You Looked So Very Happy
You looked so very happy.
The aftermath of the ranking ceremony was tremendous. Even at nine ten in the evening—a time that could easily be considered perfect for a night stroll around the Academy—I didn’t encounter a single soul on my way to the garden. Put another way, it was abnormal for me and Sien to be out walking like this… but honestly, I was struggling so badly I thought I might lose my mind. I feel a mana rebound coming…
My mana circles were laughably insignificant compared to my previous life. The total amount of mana they could hold, the maximum output I could release at once, the efficiency to draw out magic even with minimal mana, the casting speed, and even the potential for growth—nothing came close to the level I wanted. It was a miracle this body even possessed the sensitivity to handle Ether. For now, the cheat-like power of the Truth let me cover everything perfectly, but the problem was that my year was packed with people from the four major families. There was a good chance they would catch up by the time I reached second or third year… And above all, having thoroughly drawn the aggression of the nobility in the very heart of noble society, the opponent I now faced was the entire aristocratic world.
No matter how optimistically I viewed it, the period in which I could fully embrace and protect Sien would last only while I remained enrolled at the Academy. After that, I would have to seek asylum in the empire or the federation and scramble for a way to survive. I really need to do something.
Whether it was storming the Magic Tower to obtain an artifact that would lessen the burden on my mana circles, or gulping down a potion that increased their total capacity, I had to take action. With that thought in mind, I stole a glance at Sien walking beside me.
“Do you like taking walks?”
“Yes, I like it…!”
Sien nodded with a bright, full-faced smile. Good. If you like it, that’s enough. I returned a light smile of my own.
The path for our night walk wasn’t the extravagant garden crowded with flowers, but a bamboo forest where tall stalks reached toward the sky. We strolled calmly along the stone path, guided by the softly glowing lights embedded along the roadside. Rich moonlight and starlight dyed the woods, while fireflies danced a profound dance between them. The murmur of a stream winding through the trees mingled with the melancholy hooting of an owl. Even the bamboo itself seemed to have forgotten the passage of time. A rendezvous. The bamboo forest beneath the settled night was steeped in a dreamlike atmosphere, as though it welcomed a secret meeting between Sien and me.
“It’s beautiful…”
Her delicate voice came out in a whisper. Her amethyst eyes, sparkling with pure enjoyment of the moment, shone more beautifully than the stars scattered across the night sky.
“Is this your first time in a place like this?”
“Yes. Before coming to the Academy, I was always in the north.”
“Wouldn’t you have attended the debutante ball?”
“Families on the level of Alencia usually host their own…”
“…I suppose that makes sense.”
“Mm. So when I first left the north and arrived here, I was incredibly happy. Unlike the north, everything here is colorful and warm. And—”
“And?”
“…Because I got to meet you, Rain.”
With a wistful little laugh, Sien gazed at me steadily. Even though she was five centimeters taller than me, for some reason I felt as if I were looking down at her. Why? Why did her pure, untainted smile feel so heartbreaking to me? Even though I knew she was stronger than I was, why did I feel such a strong urge to protect her?
“Why were you letting them hit you…?”
I wanted to know the answer.
“You’re incredibly strong, Sien. So why don’t you resist even when you have that kind of power?”
I finally asked the question I had buried in a corner of my heart.
“…Because I wasn’t ordered to resist.”
Even though I had already known exactly what she would say.
“…Because I know it was my sisters and brother who told them to torment me.”
———But.
But I hadn’t expected this.
“Because I don’t want to be hated by my family.”
She answered in a voice and with an expression so devoid of emotion that she seemed like a puppet doll who couldn’t even stand unless someone else moved her. I truly hadn’t expected it.
“Yes. I don’t want to be hated.”
Yet her voice clung desperately to that single thought, as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. Her face was so cold it couldn’t even contain the faint sadness leaking from her worn-down emotions.
“So Rain… you mustn’t hate me either, okay…?”
The smile she barely managed to form in order to hide her pain. Yes, it was heartbreaking. The way she forced that smile—hating herself for asking such a question, furious at the world that had forced this life upon her—was too painful to witness. I wanted to wipe the sorrow from that smile. I wanted her to be happy.
“…How could I ever hate you, Sien?”
“Really? You won’t hate me?”
“Silly girl. There’s no one in the world who makes the person they hate happy.”
I softened my voice as much as possible and gave her the brightest smile I could muster. I tried to smile.
“Look forward to it. From now on, I’ll make every single day so happy that you won’t be able to sleep from excitement.”
Just as she had done for me in my previous life.
“Want to hold hands?”
This time, I was the one who reached out.
“Yes…!”
Thankfully, she took my hand.
“So, what do you think about making friends?”
We had been chatting about small, ordinary things.
“…Friends?”
“That’s right. This is the Academy, where the future pillars of the kingdom gather. Wouldn’t it be nice to make at least one decent friend while you’re here?”
Blue eyes smiled at me gently. No matter how many times I saw it, that prince-like smile was more beautiful than anything else in the world.
“I already have you, Rain. That’s enough.”
“Should I feel honored? That I alone can fill the entire friend slot in Sien’s heart.”
Of course. After all, you were the one who drove away my darkness.
“But Sien. It would be good for you to make other friends besides me.”
That was why I couldn’t shake my head at the suggestion you offered with that smile.
“…Would it really be good?”
“When you’re happy, they laugh beside you. When you’re sad, they cry with you. When things are hard, they overcome it together. That’s what friends are, so of course it’s good.”
“But you’ll always be by my side, won’t you, Rain?”
“One is good, but two is better. Two is good, but three is even better. I believe ‘too much is as bad as too little’ is closer to the truth of life than ‘the more the better,’ but it’s perfectly fine to have several good friends.”
“…Is that so?”
“Absolutely. Just having friends besides me will definitely make you happier.”
It was nonsense. Simply having you beside me already made me happy—already made me feel complete. I didn’t wish for or want any greater happiness than that. Just having you next to me was enough.
“…Friends. Yes, I’ll try.”
But I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. I didn’t want to let go of this happiness I had finally grasped after enduring so much pain. Even though you said you wouldn’t hate me, I didn’t want you to hate any part of me. Even if I didn’t want to, if it was something you wished for… I could endure anything.
“Just hearing you say that makes me grateful.”
Because then I could see your beautiful smile up close—the smile you wore only for me.
“Still, don’t push yourself. If you hate it, I hate it too.”
“…Okay.”
“Now that I think about it, don’t the four major families build their own separate connections?”
“…They do hold regular social gatherings. But I’ve never attended one…”
“Then this must be your first time meeting them at the Academy?”
“Mm. I met the other young ladies for the first time today. We haven’t even greeted each other properly yet…”
“You’re the same age and all girls, so you’ll probably find plenty of things in common. It might be easier than you think to get close. Oh, and Blair—Lady Blair is in the same martial arts circle, so that could work.”
Blair. The moment that name left your lips, my body stiffened involuntarily. The scene had been so shocking that it remained vividly etched in my memory. The two of you chatting brightly as if you were having fun. The smile you showed her back then had been noticeably different from the one you showed me. The curve of your lips had been softer, your blue eyes had sparkled with clear delight, and… overall, you had simply looked comfortable talking with Blair. As though that moment was truly, deeply happy for you… Ah, why won’t you smile at me like that?
“Rain…”
“Hm?”
“Why do you want to stay by my side?”
The words took shape before I could stop them. What on earth had I been thinking?
“Ah, no—that’s not what I meant…!!”
I scrambled for an excuse, but nothing came to mind. Since I didn’t even understand why I had said it, creating something to cover it up was impossible. This would make you hate me. If I kept showing you my pathetic side, you would grow to dislike me.
What do I do…?!
My heart pounded. The fear of being hated made tears threaten to spill at any moment. What should I do? I kept repeating the same question, desperately clutching at my crumbling reason in search of an answer—when you stepped in front of me.
“Once, there was a time I wanted to be saved.”
Your blue eyes gazed at me with gentle warmth.
“Living was so painful that I wished someone—anyone—would come and rescue me.”
“There was a person who reached out a hand to me then.”
A small but unmistakably masculine hand wrapped around both of mine.
“But like an idiot, I slapped that hand away. Again and again, over and over.”
“……”
“I wanted to be loved, but I didn’t know how to love. I wanted to trust, but the world was full of things that made trust impossible. So I kept rejecting that person’s hand and ran in the opposite direction.”
“……”
“I don’t know what I was so afraid of… I only needed to believe in hope just once.”
You smiled wistfully.
“Should I call it atonement? …No. In the end, it’s probably just self-satisfaction. As you saw today, I’m a terrible person.”
“……”
“I don’t want you to make the same stupid choice I did. I don’t want you to keep suffering alone. That’s why I decided to help you. From where I’m standing, you’re every bit as much of a fool as I was.”
You carefully lifted your left hand. That trembling hand hesitated, fidgeted, flinched several times before—
“Sorry. Helping you is ultimately just self-satisfaction. It’s for my sake, Sien.”
—finally stroked my hair.
“Pretty hypocritical, right?”
Even in those warm eyes, your wistful smile refused to disappear. I hoped you, at least, would never have to know that kind of sadness.
“…It’s not hypocritical.”
“……”
“The words you said to me, the things you did for me… Even though it’s only been a few days, they’ve given me so much strength…”
“……”
“It was the first time I ever felt warm.”
I tilted my upper body slightly. The distance between us shrank, and our eyes met on the same level.
“Thank you, Rain.”
I smiled. For the first time in my life, I smiled without stopping to think about how to do it.
“Thank you so much for reaching out your hand…!”
Smiling wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined.
“———So this is what it was.”
You smiled at me.
“I’m sorry…. Truly.”
A single word of atonement directed at someone I didn’t know. Even so—
“Thank you. Really….”
You looked so very happy.