Unrequited Love (Bitter Taste)
After helping carry the party's luggage inside, it seemed Adela had already slipped into the master bedroom. Just picturing her, standing frozen as the sound of the door locking reached her ears, was enough to make me laugh. Strangely enough, whenever I laid eyes on her, an urge to torment her welled up inside me. I knew I shouldn't feel this way — and yet the thought of drawing moans and sobs from those lips of hers filled me with a happiness beyond all reason.
I was assigning everyone their guest rooms when, without thinking, my gaze drifted to the spot where Adela had knelt and served me earlier. A puddle of the juice she'd leaked still lingered there, giving off a faint scent of peach.
"Does anyone else smell peaches in here?"
Estelle, who'd been assigned this room, frowned in confusion.
"It's just your imagination."
I brushed it off lightly and turned to leave, but Estelle caught my arm.
"Vincent, you can gloss over it all you want — it won't work on me."
When I turned to look at her, she was staring up at me, her cheeks flushed a faint pink.
"You and Adela did something in here, didn't you?"
I sighed, halting my retreat toward the door.
"Sorry about that. Want me to get you a different room?"
"No, I actually like the smell of peaches. In exchange…"
She pressed her body flush against my arm, deliberately pushing her chest against it.
"Won't you have a drink with me, big brother?"
Watching her ply me with alcohol in that velvet-soft tone, I figured any man alive would find it hard to resist. Even I wouldn't have been able to turn her down.
If it weren't for her, that is.
As sorry as I felt for the party members who so clearly carried feelings for me, I could never return their affection. Because long ago, since childhood, there had already been someone chosen for me. Compared to her, the memories I shared with these women — the feelings I'd secretly harbored for them — existed on an entirely different plane.
"Since when did you become my older sister? You're not family — you were born a few months ahead of me, and now you want credit for it?"
"Oh? Then what would you rather call me, if not big sister? Maybe... darling♥? Is that what you're after?"
"Go to sleep already. Weren't you tired?"
She didn't back down. No — she only drew closer. That was simply who they were.
If I thought they didn't notice, or that I could simply brush aside their feelings, I couldn't have been more wrong. I was in love with someone myself. I understood all too well what it felt like to love someone whose eyes would never turn your way — and to be unable to give up anyway.
More than once, I had tried to explain, to apologize, to make them let go. But every time, the wounded women would vanish somewhere to nurse their heartache alone, shedding tears in secret — only to reappear the next day as if nothing had happened and fall into step beside me once more. I understood them, and that understanding was exactly why I couldn't just cast them aside. Even if I made them see that I could never give them my love, when had human hearts ever moved according to reason?
That she saw me as nothing more than her disciple, her son — I understood it with my head. And yet my love for that woman refused to fade, no matter how many years passed. If anything, it only burned hotter, rotting deeper with every whisper of reason that told me this was a love that could never be.
Whenever she got drunk and swore that if I ever grew stronger than her, she would grant me any wish I desired, it cut me to the bone. She had no idea what I actually wanted to do to her. She didn't know that I spent every sleepless night holding back the desire to drink her under the table and make her weep until dawn — all while she kept testing what little patience I had left.
I was afraid that out of sight might mean out of mind, so when she left me behind, I deliberately never went looking for her. When someone from the church told me that she had taken a curse in my place, I thought the heavens themselves were collapsing. And when I set out to slay the Demon King, I even hoped that the journey would burn my feelings for her away.
But she had been everything to me. I'd believed distance from her eyes would mean distance from my heart. That, too, was a grave mistake. I wept every night because I missed Adela. I prayed to fall asleep dreaming of her just to hear her voice. And on the rare blessed night when that dream did come, my master — who always seemed lost in distant thought — would turn back to me and smile.
Every day we were apart, my longing for Adela only grew larger, swelling like something alive. Their feelings, I imagined, were no different.
Some might call it cowardly, I suppose. If I truly wanted to drive them from my side, I could probably manage it. But just because I couldn't love them didn't mean I didn't hold them dear. They had accepted me — a man who kept even his own party at arm's length — and cherished me all the same.
Estelle, with her bright, boisterous nature, became the older sister who soothed my gloom and scolded me back onto my feet. Kiara, with her pure heart, healed my wounded soul — the little sister who believed in me and followed me without question. Emily, having heard the story of my painful past, repented on my behalf, grieved alongside me, and promised me a better tomorrow.
How could I possibly cast aside women like that simply because they loved me?
When I hinted that there was someone I loved, that I could never return their feelings — I'd rather forget what happened next. The five stages of grief, wasn't it? This was back when we still traveled as master and student. Adela always said that a person's strength flows from knowledge, and she bought me a book every time she went to market. That particular tidbit came from one of them. It was then I learned the saying applied just as well to heartbreak.
First came denial. They accused one another of cornering me into lying, hurling blame back and forth. Then came anger. They raged at me too, for refusing to accept their feelings — for rejecting them while clutching a love that would never come true anyway. After that, bargaining. They tried to win me over by flaunting everything they could do for me: staging brazen one-woman assaults on my tent while I slept, or lying in wait for the moment I stood night watch alone, seizing the chance to seduce me. They tried to manufacture a fait accompli, to wipe Adela from my heart and claim her place in one stroke.
When none of their schemes could move me, they sank into depression. The party wept at the slightest provocation, to the point where even the demons who blocked our path flinched in bewilderment — and eventually, our march on the Demon King's castle ground to a halt. After agonizing over it, I left them behind and charged the castle alone. While I was doing that, Adela's demonization would have been advancing by the hour. The church had warned me that once the curse took hold and more than a certain portion of her body transformed, there would be nothing left anyone could do.
Only after slaying the Demon Generals and the Demon King himself — and, through some incident, taking a part of him into my body — were they finally able to reach the Demon King's castle where I stood. Overjoyed at our victory, the women seemed to have forged some kind of alliance among themselves. I suppose that was their version of acceptance.
Even now, they seize every opening to seduce me. As far as I could tell, they intended to build a harem around me — with Adela woven into it. Did they honestly think that if she were just one member among many, I would accept them all? Watching women who once moved the currents of an entire continent behave this way, I couldn't help but find it both pathetic and painfully endearing.
Separately from all that, she must have been worried sick. On our way back to the Imperial Capital together, the moment we reached the village, she had suddenly sprinted off down the road we'd traveled and vanished. Then three days of dead silence. The ones who scoured the continent for me — not the heads of state, but her. Even after reluctantly scattering to their home nations, she must have paced the floors, chewing her nails with worry. No doubt she caught flak for failing to bring the Hero home safely, but to her, that was never the problem.
When I thought of her keeping sleepless vigil for word of me, then tearing off like a shot the moment my emergency signal reached her — refusing her invitation here felt like a step too far. What those women had seen when they came sprinting to my rescue was a bedroom where I had spent two full days drinking Adela under the table and having my way with her. They could have left me to rot. They didn't. They threw every method they had into saving my beloved instead.
I owed them a debt I could never repay. But refusing the drink they offered — that, at least, I had no right to do. I owed those women, who had witnessed the very scene they least wanted to see, more than a word of comfort or thanks. The least I could do was pour them a drink.
"Alright. What are we drinking?"
When I, lost in thought until a moment ago, suddenly agreed, Estelle — who had clearly braced herself for rejection — froze mid-wry-smile.
"I-I really thought you'd say no…"
Had her feelings for me simply grown too large? Did she keep setting herself up for rejection, over and over, knowing it was coming? Watching her, I saw a reflection of my own past self, and my chest ached for her.
"What do you want to drink? All we've got is liquor people gave us as gifts."
"Then… the strongest thing you have… please…?"
Of course she would. She'd walked into the very place where the man she loved had just been rolling around with another woman — no wonder she wanted to drown that wounded heart in something strong enough to burn.
"You can't even hold your liquor."
I stepped out of the room first. Behind me, she wiped the welling tears from her eyes, followed, and put on a voice that was anything but steady as she insisted she was fine.
"There are days a girl just needs the hard stuff, okay?!"