The Line Within the Heart (3)
Elaine had come to ask him one thing.
When I look at you, my heart aches. Why is that?
Every moment she spent with him had been unmistakably happy. So why, for the past two days — no, why was it that every time she saw him with Erzena, this feeling rose up inside her? She had come seeking the answer to that contradiction.
But the moment she finally stood before Nathan, she found she couldn't ask it.
At first it was because seeing him had brightened her heart all over again. Now, though, it was different. Because...
His expression was exactly the same as it had been the day they first met.
"What? Ah — no, no. Why would I be crying? This officer — that is, why on earth would I have anything to cry about?"
Nathan started violently and pressed a fingertip to the corner of his eye. When he saw the tear clinging to it, he hastily scrubbed his eyes dry with his sleeve.
Elaine lowered her gaze slightly and read the headstone standing behind him.
[Renee Ilia.]
Now, at last, she understood.
So that's the person Nathan lost.
She had assumed, without really thinking, that he — the most upright man she knew — must have overcome everything by now. But he hadn't.
"It — it looks like rain's coming. That's all. A raindrop must have gotten into my eye out of nowhere."
This man had not yet escaped the past. Just as she herself had not.
So instead of the question she had meant to ask, she silently snapped a single dandelion blooming in the grass, knelt down before the headstone, and sat there.
Nathan caught the intent behind it and spoke up, flustered.
"E-Elaine, there's really no need to go to the trouble..."
[No. Please let me. This is a place where those who gave their lives for the kingdom rest...]
There could hardly be anything strange about a princess offering flowers, she reasoned. So she laid the snapped stem down in quiet offering — a small, bright dandelion placed beside the withered white baby's breath, its contrast plain to see.
[Might we... talk for a little while?]
Elaine asked it still on her knees.
Nathan hesitated for a moment, then settled down on the grass beside her.
"...Very well."
The two of them sat side by side, their eyes fixed on the headstone of the Sight Officer. The princess spoke in a low voice.
[Was she... someone precious to you?]
"..."
No answer came back.
Nathan held his silence for a long while before finally forcing the words out.
"...Yes. She was my junior — more important to me than anyone else in the world."
His voice was bitter, and yet somewhere in it, tender with remembrance.
— Throb.
Her heart ached once more.
[Were you lovers?]
"Hardly."
Nathan gave an awkward laugh.
"The Sight Officer was... my direct junior in the service."
[Looking at the date here, it seems she was promoted a little sooner than the day you became Central Officer.]
"That's... a bit of a complicated story. A very wicked junior, that one — she climbed past her own senior and became my superior first."
The floodgate opened slowly. Little by little, he began to tell her this story and that.
"Early in our service, that girl — well, Renee — caused more incidents than even the Taste Officer did. I spent my days cleaning up after her. It was hell, let me tell you."
Watching him lay out his memories like a man strolling through the past, Elaine found an uncontrollable smile forming on her lips.
This was good. No — this was happiness.
I came here to ask why my heart hurt. And yet...
Now that she was talking with him like this, just the two of them alone, an inexplicable fullness was swelling in her chest.
Why was that?
Then it happened.
— I like you, Nathan. Truly.
Two days ago, Erzena had bared her heart to Nathan with a trembling voice — and the memory flashed across Elaine's mind.
"Ah."
And then she understood.
Why her heart raced whenever she looked at him. Why her chest throbbed when Erzena stood beside him. Why, when Mnassil said she had been bound to him, such an inexplicable envy had come pouring out of her.
Slowly, she retraced the moments she had spent with Nathan.
— Elaine.
The voice that had spoken her name gently for the very first time.
— Let us begin again. Not as a tragedy — as a comedy.
The arms that had crushed her to him, again and again, as she wept in his embrace.
— Uh... the person you just sent flying was an entrant. Would you care to bring them back?
Even the way the corners of his mouth lifted when he smiled, sheepish and put-upon all at once.
Every one of those moments had been moving her heart. Just as it was, right now.
For the first time, Elaine recognized her own heart for what it was.
It was never mere fondness, never admiration. It was something far stronger — fierce and desperate all at once, an emotion that ached like it was burning.
She was in love.
With Nathan Kell.
Not as her only confidant, not as her precious friend — but as a man.
So that's what it was.
Her whole body trembled. Joy and shock wrapped around her at once.
Love. That intense, heart-stirring word engraved itself into her heart.
Overwhelmed by astonishment and delight, Elaine turned to him in a rush of motion.
[Nathan. I...]
But the instant the words I like you rose to her lips —
"It's gotten terribly late. Perhaps we should head back, Elaine?"
Nathan cut her off and changed the subject.
[I'm sorry?]
"...I must ask you to."
Only then did Elaine realize why he had stayed silent so long after her first question.
— Was she someone precious to you?
— ...Yes.
That had been hesitation.
What bitter irony.
And here I always thought you knew every answer there was.
Nathan Kell — the Nathan Kell Elaine knew — had been a man like a lighthouse. He had never once wavered. Even if his own body were torn apart, he was the sort who would throw himself into a pit of fire without a heartbeat's hesitation.
And yet that man was hesitating now.
The question Elaine had asked was a simple one. A choice between yes and no, nothing more. And she had already known the answer — he had told her from their very first meeting that there had once been someone precious to him.
He said that person died because of his own mistake.
And still, he had hesitated.
— Throb.
The ache in her chest had sharpened into something that pierced. But this time, its color was different.
Nathan... you poor thing.
Yes. It was pity.
Why was this man so unsteady?
[...]
Elaine gazed at him quietly. The perpetually exhausted face — and painted over it, hesitation and fear.
Everyone leaned on him. The Five Senses Officers, Erzena, Mnassil, and countless others besides — all of them leaned upon a man who seemed powerless and fragile, and yet at the same time absolutely unbending.
But the only place he himself could lean was this single, small grave.
Those who have suffered loss never want to suffer it again. Not in any form. No one understood that better than Elaine herself.
That was why she, too, had once shut the doors of her heart and written off the world.
But you were the one who opened them for me.
As a friend. As a fellow Talent Awakener. As someone who knew the same loss she did. And... as her only confidant.
And yet here was that same man, wearing the very expression she herself had worn in the past.
I want to be your support. This man's — I want to be what holds him up.
For the first time, Elaine began to hope.
You understood me. And now, I understand you.
"It's been quite a while since I slipped out here without a word — the others will be worried. Let's go back."
Nathan withdrew the warmth that had brightened his face and shook his head.
It was a line. A line drawn within the heart.
Elaine felt it clearly. How could she possibly step over a line traced with tears and regret, with a resolve steeped in grief? Losing someone precious. Fearing that someone precious might come into being again. A line built out of the refusal to lose a bond newly formed. She understood, down to her bones, what that meant — and so she could not bring herself to finish the words I like you.
"...I'm sorry. Let's leave today's conversation here."
Nathan was doing his best to pretend not to notice her feelings.
Elaine watched him for a moment — and then, quicker than he could move, she rose from the grass and slowly extended her hand.
"Elaine?"
And she spoke, pouring her whole heart into it.
"Na... than..."
"!!!"
Nathan's eyes flew wide open, as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard.
That was not the mumbled slur he was used to hearing from her. Nor was it anything his Talent had translated for him. It was a voice — trembling, halting, but unmistakably clear.
Here, the first steps of a language long forgotten were being taken. For him, and him alone.
Something hot was sliding down her cheek.
Ah. So this is what Nathan has been feeling all along.
The urge to protect someone. A feeling that leaves your hand no choice but to reach out. This pounding of the heart that could never, ever be ignored. She packed all of it into the words, forcing them out one labored syllable at a time.
"You'll... be... all... right."
You'll be all right.
Even if you hesitate. Even if you're thrown into confusion. Even if you collapse. Even if you're afraid to let someone new in — afraid to accept me, no, us — because of a bond you lost.
All of it is all right.
— Let us begin again, so that it may be a comedy and not a tragedy.
Just as you told me — every tragedy comes to an end in the end. Just as I am becoming someone new because of you.
You'll be all right too.
She said nothing more. Nathan surely already knew what was in her heart.
But that was enough. Just as Nathan had understood Elaine, Elaine understood Nathan.
This is enough, for now.
Knowing that she loved him was enough. That alone already made her happy.
Just for today, I won't cross that line.
Nathan, her one and only confidant.
I want to become the only person who understands him.
Nathan stared up blankly at the hand she offered, so heavy with everything it carried. And then, with an expression that had loosened just a little, he stepped forward himself and took it.
"...Thank you."
The warmth of his hand passed into hers, gentle and sure. And at the corners of both their mouths — the two confidants — the faintest traces of a smile appeared.
"Let's go back."
"Mm."