Spring Rain 2
—Tap. Tap.
The warm spring sunlight slipped away between the clouds, and from those clouds that veiled the sky came visitors by the name of spring rain.
—Plip. Plip. Plip.
At first the spring rain knocked gently and quietly upon the windows; little by little it began to hammer them harder.
People hurried home, fleeing the sudden, violent guests that had dropped out of the sky.
The scent of spring blossoms that had filled the streets of the royal capital vanished, and the smell of earth—born wherever the visitors stroked the ground—began to drift through the avenues instead.
The spring rain that fell from the heavens settled into the hollowed places in the pavement and the gaps between loosened bricks, forming little puddles.
It was a far cry from the city's other name, the City of Beauty—but to Jerry, this was the face of the place that felt more familiar, more dear.
Jerry walked the streets of her hometown for the first time in a month, her steps sinking into the rain-softened ground.
Ordinarily she hated going out on rainy days for fear of dirtying her shoes, yet today she found herself wanting to wander these wet streets.
She had changed out of the shoes her parents had given her to celebrate her admission to Aegis and into a worn pair from the old days, so she had no worries about her footwear.
Still, she meant to switch back into the new ones before she reached home. She did not want her parents to see their proud daughter—the one who had gone off to study in Lyceum—looking as though she were pinching pennies over a single pair of shoes.
Proud…
Was she really a daughter to be proud of?
—“Ha. All you can do is hide behind someone else and snarl. How utterly useless. Even a pet dog would be more competent than that.”
Jerry's parents had thought of her as a flower that had bloomed in the cracks of an old road.
They had believed her talent was something beautiful, flowering along a shabby street.
But after entering Aegis and seeing the truly splendid blossoms there, Jerry had been forced to realize the truth.
She was no beautiful flower at all—only a common weed you could find anywhere.
The nameless grass that sprouted along the roadside could never outshine a rose that bloomed in glory and adorned the world.
The self-loathing that kept swelling became a shackle around Jerry's ankles, weighing her steps down.
—Plip. Plip.
Jerry stopped before the door of the old, shabby inn.
But she could not find the courage to open it.
Raindrops began to soak the shoulders of the girl who stood there, frozen and uncertain. They ran down the face of the girl who could only stare blankly at the doorknob.
It had always been a doorknob she was glad to see, one she had missed—yet now it was not.
Now it was a doorknob she feared to grasp, one that felt only strange.
The confident girl who had left for Lyceum had departed the inn; what stood here now was a fool stuffed full of incompetence and inferiority.
Perhaps the spring rain was not the only unfamiliar guest who had come to these streets today.
That thought crossed her mind.
"Huu…"
Standing here like this would help nothing.
And if her parents happened to see her staring blankly like this, they would only worry for no reason.
Jerry let out a long breath, slapped her own cheeks with her palms, and steeled herself.
"Mom! Dad!"
Pulling herself together, Jerry flung the inn door wide open and called out in a bright, lively voice.
At the startled looks on the two faces that beheld their suddenly returned daughter, Jerry felt the shackles that had bound her grow a little lighter.
On rainy days, the sun does not show its face.
On rainy days there is no light, and so there is only gloom.
That is why the nobles of the kingdom hate the rain.
But that never applied to Desan.
He loved the distinctive scent that rose when rain clung to the earth.
He loved the cheerful song the rain played as it drummed against the ground.
And he loved spring rain most of all—the rain that soaked into the soil and woke the sleeping plants far below.
On top of that, rainy days were the only time he could walk the noble district without watching anyone's eyes, at complete ease.
So Desan loved the noble district when it rained.
"Welcome home, young master."
Walking the empty noble streets emptied by the rain, he found himself arriving at the mansion before he knew it.
The knights at the main gate opened it the moment they saw Desan's face.
So the rumors have already spread, then.
He had not told them he was back in the capital, yet the knights treated his return as a matter of course.
That meant Aegis's field-training visit had become a major topic of conversation among the nobility.
Using the Flying Knight Order—the very symbol of the kingdom—to ferry Aegis students in was the sort of thing that was bound to make the rounds.
If the people of the mansion had been surprised, Desan would have been the one thrown off balance.
Information was power; in the world of nobles, gathering it through one's connections was more important than anything else.
And the Oblia family was a house of considerable history and standing even among the higher-ranking count families.
If a house like that had missed news about the school their second son attended, one would have to start worrying whether something was wrong with Count Oblia's household itself.
"You're back?"
Passing through the garden—beautifully kept, if modest for a count's estate—and stepping into the mansion, a woman came down the stairs to greet him.
"I've returned, Mother."
Her waving brown hair and skin without a single wrinkle made her look like a woman in her twenties, though she was in fact approaching her late forties.
As Desan bowed his head in greeting, his mother—Vioré von Oblia—smiled gently and came toward him.
"Desan. I've missed you."
"Mother?"
Perhaps she was simply glad to see her son after a month; Vioré wrapped him in a tender embrace and stroked his shoulder.
The sudden display of affection was a little embarrassing, but it did not feel bad at all.
"But must I hear that my son has returned to the capital from someone else?"
And in an instant the gentle tone of a moment ago turned cold.
The arms that had been holding him so kindly tightened, as if to pronounce: If you cannot convince me, there will be blood.
"M-Mother…!"
Vioré came from a prestigious knightly house and had once risen as high as vice-captain of the Flying Knight Order.
When a woman like that hugged him with her full strength, his breath seized in his throat and every bone in his body began to scream.
For a second he regretted coming home at all—but he was not going to stay away forever, so he decided to accept the situation.
Avoiding the house would only have been a temporary dodge, and it would only have made Vioré's anger worse.
"I'm sorry, Mother…! I was so absorbed in my studies that I forgot to send word…!"
It might have sounded like a pathetic excuse, but it was based on fact, in its own way.
During the mock duels not long ago, watching the other students in Group A had made him anxious.
He had been reasonably confident in his own skill—until he saw the students who stood in a realm beyond the heavens, and his confidence crumbled.
Looking at the first-years of Aegis as a whole, Desan was a powerhouse who ranked near the top.
In any other class he would have been among the top three at least.
Inside Owl Class, though, his position was merely ambiguous.
That fact had needled him, and he had filled every hour of every day with nothing but training.
Even though he was not the type who particularly enjoyed mixing with people, he had joined the swordsmanship club for the sake of that training as well.
"And since it was because I remained faithful to my duties as a student, might you find it in yourself to forgive me…?"
Burning day after day in training, he had simply forgotten that he needed to write a letter.
Even to himself it sounded like a thoroughly stupid reason—but he had not forgotten because he was out playing; he had forgotten while training.
That meant he had lived each day diligently, so there ought to have been at least a little room for leniency. Desan allowed himself a flicker of hope.
"Desan."
"I'm sorry."
Vioré would not even permit that hope.
Desan exchanged a few brief words with the mother he had not seen in a month.
Soothing an angry Vioré was an ordeal, but the fault was entirely his own, so somehow he had to calm her down.
"Haa… Fine. I'll let it pass this once."
At first Vioré had been weighing how best to thrash him on the spot—but in the end, no parent ever truly beats a child.
The unfilial silence with no word at all had made her blood boil.
Yet it had happened while he was fulfilling a student's proper duties, so she decided at last to forgive him.
"So you're just going back today?"
"Yes. I'll need to return before evening, it seems."
Desan had not come home intending to stay while he was in the capital.
The mission had finished far sooner than expected, and more free time than he had anticipated had opened up, so he had simply dropped by the mansion.
Even so, the reason he was in the capital at all was Aegis's field training.
No matter that the capital was his hometown, lingering alone at home and acting independently was not the proper thing to do.
"I see. What a pity. It would have been nice if you could have seen your father and your brother as well…"
"No, it's all right. I plan to stop by again before we return to Aegis anyway."
"Heh. At least this time you're telling me when you'll be back."
Finished speaking with Vioré, Desan took a short rest and then rose from his seat.
If he stayed any longer, he was certain to run into that person.
In truth he still had about two hours to spare, but he kept that fact to himself and stepped out through the front door, intending to head back to the lodgings.
"Hmm."
"Ah…"
And the moment he opened the front door, Desan found himself face-to-face with a young man who looked just like him.
Those eyes and that expression, utterly empty of any emotion, were deeply unpleasant.
Why is he back already…?
"What are you doing here?"
"I returned because I had business in the capital. The Flying Knight Order brought us themselves—did you not hear anything?"
"Hmm… Now that you mention it, I believe I did hear something of the sort."
"Wait…"
Without so much as a common greeting, the young man ended the conversation, ignored Desan's words, and walked straight into the mansion.
Desan tried to catch him as he went inside, but in the end he only awkwardly drew back the hand he had half-extended and fled the mansion in a hurry.
Even simply running into the man made him uncomfortable.