A Wound Called Memory
Warm sunlight poured down over the orphanage backyard, and every time the wind stirred, the leaves of the old tree swayed with a sound I knew by heart.
Sitting side by side beneath it were two children, still far too young to be called anything close to grown.
One was my younger self, his hands not yet roughened by calluses, his body unmarked by a single scar. Beside him sat Arien, so much smaller and younger than she was now, her shoulder pressed against his.
I was watching the two of them from a little ways off.
I had known it was a dream from the very beginning.
I knew this was a memory that had long since passed me by, and that the two children before my eyes no longer existed anywhere in this world. The moment I opened my eyes, it would all vanish.
I would be back in my quarters at the Academy, lying alone in bed, the child Arien in front of me long gone.
That was exactly why I didn't want to wake up.
It had become a memory I struggled just to summon anymore, but if I could see it again even in a dream, surely it would be all right to linger here a little while.
So I did nothing. I simply watched.
Watched the two of us from back then, when there was still a road leading back.
"Riven……."
Young Arien spoke up carefully.
"Yeah. What is it?"
The me of that time answered without a care, while Arien hesitated for a long stretch, as if wrestling with something hard to say, then stole a glance in his direction.
"When we're all grown up, how many kids do you think we should have?"
"……."
The boy I'd been was struck speechless for a moment.
Whatever he said, it was a question reaching far further into the future than he'd expected, and he clearly hadn't anticipated hearing anything of the sort, because he just blinked at Arien a few times.
When no answer came back, her expression began to waver with worry.
"Why……? You don't like the idea?"
"No. It's not that I don't."
"Then what?"
"Isn't this jumping the gun?"
"Jumping what?"
"We've got ages left before we're even grown."
For the two of us back then, marriage wasn't even on the horizon — leaving the orphanage alone was still a far-off thing.
And here she was, already worrying over how many children we'd have. It was no wonder I'd been flustered, and even now, watching it all over again, I couldn't help thinking that Arien had always been planning out the strangest things, even way back then.
But there wasn't a trace of teasing on her face.
"Still, you have to start thinking about it now."
"About what?"
"About how we'll give our kids love. How we'll raise them, too."
"……Already?"
"Yeah. If you wait until the moment comes to think of it for the first time, it'll be too hard."
Arien said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, then hugged her knees to her chest.
"We never had a mom or a dad, so we don't really know how it's done. That's why I think we should figure it out ahead of time."
When he heard that, the boy I'd been seemed to lose all desire to tease her, and fell silent.
Arien truly believed that one day the two of us would become a family.
And so did I.
We had promised each other that what we'd never been given, we would one day give to one another — that once we came of age, we would marry and become a real family. For us back then, that future was simply a matter of course.
Though even so, I'd thought that worrying about children already was, by any measure, far too fast.
"Then……."
The boy I'd been mulled it over for a moment before speaking.
"I think two would be nice."
"Two?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
When Arien tilted her head in curiosity, the boy answered as if it were nothing at all.
"Because we're two, aren't we?"
"……."
That one sentence left Arien quiet.
The face that had been looking straight at him moments before slid slowly away, and even without looking closely, I could see the red creeping up from the tips of her ears.
"You're the one who brought it up. What are you getting embarrassed for?"
"I'm not embarrassed."
"Your face is all red."
"It is not."
Arien twisted her face further away, fussing uselessly with her hair — but she couldn't hide the flush on her cheeks, or the corners of her mouth, which had already climbed halfway up.
"……Hehe."
Watching her, I felt a laugh rising in me before I could stop it.
It really had been such a small, ordinary memory.
There was no Demon King, no war, no one dying or getting hurt. Just two children sitting side by side beneath a great tree, talking about a future that hadn't yet come — that was all there was to it.
And yet, strangely enough, among all the countless memories I carried, it was memories like this one that had remained the sharpest.
"Good."
"Good what?"
"Two sounds good to me."
"You decided awfully fast."
"Well, I'm going to be the mom anyway."
"……That's true."
"If you don't plan ahead at a time like this, when are you going to?"
When the boy I'd been laughed in disbelief, Arien finally lost her composure and laughed along with him.
I said nothing, and just watched the two of them.
Back then, I truly believed it would turn out that way.
That we would leave the orphanage together, grow up, marry, and find some small house of our own, giving our children all the love we'd never received. It wouldn't matter if we didn't have much money, and it wouldn't matter if we never became anyone great.
Because as long as Arien was beside me, and I was beside her, I believed that would be enough.
And the two children in front of me now didn't doubt it for an instant, either — that they would go on to live exactly that kind of life.
I wanted to watch this scene just a little longer.
Even though I knew how it ended, even though I knew it would all be gone the moment I opened my eyes, I wanted to stay here a little longer.
It felt like I could almost remember what we'd talked about after this point.
Had Arien said we should pick out names for the children?
Or had I been the one to cut her off, saying that really was too fast?
I couldn't remember anymore.
So, just a little longer.
If I just kept watching a little longer…….
"……Hah!"
My breath caught in my throat, and my eyes flew open.
What greeted me was neither warm sunlight nor an old tree.
It was the ceiling of the quarters the Academy had lent me, and when I reached a hand out beside me, there was, of course, no one there.
Gasping for breath, I stared up at the ceiling for a long while before dragging a hand down my face.
"……It was just a dream."
I'd known that.
I'd known it even inside the dream, but waking up to it felt like garbage all the same.
It would have been better if it had been a dream I remembered nothing of — but of all things, it had to show me the happiest days of my life, the days I could never return to.
And waking didn't make the memory fade along with the dream. If anything, every scene I'd just witnessed only grew more vivid in my mind once my eyes were open.
The happiest memory of my life, the one that had once made me smile just to recall, had become the most painful wound I carried, and now it kept returning to me as nothing but pain.
I stayed where I was, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. And before I wanted it to, my thoughts went on without me.
What if I had just asked Arien outright, back then?
If I had asked whether she really didn't remember me, why she wasn't wearing the necklace we'd bought together — would even a little have changed?
If I hadn't hidden my necklace inside my shirt out of fear, but pulled it out and shown her right there — would she have recognized me?
Or what if I'd gone to see her at least once after the war ended — would something have been different?
I'd gone so far as to risk my life to save her, yet once everything was over, I couldn't even muster the courage to see her face one more time, and I'd fled like a coward running away.
If I'd only been a little braver then, would things have been different from now…….
And if I'd checked, all the way to the end, whether Arien had truly forgotten me — maybe I wouldn't be lying here alone, thinking these thoughts far too late.
"……"
I closed my eyes.
Enough.
I had decided to forget.
No amount of turning it over would change what had already happened, and imagining a hundred different choices I could have made back then would never carry me into the past.
All that remained to me, in the end, was the pain.
Thinking that, I tried to force my mind empty — and then, without warning, the Saintess's face surfaced in my thoughts.
By anyone's judgment, she was in love with me.
And the moment that truth crossed my mind, the thought flashed through my head — if only for an instant — that maybe I ought to simply accept her feelings.
If this wound Arien had left behind kept hurting, wouldn't it be better to cover it over with someone else?
The Saintess, who had treated my wounds time and time again — couldn't she, this time too, wrap this scar in clean white bandages?
Wouldn't that hurt less than this, at least?
I covered my face with one hand.
"……You sick bastard."
The more I thought about it, the more pathetic it was.
That wouldn't be accepting the Saintess's feelings at all — it would be using her as a stand-in, filling the empty space Arien had left behind when she went.
I couldn't bring myself to grab hold of someone who had come to love me and use her like a bandage, all because my wound hurt.
It would be an insult to her, and above all, if she ever learned that I'd taken her in with such a heart, it would wound her just as surely.
So not now.
If one day I truly came to look at the Saintess that way — if the day came when having her beside me felt good not because it let me forget Arien, but because she was who she was —
Then, and only then, I could accept her feelings.
At least then it would come after I had come to care for her myself, and it wouldn't be holding on to one person in place of another, the way it would be now.
I closed my eyes again.
I still needed a little more time.
And whether she knew of my troubles or not, before long the Saintess came calling at my door once more.
When I opened it, the familiar face was waiting, and the moment our eyes met, she smiled as she always did and spoke first.
"Riven."
"Yes."
"Do you have time this evening?"
"This evening?"
"Yes."
I just stared at her, wondering what this was about, and after a moment's hesitation she gave me a slightly displeased look.
"Now that I think about it, I'm a little hurt."
"Hurt about what, may I ask?"
"You've never once had a drink with me, but you've had plenty with Dorothy."
"……"
So that was what this was about.
She knew I'd been drinking with Dorothy. She would have been more surprised not to — I was the one who'd carried the passed-out drunk Dorothy back and left her in front of the chapel, and the three of us had even eaten breakfast together the next morning.
Even then, watching Dorothy and me talk, the Saintess had seemed a little off compared to her usual self.
Had that really still been bothering her?
"That was Dorothy butting into a drinking party uninvited."
"You still drank together, didn't you?"
"Well, yes."
"And you even personally carried a drunk Dorothy all the way to the chapel doors."
"I abandoned her there."
"And you're proud of that?"
"I did at least carry her there."
"You dumped her in front of the chapel doors and walked off."
"I figured you'd come collect her yourself."
"……Riven."
The Saintess just looked at me. When I met her gaze, wondering what had gotten into her, she let out a small sigh and shook her head.
"Anyway."
She looked at me again, her voice dropping a little lower than before.
"You'll drink with Dorothy, but you've never once drunk with me."
"You've never asked me to, have you."
"……"
This time the Saintess said nothing. Thinking it over quietly, I realized it wasn't wrong.
We'd known each other a long time, going all the way back to the battlefield, but the two of us had never once had a drink together alone, and she had never been the one to suggest it, either.
But for some reason my answer didn't seem to sit well with her. The Saintess's lips pushed out into a small pout, and then her expression returned to normal.
"Then all I have to do is ask now, don't I?"
"Ask me what?"
She looked at me for a moment.
And then, with a small smile, she said:
"Will you have a drink with me tonight?"