With a Filthy Mouth (1)
Rhea’s narrowed eyes slowly filled with anger.
One word.
Slum.
It was aimed at her, yes—but Riel carried just as many bitter memories of the slums as she did. Even so, the fury rising in her now had nothing to do with defending him from Ceria’s remark.
If two of them went to the Academy, one would have to stay behind. And if someone had to stay, it ought to be the ones who had already confirmed their feelings for him.
That girl who prattled on about prayer while waiting for Riel instead of Sister Flora… a wicked little thing like that had no right to remain here. And the filthy wolf-beastkin who had torn her own clothes with her own hands had no right to stay either!
“Not me. You two should go.”
The words Ceria had spat first shattered the strange little play the three girls had been performing in front of Riel—the pretense that they were all still close, that they had made up.
“If anyone’s going to the Academy, it should be you, Ceria—the one who can’t even pray, just sits there with her hands folded and her eyes shut.”
Her own voice came out sharper than she expected. Riel looked at her, but Rhea pretended not to notice and pressed on.
“…Sister Flora cooked, she prayed, she looked after all of us. What can you even do? I grew up in the slums. I may not cook anything tasty, but I can feed myself, and I can scrape together money somehow. If someone’s going to the Academy, shouldn’t it be you—the one who’s worse off than me?”
“…Y-yeah, that sounds right.”
Rhea shot a look at Claudia, who had shamelessly chimed in with agreement. Wolf-beastkin, was she? She was acting more like a snake.
“You can’t even keep your own tail under control. You whine about wanting to be a mother, and all you do is cling to whoever’s nearest and nod along. Don’t you have any backbone of your own, Claudia?”
“…R-Rhea?”
“…Riel, Ceria and Claudia should be the ones who go to the Academy. We’re from the slums. We’ll manage somehow. But think about Ceria or Claudia staying behind with us. They’d never adapt.”
Even when Riel stared at her in open dismay, Rhea refused to yield. This was not the harmonious face she had been showing lately—it was the old, sharp-tempered girl who used to snap at the others without warning.
“You two are the same age. You go to the Academy. I’ll be the one who sacrifices. Learn how to take care of yourselves, and Ceria can learn what a sister actually does, then come back. I’ve already given up a whole year for the rest of you. A little more delay won’t matter.”
“…Are you really adapting as well as you claim, Rhea?”
“…What?”
“You cut your hands every single day. You’re from the slums, right? You lived there and you still can’t cook properly. Shouldn’t you be the one who goes? And don’t you dare lecture me about praying when you don’t know the first thing about it. Do you have any idea how much I cry every day, hic, thinking of Sister Flora…?”
Ceria’s voice wavered as she glanced sideways at Riel. Rhea opened her mouth to retort, but Claudia truly began to cry—shoulders shaking with a mixture of sorrow and fear.
“…Rhea slapped my cheek. And Ceria just stood there and watched…. R-Riel. Can’t I stay? C-Claudia is… so scared….”
In an instant the situation swung from one extreme to the other. Riel had half-expected something like this, and his face already carried a quiet sadness—but the children’s emotions had flared far beyond anything he had braced for. He reached out, trying to mediate the fight the Academy had sparked among them.
That was the moment.
“…Girls, j-just calm down for a—”
Rhea’s voice cracked like a whip.
“How am I supposed to calm down?!”
She jabbed a finger at Claudia and shouted again.
“Riel, do you know who tore those clothes?”
“We agreed never to talk about that again—”
“It was Claudia.”
At those words Riel stopped dead. Truly dead—as if some piece of information too heavy to accept had scraped across his mind and left him frozen, broken.
“…What are you talking about?”
Rhea and Ceria had both vaguely suspected Claudia, since neither of them had done the tearing. They had simply never spoken the truth aloud.
They might have grown to hate each other. They might have been family once and now worse than strangers, bound only by love and resentment—but they had known, with cruel certainty, how much the truth would hurt Riel.
Yet the thought of being separated from him for four whole months if they went to the Academy had wiped every other consideration away. They all knew that if their names were drawn among the two who would leave, they would never be able to refuse Riel’s request—the boy whose dream was to make everyone happy. They wanted to erase even the tiniest chance of remaining behind.
“…W-what are you saying…?! Th-the one who bullied me was Rhea, not me! Rhea slapped my cheek, she c-called me names! It was Rhea or Ceria, o-one of the two of youuu—!”
Claudia cried out in panic, but Rhea and Ceria only raised their voices higher.
“Ceria said she was pure enough that she never needed to stay with Riel—or with any of us—again. I’m the same. I’m pure enough that I don’t need to stay by Riel’s side. I can swear it. I can go to Sister Flora’s grave and swear we didn’t tear those clothes. Right, Ceria?”
“Claudia, can you do that? We can swear a hundred times over that we never tore your clothes.”
“…Th-that’s…. S-swearing something like that at Sister Flora’s grave is….”
“Can you or can’t you?!”
“Of course she can’t. She just wants to be spoiled. Everyone’s suffering and she still leaves her tail all tangled up.”
Rhea’s sneer made Claudia scream as if her throat would tear.
“I-I can!”
She could not bear for anyone to hear that she had been the one who tore the clothes. Even standing before the grave of Sister Flora—who had cared for them so warmly and was now dead—she would insist she had done nothing, forcing the lie out through tears.
She had been taught that lying was wrong, but anything was better than losing Riel or being abandoned and left behind for the Academy. And the way Riel stared at her now, body rigid, eyes trembling—it terrified her beyond words.
“…I can, I can do it. I-I can do iiiit—!”
Claudia wrapped her hopelessly tangled, pitiful tail around Riel and wiped her tears. She appealed not to reason but to feeling. Ears and tail drooping, she wept the way she always had, begging him to believe her.
“I’ll do it, Riel…. So please don’t believe them…. I-I love you so much…. There’s no way I would tear the clothes you bought meee….”
“Is that so? Then go do it. Stand in front of Sister Flora and tell her you did nothing, that you’re the one who’s been wronged!”
“Riel, it’s all lies. You know it—we’re from the slums. You can tell, at least a little, who’s lying…!”
That was when Riel raised his voice for the first time.
“Stop it. Just stop it, all of you—!”
His body had gone rigid; his unfocused eyes fixed on none of the three. Grief and pain twisted inside him, and somewhere a hollow laugh tried to rise at the discovery of who had torn the clothes—yet the greatest shock was that the three of them were fighting more viciously, more savagely, than they ever had “back then.”
They had promised never to let anyone come between them, to stay together for life. And now, before Sister Flora’s grave, they were demanding proof of innocence from one another—an absurdity beyond bearing.
“…Just… stop.”
Riel’s voice was barely a whisper. Cracked, broken. It carried a self-reproach that seemed to blame only himself.
Once that voice had rolled out like polished beads, bringing happiness to everyone around him. Now it scraped like iron, clawing at every heart it touched.
“…Don’t drag Sister Flora into something like this.”
Slowly he lifted his head. In his hands was the paper he had worked so hard to obtain—the chance to give at least two of them a happiness that, if not equal to Sister Flora’s, was still something he had earned for them.
Riiip—!
Rip—, rrip—, rrip—!
He tore it again and again. The sharp sound of paper splitting cut cleanly through the silence.
“…None of you want to go to the Academy, do you?”
Riel looked first at Rhea, then shifted his gaze to Ceria. Finally he stared down at Claudia’s tail still coiled around him, gently unwrapped it, and took a small step back.
“…You just… don’t want to be separated from the family you love…. Th-that’s why you don’t want to go…. Right? That’s it, isn’t it?”
He asked them again, his expression on the verge of collapse.
“…Riel.”
Rhea’s face drained of color. Ceria’s and Claudia’s did the same. But none of them looked as devastated as he did.
Even now, Riel blamed none of the three. He blamed only himself.
The worthless bastard who had gone sniffing around the slums while Sister Flora was still alive. The fool who had sent her into those alleys and gotten her killed. The idiot who couldn’t even look after three little children in her place and had let them tear one another apart.
That was how he defined himself. Therefore the fault was not theirs—it was his alone. He believed it. He was certain of it.
“…I must have misread the Academy papers. L-looking at them now…. It seems we don’t have enough money. Everyone get some sleep. I-I’m too tired… I want to turn in early. Once I’ve earned more money for the Academy…. Yeah. When we turn fifteen, we’ll all go together. By then we should have enough for a year there.”
He started to brush past them, then stopped and pulled Rhea into his arms.
“…So what if you’re from the slums? We don’t hate you for it, Rhea.”
Next he drew Ceria close and spoke again.
“…Prayers can’t always be perfectly devout. Sister Flora’s weren’t either. So you don’t have to be angry. In my eyes you’re already a wonderful sister. Understood?”
Last came Claudia. He looked at the hopelessly knotted tail, then held her tightly and stroked her hair as he spoke.
“…Someone else tore them. A thief broke in, saw how pretty your clothes were, and tore them out of jealousy. Ceria didn’t do it. Rhea didn’t do it. Claudia didn’t do it either. So you don’t have to cry. I believe you. Even if you told me yourself that you tore them, I still wouldn’t believe it—that’s how much I trust you. So you don’t have to cry anymore.”
Only then did Riel open the bedroom door.
“I want to be alone tonight.”
Thud—.
The bedroom door closed.