him that, I noticed that Lewis' wrapped air mixed with the scent of blood. So much so that I didn't notice at the distance of "His Royal Highness the King and the Duke's Son," so it's really slight, but it does smell like blood. There is so much disturbing about Prince Wang walking around with signs of blood.

"A good thing? Oh, there it is. Maybe this is the best day of my life."

Lewis's rare rap also unnecessarily fueled my anxiety. I stare at him unexpectedly. I'm not as tough as I am when I go on official business, but I don't feel particularly uncomfortable with the quality clothing I deserve as a king prince.

Except for the unnatural red and black stain on the cuff part of the shirt that looked slightly from under the embroidered coat.

The smell of blood and the red and black stain on the cuffs. I can't believe he's haunting it, too, the king prince, who should have nothing to do with what is inherently bloody.

I don't like it, I have a feeling. I can't say what, but maybe the story I've been watching for years has come to an end in the worst possible way.

Nature and my fingertips tremble. Oh, where is Miss Leila now?

"... Lewis, you..."

No, I wouldn't think too much about how much Lewis has a distorted part. Come on, come on, deny this stupid idea of mine.

I look into Lewis' pale eyes with an unexpected glance. Normally, I've never faced him this straight. Oh, this guy had such a cold, faint look on his face.

"... nights that will be filled more than tonight, they won't come forever"

On Lewis' cheek, who laughed so, was after a dry tear. Lewis and I have been friends for over a decade, but I have never seen a scene where he would cry. So much so that "something" that moves his mind happened to him tonight.

To say it's filled, I'm sure it's not my fault that that grin seems to contain an immeasurable emptiness.

"- Tonight, Leila became mine alone."

With such a neat grin to tremble, my friend in front of me did say so. I've heard the "Layla belongs to me" dialogue thousands of times already, but this is my first rhetoric, and I don't feel like it tells the story above all that my anxiety is centered.

Lewis ended the conversation with a smile that reminded him of madness and left like me. All that remained was a creepingly beautiful moonshadow and signs of the blood he was causing to wrap up slightly.

Oh, well, this blood, I'm sure...

- It's yours, isn't it, Miss Layla?

"... I see, so, 'it's just me', huh?"

There's nothing funny about it, but it gave me a strange, dry laugh. That laugh, which is also close to ridicule, makes me no longer know if I'm laughing at a friend who could only have chosen such an end, or if my first love is blaming himself for being drunk by his madness and not being stopped from breaking it.

Is it a sign that even this blood seems to wrap around the scent of sweet anemones that you dream too much for your first lover?

"Ah... poor Miss Leila"

If only he hadn't loved me, I would have lived happily ever after.

A grain of tears falling accidentally zero is sucked into the floor reflecting silver light.

I couldn't save anyone. My first lover, my friend. I was only a bystander to this tragedy until the end.

It was about the beautiful, bright evening in the sky that I received the news that Miss Leila had died in the convent.