Chapter 9. Boundaries and Walls (6)
Chapter 9. Boundaries and Walls (6)
"S-so, you know, buying me all sorts of things, taking me here and there, even buying me delicious food like this......."
"Yeah, yeah."
Ria said it as if she were about to tack on a "good job" right after.
"But even so, all I did was follow along behind you and grumble......."
"No, that's not it. I don't care about that kind of thing. If I'd been upset over something like that, would I have brought you all the way here?"
"Is that so?"
"That's right. I mean, no matter how few friends you have, did you really think that? Would you wear a swimsuit picked out by someone you hate? You hate me, but you still wore the swimsuit I picked out?"
"Ah, no, it's not like that."
But still, the friendless comment stung a little. Of course, in this world, the only people I could really call friends were Ria, and then the kids I'd gotten to know after Ria.
......And in my Past Life, I hadn't had all that many friends either.
"......Ah, no, I mean, that's not what I meant."
Maybe she caught a hint of that on my face, because Ria became a little flustered too. But even so, she didn't take her hands off my face.
"I-it's fine if you don't have many friends. The people around you were mostly rotten bastards anyway, weren't they?"
"......Is that so?"
When I asked with a slightly doubtful air, Ria nodded with a resolute expression.
"Yeah, that's right. Except for a few who revered you, the rest were all people who absolutely hated you. It was all jealousy."
"......."
As I stared blankly at Ria, she went on haltingly, as if making some kind of excuse. The story she'd been telling just moments before was completely forgotten.
Without taking her hands off my cheeks, she pushed her face—flushed with some kind of heat—right up close to mine. Not quite nose-to-nose, but close enough to feel a little overwhelming, and that expression, talking away with so much excitement.
It was the kind of expression Ria probably never showed anyone else.
Because even in the novel, she'd never once made a face like this.
The knot I'd spent all day today strangely agonizing over by myself felt like it was slowly unraveling at that clumsy expression. I didn't really know why.
Just—the moment the thought crossed my mind that Ria was showing me, and only me, an expression she'd probably never made in front of anyone else, all those thoughts about whether she'd shown her swimsuit to other people or whatever stopped mattering.
"See, I told you before, didn't I? That you had talent. Hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, that sort of thing."
"You did."
I answered calmly, but Ria still seemed impatient.
"So, well, I'm not saying you're the best in the world or anything. It's not like you're some kind of genius, but I just meant you've got a lot more talent than ordinary people."
Her words were incredibly clumsy.
She looked like someone who was terrible at lying, trying her best to inflate whatever she could praise about the other person as much as possible.
That sight was just like a little kid. Even though Ria was taller than me and mature in so many ways.
"But...... you already have something you're the best in the world at. So, they were jealous. You're not ordinary at all. If anything, you're in a special position. And on top of that, you even rejected that position, so you looked even more special. Yeah."
"So you're saying those people were jealous of me and tried to get at me over the things they were better at?"
When I said it with a slight smile, Ria quickly nodded.
"Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Where in the world is there a genius who's good at everything? I'm not even that great at shooting, and I can't use Holy Power like you can. In the first place, you're probably the only person in the world who can bring someone on the verge of death back to perfect health. If there were anyone else, I would have at least heard of them."
"......."
"So what I'm saying is, you don't have to listen to what those bastards say. And this is coming from me, someone who's spent her life being told she had a decent talent for swordsmanship—"
"Ria."
"—so don't take those people to heart too much."
"Ria. It's okay."
"What I wanted to say was."
"Ria."
I gently placed my hand over Ria's hand, which was resting on my face.
I slowly lifted Ria's right hand away from my face.
Ria wore a slightly dazed expression.
An expression that seemed to say she didn't quite understand what I was thinking, doing something like that.
I softly took that right hand in both of mine.
"I understand. What you wanted to tell me."
It had been a little clumsy. But that was fine. In fact, precisely because it was so clumsy, what she wanted to say—and how sincere she was—came through completely.
If anything, I was the clumsier one.
Even after receiving all kinds of help, in my heart I only thought of it as a debt, and only thought about how to repay it.
Unable to fully accept the help, I expressed my feelings through grumbling, and rather than the fact that I'd received help, I apologized for my own behavior first.
All of it happened because I couldn't fully accept Ria's feelings.
"Thank you."
I said to Ria, smiling softly.
I gently touched that hand.
On Ria's right hand, the friendship ring I'd put on her today was still there. She could have taken it off and worn it on the necklace again except when swimming, but Ria was still wearing it on her finger.
A faint light still flowed from the ring. The ring infused with my Holy Power.
Actually, putting the ring on her hand like this had been deliberate.
I had probably been jealous of Ria's friends. The friends she'd made before meeting me, friends who might be far better than me.
Because Ria had only become friends with me because she'd been forced into the convent.
"......."
At some point, Ria had gone quiet.
Her face flushed red, she just stared endlessly at me.
I thought carefully about how to express this gratitude.
Suddenly, one way of expressing it came to mind. There was a method sometimes used within the Church, when expressing gratitude formally.
Of course, it wasn't a common way for ordinary nuns to express things to each other. In fact, if nuns did something like that to each other, it would be perfect grounds for misunderstanding.
It was crossing a line—that is, it might be a way of crossing the boundary I had set for myself.
I put on a slightly playful expression.
I had no intention of saying this repaid my debt to Ria. Perhaps, since Ria was also a woman, she might find it a little creepy.
But still, it felt like there was no other way to fully express my feelings besides this.
I slowly lowered my head.
At the same time, I pulled Ria's hand, which I was holding, toward my face.
Gently, I pressed my lips to the back of Ria's hand.
Ria's palm and fingers were a little callused, so her hand wasn't soft, but the back of it was smooth—maybe because it was protected by her gauntlets.
With my lips lightly pressed there, I stayed still for a moment. Warmth from Ria's hand reached my lips.
I lifted my lips and looked at Ria again.
Ria just stared at me with a dazed expression, as if she didn't even realize that her left hand, which had been against my face, had fallen away.
"Thank you for today. Really."
"......Huh?"
Only after I said that did Ria blink once and answer.
Her voice was so full of confusion that I almost wondered whether it needed a few more question marks.
"Uh, uhh, uhhhh, yeah."
For a while she made strange sounds, as if her language center had broken down, and finally managed that reply.
.......
Ah, but now I'm starting to feel a little flustered too.
When am I supposed to let go of this hand?
Holding her hand, looking at the ring, kissing the back of her hand—all fine, but I really don't know what I'm supposed to do after this.
Well, I don't particularly regret saying thank you or kissing the back of her hand.
I did cross the line a little.
But it wasn't a fatal crossing. Ria hadn't yanked her hand away in horror either.
As we stood there blankly staring at each other—
Slowly, light fell onto my face.
Not the lighting of the fine restaurant we were in, but a clearly alien kind of light.
Ria and I simultaneously waved our hands toward the light. The light that had been shining brightly onto my face turned to smoke in an instant and vanished.
Uh, um.
Maybe that was a bit much.
"......Ha."
Ria, who had been staring blankly for a moment even after chasing the light away,
"Hahaha!"
burst out laughing loudly.
"......Heh."
And seeing Ria like that, I let out a laugh too.
Ria stood up from her seat and said,
"Alright, so, no complaints about the steak?"
"Of course I have no complaints about the steak. The food hasn't committed any sin. If anything, we're the ones with the sin, for eating it."
"Coming from you, whose eating habits can't even get near vegetarianism, that's not convincing at all."
"I wasn't trying to convince anyone."
I answered primly and picked up my fork and knife again.
The steak, eaten with a much lighter heart—
—was really, really, incredibly delicious.
*
The whole time she chewed the tender meat, Chae-eun's heart felt incredibly light.
How to put it.
It felt like the wall of ice she always saw when standing before Anna had melted a little.
All through cutting the steak, she kept noticing her right hand.
She hadn't properly registered it at the time, but the sensation Chae-eun had felt with her lips that day was probably very similar to the sensation she'd felt on the back of her hand today—
.......
What was she thinking about?
Chae-eun quickly shook her head to clear away the stray thoughts and resolved to focus on the meal.
The two of them swept the steak into their stomachs, leaving behind almost none of even the sauce, and then ate the dessert that followed without leaving a single bite.
The dessert wine that came with it was only sipped lightly, at Anna's request.
Chae-eun found that deeply regretful.