The Anniversary (2)
Fleeing the dining hall to get away from my friends, I caught my own reflection in a mirror tucked into the corner of the corridor. And then I understood why everyone in the dining hall had been staring at me with such complicated expressions on their faces.
Anyone would look that way, seeing a girl shedding tears while desperately trying to smile through them.
After wiping away whatever had gathered at the corners of my eyes, I retreated to my room and hurled myself onto the bed.
Sniffling in a room filled with nothing but the sound of the frigid wind rapping against the window only made the gloom deepen. Little by little, my emotions were devouring my reason.
"In times like these, moving your body does more good than holing up in your room."
'You think I'm not doing it because I don't know that?'
If I rolled myself into the ground until I couldn't string a single thought together, the melancholy would naturally scatter, sure enough.
But to do that I'd have to go to the training grounds, and if I went to the training grounds, then all those people would be staring at me with those complicated eyes again, wouldn't they?
Then it would be plainly obvious that both I and everyone else would end up thoroughly uncomfortable, so I'd shut myself in my room instead of going outside.
"You're quite the shy one, aren't you."
'So what? This is just who I am.'
"I wasn't scolding you, child."
The moment I buried my face in my pillow, ignoring Grandpa's laughter, a voice I'd momentarily forgotten wriggled its way into my ear.
"The sorrowful figure of a beauty in tears. Why, this too is a delicacy."
Following that revolting tone, I turned my head to find the face-con fox with the corners of her mouth curled upward.
Ordinarily she'd have pounced on me under the pretense of licking my tears away, but the current face-con fox merely wore a perverted expression without moving so much as a paw. With winter's arrival, she had been consumed by drowsiness.
I gazed at the pervert fox as she lazily swished her tail, then rose from my seat.
"Hmm? I do enjoy being looked at with those tear-brimmed eyes, but why do you approach? And why are your hands squirming like that. Stop. Stop that! You. Surely you don't wish to touch a beast like me!"
A spirit beast was still a beast at its root. So long as the drowsiness summoned by hibernation—one of a beast's fundamental instincts—held sway, the face-con fox's resistance could never be fierce.
Ignoring the assorted nonsense spilling from the face-con fox as she was trapped in my grasp far too easily, I wrapped my arms around her bristling fur and warmth.
"Haaah."
In the end, the face-con fox gave up resisting and quietly surrendered herself to my hands.
"Because I am fond of you, I shall offer a single piece of advice."
I gave no answer and simply waited for her to continue. Setting aside her usual perversion, few beings were as wise as the face-con fox, after all.
"Emotions do not vanish because you turn your back on them. They only grow larger, bit by bit. So face them and accept them. Only then can you move forward."
A laugh escaped me at the words, so befitting a Lord of the Forest. How could a being this remarkable show nothing but her beastly side the rest of the time?
If she stayed like this all winter, shouldn't we just leave the face-con fox to hibernate for the rest of her life?
"Ah. Though regarding your revulsion toward me, I would prefer you turn your back on it as much as possible. The way you look utterly disgusted makes my heart boil over. Haah. Yes. That expression right there. Magnificent. I feel so happy I could die."
Retracting my previous statement. This creature needs to be sealed away every winter, permanently.
While the others busied themselves preparing for training, Arthur sat in a daze at the dining hall, replaying the scene from moments ago. Lucy, shedding tears all the while as she strained to wear a smile.
The fragile side of her that Lucy—always so proud and imperious—had shown him gave Arthur a great deal to think about.
Yes. That girl undoubtedly possessed absurd, impossible talent. She was so dependable it seemed as though she would never crumble, no matter what calamity stood before her.
She was the kind of girl he could picture with perfect clarity, hurling abuse with a spiteful grin even with her own death staring her in the face.
And yet that girl was human. No matter how strong a front she put on, she was, in the end, a person.
"Joy."
At the sound of Arthur's voice, Joy—who had been peeking out from behind a pillar—panicked and tried to dive out of sight, only to slip and fall flat onto the floor.
From the way the crash filled the entire dining hall, it had to have hurt considerably, but Joy scrambled to her feet, her face burning scarlet, and did her best to act as if nothing had happened.
"No need to fear. Everyone else is busy preparing for training."
"...Could you maybe just pretend you didn't see that?"
"If I pretend not to know, then the one who would throw a tantrum over the pretending would be—"
"Uuuu."
Muttering at Arthur's deadpan remark, Joy trudged over and plopped herself down across from him.
"Good timing, actually. There was something I wished to ask."
"What is it?"
"Do you know what Lucy Aln was searching for on the Archipelago?"
The instant Joy heard the question, she stiffened for a heartbeat—but the confusion was fleeting. She had crafted her expression with her own magic.
"Is it connected to how she regained her expressions?"
But the moment that next question landed, the expression Joy had worked so hard to construct crumbled right back down.
"...You knew the whole time?"
"Of course I knew."
Arthur had restricted his sleep on the Archipelago just as he had in the Aln Knight Order. He had pored over her books desperately, all to win his bet with Lucy.
How could a man like that have failed to notice Lucy Aln's outings?
The same went for her expressions. The girl who had worn nothing but an irritating scowl since the day he met her had suddenly begun flashing bright, innocent smiles—was he truly expected to have missed that?
"After all the time I have spent at her side."
"Wow. That line was actually incredibly romantic just now."
"Joy. Would you have me use profanity?"
"I'm sorry."
Just who is this girl trying to bury in the ground? If one of the Aln family's knights had heard what she just said, they really would have come charging to kill me.
Seeing Arthur furrow his brow, Joy cautiously studied his face and went on.
"But why did you pretend not to know until now?"
"Because she never tried to tell me."
He didn't know the reason, but Lucy Aln had never told him. So he had respected her silence and played ignorant. It was his way of showing courtesy to her—his benefactor, and his teacher.
"But then why now?"
"The same reason you came looking for me."
"What?"
"You decided we couldn't simply leave her be. Didn't you?"
"H-how did you—"
"Obvious. You're a scatterbrain—sharp-faced but soft-hearted through and through."
Arthur smiled as he watched Joy grumble about what being a scatterbrain had to do with any of that.
"We have only ever taken from her. The least we can do is repay her at a time like this."
"...That was what I was going to say first, you know."
"Haha. Fine, it hardly matters. More to the point—tell me what you know."
"Haa. Well, to start, I don't know exactly what the young lady was looking for on the islands either."
Judging from what the other knights had said, she really had been hunting for a hidden dungeon.
But what she'd been searching for inside it—only one person in the world knew, and that was Lucy Aln. Unless she chose to speak, no way of finding out existed.
"But I think I know why the young lady is so downhearted."
"And what would that be?"
"Lady Aln's memorial day is coming up soon."
At the words—a grief he had experienced firsthand, a sorrow he still had never shaken off—Arthur clenched his jaw.
"This is a delicate matter. It's no business for outsiders to intrude upon."
Arthur could say it with certainty precisely because he was a man still living with his own wounds. Interfering here for no good reason would only stoke Lucy's grief.
"That's what I thought too, so I've been searching for something that would make her happy—something big enough to make her forget her sadness, even for a little while. But nothing seems to be coming to mind."
Arthur understood Joy's dilemma. So long as the sheer scale of the sorrow was unknowable, no ordinary gesture could dispel it.
No. Wait. If it were that, then surely—
Arthur closed his eyes and let the deliberation continue for a while.
The answer came quickly.
Now that the business on the Archipelago was finished, it would be fair to consider his promise with that unknown entity fulfilled.
Well. Even if I was mistaken, no harm done. If she dislikes it, that girl will meddle on her own.
Arthur cast a version of the sound-blocking spell he had personally modified, then opened his mouth.
"Joy. Listen carefully."
"Yes?"
As Arthur lowered his voice, the look in Joy's eyes turned grave. If he was taking this much care, she clearly judged it a matter of real importance.
"It is still nothing more than conjecture, but Lucy Aln does not appear to spew her cruel words by her own will."
Having finished, Arthur waited for Joy's reaction. He expected the scatterbrain's usual response—what on earth does that mean? or is that really true?
But Joy, having heard him out, was completely unfazed. No—not merely unfazed. She was radiating something close to pity.
"Why on earth is that your reaction?"
"Um. Your Highness?"
"You don't believe me? Of course, I understand that feeling too."
"No."
"But listen closely. There is clear evidence behind—"
"Hey. Arthur."
At that utterly disrespectful register—words Joy, normally so obsessed with noble propriety, would never have used, words she hadn't used once since early childhood—Arthur's eyes went wide.
Paying him no mind whatsoever, Joy shook off every trace of her usual facade and pressed on.
"I've spent more time with Lady Aln than you have."
"Is... that so?"
"I was saved by her first. I became her friend first. I was trained by her first."
"That... is also true."
"And you thought I wouldn't know?"
Only then did Arthur realize where the pity Joy was directing at him came from.
Right. This girl is careless, but she isn't stupid.
When it came to the field of human relationships, she was sharper than he was. She was the one who had worked herself to the bone hiding her own awkwardness to become the heart of the young ladies' circle.
If Arthur—shut away in a corner of the library, buried in his studies—had noticed, then there was no way Joy, who had survived in the cutthroat depths of high society, could have missed it.
And yet.
And yet one thing didn't add up.
If she had truly realized Lucy Aln's strangeness so very long ago—then why?
"Why did you pretend not to know?"
"I'll return exactly what you said to me just now."
"...Because she never told you."
"That's right. The young lady never told me, so I simply watched over her."
There existed a Lucy Aln whom Arthur didn't know—and Joy did.
The Lucy Aln who had stirred up every manner of strife in high society.
Back then, Joy had believed those actions were simply Lucy's temperament.
But what if that wasn't Lucy's true nature at all?
What if the girl of that time had done nothing but scream on the inside?
What if she had been forcing herself to look strong beneath a storm of countless accusations?
Would tearing off the mask she had fought so desperately to wear truly be the right thing to do?
When Joy finished speaking and lifted her face, her expression had recovered its usual composure.
"So let's find another way. Your Highness."
Joy would say nothing more until her suspicions hardened into certainty.
Even on the off chance, she would keep her silence because she had no wish to trample the resolve the Lucy of the past had carried.
"...I see."
Arthur nodded wearily.
"So then what do we do?"
At the presence that abruptly appeared beside them, both of them whipped their heads around in alarm.
Frey Kent was gazing up at them with innocent, unblinking eyes.
"How long have you been there?"
"Just now."
"There was a barrier woven around us."
"Cut through it. It was pretty weak?"
Arthur's teeth ground together at Frey's utterly casual remark.