Please Take A Step Out Of The Portrait

Chapter 10

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Vivian’s POV

“There’s too little magic in the air.”

“In that case, your chronic fatigue would also be intense.”

“To what extent?”

Paper and a fountain pen appeared with a wave of Yurision’s hand. He placed the paper on his palm and scrawled some words on it.

“River.”

Yurision did not respond to Edmund’s call. Yurision continued to write words onto the paper.

“Senior.”

“I’m listening, so speak.”

“She would stumble sometimes, is that perhaps related to magic?”

How did he know that too? I didn’t expect that he had seen me staggering due to fatigue. 

“If something like this happens again, what can I do?”

Yurision smirked. As he dismissed the fountain pen and placed the paper on the table, he replied.

“Nothing much? Is there anything you can do?”

“…….”

“Calling me?”

Yurision tilted his head slightly, before straightening his head again. His jet-black hair shook with his movements.

“Vivian.”

“Yes.”

“Call for me when a problem arises.”

He took a business card out from his chest pocket. The black card that was embroidered with silver foil, didn’t have anything special on it, only containing his name and the family’s emblem. 

However, from the enchantment that could be felt underneath faintly, it seems like a spell was placed on the entire paper itself. 

“If you’re not satisfied, you don’t have to call for me. But I’m probably the only one in the Empire that can save your life.”

Although he spoke in a very arrogant tone, I agreed to a certain extent, so I nodded readily. 

Perhaps Edmund also knew that there wasn’t any other way, so he remained silent despite openly expressing his dislike for Yurision. 

“If you infuse this with mana, it will contact me, so use it in emergencies.”

I fiddled with his business card curiously.

“Also, when you feel better, I hope that you’ll attend a banquet hosted by my family.”

“What?”

All of a sudden? Unlike my blinking self, Yurision had his arms crossed in a very relaxed posture. Perhaps due to his height and long limbs, his every movement was embedded in my eyes. 

“In late fall, River will be hosting a Mage’s Confederation party.”

Underneath his jet-black hair, blue eyes gleamed strangely. It was a gaze that I seem to have seen before. The corner of his mouth curled up smoothly.

“If Miss Summers turns up, the Empire’s magical world will become quite noisy.”

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As soon as Yurision returned, the room was filled with silence again.

Edmund held his forehead with a displeased expression, and kept opening and closing his mouth repeatedly.

My hands gathered together on the thick blanket quietly. Perhaps he had heard a wriggling sound underneath the blanket, so our eyes met when he raised his head.

Frustration and anger, but more than that, a sense of shame was swirling in his eyes.

If Edmund was a mage, perhaps his magic would have already filled this room.

Edmund moved towards me with wide steps. Unlike the way he chose his words, he asked with a deflated voice. 

“Why did you hide it from me?”

“I didn’t hide it.”

It wasn’t hiding. He didn’t even ask. Of course, I didn’t have the intention to answer honestly just because he had asked.

But the moment I answered him, Edmund’s facial expression vanished. 

“Then? Do I have to hear about your condition from another person?”

A wet voice came out of his mouth.

I didn’t think that he’d be this upset.

The hands that were fiddling with the blanket nervously sweeped against the underside of the blanket. 

“You could’ve told me.”

He tried to gather his crumbling expression but failed, revealing his hurt feelings. However, it was only temporarily, as he bowed his head silently. 

He seemed to be trying his best to regulate his emotions, and I waited as he breathed in and out repeatedly. 

Perhaps he had noticed my gaze, Edmund opened his mouth several times, before placing his face in his hands. Half of his face disappeared behind his long, prominent jointed fingers. 

“…At times like this, I really hate myself.”

A dispirited voice filled with shame rang out. 

“You were sick when you’re right next to me, but I was unaware about it.”

“It was like that even before I’d arrived here.”

So, he didn’t have to take it to heart. 

With both hands on the bed supporting him, his upper body tilted sideways, stopping right beside me. 

His breath touched my cheek lightly. A pair of watery eyes gazed at me.

“Vivian. I was really unaware.”

“You don’t need to blame yourself. How would you know when I didn’t tell you about it?”

“Do you know that those words are even more saddening?”

I let out an exhale comfortably and slid downwards from the cushion that I was leaning against. Although my eyes closed slowly, a bland voice shattered the peace. 

“Even I, who was beside you everyday, was unaware. But Yurision knew. Why didn’t I notice it less than an hour after meeting you?”

Ah, I get it.

I then realised the identity of the deep emotion that had been lingering from a while ago. I opened my closed eyes slightly. Edmund was looking down at me from above before I realised it.

Although his eyes shone like the sand of a desert underneath sunlight, a pale yellow hue that wouldn’t normally be seen was mixed within his eyes when looked at in the shade. 

Those beautiful eyes were filled with emotions.

The corner of my mouth slowly curved upwards. 

“So you’re jealous, Eddie.”

He crumbled.

“Yeah, I guess I’m jealous.”

Edmund slowly collapsed above me. As he was seated on the chair next to the bed, he leaned against the bed completely.

“You’re sick, and yet I’m feeling jealousy in such a situation. I’m really…”

I smiled faintly at his gloomy words.

There wasn’t much I could comfort him about when it came to my illness, so it’s better to speak less about it. But, when it comes to Yurision, it shouldn’t be a problem.

“I know a person that looks just like Yurision.”

“Who is it?”

“Yuriel Jewell.”

The successor of the Jewell family.

It seems that I should find out more about what kind of ending Yuriel Jewell had. After my body recovers a little more, I wanted to check it out properly.

Summers had fallen like that, so I didn’t think Jewell would be unscathed.

“Within my narrow world of interpersonal relationships, he can be considered a friend. He’s also my fiancé.”

“…You had a fiancé?”

“Officially.”

Edmund’s lips closed tightly. Oh dear, Eddie.

“Don’t be like that. Whether it was a fiancé or a friend, it doesn’t matter. It was an engagement made with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to live long kept in mind.”

Upon hearing my words, Edmund’s expression became even more dim.

“Your expression became weirder.”

“It’s not that you can’t live long.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to live for a long time.”

“Sure.”

I have to live longer. I have to live long enough to be able to return and save my sister. 

When Yuriel was mentioned, my sister naturally came to mind. Once I thought of my sister, I felt that I had to go back to the distant past.

It was Edmund’s determined voice that caught me while my thoughts wandered for a moment. 

“Vivian. You have to live.”

He spoke with a firm voice, as his eyes shone again like platinum.

“The only thing that matters to me is that you’re next to me. That’s all I care about. You’ll live, and stay by my side.”

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‘Don’t pay too much attention to trivial matters.’

‘It’ll come back to ruin you someday.’

As soon as he heard those words, Yurision River was unable to deny it.

She was the one that he had been searching for for a very long time.

The pale white face underneath faded rose-colored hair. Dark green eyes that cut through the unrestrained magical energy that was ravaging everywhere. As well as the unmoored atmosphere that was unique to her. As if there’s a danger of her disappearing right away. 

‘Really?’

Those were what he knew of Vivian Summers, but Yurision River felt extremely disappointed at coming here. As such, he straightened out Vivian’s magical energy without an expression on his face like usual, and gave a diagnosis. 

Thump, thump. 

He pretended not to know that his heart was beating anxiously.

But the reason he grabbed Vivian’s hand without realising it was because of the words that that person had said to him. He didn’t expect to hear those words again from her sister’s mouth.

When he first received a notice that the Deers were looking for him in a hurry, the first thing that came to his mind was one huge question. 

‘Why?’

While both the Deers and the Rivers were great nobles of the Empire based in the capital, Franzit, other than this common factor, everything else differed. As such, Yurision River and Edmund Deer were people standing at two extremes.

They had only met each other a few times while attending the same school, and this was also known by all of their fellow schoolmates. It was also ludicrous that someone two years younger was aiming for the seat of student council president. 

There were two years between 10th grade and graduation, so it was an unusual move to run for the student council president.

However, Edmund had cleared up the rumours of him being a ruffian, and became a huge threat to Yurision. Although Yurision had ultimately won, apparently after his graduation, Edmund had served as the student council president for two years. 

Ever since then, if they encountered each other in high society, they would exchange formalities on the surface, and otherwise pretend to not know each other. 

Yuriel Jewell, who had lived thinking that magic was the best for his entire life, fell into a world where magic was declining, while possessing a child’s body.

Luckily, he was adopted by the Rivers, who recognised his talent, and became its successor.

He, who was born and grew up as a mage, couldn’t look favourably at the Deers, who had caused the downfall of magic. 

But Edmund Deer had sent him a personally written letter. 

He sent an investment contract related to the business that the Rivers had been pursuing for a long time, along with a letter saying that there’s a sick mage in his mansion, and to come over right away if he didn’t mind.

No matter how much he considered himself to be Yuriel Jewell and not Yurision River, he did live as River’s successor for more than a decade. He could not ignore a contract that could help the River family.

“…Perhaps I had come here in order to live in peace.”

The reason that he came here was clearly to revive his fallen family, the Jewells…

Yurision muttered to himself as he leant his head against the wall of the carriage wall. He was so tired that his entire body felt heavy.

When he had first heard of the rumours, he’d expected “her” to come like usual. But the disappointments continued for too long, and in the end, he gave up. It was hard to escape the learned resignation.

So, that’s why Yurision…

No matter how hard he tried, the rose coloured hair that appeared before his eyes naturally made him sigh.

It can’t be wrong, but even now he still couldn’t believe it.

“Vivian.”

Yurision murmured the name that that person claimed to love so much.

The painting that she had carried with her until the very end was hung in the room as if it was just a very distant memory.

Under the sunlight streaming through the window of the carriage, Yuriel’s blue eyes sparkled like a lake. 

As Yuriel learned his head against the wall of the carriage, a corner of his lips curled upwards tiredly.

“You had even arrived quickly, Vivi.”

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[T/N: o.O]

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