“—These days, Aris is acting weird.”
The one who opened the conversation was Remi Akaia, seriously drinking a dark coffee with ice floating in it. Was this the recent trendy drink? She was forcing it down while her face twisted in some bizarre way.
I wondered if she even realized how strange she looked. Finally, after I added a spoonful of honey and plenty of milk, the frown between her eyebrows started to fade a bit.
Seeing this familiar scene, one I’d watched countless times in my past life, stirred up an indescribable feeling within me, but the person in question, with a face full of discontent, just continued to stare at me.
By the way, what’s up with Alice?
One thing was certain: Alice’s recent behavior was indeed odd. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve looked at me with sparkling eyes as soon as she heard my voice, but now she’d respond late or sometimes not at all even when I approached her to talk.
She even spent the whole day staring blankly out the window in the dorm room, neglecting to visit the garden she once loved so much.
It was as if she was enchanted by something.
The sight of her, seemingly devoid of any leisure, made it difficult for me to watch.
Alice, usually so good at hiding her struggles, was obviously dealing with something heavy.
“Recently, even if I talk to her, she takes ages to respond! The Aris who always smiled and answered quickly has vanished! Plus, she’s staring out the window all day and doesn’t even want to see the flowers she loved! How serious is this!?”
“….Whoa, that’s creepy.”
How could she be this spot-on? Did some magic that reads minds exist in this world?
As Remi Akaia recited my recent observations about Alice without missing a single detail, I rubbed my arms, feeling a tingle of chill.
Hey, passing guards, there’s a stalker here stalking a kid!
Goosebumps sprouted up, confirming that my feelings were not exaggerated.
“….Ah, crap! Are you messing around right now!? Alice is feeling gloomy!!”
“Ugh!? Well, that’s… kinda true—!!”
“Then tell me! Do you know anything about it!?”
Spill it, spill it all!!
Let me go, let me speak—
Jang jang, she grabbed my collar and shook me back and forth like a paper.
After numerous attempts to tap out, signaling defeat against her frothing excitement, my desperate yearning went unnoticed.
Thus, for a few minutes, bizarre screams echoed throughout the café.
Caw, caw.
Every cause has an effect.
This idea can also be understood as everything has a reason, often expressed in the form of “nothing comes from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit).”
In other words.
There must be some reason behind Alice’s sudden change, and it couldn’t just be nothing.
After much pondering, my answer—what could be making Alice sad—was…
“—Nostalgia?”
“…Is that the vibe?”
Longing for one’s hometown while in a strange land, nostalgia.
I concluded that nostalgia, which is sometimes considered one type of depression, was likely the issue troubling Alice right now.
Indeed, her recent actions bore a strong resemblance to mine back then, even though there were slight variations.
The longing for a hometown you can’t return to, the pain of having to envision it in your mind—it was a behavior I understood well, being that I had my own share of staring blankly at a window drenched in foreign sights.
Combining it with Alice’s circumstances painted a clear picture.
“Besides that, there wasn’t really much happening, was there?”
“…Is that so?”
“The only events that have really taken place are you and I acting silly in front of Alice, right? Aside from that, anything else we’ve had? …The only thing might be our fight? That doesn’t seem likely.”
Although our ridiculous brawl became one of the main suspects, it had happened too long ago.
Sure, Alice did panic back then, but with her natural disposition, she quickly forgave and got along with Remi Akaia, who had accidentally harmed her.
Remi Akaia, worrying about whether Alice would hate her for accidentally injuring her arm, found solace in her ‘angel-like’ little sister who approached her first with “It’s okay!”
Like that.
The fight turned out to be absurd and remarkably concluded, practically fading into memory as a resolved incident.
If only a day had passed after that, maybe it would have bothered Alice, but a month passed since, and I was certain it wouldn’t plague her now.
I could guarantee it wasn’t due to that.
Truth is, it always hides in simplicity.
You should never seek it out in chaos and variety.
Look objectively.
Think rationally.
Reasons exist.
Yet, the worries still haunting Alice… even after thinking long and hard, I couldn’t see how any of the events that happened within the Akard Empire could apply.
That meant, Alice’s gloominess wasn’t from anything that happened ‘here.’
When she had just arrived at the empire, Alice’s behavior was not significantly different from the Alice I knew; therefore, nothing from the past should affect her.
What remained was simply the fact that Alice came to ‘this place’… maybe.
If so, the issue haunting Alice now was likely the very fact that ‘she’ had separated from this ‘place’…
A dozen hypotheses built.
Leaving aside the impossible, that was the only conclusion.
“……You.”
“……Huh?”
However, even as I voiced my opinion, Remi Akaia’s expression didn’t lighten.
Instead, her face morphed into a mask of skepticism and suspicion, and I realized she wasn’t looking at Alice but at me.
Uh-oh.
Had I gotten too lost in thought?
I made a mistake.
“Come to think of it, you’ve never really told me in detail how Aris has been living all this time.”
“….”
“You only danced around the topic, glossing over it with gaping holes in the backstory.”
That was true.
I had indeed shared bits and pieces with Remi Akaia about what Alice and I had gone through, but it was merely a fragment of the whole.
What I mentioned was just an outline of the unfortunate incident in Saria Village that brought us together and how I’d caught a glimpse of swordsmanship while living with Alice.
In other words…
Meaning, all my stories had been devoid of the part where ‘she’ was somewhere doing something vigorously.
Remi Akaia’s puzzled and odd feelings would naturally arise from that.
What had happened to compassionate Alice, hurt deeply, who fell into a freezing winter river? How had she been saved and how was she treated?
The half-year gap between when Alice went missing and when we reunited—what did that signify?
During the dire crisis back in Saria Village, how had we managed to escape?
She was clever enough to catch onto the inconsistencies in my storytelling by now.
Of course, she might have had a gut feeling, but she simply had not pressed me for details so far, satisfied with the fact that she’d reunited with Alice.
And now that long-forgotten grenade had resurfaced.
Yeah.
That unspeakable kind of thing.
The reason I hadn’t shared it was partly because I disliked sharing others’ stories without their permission, akin to gossiping, but the larger reason was elsewhere.
Because the being who saved Alice was categorized as a monster by the world’s standards.
Because the one who had eaten away at Alice’s arm was none other than she, and Alice considered her the real ‘family’ more than anyone else.
In front of none other than Remi Akaia, I had to casually reveal that brutal truth.
So.
I shook my head.
“…I can’t tell you.”
“…You!?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell a benevolent lie.
There was no way I could.
I was tired of deceiving others and couldn’t spill someone’s life more precious than life itself to a complete stranger.
After all, if I gifted a crow, crying mournfully, painted white, who would willingly accept it just because it looked like it?
As the paint dripped, the black emerged.
Lies only bring despair to both the speaker and the listener, a filthy sin.
Ultimately, all I could do was keep my mouth shut, presenting only the outcome without any process or reason.
I couldn’t share everything, but Alice was lamentably longing for someone, something, that wasn’t here right now.
The person I had to leave Alice with had saved her and was someone she looked up to more than her real parents.
When the time comes, if her will allows, you too shall know the truth.
It would take a little time—a wait like that.
I wanted to ask for that promise—
Caw, caw!
“…Huh?”
A… crow?
The slightly strained caw of a crow echoed from the building’s top.
The ominous cawing repeated a few times.
People passing by or even Remi Akaia, sitting in front of me, merely ignored the sound and continued quietly.
I really shouldn’t heed it, but right now, I just couldn’t brush it off.
Because crows carried unpleasant memories for me.
That was also the symbol of ‘her.’
“—You’re telling an interesting story.”
“…….Oh crap.”
Bang!
I desperately wished this wasn’t reality, burying my head on the desk.
What a horrible nightmare it would be.
But the sharp pain on my forehead seemed to say, ‘Now that you’ve messed up, this is my world!’
If I die, you die too, you brat.
“..Ha… haha…”
I forcibly turned my creaking head, welcoming the newly arrived participant with the brightest smile I could manage.
The new arrival turned out to be staring down at me from directly behind with red eyes.
“I have plenty of things I want to ask you. Like why you’re being all buddy-buddy with ‘her’.”
“…..Who are you? Do you know me?”
“I do. Remi Akaia. Probably know you better than you know yourself.”
Was that saying true about how mentioning a tiger would bring it to you?
But I never expected someone far scarier than a tiger would show up.
If she knew, she wouldn’t have mentioned it.
For real, she didn’t say anything.
“Isn’t that right, ‘Bloodsucker’?”
“…Ah, I really miss Alice.”
They say people naturally fear animals with black colors.
In my understanding, nothing was scarier than one particular creature.
She, Saelli, had appeared in the empire’s capital.
