Favoritism (2)
The sound of crying reached me.
I had fallen asleep in Sister Flora’s room because the pain had been too much to bear. Yet the moment I realized what I was hearing, the pain vanished as if it had never existed. That heart-wrenching sob struck like a warning bell, slamming through my skull again and again until every sense snapped wide awake.
Why was someone crying?
Had… had a burglar broken in?
In an instant every dark possibility flooded in. I always tried to live brightly, yet I spent just as much time trembling at the thought of myself collapsing, of myself letting go. This was no different.
I strapped the dagger Laika had given me behind my waist and flung the door open.
If it was a burglar, I would kill them. I had no choice. Even if the children hated me for it, I would kill them. Even if I died doing it, I would drive the blade in somehow.
I eased the door open and scanned the hallway.
What I heard instead was an argument. Voices far sharper and more vicious than usual filled the church—children’s voices. Sobbing and furious shouting echoed through the entire building.
…No one from outside has come.
It didn’t seem like an outsider had come to torment us. Realizing the one crying was Claudia actually brought a strange sort of relief. Not because Claudia crying was somehow better—simply because she cried often. Maybe this was just more of the same.
I wanted to throw the door open right then and comfort her, but the dagger at my hip made me hesitate. I had just turned to put it away when Claudia’s sobs rose again. This wasn’t her usual sniffling. There was real anger mixed in.
That couldn’t be right. Even when Rhea or Ceria scolded her, Claudia would just grin like an idiot. Of the four of us, she had the gentlest heart.
“Who was it, who was it— Who did it?! You’re mean, you’re all so mean—! It’s too much, you’re awful—!”
The door was slightly ajar. More accurately, our home was a crumbling church we had patched together as best we could. Neither Sister Flora nor any of us knew how to hang a proper door, so a gap always remained.
Through that crack I found myself looking into the bedroom.
Claudia’s ears drooped flat; her tail trembled violently. Rhea’s eyes glared at her with pure irritation. Ceria, who had always idolized Sister Flora, was breathing hard through clenched teeth, utterly unlike herself.
“What’s so mean about us? You’re the one who didn’t take care of it!”
“Rhea’s right. And is the bedroom even your room? We agreed to keep the clothes in the confessional.”
“If you hang clothes in the bedroom they just tear? You did it! Rhea or Ceria, one of you—! Because you hate me—! Because I’m Wolf Tribe… Just like you hate Riel, you hate me too—!”
“Watch your mouth! Who hates anyone?!”
“Am I wrong? Rhea and Ceria are both mean. Rhea always nags Riel over every little thing. Ceria knows he’s exhausted yet still forces him to pray for hours, and if he doesn’t she cries and throws a tantrum—!”
“I told you to stop, Claudia!”
“No! I’m right! You’re the mean ones—!”
Then Claudia shouted—
and a sharp crack rang out.
I heard her body hit the floor. The sound and the sight were so shocking I couldn’t move.
My mind went blank. I couldn’t understand it. Why was Rhea hitting Claudia? This wasn’t playful roughhousing. She had put real feeling into the blow.
“Hic, waaah—… M-Mommy—… I hate you—… Why are you hitting me—… What did I do wrong—… You’re all so mean. Being mean to Riel is bad, and hurting my heart while he’s asleep is bad too—… Did I really say something that awful? Did I really say something that bad? Riel’s hurt, he’s injured! You know how he feels—… You just have to hug him—!”
“…It’s your fault. Because Riel only favors you, we were scared he’d break the promise…!”
“Hic—… huu, huuuh—…”
“Claudia, you decided on your own that Riel hates you, and that’s the problem. We’ve told you over and over it isn’t like that.”
It felt like I was looking at something I had never been meant to see. Something I should never have witnessed.
Had it always been like this when I wasn’t around? When I left for work? Had Claudia known from the start that I was injured?
…Ah. So that’s why…
Claudia had smiled yesterday, yet every time she looked at me she had cried. Her tail had swayed as if happy, then stopped, then swayed again.
She had known everything, and that was why she was sad. That was why she hated Rhea’s cold words. That was why she disliked it whenever Ceria dragged me off to pray after I came home from work. Because the others loved me yet never showed it. Because she was Wolf Tribe—a people who love only one person for life—and she had been trying to protect me in her own way.
I finally understood why Claudia had started coming to me ever since she first stole from the general store. Why she clung and said she liked me. I learned it in the most painful way possible, without ever intending to.
…Claudia.
The moment I understood, pity for her flooded me. In her own mind she must have said something to Rhea and Ceria for my sake after I came home hurt. And those two, displeased with whatever she said, had let things escalate this far.
I was angry. I was heartbroken. What hurt most wasn’t that they had fought—it was that Rhea had used the very violence she had always hated in the slums.
No matter how Rhea and Ceria felt, we weren’t supposed to hurt each other. We weren’t supposed to hit and cause pain.
My trembling hand closed around the doorknob just as Claudia’s voice rose again.
“…So you hit me? Then hit me more. Hit me harder. Ceria and Rhea are both mean. You only ever think about yourselves—! I like Riel. I like him even if he has nothing. I don’t care if he meets other people, or if he marries Rhea or Ceria. You’re the mean ones. You don’t even know how hard it is for him, you just want him to love you! So hit me more, hit me harder—!”
And then I heard the words that should never have been spoken.
“…You stupid Wolf Tribe girl!”
Bang—!
I threw the door open.
Everyone stared at me in shock. Fighting and hitting—if I stretched the definition far enough, I could almost call it children’s squabbling and try to understand. But the words Rhea had just spat were something I could never accept. We all knew how much Claudia hated that phrase.
“Wolf Tribe… Rhea, what the hell did you just say…?”
“…R-Riel…”
“…Claudia, are you okay?”
The words “Wolf Tribe” could be a source of pride for Claudia. In most situations, though, they were an insult.
The Wolf Tribe took love seriously. They often loved only one partner for life, and their love for family ran just as deep. Born of wolf and human, they carried a wolf’s instincts. Claudia was a Wolf Tribe child who had been abandoned by her parents.
To her, “Wolf Tribe” meant “abandoned child.” Except when she said it herself, that was what the words meant whenever anyone else used them.
When we called her that from the place of family, she let it slide. But using it in the middle of a fight was a deliberate attempt to hurt her, and we all knew it. After years together we knew exactly which words cut deepest—and Rhea had still said them.
“…I wasn’t… abandoned—… M-Mommy and… D-Daddy… hic, waaah—… Claudia wasn’t abandoned—!”
Claudia, Rhea, Ceria, and I all watched with our own eyes how deeply the Wolf Tribe girl was hurting.
“Hic—… huuu… I hate you—… I really hate you—…”
The moment she realized I was near, Claudia stopped wiping her tears and threw herself into my arms. In her hands were the clothes I had bought her yesterday, torn to shreds. Claudia would never have done that herself. Either Ceria or Rhea had.
I didn’t want to find the culprit. We only had each other, and I had no intention of breaking that promise. I was simply… disappointed.
Even though I tried not to be, sadness filled my eyes on its own. Both Ceria and Rhea seemed to understand that, whatever their reasons, hitting Claudia and ganging up on her had been wrong. Their fingers fidgeted; they looked at me with anxious eyes, knowing they had done something bad.
“…R-Riel—… I didn’t mean to, I swear…”
“…C-Claudia started talking about how badly you were hurt, and I… I got worked up…”
Ceria. Rhea. Both of them looked away, searching for excuses.
“…You need to apologize. Not to me—to Claudia.”
Still reeling, I couldn’t look at them. I stared at the floor instead. Torn scraps of clothing lay scattered there. Without another word I simply lifted Claudia onto my back.
“No… never mind. Not right now. Everyone’s too upset.”
Anything more I said would only make things worse, so I carried Claudia out of the church. I could see from Rhea’s face and eyes that she already realized she had said something unforgivable. But right now, taking care of the wounded Claudia came first.
If they wanted to call it favoritism, so be it. Her clothes had been torn, she had been slapped by Rhea, and she had been told she was abandoned by her parents.
“You said you wanted to see the village, right?”
I asked while carrying her on my back. I knew the villagers disliked the Wolf Tribe, so I had always avoided taking her. But I couldn’t leave her at the church today of all days.
Villagers stared at Claudia the way people stare at a strange animal. Demihumans weren’t rare, yet it was always like this. I deliberately spoke to her, stroked her hair, and headed for the shops.
Most people didn’t welcome us, but a few silver coins changed every expression. We stopped at a bakery I normally couldn’t afford, and I fed her soft, sweet bread instead of the usual hard loaves. Tears still ran down her face, soaking the already soft bread until it was damp. Claudia took tiny bites with her small mouth, looked up at my face once, and started sniffling again.
“I’m sorry… I… I’m mean too. I know Rhea and Ceria like you… I know about the promise… But you hide it every day, you pretend you’re fine even when you’re hurt… And all they ever do is complain… I hated that… I just wanted everyone to be nice to you…”
So that was why she had spoken up against Rhea’s cold remarks and against Ceria’s hours-long prayer sessions. I already knew the rest without hearing it, so I didn’t let her continue.
I ordered a drink while we were there and pressed the cool cup gently against her cheek.
“…It’s okay. I understand.”
Claudia swallowed her bread, held back another sob, then carefully tore off the part she had bitten and divided the rest into three equal pieces.
“…When… when everyone’s not mad anymore… I’ll give them the bread and apologize. Is that okay?”
“Of course it is.”
I smiled at the thoughtful words. We finished the bread quickly and went to buy clothes. Claudia had only two outfits; one was ruined, so I wanted to get her another.
She looked at the price tags and read the numbers instead of the words. She couldn’t read well, but she knew numbers.
One. Ten. A hundred.
Claudia chose the dress with the smallest number. She didn’t try it on. She didn’t even check if it was pretty. She just said she wanted that one. I wanted to tell her she could pick something nicer, but I couldn’t, and the knowledge sat uncomfortably in my chest.
Even after a fight this big, even after she had been the only one hurt, I still couldn’t freely buy her anything. I had a fair amount of money right now, but it still wasn’t enough to be comfortable.
“Thank you, Riel…”
Claudia was so good, so genuinely happy. That alone made me grateful. For the first time I walked through the village with Claudia instead of Rhea, and the hours slowly faded into evening. Around sunset we returned to the church.
“…I’m sorry.”
“…Claudia, we were wrong.”
Rhea and Ceria stood apart from each other. They came to Claudia’s left and right and apologized separately. Claudia took out the bread she had saved and handed it over as she accepted their apologies, yet the awkward atmosphere refused to lift.
That night, for the first time, all four of us slept apart.
As if by some unspoken agreement, Rhea and Ceria both said the same thing at once:
“From now on, let’s sleep separately.”
Rhea took the confessional. Ceria took Sister Flora’s room. Claudia took a prayer room of suitable size. The bedroom became mine.
Sometimes one of us slept alone, but never like this. I liked it best when we all slept together, yet maybe we had been stuck too close for too long and feelings had simply piled up.
I planned not to work for the next few days anyway. While we rested we could clear out the old grudges and take care of each other. That was what I thought.
But Ceria and Rhea never left the rooms they had chosen. Only Claudia and I went back and forth between them.
The moment Claudia and Riel left, Rhea couldn’t lift her head for the guilt. She knew better than Claudia how hard Riel worked and how often he got hurt for their sake. The cold way she had spoken—claiming he might break the promise—was exactly why Claudia had gotten angry. She knew she herself was the reason a small spat had grown this large.
Ceria felt the same. Even knowing Riel was exhausted, she had waited in the prayer room. She had deliberately leaned against the chair and pretended to sleep every time he came, hoping he would hold her the way he held Claudia. She had been unable to admit her jealousy honestly, had hit Claudia for talking about marriage, had ganged up on her, and had even stooped to the ugly provocation of calling it “favoritism” so they would scold her.
In the heat of the moment both girls had lost their reason. That didn’t mean they hated Claudia. If either of them couldn’t marry Riel, each would have preferred one of the other two to be the one who did.
Which made what came next even stranger.
“…Ceria, did you tear Claudia’s clothes?”
“…Rhea, wasn’t it you?”
Neither of them hated Claudia enough to destroy her clothes. They might have gotten irritated when she thrashed around under the blankets, but they would never have torn with their own hands something Riel had bought with blood and sweat.
“What?”
“…I was asleep. Are you saying it was you?”
“…Then was I the one who was awake?”
Perhaps that was why both of them immediately blamed the other for how things had turned out. If the blame landed on themselves, they feared Riel would hate them.
“…More importantly, why would I tear Claudia’s clothes? You’re the one who’s always jealous. You even came to me complaining that he seemed to favor her.”
“…That doesn’t mean I hate her enough to rip her clothes.”
“So you think I did it?”
“Who else is there?”
“You did it.”
“…If we’re talking about lying to Sister Flora, you’ve done it way more than I have. I’ve never lied. You’re the one who did it!”
Who had torn Claudia’s clothes was a fact that truly mattered. Both Rhea and Ceria loved Riel, and Rhea had even heard him say he liked her—yet both of them instinctively understood that it still wasn’t “love.” Or rather, even if Riel did love Rhea, she still couldn’t fully accept it. If he misunderstood about the clothes, the disappointment in his eyes would feel like a dagger driven straight into their hearts.
“…Rhea, you. You’ve always hit Claudia. You hate her more than I do. Just now you even called her Wolf Tribe… You said something you should never say!”
“…And what about you? Every day you pretend to pray when you’re really just waiting for Riel—you think no one notices?!”
The first day all three of them had fought. Now only the two of them were fighting. And the next day, when Riel came to each of their rooms—
“…Riel, you believe me, right? I think Ceria tore the clothes.”
“…Rhea really hates Claudia, so I think she tore them, Riel.”
That was what Rhea and Ceria told him.