The Answer He Never Meant to Give
“…….”
A brief silence fell. Owen watched Sylvia without a word. Sylvia, assuming he was the sort of person who didn’t care what he said, thought he might simply tell her to quit while she was ahead and throw her out. But he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he leaned in like a teacher interrogating a student who had something to hide, and pressed her again.
“Say it properly.”
“…….”
“How does this Mana Sharing thing even work? Does something hurt besides your hand? I’m not in pain right now, so how could you be?”
“You’re covered in injuries. How could you not be in pain? Did you take anything?”
She hadn’t meant, Are you out of your mind? She’d meant, Did you take a strong painkiller? But the sharp edge in her voice made it sound like mockery. Owen only nodded obediently, as if he understood the situation from her words more than he agreed with them.
“So that’s why I could see something just now. Not because you were hurting.”
“The medicine…….”
“You took Paractin.”
For something he said so calmly, it was the kind of powerful painkiller people even warned was dangerous. Apparently one knight in the neighboring unit had gone so far as to injure himself just to get some Paractin.
“What? That…….”
“It’s not that dangerous. Not if you don’t take it all the time.”
He ran a hand through his hair, then flexed and unflexed the joints of his fingertips as if testing whether his body still answered him. His hand moved perfectly well, but his expression was strangely dazed. In that instant, Sylvia realized he had taken so much medicine that even those sensations barely reached him.
It was obvious this wasn’t normal for him. No matter how badly he’d been injured on a mission, Owen always treated only what was absolutely necessary, and during war, painkillers were always scarce; he had even shared his medicine with the knights around him. Why, then, had he suddenly swallowed a handful of Paractin?
Feeling a faint unease, Sylvia replayed their conversation in her head.
Does something hurt besides your hand? I’m not in pain right now, so how could you be?
What’s with that face? Are you hurt? I mean, I’m not doing it, so…….
He had asked twice whether she was in pain. Then had he taken that medicine because of her? To keep his pain from reaching her?
“You…….”
Sylvia opened her mouth, her expression distant.
“What.”
“……You’re kinder than you look.”
“What?”
Owen let out a short, incredulous breath when Sylvia drifted off into her own little world all of a sudden. But she was too absorbed in the truth she had just realized.
“Now that I think about it, you only ever said things like that. You never really did anything strange except that one time…… And you must have been feeling it, too. Yesterday, and today…….”
Muttering to herself, Sylvia suddenly noticed Owen standing there blankly in front of her and placed a hand on his arm.
“I thought you were a complete idiot.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“The medicine. You took it so I wouldn’t feel the pain, didn’t you?”
Her abrupt lunge for the truth caught Owen off guard. Of course, he hadn’t had any reason to hide it, so he’d carelessly spilled the whole bag, but still, he hadn’t expected her to figure it out so quickly…… No, more importantly, so I’m kind because of that?
Just how innocent could this woman possibly be?
It was almost ridiculous.
What kind of fool would do something like this just because they were kind……?
And then Owen’s own mind froze.
Come to think of it, why did I do it?
Even when he was getting hit, all he could think was, Ah, shit. I can’t let that get through. He had endured it until the skin on his palm split open, forcing himself to steady his mind. He’d built walls in his head and even belted out that imperial anthem he never sang in public, not even when he’d gotten hard in the middle of a crowd. So why the hell had he done that?
A strange, prickly sensation crawled over him, and Owen scratched his arm roughly. What the hell is this? Could it be Sylvia?
Was he saying, out loud, “How kind of you!” like some idiot, while secretly feeling his heart flutter? At that thought, he studied Sylvia’s face closely, taking in every detail. But Sylvia was only slapping the uninjured part of his arm and grumbling, “You got hurt, so why are you scratching like that! Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s healed at all, so be careful!” while frowning at him as if she found him deeply irritating.
Then this goddamned feeling is…….
Just as the vague realization was spreading over him like mist, threatening to wrap around him completely, Owen doused it with cold water and stopped his thoughts with a click. Cutting off a thought midway in an awful situation was one of his specialties.
With his usual blank expression restored, Owen admitted, “Yeah. I guess I was being kind.”
Come to think of it, maybe I’ve really been living my life pretty kindly. After a brief review of his life, Owen nodded to himself, realizing he had been more considerate than he’d given himself credit for.
Because all of that must have shown on his face, Sylvia looked like she had swallowed something unpleasant, which made her earlier awe feel suddenly pointless.
“If you’re going to admit it that fast, then that just makes you sound more like an idiot again.”
“You decide everything however you want, don’t you? First I’m kind, then I’m an idiot.”
“Well…….”
She pouted for a moment before grabbing him again, her expression turning serious.
“Anyway, don’t do that from now on. And don’t take medicine like a lunatic, either. You’re being sent out on deployment, so why would you force your body into such a numb state? What if monsters attack all of a sudden? If you can’t fight properly, who’s going to protect me? From now on, drop the habit of doing missions alone. Of course, I’m only your Supporter this one time, but there might be another Supporter after me. Even the captain seems to want that. And by the way, you’ve actually been scheming all this time about not having a partner, haven’t you? Why do you act so weird? No, forget it. You don’t need to tell me. You’ve got plenty of years on you now, so stop being stubborn over useless things and…….”
And she kept going after that.
Sylvia barked like a dog. The moment Owen heard her, he let the words go in one ear and out the other, packing his things and falling back into formation while thinking, My kind self should just endure this.
* * *
After that, the days became dull. They had to wind through the mountain roads, stopping at the purification towers along the way to make sure no monsters had slipped through, but because they occasionally visited the lord’s castle to rest and catch up, it wasn’t too exhausting.
Every time, the nobles had meals with the lord. The conversation always began with some variation of whether monsters had been seen lingering around the surrounding domain and ended with lavish hospitality for the princess.
Sylvia, being the daughter of a duke, had been invited as well, but the social standing of Lady Appleton, now a Supporter, had already fallen so far that going alone, without Heston, meant almost nothing at all.
“My, what a handsome and beautiful pair you make!”
“Well, Sir Lockwood and Lady Appleton’s friendship is already famous!”
Those same people who had once seemed desperate to tie her and Heston together at every possible moment, as though they were about to be married any day now, were now chattering with unrestrained excitement beside Princess Catherine and Heston, who stood side by side.
Princess Catherine nodded with the polished smile of the highborn, while Heston was simply Heston. But he never once looked toward Sylvia, who remained some distance away, and that didn’t change even when she stepped out midway through, claiming she wasn’t feeling well.
After that, Sylvia judged every banquet pointless and politely declined the invitations. No matter what excuse she gave, the hosts always smiled smoothly and ended by wishing her a swift recovery, praising her unwavering patriotism, or, if they had absolutely nothing else to say, asking after her father.
In other words, not a single person there would have found her absence regrettable.
At first, her pride had been wounded by that, but little by little, she came to understand it herself. I really have been leaning on Heston all this time and getting everything done that way. I thought I’d achieved things on my own and proven myself plenty, but……
Even on a day when she skipped out entirely, claiming she was ill, and secretly hoped Heston might come looking for her at least once, there was no sign of him at all. Sylvia blushed a little, thinking Heston must have seen right through her disgusting little feelings.
Come to think of it, Heston really is so composed. As if he’d known this would happen all along. And yet the way he’d acted in front of her that day had definitely looked confused.
Now that she thought about it, something like this had happened before.
There had been some marquis who had made an uncomfortably obvious point of linking Heston and Sylvia together, talking as though they were about to be married soon. Then, the very next day, he’d stripped away every trace of that attitude and treated them with cold formality.
“Did he suddenly grow up? What’s with him?”
At her words, Heston had said calmly while surveying the area, “Ah, I talked to him. I asked him not to do that.”
“I’m pretty sure I said that dozens of times yesterday already. And before that, he was going on about how it’s best not to trust the things young people say about love, so why the sudden change?”
“I…… mentioned the family.”
Heston had looked a little embarrassed, his face reddening.
At first, Sylvia hadn’t understood. But seeing that awkward expression, she quickly realized Heston had shut the marquis up by invoking the authority of the Lockwood ducal house.
Why go that far?
It didn’t seem like Heston. No matter what happened, he never borrowed his family’s authority, even preferring to be treated unfairly on a mission rather than use it. To think he’d gone so far as to bring up the family just to stop the marquis from speaking…… The marquis had been too much, certainly, but Heston seemed a little extreme too.
As if he had read her thoughts, he offered an explanation.
“If that kind of thing gets back to your father, I’ll be in trouble again. He already doesn’t like you traveling with me much. And you’d be uncomfortable too, wouldn’t you? You barely ate all of dinner last night.”
He had done it for her? Her heart softened at that. The image of his face—expressionless, yet with his gaze moving back and forth between her and her plate all through dinner—came to mind. So that night had felt a little strange. Her chest had fluttered for no reason, a cool breeze had been blowing, the two of them had been alone, and Heston had seemed less like he was carrying out a mission than like he was simply enjoying the scenery around them. There had been a certain ease to him. Enough, perhaps, that he’d let her sly little probing questions slide.
“Not that. What about you? How about you?”
So she had asked. Heston had been startled by the sudden question—“Me?”—and then smiled as though he’d realized Sylvia was a good friend who cared about his feelings more than her own.
“Me? Well, I suppose it is a little uncomfortable.”
A clean, perfectly friendly smile that suggested there wasn’t the slightest chance of anything more.
After that, Sylvia suffered for a week, telling herself that a work-minded man like Heston would never like the nobles who clung to his friendship with her for no reason, so he must have only said that to brush them off. She forced herself to shake it off.
Besides, there was no way he’d have said, “No, actually, I’m fine with it,” so the question was wrong to begin with. Stop digging a hole and confess properly later.
Having neatly sorted it all out, she rose to her feet and thought she was quite mature, quite wise.
You damn fool.
Sylvia tucked her legs in before the blazing campfire and buried her face in her thighs.
That was exactly when she should have understood. Heston had no feelings for her at all.
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