A Promise (1)
Late that afternoon, as the sun leaned down and the dusk began to gather, Nina came to my room with a batch of egg tarts she had baked herself cradled in her arms, insisting I must have worn myself out practicing.
Any other maid who took it upon herself to walk into the Saintess's chambers and interrupt her rest would have been scolded for forgetting her place. Nina, though, was both so close to Elysia and her exclusive maid that no one seemed inclined to stop her.
I looked down at the egg tarts she had baked with such care. Each one was crooked in its own way, and scorched patches marked the crust here and there. Even so, the sweet, warm scent of butter filling the room—and the taste itself—put to shame every meal of my past life, those convenience-store lunches racing their expiration dates that I had choked down in a cramped, mold-ridden studio apartment.
I was still working my way through one of them when Nina clasped her hands together and spoke, careful and hesitant.
"Saintess, I heard all about it. They say you wiped out the training dummies in the practice yard with an incredible burst of holy magic—and the stone wall, too. That's amazing!"
Word of what I had done in the yard that afternoon must already have spread like wildfire among the maids.
Blowing up a training facility's stone wall with healing magic... is that really something to brag about?
My face burned for no good reason.
"I-it wasn't that impressive. I just... couldn't quite control my strength, that's all."
I looked away and answered as calmly as I could manage. Nina, however, did not seem to hear a word of my modesty. Her eyes sparkled as she gushed.
"It is! Lord Bern said that in all the holy power he has seen in his life, he has never witnessed destruction and output so overwhelming. Our Saintess really is the strongest and prettiest person in the whole world!"
She could at least wet her lips before laying it on that thick...
I grumbled inwardly, but I could not quite hold back the smile that kept trying to slip free.
In Kang Jinhyeok's previous life, the only things people had ever heaped on him were demands for overdue rent and accusations that he was a useless waste of space. Not once had anyone offered such blind, unconditional praise for every little thing he did.
So I was weak to compliments after all...
It was a fact I had only just discovered after more than twenty years of living.
Whether or not she noticed how flustered I was, Nina edged carefully closer and perched on the end of the bed. Then she watched me eat the crisp, flaky egg tart with a thoroughly contented look on her face.
...What is that look? That's an older-sister look. Wasn't I supposed to be the unnie here? Why do I feel like I've become the little sister...?
The blind, warm way Nina looked at me tickled something strange in a corner of my chest. In the quiet room, the only sound was the soft crunch of egg tart, and beyond the window the sunset dyed her pink hair a warm orange.
After watching me in silence for a long while, Nina fidgeted with her sleeve and finally let the words she had been hesitating over slip out.
"Saintess."
"Yes."
"Do you think... I could learn to read and write, too...?"
I set down the next egg tart I had been holding, ready to take a bite.
"To read and write?"
"Yes. I want to try writing a letter."
Nina fidgeted with the hands she had folded neatly on her lap.
"On your birthday, and on special days, I want to give you a letter I wrote myself. Right now I can barely even write my own name properly."
Her voice grew smaller toward the end. Only moments ago she had been chattering, bright with excitement, about what had happened in the practice yard. Now she could not even meet my eyes.
I looked at Nina's hands for a moment. From hauling water, folding clothes, and doing every kind of rough work day after day, her knuckles were rough for a girl of twenty.
"Then you should learn."
"...Really?"
"But why haven't you learned until now? Don't the maids receive a basic education within the Church?"
I had asked without any particular meaning behind it. Nina did not answer right away. Her lips moved soundlessly, and only after a long pause did she smile, awkward and thin.
"At first... I couldn't even think about learning to read."
"At first—you mean when you came to the Papal Palace as a maid?"
"Yes."
Nina turned her gaze toward the window, as if she were looking at something far away. The light of the sunset spread softly over her pink hair.
"When I first came to the Papal Palace, I didn't even have a name."
"...You didn't have a name?"
"At the orphanage they just called me the youngest. After I entered the Papal Palace, everyone called me 'hey,' or else 'you there.'"
It was a story I was hearing for the first time. I had never seen anything like it in the original novel, nor in the side stories. In the novel, Nina had been nothing more than a character who died.
She laughed as if it were nothing at all. But the fingers resting on her knees were still clutching the hem of her clothes tight.
"At first, just being called was enough to make me happy. I thought it meant someone needed me."
Something in my chest ached strangely at those words. Being called because you were useful and being called because someone cherished that you existed were plainly two different things. To Nina, who had never owned anything, there would have been neither reason nor room to tell the difference.
"When I made a mistake, I got scolded a lot."
Nina looked down at the back of her hand.
"They pinched me for bringing the water late, and if I hadn't scrubbed the corridors properly they made me clean them all over again through the night. On days when they were in a bad mood... they all hit me together. If it was bad, they kept hitting me until something broke. And there were people who covered their noses when I walked by, saying I smelled."
"Who did that?"
My voice sank cold before I realized it. Nina flinched and waved both hands.
"N-nobody does that now! Really. You spoke to the Church about it, and they were all punished, remember?"
"I did?"
"Yes."
A bright smile bloomed across Nina's face again.
"That day I'd made a mistake and was hiding behind the storehouse. I hadn't eaten anything for days, but I couldn't even say I was hungry, so I was crying by myself. It hurt so much..."
She went on slowly, as if calling up each piece of that day one by one.
"And then, all of a sudden, a pair of white shoes appeared in front of me."
"White shoes?"
"They were your shoes, Saintess. I thought I was about to get scolded again, so I couldn't even lift my face. I just kept saying I was sorry."
The sunset spilling into the room was growing thinner, and Nina's voice sank quietly along with the light.
"But you didn't scold me."
She leaned a little toward me.
"You knelt down in front of me and asked why I was crying."
I could not say a word. That had not been me. It was a memory the original owner of this body, Elysia de Claris, had left with Nina.
"I couldn't answer, so you held out your hand."
Nina carefully opened her palm, as if she were looking again at the hand that had appeared before her long ago.
"My hand was covered in dirt. So I said you shouldn't take it. That even your hand would get dirty. That someone as filthy as me shouldn't be allowed to dirty the Saintess, too."
She laughed softly.
"And then you said—"
"...Said what?"
"That you would rather have a dirty hand than pretend not to see a crying child."
Something dropped inside my chest with a dull thud. That single sentence was far too gentle. The fact that the person who had said it to Nina was not me hurt in a way that felt strangely wrong. I had no reason, now, even to feel such a thing. And yet my heart ached all the same.
"And you held my hand tight. A hand no one else had ever wanted to hold."
Nina's voice trembled, just a little. Even so, she did not cry. She was smiling instead, like someone taking out the happiest memory in the world to show it off.
"You washed it with warm water, and you fed me... and you gave me a name."
"The name Nina?"
"Yes. You said I should grow up pretty, like a little flower."
Nina tucked her hair behind her ear, shy. I could not say anything.
Giving her the name Nina. Taking her dirt-caked hand. Finding her crying alone behind the storehouse. None of it existed in my memory. Of course it didn't. I was not the one who had done any of it.
"Saintess?"
Nina tilted her head.
"What's wrong?"
"It's nothing."
I hurried a smile onto my face. Nina did not let it go so easily.
"Don't tell me... you don't remember?"
"......"
"Not even me crying behind the storehouse?"
The smile that had been on her face a moment ago slowly faded.
"Not even you holding my hand."
Nina slowly clenched the hand resting on her knee.
"Not even you giving me my name... Have you forgotten all of it?"
Her last words had grown noticeably small. For a moment I was speechless.
Of course I could not remember. It had not been me. But I could not say that outright—that the Saintess she knew was gone, and that an entirely different person now lived inside this body. If I said something like that, being dragged off by the Inquisition might not be where it ended.
More than anything, I could not bring myself to shove that truth at Nina when she was looking at me as if she might cry at any second. I could not have said why, but the thought of this girl hating me was something I despised down to my bones.
"I didn't forget."
"Then why..."
"It was such a long time ago."
I did my best to look unbothered and let my gaze slip slightly aside.
"I've been training my holy power lately, and preparing to leave for the capital, so it just didn't come to me right away."
Even as I said it, I knew how forced it sounded. Nina stared straight at me, plainly unconvinced.
"Really?"
"Of course."
For no particular reason I picked up an egg tart from the plate. I thought that if I put it in my mouth, I would not have to answer anymore. But my throat was so dry I could barely swallow.
"Then do you remember what you said to me, back when I had just received my name from you and I was so overwhelmed I could hardly stand it?"
"......"
A cold sweat ran down my spine.
How would I know that...
Nina was still waiting for an answer. I scrambled desperately.
"I probably said it was a very pretty name, and that it suited you."
"That isn't what you said. Wasn't that what I said, to begin with?"
"D-did you?"
Nina's eyes narrowed. In the end I cleared my throat, small and awkward.
"I don't remember every little detail."
"So you did forget."
"I didn't forget. The memory is just a little hazy."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"It's different."
"How is it different?"
Nina would not give an inch, and my head spun. I pressed my lips together for a moment, then spoke in the gentlest voice I could manage.
"It means that even if the memory is hazy, I haven't forgotten that you're precious to me."
Nina's expression froze.
"Really?"
"Yes."
This time I answered without hesitating. At least that much was not a lie.
"I may not be able to recall everything from the past clearly, but I'm certain that I care about the Nina who is here now."
She looked at me quietly for a while. Then, at last, the tension left her stiffened shoulders, and she let out a small breath.
"Then... I'll let it go. A little."
"Only a little?"
"Yes. In return, I'll tell you the whole story again later."
Nina pouted, just slightly, as if she were sulking.
"You absolutely cannot forget this time."
Only then did I manage to catch my breath, and I nodded.
"I promise."
The answer came out naturally, but inside I felt nothing like ease. The more memories Nina shared with me, the heavier the fact became that I was not the real one.
"Though, to be honest, I still don't really know if I've grown up pretty like a flower."
"You have."
The words leapt out ahead of the thought. Nina's eyes went wide. I shut my mouth a beat too late, but there was no taking back what I had already said.
Maybe that was the right call? It feels like something Elysia would have said...
Thinking about it again, it did seem like something worthy of Elysia.
"Saintess..."
"I mean... that you suit it. A flower."
I tried hard to act as if it were nothing, but my face was hot. Nina watched me like that for a moment, then smiled, her eyes curving prettily.
"Hehe. The Saintess is as kind now as she ever was."
As she ever was. Now, just the same. Those words pressed down hard on one side of my chest. I had not done anything wrong, and yet the way she looked at me—clear eyes without a shred of doubt—settled over me as a strange guilt.
"So I made up my mind."
Nina said.
"That no matter what happens, I'll stay by your side for the rest of my life. You gave me a name, and you made a place for me to live... so someday, I wanted to give something back to you, too."
She was smiling like the happiest person in the world.
......
I could not say a word. The one Nina was offering her heart to was not me, the Elysia of now. It was the Elysia who had been here first.