A Dream

When I came to my senses, I knew at once.

"Ah. So now this officer must persuade someone whom even the Foreign Ministry and the Intelligence Department have rejected to become an Immigration Officer."

This was a dream.

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Dear me. You must be exhausted, I imagine. Hardly a surprise, considering I hear the Foreign Ministry clung to you and pestered you for a full four hours."

That familiar, familiar voice. Hailin — looking younger than I had ever seen her — was smiling brightly from across the table.

"..."

I turned my head slowly. Instead of the street outside my house drowning in pouring rain, I found the tidy old parlor of my family home. The reflection in the window was not a youth worn down by exhaustion, but a nineteen-year-old boy who looked annoyed by the entire world. And in place of the Immigration Officer's uniform I always wore hung the academy uniform of the Merchant's Academy — strangely unfamiliar.

Yes. I remember now. This is four years ago — the moment I first decided to become an Immigration Officer.

The Foreign Ministry and the Intelligence Department had both showered me with every flattery and promised every reward, begging me to join their ranks. After I refused them all, the last person to come knocking was her. And the first words out of Hailin's mouth were...

"Do you have a dream, esteemed visitor?"

"Nathan Kell. Nineteen years old. Top student of the Merchant's Academy. Champion of numerous mock trading-company management competitions. Slated to become the next head of the Kell Trading Company. Your professors reportedly called you 'a genius in the realm of company operations and client relations.' Quite the capable young man, I'm told."

My entire dossier came pouring out of the Hailin of the past without pause.

"And yet not once have you ever declared what you wished to become. Not to family, not to friends, not even to the professor you trust most. Am I right?"

Thinly narrowed eyes fixed themselves on my younger self.

"Y-you investigated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me?"

"As one who keeps the kingdom's coffers, information is life itself."

She shrugged, cheerfully adding that she'd done it quietly, without Director Metaharashin knowing.

"It struck me as strange, you see. No material wants, decent relations with your parents, outstanding ability as a merchant. And on top of that, blessed with a Latent Talent Manifestation... I rather expected you to be overflowing with ambition. And yet you have no dream."

Ambition. My face creased for a moment.

"That's my father's business. Not mine."

And dreams aren't really important anyway.

"I'll follow my father and lead the trading company. There — is that enough? That should be enough, shouldn't it?"

"Then why have you never told the people around you that inheriting your father's position is your dream?"

"Because it's obvious!"

The boy — no, I — snapped back with a scowl. A son succeeds to the family business. Isn't that simply the natural order of things? Whatever I wanted to do, whatever dreams I might have, the family trade must be carried on. It had to be carried on — why else would families exist? What did my will matter? What use was my dream? There were things far more important than that.

And not a single word my father had ever said to me was wrong.

I remember. The hand my father laid on my boyish shoulders was so very heavy.

I understood. I understood far too well how my father and our trading company were treated by others. Trade routes painstakingly built were stolen away on flimsy pretexts; the nobles regarded us as money purses to be squeezed; rival companies spread vicious rumors to poach our customers. Enemies on every side — and all of it because we lacked a title worthy of our wealth.

For my father, the longing for true nobility could never have been a flight of fancy. It was a goal born of survival — the inferiority and the grudge of a lifetime, suppressed and swallowed. A longing for the title that would protect the company, the house, and the fortune amassed over generations.

And the boy I once was had no heart cold enough to betray that lifelong wish.

With an effort, I pushed the thoughts away and answered her.

"...Why would you ask something so trivial? You investigated me, didn't you? You already know everything."

"This officer wishes to hear it from your own lips."

For the first time, the smile drained from Hailin's face.

"Nathan Kell. What is your dream?"

"Why should I have to tell you? Why do you even want to know?"

"Because the person who most needs to listen to your words right now is this officer."

Those piercing blue eyes stung. My mouth wouldn't open. Even who do you think you are refused to come out.

No one I'd ever met had asked me this. Of course they hadn't. My friends, the adults, my teachers and neighbors — all of them already knew what I would become. I would follow in my father's footsteps, plain and simple. A natural and obvious course. Nobody asked what I wanted to become; in their hearts, I was already a child with a settled future. A future certain, secure, and successful.

But this woman had asked.

What was my dream? Not money, not the company, not ambition, not success — what was it that I had actually wanted?

"I..."

That trivial thing — the one I had never fully discarded, the one I conjured night after night beneath my blankets.

"I..."

The thing I could never say, crushed beneath my parents' confident eyes.

"I wanted to see the world."

I still have it, you know. From when I was little — from when I still let myself think about dreams.

My grandfather used to tell me stories of his own days as an adventurer, from before he became a trader.

I remember the countless tales I drifted off to, his worn, creaky voice serving as my lullaby. The time he sailed out to sea vowing to befriend the krakens and nearly drowned. The time he freed women kidnapped by bandits, only to be mistaken for a human trafficker himself and end up with a bounty on his head. The day he swore brotherhood with the eastern nomads — the very day a rebellion broke out, and he nearly died. Stories of entanglements with countless peoples and races; of scrambling, desperate survival through war and peace alike.

That romantic, ridiculous life — I heard every last detail of it, without missing a single piece.

A dream.

Yes. Like my grandfather, I wanted to see the world. Without obsessing over whether I was a trader or a civil servant — not the shackled life my money-obsessed, rank-obsessed father had laid out for me.

"I want to see the world, like my grandfather did in his youth. I want to feel it, experience it, meet it for myself."

For the first time, the boy spoke his dream aloud.

"I know it won't be easy. I don't even know how to hold a sword, and I've never learned any skill to protect my own body. And I'm... I'm scared, honestly. But still... someday, no matter what, I want to face the world. With my own two eyes."

No answer came. Only those quiet blue eyes, watching me.

"..."

"..."

Silence. For a brief while, as regret for having said anything at all and a strange, light relief rose together and sank again, the stillness hung between us.

Clap. Clap.

The silence broke with the sound of slow applause — and a satisfied smile.

"Splendid. You claim you don't know your own path, and yet you never forgot the star called a dream. Well done."

There was nothing teasing in it — just a genuine, good-natured laugh. Something in that softness loosened the tension in me without my noticing, and I leaned back into my chair. She spoke, seemingly in passing.

"...Do you hate your father?"

"Excuse me? What kind of question is that?"

"If you had a dream and gave it up for the family business, then your father's influence must have played its part."

"Did you investigate that too?"

"Just a hunch. Our stories happen to be rather similar."

"No, it's not like that. It's nothing like that, it's just..."

There was a part of me — a small part — that wished he would indulge my wishes, just once. But still... he's my father.

I never let those words leave my mouth. I had already bared far too much of myself to my emotions, but this one thing I wanted to say to my father directly, face to face. So I swallowed it down.

"This officer can understand your father's heart as well. The world is not so kind. You cross a single line — the line of us and them — and everything is upended, root and branch. Your life, your thinking, even your very convictions."

She chuckled as she added that the only things left to trust were money and position — because they were the firmest measures there were.

"Your father likely knew this, and clung to them for that very reason. To protect his family in a merciless world, he grasped the one weapon he could wield best. And to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠son kept safely inside the line, he surely taught only what he himself knew."

A trace of sorrow settled over Hailin's face as she spoke.

"We are all of the same heart. Because we differ, we fear; because we differ, we hate; because we differ, we bare blades against one another."

Words I had once spoken to Elaine flickered unbidden through my mind.

She leaned forward, drawing close, and whispered in a low voice.

"And yet there are the brave ones who cross that line. Those who carry their own world within them and walk into the world of others. It was precisely such people who changed our world."

At the same moment, my present-day words overlapped and echoed in my ears.

I remember. That was exactly it.

"Because we differ, we are drawn to one another; because we differ, we love; because we differ, we reach out to know each other."

The words that had moved my heart.

So that was what carried through, all the way to Elaine.

Hailin smiled a small smile as she looked at me.

"You said you wished to see the world — like your grandfather. But that you knew no way to protect yourself. That you were afraid, too. Then how does this sound?"

Slowly, she spread both arms wide.

"You let the world come to you."

Behind her, the setting sun sank low through the window, bleeding red across the whole world.

"You stand closest of all to the border — that line drawn mercilessly across the land — and welcome the countless peoples and races who come to it."

She rose slowly from her seat and looked down at me.

"Nathan Kell. Join us, I beg of you. As an Immigration Officer — at this officer's side — will you not face the world together with me?"

Her hand was extended toward me once more. Just as it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been, four years ago.

I stared at the outstretched hand.

"..."

Up to this point, everything had been identical to the past. My answer would be no different from back then, and I had not forgotten what I felt in that moment.

Even if so much happened over those four years.

Along with a wry smile, an inexplicable ache of longing crept up on me. If I, at this moment, could learn everything that would happen to me over the next four years — would I still become an Immigration Officer? Would I still choose to meet the person I came to hold dear, to lose her, and then to meet others just as precious and thrash desperately, this time, never to lose them?

What would the me of four years ago think?

That boy, laboring under the duty of inheritance and gazing at his dream from afar — how would he look upon the me who, shoved and battered by a merciless reality, still gritted my teeth and held on?

Seeing my face sunk in thought, Hailin laughed softly.

"Answering seems to make you awfully nervous, I see."

"No — no, it's not that. I was just..."

Haltingly, I opened my mouth.

"I was wondering what the future me — no, what I would think, if I could see this moment."

"And what do you suppose he'd think?"

If I were given the chance to choose once more.

Just like this very moment. Would I go back?

I shook my head.

"Even so... I believe I would choose this path again."

"Oh? And why is that?"

The answer to that had long since been decided.

"I do not wish to reverse a choice already made. Even if it should birth regret."

I let the truth out, quiet but unshaken.

"Sorrow, tragedy — all of it comes to an end, in the end. I will believe that, and keep walking."

This was not the answer of the boy Nathan Kell. It was the answer of the Central Officer, Nathan Kell.

And at the same time, it was what the Minister had once told me.

Whatever I may become in the end, I must press forward. Only then can I see the ending at all.

"Only then... can I write what comes next. Whether it be tragedy, or comedy."

The sincerity at the very bottom of my heart — the truth I had never spoken to anyone.

"..."

Hailin was silent for a long while. Then she smiled, wider than she had all day.

"The most perfect answer there is."

Not knowing what to make of that smile, I simply bowed my head deeply and reached down to take the offered hand.

"Never forget that heart of yours, Central Officer Nathan Kell."

Only then did I notice — she had called me by my present title.

"...I'm sorry?"

Wait a moment. Central Officer?

The timeline of this dream is supposed to be four years ago.

My head snapped up.

"D-Director Metaharashin. What did you just say..."

But the moment I saw her face, the words died in my throat.

Hailin had a look that was hers alone — that sly, ever-present half-smile. The hearty, unguarded grin born of her desert-folk height and her sunny temperament.

The figure sitting before me now had none of it.

No. The one before me was not Hailin at all. It was someone with their back to the fading sunset — face swallowed by the fierce light blazing through the window, unrecognizable.

And yet I knew, with terrible certainty.

This was no dream. This was someplace else, wearing a dream as its mask.

Aghast, I cried out.

"Who... who are you!? No — who are you, honored visitor!?"

She — no, that presence — did not answer. It only gave me the faintest impression of a smile.

Shhhk.

Slowly, the hand withdrew.

"Do not forget."

"...Ah."

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a ceiling of wood. A ceiling that was not quite unfamiliar. Naturally — it was my own home.

I tried to raise myself up slowly. Or rather, I tried to. I couldn't.

"So heavy..."

It felt as though something warm and enormously heavy was pressing down on my entire body. And when I turned my gaze, I found fresh white bandages wound tight around me from head to toe — like a creature bound inside a cocoon.

"Now what in the..."

That was when it happened.

"Mmmnh..."

Something stirred against my chest. At the same instant, a cascade of long red hair came pouring down over my body like a waterfall.

"Hmm...?"

That color — somehow familiar. Before the thought could even finish, someone slowly lifted their head. Eyes as red and as beautiful as the hair they framed met my own black ones.

"Oh."

"Ah."

We both blurted out the sound of realizing the other existed, at exactly the same moment.

Summoning every ounce of calm, in the steadiest voice I could manage, I spoke.

"...Good morning, Lady Menassil. A fine morning to you. Might I ask why you are in this officer's b—"

"CENTRAL OFFICER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Menassil wailed like the world was ending and burrowed into my embrace.

She was heavy.