A Picnic with the Cat (4)
After wrapping up that short-yet-interminable conversation with the tin can, I made my way back to my spot and did my best to salvage what remained of our picnic time.
Whatever he actually was, I could at least be certain he wasn't dangerous enough to warrant alarm this very moment.
Granted, it was possible he was putting on an act to deceive me, but that was something I could verify in due time simply by keeping an eye on him.
So I decided there was no particular need to fret over it.
- *Thud, thud.*
But contrary to my expectations, the tin can's powers of infiltration defied imagination, and his affability was alarming in its own right — I simply couldn't afford to just sit back and watch.
"Whoa─!! You can see all the way over there!"
"Mister, you're really tall."
On the way back to the church.
We were returning far earlier than originally planned, and the children had protested quite vehemently about it, but there had been nothing to be done.
Ever since we'd run into the tin can, every part of the meticulous plan I'd laid down since yesterday afternoon had crumbled into worthless scraps of paper.
I had been looking forward to a cozy picnic for just the seven of us, and one single tin can had thrown the whole thing badly off course.
No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, it niggled at me — and for some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that my own place was under threat, which left me more than a little put out.
"Eisen, Iris. However friendly you've gotten, climbing onto his shoulders like that is rude to Mister Bell Ross."
"But this mister said it was fine. He said we can stay like this all the way to the church."
"......"
At some point, Eisen and Iris had taken up seats side by side on the tin can's broad shoulders.
They were showing him, freely and without a shred of hesitation, that pure, unguarded side of themselves they'd never once shown me — all to a man they'd met only today.
Watching it unfold from right beside them, my heart began to churn with an indescribable, dizzying tangle of emotions.
"It's fine, it's fine. It's just two kids, what's the big deal."
"I wasn't talking to you."
Was I really the only one here who found the tin can uncomfortable to be around?
The children, almost without exception, warmed to him, treating him with an odd familiarity as if they'd known him for years.
"Uuugh... why is this so heavy...?"
Priscilla was wrestling, one hand clamped around the greatsword slung across the tin can's back.
Naturally, with her being a knight by profession, the man's very existence must have been endlessly fascinating to her.
For that reason, I could understand why Priscilla, too, was showing him such goodwill, but...
"It can't be that heavy?"
"I'm sorry? It's incredibly heavy...?"
Try as I might, I simply could not comprehend why even the children would extend their favor to that suspicious tin can.
My every impulse wanted to throw him out on the spot.
But turning someone out into the cold — a man who'd spent more than a full week lost in the forest, no less — for nothing more than a petty personal dislike felt like the sort of thing conscience would never forgive.
"You really can't stand having me tag along, can you."
"Obviously. You're nothing but a name to us."
"I thought I'd told you everything there was to tell."
"Oh, please."
He'd shown plenty of clueless behavior here and there, but he was by no means unobservant, and at first the tin can had actually refused to follow us.
However, once Eisen and Iris — who had grown closest to him over that brief stretch of time — caught wind of it and began to worry, the situation started tilting steadily in his favor.
And in the end, we'd been forced into a compromise of sorts: he would be allowed to stay at the church for exactly one day. No more.
"......"
"What's wrong, Ellie?"
"......"
We'd been walking through the forest for quite a while when that happened.
I noticed Ellie, who'd been trailing close behind me with her small hand tucked in mine, suddenly staring at the tin can with a dazed look on her face.
Or rather — she wasn't looking at the tin can himself, it seemed, but at Eisen and Iris, perched on his shoulders.
"Would you like a ride too, Ellie?"
"...Yes."
I didn't need to think hard to read what was in her heart.
Because I'd grabbed Ellie's hand first, she'd apparently missed her chance to speak up─
"Come here, then."
"Huh?"
"Giving piggyback rides is something I can do too, you know."
It was hardly a difficult request.
Least of all for a small, featherlight child like Ellie.
"......"
Ellie hesitated at first, but before long a faint smile crept onto her lips, and she slowly began to climb up onto my shoulder.
She was so light that I finally understood why people said things like 'light as a feather' — I could barely feel her weight at all.
As I gradually rose from my crouch, Ellie let out a small, timid gasp of wonder, her whole face blooming with delight.
"Are you okay up there?"
"Yes! It's wonderful!"
"That's a relief, then."
After confirming that Ellie was grinning ear to ear atop my shoulder, I tilted my head just slightly to the side and shot a sidelong glance at the tin can.
I hadn't the slightest desire to turn this into some kind of rivalry.
But the thought of the children I'd poured my heart into caring for lavishing all their attention on that worthless tin can was something I simply could not tolerate.
I knew perfectly well how childish it was — and yet, even so, I had to show him that I was no pushover myself.
"What? Why?"
This was as good as a warning: keep your hands off my children.
True, I hadn't known them all that long myself — but when it came to caring for those children, I was confident my devotion rivaled anyone's.
"It's nothing. Now then, let's get moving again."
It was late in the evening, a pale moon risen round and full over the darkening sky.
It had been an utter mess of a picnic that refused to go according to plan, but everyone except me seemed to have had a genuinely wonderful time.
Thinking back on it now, nothing truly dangerous had happened, the meat had been delicious, and we'd gotten a proper eyeful of the lake besides.
Whatever else you could say, the children had reveled in every moment and then dropped straight off to sleep — so by that measure, I supposed I could call the picnic a success.
- *Clunk.*
"Phew..."
The church was filled with the strange calls of some unidentifiable bird.
After slowly putting each of the children — thoroughly worn out from all their play — to bed one by one, I stepped back out into the convent corridor and quietly drew a breath.
"Hard at work even at this hour, I see."
And then, out of nowhere, the tin can's low voice drifted in from behind me.
His sudden appearance made me flinch for a moment, but I quickly recovered my composure and spoke calmly.
"Yes. With so many unsettling things happening lately, the children have been finding it hard to fall asleep even after nightfall."
"...What kind of things?"
"That, I'm afraid, is something I can't share."
At my firm answer, the tin can fell silent for a while.
"Is something the matter?"
An odd silence settled over us, and sensing a strange discomfort in it, I slowly tilted my head to the side.
But the tin can only gave a slow shake of his head, as if it were nothing at all.
"I don't know what happened, but if it's bad enough to keep you all up at night, it must have been something quite serious."
"Well. It was, yes."
"Diligently looking after the children even in such dire straits — is someone paying you to do it?"
"I'm hardly diligent, and no one is paying me anything."
"Then what bond do you have with those children, that you're secretly raising them out here in the middle of a forest, of all places, rather than in a town?"
For some reason, I detected a barb in the tin can's words.
As the conversation wore on, mere curiosity seemed to be shifting, little by little, into something more like an interrogation.
"Why are you suddenly asking me that?"
"Because doing this kind of work for no compensation whatsoever is no easy thing."
"For someone with no stake in it, you sound remarkably sharp-edged all of a sudden?"
The air, perfectly ordinary just moments before, turned cold in an instant and came pressing down, heavy as lead.
"Do you have some connection to this church, perhaps?"
He offered no answer to my question whatsoever, pressing on only with whatever he wished to ask.
I could clearly feel the atmosphere growing stranger by the second, but for the moment I slowly shook my head and kept my voice level.
"Nothing of the sort. This church is simply something I stumbled upon by chance and am borrowing for the time being."
"I see."
Try as I might, I could make absolutely no sense of this baffling situation.
What could be going through the tin can's head, that he would hurl this interrogation-that-wasn't-an-interrogation at me?
I didn't believe I'd done anything that would warrant suspicion, and yet...
- *Clank.*
Before long, blinking rapidly at the strange, uneasy silence, I felt an inexplicable discomfort settle over me.
Then, with an earsplitting clamor of metal against metal, the tin can abruptly raised one finger and pointed it, arrow-straight, at something across the corridor.
Where he was pointing stood a window — nothing out of the ordinary at all.
"What about the window?"
"So you don't sense anything off about it. Look more closely."
His tone made it sound, oddly enough, as though he wanted me to find the answer myself.
By this point I was starting to lose track of what I was even doing here in the first place.
"What on earth are you trying to say?"
I still had no clue what any of this meant.
But I turned my gaze back toward the window anyway, a faint frown pulling at one eyebrow.
He clearly had some reason for this, whatever it was.
"......"
It wasn't spotless, but it seemed perfectly serviceable for taking in the view outside.
The old wooden frame looked as though it would creak at the slightest jostle, but it was hardly in need of immediate repair.
The glass, too, was clean and unbroken, without a single crack — so what on earth was supposed to be strange about it?
"There's really nothing odd about—"
In that very moment, the tin can's reflection began to sharpen, bit by bit, in the faded windowpane.
And not only his — the bleak scenery of the corridor and the shadows hanging faintly around it all came into crisp focus before my eyes, and as I stared at it, transfixed, something in me slowly flickered awake.
"......"
No matter how hard I searched, I could not find myself.
It was certain — I should have been reflected there, standing alongside the tin can, unmistakably present. And yet I was nowhere to be seen.
My reflection was not appearing in the window.
"I never had the slightest interest in finding out, you see. But while I was gazing at the lake by chance, I happened to notice that yours wasn't showing in the water."
"...So you've known since the lake...?"
"Yes."
That single, matter-of-fact reply from the tin can sank into me like a dagger, sending my already blurring senses spinning further into the void.
Until this moment, I had never once known that my reflection failed to appear in glass or water.
"Well, one thing's certain — you're not human. And yet, even so, it's quite the puzzle."
"......"
"As far as I know, vampires went extinct long ago─"
"......"
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined my identity would be exposed by something as absurd as this.
Perhaps that was why hollow laughter kept escaping from me, deflating helplessly like a punctured balloon.
"Haha, hah... Your eyes are sharper than I gave you credit for."
"Hm?"
"So. What do you plan to do about it now?"
The worst possible situation, and I'd been driven to the very edge of a sheer cliff without even realizing it.
Denying it at this point would accomplish nothing.
Before resigning myself entirely, the only thing left was to steel my heart, little by little, just in case─
"...What am I supposed to do?"
Just as I was braced for the worst, running through my own preparations with every nerve drawn taut —
the tin can, entirely contrary to my expectations, scratched perplexedly at the smooth crown of his helmet and opened his mouth in visible bewilderment.
"I'm sorry?"
"Nothing, forget it. All I meant was, if you want to keep getting along with those children from here on out, you'd best watch yourself. No other meaning to it."
The heavy, frigid air that had been pressing down on us began to lift all at once.
The solemn mood from moments ago vanished without a trace, and a strange lightness, thin as dust, spread through the entire convent corridor before I knew it.
"You... weren't planning to fight me, then...?"
"Ah, that — well, I'm sure you have your reasons for hiding it, so who am I to object. Was there really any need to fight over something like that?"
"...W-well, no, but..."
"You live long enough, you see all sorts of things. Our circumstances are different, of course — but coming from the same side of it, I understand more than well enough."
There was something oddly grown-up about the tin can's words, and for a moment they left me at a loss for a reply.
But that lasted only a moment─
"Hold on. The same side?"
Then it struck me — one suspicious little phrase had been tucked, perfectly naturally, inside the tin can's words, and my eyes flew wide open as my brow slowly began to crease.