A Visit to the Temple
"Good morning, Master. Did you sleep well?"
When Bayul emerged from his bath, Rita was already there, tidying the bed—though he hadn't heard her come in.
"Morning, Rita. You're up early."
"I am indeed. Are you feeling rested?"
"Very. Did you sleep well, Rita?"
He opened the wardrobe to find an array of shirts in various colors, each pressed and hanging in perfect order. Rain was still falling, but he planned to visit the temple after breakfast, so Bayul selected one in a calm, subdued shade.
"Me? I slept like a log for the first time in ages! It's been forever since I got to sleep in my own room!"
"It's a little damp and musty from the humidity, but it's still home, isn't it?"
"Yes! I love it here!"
Rita practically shouted her reply, beaming from ear to ear. Her voice was several times louder than usual, and Bayul tilted his head in puzzlement.
"Did something good happen this morning? You seem different from yesterday."
"Me? No, nothing like that."
"Hmm... something's definitely up, though."
How many years had he known Rita now? Other servants might fool him, but when it came to Rita, Bayul knew her as well as anyone could.
"I'm just happy to be back in Hamilton, that's all."
In truth, she had briefly endured a living hell because of that missing pair of glasses. She'd found them again quickly enough, but she had no wish to stir up the young master's mood over something so trivial.
Looking back on it now, the very fact that the glasses had vanished at all was deeply strange—yet since part of the blame lay with her own careless keeping, she quietly buried the matter and moved on.
"By the way, why are your eyes so puffy?"
Curious despite himself, Bayul studied her face. Her eyes were as swollen as someone who had sobbed through the night. But since Rita was grinning away cheerfully, it never even crossed his mind that she might have been crying.
"Ah, my eyes...? I think I just ate too much, way too late last night."
"WOOF!"
As if to call her a liar, Jasper—who had been circling around Rita—let out a thunderous bark, and she covertly pressed a finger to her lips behind Bayul's back.
"Jasper, let's go downstairs and have breakfast, shall we? I'll even throw in two treats today—special occasion!"
"Woof!"
The deal was struck without a hitch. Jasper's tail whipped back and forth as he bounded for the door.
"Take your time getting dressed, Master. I'll have breakfast ready for you."
Having finished with the bed, Rita gave a respectful bow and scurried off with Jasper in tow. This was the girl who normally chattered on and on the moment you asked her anything, so Bayul's suspicion only deepened.
"Hmm. Something really is suspicious here..."
He was muttering to himself as he undid the buttons of his shirt—
―I know what it is, you know!
Tempesta swooped in through the open window, putting on an air of great importance.
―I saw everything this morning. Want me to tell you?
Clearly delighted to be the sole keeper of a secret, Tempesta snickered as he spoke.
But something was wrong. Far from replying, Bayul didn't so much as glance in Tempesta's direction. He simply kept his mouth firmly shut and went on changing his clothes in silence.
―Bayul...?
Tempesta drifted right up in front of his face.
―Did you not hear me just now?
"......."
―Whoa! No way. Don't tell me you can't hear my voice again? You can't see me?
An ominous old memory surged up, and a panicked Tempesta pushed his face even closer. At that, Bayul abruptly turned his body away—a gesture that, to anyone who could see Tempesta, would have looked for all the world like he was deliberately avoiding him.
―PUWAHAHAHA!
Watching Tempesta flounder, Innocent suddenly burst into wild, mocking laughter.
―What? What's so funny?
Tempesta's eyes narrowed into a vicious glare at once.
―Because it serves you right, that's why! What, am I not even allowed to laugh whenever I want? Hmph!
―Do you have any idea how grating that water-ghost cackle of yours is? The single most unbearable sound in this world is the sound of you laughing!
As though the mere thought pained him, Tempesta contorted his pretty little face into every ugly shape it could manage as he fired back. Innocent only laughed harder, sneering with contempt.
―You clueless little breeze! You can't even tell Bayul is furious with you!
―What did you just say? Bayul's angry at me?
―That's right! He's angry because of YOU, and you can't even feel it? Idiot!
―Angry...? Why...?
Tempesta's silver eyes went wide as lanterns, completely blindsided by a truth he had never once imagined.
―Huh? It's true...
Bayul's emotions and his spirits' resonated with one another. And because Bayul had been straining so hard to suppress his feelings, only now did Tempesta finally grasp what was going on.
―Bayul... are you really mad at me? Why? I never once said I hated you!
Tempesta wailed as if no greater injustice had ever been committed in the history of the world.
But Bayul still said nothing. As he picked up his watch and shrugged on his jacket, his expression remained utterly blank.
―You numbskull! How can you be so dense about everything? I honestly worry about your future—I really do!
Innocent clicked her tongue at Tempesta, who stood there looking like his soul had left his body.
―...And YOU know what's going on?
―Obviously!
Seizing her moment, Innocent lifted her chin high and explained with supreme arrogance.
―It's all because you wouldn't listen yesterday! When the bridge was flooding, you didn't do a single thing Bayul asked, and on top of that you called me a water-ghost! Running wild, whipping up gale winds! Do you have any idea how upset that made Bayul?
―So this is all because of yesterday?
―Yes! Feeling a little sorry now?
―But you were fighting too... so why is it only me...?
Tempesta had a point. If yesterday was the cause, he wasn't the only culprit. Innocent had shrieked her head off and drenched everything in rain besides, turning the already pounding downpour into a full-blown deluge.
―Why... why is it only me?
Gradually, the bewilderment on Tempesta's face gave way to burning resentment.
―That's because Bayul has never once been angry with me! Riiight, Bayul? I'm right, aren't I, Bayul?
Innocent stuck her tongue out at Tempesta, then turned to Bayul with a sweet, confident smile.
And then—of all things. Bayul, who had finished getting ready and was changing into his last pair of shoes, once again gave her no answer at all.
―Bayul...?
This was the very last thing Innocent had expected. So flustered was she that she briefly wondered if, as during his divine-power treatments, Bayul had once again lost the ability to hear their voices.
But it took less than a second to learn otherwise. Bayul spoke—to Shame.
"Shame, thank you."
―...It's nothing.
"Still, thanks to you I always get to wear clean shoes, and it puts me in a good mood every time. I'm truly grateful for it."
It was Bayul's voice, as gentle and warm as ever.
―Bayul, can you hear us now?
―Listen, about yesterday, I...!
Innocent and Tempesta pressed themselves right up against Bayul almost simultaneously, both launching into their appeals.
―Um, whatever I said earlier—you didn't hear any of it, right? That's why you couldn't answer me, right?
―I didn't mean to act like that yesterday, it's just that Innocent kept...!
"Shame, I'll be off now."
No matter how earnestly the two of them pled their case, Bayul's treatment of them as invisible remained unchanged. After bidding Shame farewell, he headed for the dining room without once meeting Innocent's or Tempesta's eyes. His entire body broadcast a single message: I am angry.
Innocent stopped following halfway and simply froze in place, as hollow as a stone statue. Having convinced herself—mistakenly, of course—that Bayul's mood was entirely Tempesta's fault, the shock was colossal.
The instant she registered that Bayul had rejected (?) her for the very first time, her grief exploded. Those big blue eyes of hers brimmed over with tears in a heartbeat.
―Bayul...
Tempesta was no better. As he stared at Bayul's receding back, cold and unrelenting, chicken-scratch tears dripped one after another from his eyes too.
Confronted with Bayul's icy treatment—he who had always, always been on their side—Innocent and Tempesta could do nothing but cry, utterly at a loss.
'Haa, this feels awful.'
He had gone through with it, but Bayul's own heart was no lighter for it.
Those two bickered and snapped at each other dozens of times a day, and even without that his plate was already full. Then yesterday, in the middle of dealing with the flooded bridge, they'd gone and picked a fight, leaving poor Shame to resolve everything entirely on his own.
It had been an extreme situation where many lives hung in the balance—the crucial moment when Bayul, resolved to do whatever he could, had stepped forward for the first time as a true Spirit User.
And of all times, that was when Innocent and Tempesta's quarrel had to erupt. Thanks to Shame the outcome had been a good one, but everything could so easily have fallen apart. It might have been better if he had never stepped forward at all.
And what would he do if they fought again?
From then on, that worry had burrowed deep into a corner of Bayul's mind. There was no guarantee yesterday wouldn't repeat itself.
No—those two would clash again, without a doubt. If anything, it would only escalate. The anxiety that it would grow worse, never better, left Bayul's thoughts in disarray.
Between all that, he'd had no real chance to consider why the spirits' energy had plummeted so sharply. Thankfully, everyone had fully recovered by now.
In the end, the solution Bayul had settled on after all this agonizing was simply... to get angry back at them. He'd staged this whole act in the faint hope that if the two of them understood how he felt, even a little, something might change.
His one great wish was that this would finally teach them some reflection. Of course they couldn't avoid bickering forever—but in situations that truly mattered, like yesterday, he hoped they would put his words first.
―Don't worry yourself too much...
Shame offered a quiet word of comfort, as though he understood every ounce of Bayul's anguish. It was a genuine blessing to have him at his side. If Shame had been like the others, Bayul probably wouldn't have survived to a natural death.
'I hope they don't cry too much.'
Anger that amounted to giving someone the silent treatment simply didn't suit Bayul's nature. He had worked harder than anyone knew to act indifferent.
He could only hold out because the two of them weren't standing right in front of him. Thinking of those pretty, adorable faces smeared with tears, it was only a matter of time before his resolve crumbled.
'They'd better follow along nicely...'
Worrying over the pair of them, Bayul couldn't manage a single smile even through breakfast.