“…Argggggh!”
Groaning much like an injured bear, Tiat stomped her foot.
“What the heck’s with this town?! Seriously!”
Never mind losing sight of Feodor, she didn’t even know how to get back now. The chase that’d started off so promising had reached a pathetic end.
Compared to other towns she’d been to, Lyell’s streets of metal and machine weren’t easy to navigate. The roads freely rose and dipped, swerved east or west, and there were alleys and routes you couldn’t get through without using ladders or hydraulic gates. Sometimes there was even exhaust steam shooting from random places on the walls to obscure your vision. Altogether, Lyell was—at the least—quite unsuitable for following someone through.
Despite all the difficulty, she’d kinda figured out that Feodor had headed in the direction of the second southeast district, the one named the “Second Mineshaft Opening Memorial Museum District.” And…that was it.
“Ugh!” In her irritation, she struck a nearby wall. It made a solid thunk, her fist leaving a small dent. It seemed that she’d unconsciously fired up some venenum.
Abruptly, the reality that she’d left before having breakfast weighed down on her heavily. “…I’m huuuungry!”
Should I hurry and go back the way I came? …No, even if I started now and knew the way, I wouldn’t get there before the mess hall closed.
Tiat looked around. Unsurprisingly, this place wasn’t familiar. While running around, only thinking of chasing after that danged back, she’d managed to—though in a city like this, there were probably similar places wherever you went—end up in a back alley with not a single person in sight. A tinge of nervousness shivered up her spine; she couldn’t help but wonder if it was somehow unsafe to be in this area. It’d be a pain if she got attacked by a robber or something…
Oh wait, of course that won’t happen in a deserted town like this, especially not now of all times. And even if I do get attacked by normal people with stuff like knives and guns, I’m pretty sure I can take them on. But still…
Suddenly, she felt a light tap on her shoulder..
“Is that you, Rita?”
“Wha—?!”
A shocked Tiat leapt away, shrieking unintelligibly.
Grumble, grumble, grrrrrrowl. The shock had woken up her stomach, which’d been silent ’til now, and it emitted an indescribable sound. Panicking, Tiat tried to muffle it with her hands, but the sound wouldn’t return once it’d escaped. On top of that, it was still leaking out unsatisfied groans and moans. Grrrrrr.
She slowly turned. Standing there was a surprised-looking woman. Her featureless features immediately stood out to Tiat. The woman was much older than her. Even among the older women she knew, she was a little older than them. Maybe she was in her late twenties? She had bright silver hair and deep purple eyes. While Tiat was meeting her for the first time, it oddly didn’t feel that way. Perhaps sometime, somewhere, she’d once met someone with a very similar air about them.
“Oh my…my apologies. Did I scare you?”
“U-uh, no! That’s—”
GRRRRRRR, Tiat’s empty stomach cut in loudly before she could find the words for a good answer.
About five minutes later, Tiat was sitting at a window table of a restaurant just a short walk from where she’d been earlier and smelling something delicious.
“Recently, I’ve taken to coming into this shop in the morning. The owner was even kind enough to inform me that they’ll continue to do business until the delivery of ingredients halts completely.”
“Whoa…” Without thinking, Tiat let her emotions show. In front of her was well-done bacon, a fluffy fried egg, a crispy chilled salad, a basket packed to the brim with freshly baked bread, and marmalade glistening like gemstones.
If this wasn’t called breakfast, nothing could be. It was something she’d never expect to lay eyes on back in the military mess hall—the highest of high-grade breakfasts.
“I do hope it suits your palate.”
Of course it will! After all, it smells so good! Sooooo goood!
“I truly apologize about earlier. I mistook you for the child of an acquaintance.”
“N-no, no no! For me to, um, have shown you such a…disgraceful scene? I-I’m truly sorry!” She bowed her head repeatedly.
The woman elegantly laughed. “All the same, an apology for surprising you. Shall we eat before our meal grows cold?”
Woooow. Somehow, every single thing she did seemed grown-up.
“Y-yes. Sorry, thank you very much. Well then, let’s eat!”
To Tiat, “grown-up” meant being like Chtholly. But somehow, the woman in front of her felt “grown-up” in a very different sense than the big sister she’d known. She herself wasn’t sure what exactly gave her that feeling.
“Um, excuse me. The one you mentioned earlier, that Rita person…”
Tiat chopped up her bacon and put it on a piece of bread along with a slice of fried egg, then tossed it into her mouth. It was totally delicious. She felt the sensation of really, truly eating breakfast rising up within her. In her heart, she apologized to Collon, Pannibal, and Ryehl. I’m making all these tasty memories by myself. Sorry.
“Ahem, if you mistook the two of us, does that mean she looks like…er, resembles me?”
“Ah…I don’t know, you see. But she certainly must resemble you.”
“Certainly?”
“It has been several years since we last met. I’m certain she’s changed quite a bit from the girl I knew. She’s only a little younger than you, so her height and so on must have grown significantly.”
That’s…how to put it? Whatever resemblance we might have aside, isn’t that already a whole other issue?
“It was your coat.” The woman delicately pointed at it. “Rita had, shall we say, unique circumstances regarding the family she was born into, and became a girl who never went without her hooded coat when she was out of the house. I haven’t seen her in a while, but I had heard she was seen in this city recently. Seeing you from the back, I had thought for a moment you just might be her.”
Her voice somehow seemed very lonely.
“I-I’m sorry…”
The woman shook her head gently. “There’s no need for that. I was the one who made the mistake. You did nothing wrong. On another note, I may have invited you to this shop, but was that fine? You were searching for someone, weren’t you?”
Oh, yeah…something like that, I guess. “More following than searching, but it’s alright. When you called out to me, I’d lost sight of him long ago anyway.”
“…A boy, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Your sweetheart?”
“Nope,” she reflexively said before having to think about it. “Someone I hate. Feeling’s mutual.”
“Is that so?”
“…He’s pretty unpleasant, after all.” She idly wondered if it was something she should share. It wasn’t like she was still talking to the First Officer here. But somehow, she was willing to talk to the woman about it. Maybe it would help to ask someone who didn’t have any connections to her or Feodor?
So, concealing all the parts about the military, faeries, being weapons, and so on, she carefully explained to the woman that there was a difficult job that someone had to do. Eventually, it was decided that she and the others would be the ones to do it, and it had taken everyone some time to accept that fact.
“…And I don’t think that sat well with him. He said we should stop, and if we refused to, then he’d get in our way.”
“Oh?” The woman gazed at Tiat, spreading some marmalade on her bread. “Doesn’t that mean he loves you?”
Urgh— Tiat choked on her food. “I-It’s not love or anything like that! He’s just being weirdly stubborn!”
“I wonder…even if he says he’s going to be your enemy, isn’t it because he wants to protect you? Ah, the clumsy and straightforward ways of young boys. Don’t you find something bittersweet about it?”
That isn’t what it’s like at all, though? Maybe she hadn’t explained it well enough, because there was no way it was anywhere near as beautiful a fairytale as what the woman described.
“Anyway, because of how stubborn he is, he’s trying to take on all sorts of unnecessary burdens.”
“That, right there.” The woman smiled. “I’m certain that boy has also said the same to you, hasn’t he?”
Tiat didn’t reply.
“Am I right?”
Yes. Biting her lip, Tiat nodded reluctantly.
“Then the feeling truly is mutual. Oh, it’s definitely bittersweet…”
“B-but it’s really…not like that…” There wasn’t any strength left in Tiat’s objection.
The woman raised two fingers and playfully touched them together. “You must already know, crashing into one another head-on as you two do, is because each of you have feelings for the other. If, for example, one side had truly veered astray, then your relationship wouldn’t have progressed to the stage it is at now.”
“Is…that how it is?”
“Yes, absolutely. I may look like this, but would you believe that I’m a specialist at reading the hearts of people? Trust me.”
“A specialist…are you a professor? Or maybe a doctor?”
“Oh no, not at all. Rather than those professions, what I do is a tiny bit more practical, but—”
The woman stopped mid-sentence, her eyes sharply focused outside the shop window to the other side of the alley. “I apologize, but it seems that I must go now.”
“Muh?” Tiat was halfway through her salad, so she couldn’t give a good response.
“Some urgent business appeared. I’ll take care of the payment, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
“Muh, eh, ehh—”
“Well, then. Take care of that kid for me, okay?”
Tiat didn’t have time to say anything as the woman swiftly rose and went to speak with the shop owner. After a few words, she handed over a silk napkin and left the shop. Tiat glanced back at the table. Apparently, the woman had tidily cleared her plate of food in the time they’d been there.
Gulp. She swallowed what was in her mouth. “She’s gone.”
The woman had been like the wind—suddenly there, just as suddenly gone. She hadn’t even thanked her for the food.
On top of that, she’d forgotten to ask her name, not to mention give her own name. She only now realized that, when it was way too late.
Feodor and I have…mutual feelings?
Once again, she couldn’t see it as anything but outlandish. No matter how one looked at it, the very idea was in utter poor taste.
At the same time, there were parts she could accept. Putting aside feelings like “like” or “dislike,” the two of them were unmistakably facing each other head-on.
I wonder why.
She thought back to their first meeting atop that abandoned theatre. It had been right after the four leprechauns first arrived on the floating island, having been entrusted with a mission which was assumed to result in their deaths.
On a whim, she’d separated from Lakhesh and the others to wander around the city by herself and found that place. She thought she might try looking out from a high place at the city they were going to save in exchange for their lives. In that regard, it was an exceptionally good location. She’d been able to survey the quiet streets below her, the city of Lyell which was already dying. She had been full of gray emotions, neither lonely nor unsatisfied.
That was when that guy appeared.
“You know, it’s dangerous there.”
Those somehow silly words shattered her isolated world. That gray scenery, in that moment, had taken on just a bit of color.
Even now, she could remember a bit of the way she’d felt back then. Prepared for death, existing as thought she was already half-dead, she’d been snapped back to reality. She bantered a little, and accidentally showed some of her clumsiness. It had reminded her she was still alive.
In reality, it had been just a moment, but she felt as though she’d practically been saved. If she thought about what occurred afterwards, her memories with him were always colored with fresh, new experiences. Time spent with a boy like him—in the first place, just being around a male the same age as her—was a first.
Ah, right. To her, Tiat Siba Ignareo, he was the person she’d had so many first experiences with. The first person she’d poured her heart out to, the first boy she’d quarreled with, the first soul who’d understood her true feelings, the first sparring partner she’d gotten serious with, the first person whom she’d become hopelessly fixated on and who, in turn, was hopelessly fixated on her as well. Indeed, if there was someone she might call her first love, it would no doubt be—
“…No, no, no!”
Why does it have to be that?! That’s wrong! We’re not…we’re not that kind of…
…“Take care of the kid for me, okay?”
The words Tiat had heard when the woman was leaving suddenly popped back into her head. What kind of line was that? And who was it about?
Was it the girl they’d talked about before, Rita, who she called “that kid” with so much familiarity? But there was no reason for Tiat to have ever met her, and even if she was told to take care of her, there wasn’t anything she could do.
Then was it Feodor, who Tiat had brought up in conversation herself? But no, that was impossible as well. After all, his name hadn’t ever come up before then.
“…Wait…huh?”
Feodor had silver hair and purple eyes. So did the woman. For an instant, Tiat wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was some sort of connection between the two of them. But…
“Ahaha…there’s no way, right?”
She laughed to herself and decided to forget about it.