Nice to Meet You
A garden where flowers of every color bloomed in lavish profusion.
A rough-looking man opened the gate and stepped inside.
As Garid looked around with a pleased expression that didn’t suit his face at all, his chest swelled with pride.
And then, from his mouth, a thunderous cry burst forth.
“Hey! Kana!”
A passerby just happening to walk nearby startled so badly at Garid’s sudden shout that he practically jumped out of his skin.
Garid scratched his head and bowed awkwardly at the passerby, who shot him a sharp look.
His bellow had drawn every eye in the vicinity, but the person he was actually looking for was nowhere to be seen.
Just as Garid was wondering whether to shout again or simply go inside and open the door himself—
creak.
“…What is it?”
The house door opened, and a girl with pink hair and pink eyes peeked out. She had a cute face and the sleepy look of someone just roused from a nap.
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s broad daylight and you’re still sleeping? Sleeping plenty is important and all, but you’ve got to get up early and move around if you want to grow tall!”
“If moving made you grow, I’d have grown already…. Stop being annoying when you know it’s useless.”
Whatever he said, Kana always responded with unruffled indifference—except when the subject of her height came up, at which point she’d sharpen like a drawn blade.
Of course, Garid knew that perfectly well.
He brought up her height anyway purely because it was amusing.
So this was why those guys used to tease their daughters.
As I said before, Kana was so flatly unresponsive most of the time that her rare bursts of irritation stood out all the more dramatically.
“So, what is it this time?”
Shaking off the last of her sleep with a little shake of her head, Kana asked in a clearer voice than before.
“What do you mean, what is it? Anyone would think I do this every day, the way you say it.”
“….”
Kana said nothing.
Reading the implication buried in her silence, Garid deliberately put on a wounded expression.
He quickly returned to normal when he realized it hadn’t worked in the slightest, but he still held out the hand he’d been hiding behind his back.
“Here. What do you think?”
“…A flower? You made all that racket just to show me this?”
“No, no. This isn’t just any flower. Look again.”
As he spoke, he brought the pot a little closer to Kana.
The flower planted in it had delicate pink petals clustered so neatly together that it was impossible not to notice them.
Kana looked down at the flower, then lifted her eyes to Garid with a look that clearly asked, So?
“What do you think? Doesn’t it look like you?”
“…Not really.”
“It totally does. Small and all, just like you…. Kidding, kidding. At this rate I’d be too scared to joke around. Hah, why did I ever teach swordsmanship to that girl….”
He had expected no reaction, of course, but if he was honest, a faint sense of disappointment still pricked at him.
Why was it that children never understood their parents’ feelings?
With a sigh, Garid set the pot down and said,
“Kana.”
“?”
“I want you to be like this flower.”
“…What does that mean?”
“Look.”
Garid took a trowel and dug into the earth, then transplanted the flower from the pot into the garden.
It was a task that took a fair amount of time, but Kana watched him work in silence.
When he finished, the flower that had once bloomed all alone in its pot was now nestled among the others, smiling shyly as it blended into the rest.
“How is it? It was pretty to begin with, but doesn’t it look much better like this?”
“….”
“You too—if you mixed with other people like this flower, you’d be much prettier. Make some friends, meet some dependable companions…. And then, huh? Go and marry some man you like, you brat.”
“That’s none of your business.”
Kana, who had been listening quietly, gave a snort and went back inside as if she’d heard enough.
Once Kana’s back disappeared into the house, Garid was left alone, clicking his tongue in disapproval.
“If she’d just soften her temper a little, men would be lining up. Who’s ever going to take in a girl like that?”
Suddenly, Garid imagined a man begging Kana for her affection.
A young man offering a bouquet, and Kana smiling shyly as she accepted it.
The two of them gazing tenderly at each other as the space between them slowly narrowed….
He wanted Kana to meet a good man someday, get married, and build a warm, happy family, but the instant he pictured it, his face twisted up all at once.
If Kana ever brought home some strange man and said she liked him….
“…I’d have to make sure he’s a good man.”
And whether he had the ability to protect Kana, too.
The darkly muttered Garid looked uncannily like the meddlesome, doting types he himself had always despised and avoided.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
…So that’s what happened.
It was something that had happened years ago, and yet it came back to me with the clarity of something that had occurred yesterday.
Who would have thought I’d hear such embarrassingly sweet words again?
Doesn’t it look like you?
Doesn’t this flower look like Kana?
Different, yet the same.
At those words, which dragged the past up in full, I simply stared blankly at Joni for a moment before quickly fleeing the scene.
There was obviously no reason for me to leave, and yet I had run away as if I were being chased. Why had I done that?
…
Maybe because I’d been feeling sentimental over seeing a flower exactly like the one Garid had brought me.
“Did you come here before?”
Of course, the nameless pink flower Garid had brought might not have bloomed only here.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had once visited this village long ago.
I knew perfectly well that it was no more than a wish dressed up as a logical guess.
But….
I just want to feel Garid’s traces, even if it’s only like this.
If I could feel like we were together for even a brief moment, that would be enough.
Still, it was time to wake from this sweet dream.
“There’s an ogre corpse here!”
“I-Is it really dead?!”
“…Huh?! A Dimensional Beast…!”
I’d assumed they’d all run away, but the merchant caravan and the villagers came rushing over one after another, and when they saw the ogre and the Dimensional Beast, their jaws practically hit the ground.
The people who had hesitated to approach only relaxed and edged closer once they realized the things were already dead.
Well, one of them isn’t dead yet.
Dimensional Beasts vanish when their life is completely extinguished, leaving only a core behind.
In other words, the fact that its body still remained meant it was still breathing.
It had lost three pairs of legs, its sharp teeth, and everything else, and was just waiting for the day it would die, so it was basically a corpse already.
fssssss—
“Hiiick!”
The instant that thought crossed my mind, the Dimensional Beast’s body crumbled into dust and scattered away.
The people who had bolted in terror, thinking it had come back to life, only to return again, looked ridiculous enough to be funny.
I met the eyes of the people who were cautiously looking around them.
“Isn’t that the child who disappeared earlier? Don’t tell me that little one really killed the ogres and the Dimensional Beast…?”
“She looks younger than my daughter; there’s no way. The Apostles must have done it.”
“The Apostles? They didn’t seem that strong…?”
“Hey now, don’t say something dangerous…!”
Some of the people chattering among themselves approached me.
“Ahem…. Child, did you see what happened here?”
“….”
“Child? Child?”
“Maybe she got scared because your face is so rough?”
“If that’s the case, she’d be scared just looking at your face, not mine. Have you already forgotten how the butcher’s boy started crying when he saw you last time? And that was a kid who used to smile brightly even at the sight of pig carcasses.”
Hmm.
What are they even talking about?
“Ah, wait just a moment!”
At that moment, Joni—no, my abandoned translator—came scrambling over.
“My little sister doesn’t know Arkish. If you have any questions, please ask me instead.”
“Ah… so that’s why she seemed strange for being so quiet. Your little sister is adorable.”
“Right?”
“But were these ogres and that Dimensional Beast from earlier killed by the Apostles?”
“Ah, well….”
Joni trailed off awkwardly, then turned her head toward me.
“…Kana? Why are you avoiding my eyes?”
“…Nothing.”
For some reason, eye contact felt awkward.
Without looking at Joni, I said, “What is it?”
“Ah, yeah. They’re asking if we’re the ones who killed the ogres and the Dimensional Beast.”
“…So?”
“I thought if I told them the truth, it might put Kana in an awkward spot….”
Ah.
Only then did I understand Joni’s concern.
She must have thought I didn’t want to be known because I kept hiding my face under the cape.
Which, in fact, was true.
…
Right. What should I do?
Honestly, at this point, I didn’t care all that much if people knew.
There were already plenty of people who knew about me—snake bastards from the Empire, Apostles, and others besides….
If I was going to keep wearing the cape anyway, being known a little more wouldn’t change much.
It would definitely be more annoying, though.
“You can tell them the truth.”
After a moment’s thought, I made up my mind.
It wasn’t the best answer after weighing everything carefully.
If anything, no—it wasn’t even worth dressing up that way.
This was just a whim.
The kind of whim a child might have, no different from wanting one thing today and another tomorrow.
“Are you sure?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
What bothered me was Joni’s consideration.
If she wanted the credit, she could say she did it, and if she’d rather not get tangled up in it, she could say I did.
Instead, she had gone out of her way to ask what I wanted.
A tiny kindness, something anyone could do.
It was because of that tiny kindness that I was being so indecisive.
“But there’s one condition.”
“…It’s nothing difficult, right? You’re not going to tell me to fight monsters or something…?”
I shook my head.
Of course not.
That wasn’t difficult at all, and I’d have made her do it anyway even if it hadn’t been the condition.
Shiver—
“Why do I suddenly have chills…?”
Joni shuddered.
Even at night, it wasn’t cold enough for that.
I tilted my head at her trembling form, then let it go.
Maybe she just got cold easily.
I told Joni, “For me—”
Joni’s eyes grew huge as saucers the moment she heard me.
Then she suddenly raised her hands, pinching her cheeks, patting them, and doing all sorts of strange things.
At last, after several rounds of incomprehensible behavior, Joni stopped and grabbed my hand tightly.
“If that’s all, then I’ll be happy to do it!”
Come to think of it, it would only add to her workload, so what was there to be so thrilled about?
Still, Joni was beaming from ear to ear.