Who Is Closer?
“Who is closer?”
“Thank you for the kind answer, Lady Selena. I’ll rise first.”
Lavrenti stood from her seat and offered Selena a respectful bow. She rose somewhat awkwardly, but Selena seemed not to notice at all. The moment Lavrenti vanished from her sight, Selena sank back down again.
“…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The words struck like a dull ache in her chest. Something felt lodged inside her, tight and suffocating. She wanted to shout, to scream until her throat bled, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even show how much it hurt.
She had no right. No matter how the process had unfolded or why it had happened, the conclusion remained unchanged.
I accepted the knife. It was accepted. I could never go back to that moment. And because of it, the relationship between me and Karl was, without a doubt, nothing at all.
Even if she wanted to undo it now, there was no undoing anything. It was greed. No, more than greed, it was rude. It was an act of disregard for the other person.
Deciding an ending and then trying to restart it was selfish beyond measure.
“Haaah…”
Regret flooded her like a tidal wave, leaving her gasping for air. The knowledge that nothing could ever be undone pressed down on her chest until she could barely breathe.
Above all else, the thing she could not endure was that she still could not erase the feelings she held for Karl.
She kept wanting to do better. She knew it was selfish, yet she still did it.
As Lavrenti had said, she held no relation to him, yet she kept trying to create one with him…
“Selena?”
“…Karl.”
“What are you doing?”
Karl sat directly across from her, one butt cheek planted firmly on the table. Selena stared at him in a daze, then let out a long sigh.
“What? Weren’t you supposed to be at the palace?”
“I was. Finished my business and came back.”
“Business…”
“I met with His Highness the Crown Prince and had a light conversation.”
“…”
It wasn’t light at all! The Crown Prince! The Crown Prince!!
The man who would one day become our Emperor! And soon! You know this, Karl?!
Selena felt her common sense cracking like thin ice beneath her feet.
Looking at him now, Karl felt like a man from this world, yet not quite of it. A little more, a little less.
“Want to tell me what happened?”
She was curious. Not about what the Crown Prince had said, but about what had actually happened to Karl.
She wanted to hear the story. She wanted more conversation, more back-and-forth, more laughter. If he had worries, she wanted to listen carefully and offer advice.
She wanted to laugh and chatter until some meaningless moment made them both smile.
She wanted to be the one who did something no one else had ever done with Karl.
“…No. It’s fine.”
But Selena shook her head. She couldn’t. Could she really approach him casually now? After pushing him away, could she press in again? A selfish, self-centered move.
She had thought she might be able to do it someday. But she couldn’t. She realized today that she was Karl’s comrade, or friend, but nothing more.
Yes. As Lavrenti had said, she held no relation to him. And she could never have one…
“Don’t say that. Tell me, Selena.”
“…Huh?”
“Then I’ll have the right to ask Lavrenti what happened earlier.”
“Eh?”
What? How did he know I met Lavrenti? Selena panicked.
She had just arrived, so when exactly had he started watching her?
*
She was dying to know. Why had Selena been meeting Lavrenti?
She had been curious before, but the damned Four Idiots had lit the fuse.
“Kkuk! Suffer for me, Karl!”
“Shh! You have to suffer. There are two beauties there.”
“Hey. Maybe you don’t know. More could come.”
“This is polygamy…?”
Schlippen, Wilhelm, Alexander, and Joachim all grinned with lewd smiles.
Selena felt a chill of unease run down her spine.
Especially when combined with the fact that she and Lavrenti had been meeting.
She wanted to ask what was going on. But she couldn’t get an honest answer by asking directly.
So she would make him pay first. Hey, Selena! Ask! Ask me!
“…What happened with the Crown Prince?”
“He gave me another Medal of Honor.”
Selena nodded with a soft “Aha.” for about three seconds.
Then she let out an “Eh?” sigh, followed by a rapid string of alien-sounding exclamations.
“Wait! A medal?! Another Medal of Honor?!”
“Yeah. Another one. He said he’d come to the Academy himself.”
“What?! No way!”
Double Medal of Honor was impossible. Honestly, even she wondered if it was fair.
She knew that if she dug into imperial history, there would be people far more outstanding than Karl. They had received only one Medal of Honor. Yet here she was, a nobody like him, receiving a second one.
It was shocking. She even felt sorry for the people who had truly earned theirs.
Everyone else said she was amazing, but… she didn’t know if she believed it herself.
“Then… Karl is the only one with a double Medal of Honor?”
“Probably. But not unique. Someone else might get one someday, right?”
“This time too, Her Highness the First Princess came…”
“The Crown Prince is coming.”
Cough! Cough!
“That was stopped because the Emperor was interested.”
Cough! Cough! Cough!
She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, yet Selena was coughing like she had caught a cold.
Water? She looked around instinctively for a canteen. For water. In the world.
“Keugh! Kek! Then… the Crown Prince is coming to the Academy?”
“Probably. The Crown Prince seemed strict at first, but after talking he turned out to be surprisingly fun. He has a boisterous side too.”
It would have been nice if their squad leader had shown the Crown Prince’s side of himself.
“Well. My story ends here. Now it’s your turn, Selena.”
“My turn…”
“Lavrenti suddenly came for what reason? The guy who went to see his family, why was he with you?”
“…”
Selena stayed silent for a long time, only fidgeting with her fingers.
She almost wanted to urge her, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. So instead she smiled, relaxed, and waited for Selena’s answer.
“…Karl.”
Me?
“That Lavrenti. How do you feel about her? What kind of relationship is it?”
“…”
The sudden, completely unexpected question hit her like a bolt from the blue.
She had wanted an answer to what had happened, but why this question?
“Sudden? What are you talking about, Selena?”
“Straight question. Karl. How do you feel about Lavrenti?”
“Too sudden. I don’t know what to say…”
She had asked, so she had to answer. And her answer might connect somehow to what Selena would say.
“Comrade?”
“Comrade.”
“Yeah. Even though the battle lines were different, we fought the same enemy, suffered together, and spilled the same blood.”
“Is that all?”
Was there more? Ah, yes. She had forgotten.
“Lavrenti calls me ‘Master’… but honestly, I just gave her a few pieces of advice. The title is too much. She did it all by herself.”
“…”
Selena kept staring at him, as if asking whether there was anything else.
“That’s all, Selena.”
“Really… that’s it? Comrade, and we taught each other and learned from each other.”
“Yeah. That’s it. Even if I wanted more, the time we faced each other was only a few days on the battlefield. We haven’t seen each other since. We met again this time.”
“I see.”
Selena nodded repeatedly and asked another question.
“Then… can I ask one more thing?”
“What?”
“With me… what kind of relationship do we have?”
To that question, she answered almost on reflex.
“Friends?”
“Yeah. Friends. Comrades. Of course there was some embarrassing stuff in the past, but we’ve worked it out. Now we can laugh and move on. That kind of friend.”
“Friends.”
“Yeah. Friends.”
“I’m your friend. Lavrenti is my comrade. They’re similar. Then… between the two of them, who is closer to Karl?”
There, she answered immediately.
“Selena.”
“…Me?”
“Yeah.”
Obviously. As she had said, Lavrenti had only seen her for a few days. They had met again this time.
Whereas Selena had seen her before she took leave, after she returned, and for months afterward.
By her standards, Selena was obviously closer than Lavrenti.
“That’s good…”
More than that, Selena muttered to herself.
“No relation… maybe…”
“Selena? What are you saying? No relation?”
“Ah?! D-did you hear?!”
“A little? So. When are you going to answer? Why was Lavrenti with you?”
“That? T-truly―”
Finally Selena began to tell the answer she had been waiting for.
“…So. You came to ask why I got close to Selena?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“And the answer?”
“What did I say?”
“That… just, thanks to Academy life.”
Karl pondered Selena’s answer for a moment, then nodded with a thoughtful “Hmm.”
She was right. If it hadn’t been for the Academy, he and Selena would never have gotten close again.