He Who Came Back
Once Quinn left for his walk, the ownerless room held only the three of them. Hating the silence, Eli and Aidan forced themselves into small talk, one topic after another, but before long the stillness settled back over the room like dust.
They had no idea what they were supposed to do now. Bayul's death was reality. After spending so long in denial, they had only managed to accept it once they'd seen it with their own eyes.
And yet it still felt as though Bayul might pop out from somewhere at any moment. They wanted him to appear with a burst of smoke, eyes twinkling with mischief — Wow, I really got you guys! It was all a prank the whole time!
"Should we go out too?"
Aidan affectionately stroked the back of an empty chair. It was the one Bayul had usually sat in. He would sit there watching Aidan, who liked to sprawl on the bed and laugh himself silly. The chair, which held no trace of warmth at all, felt somehow stranger than ever today.
"Yeah. Let's go look for Quinn."
Staying cooped up like this any longer felt like it would suffocate him. Eli agreed and rose briskly to his feet.
"Hold on."
It was then that Logan abruptly headed for Quinn's desk.
"This…"
He picked up the folded paper Quinn had dismissed as nothing a short while ago.
"Isn't this a little strange?"
"Strange how? What is it?"
"It looks like a letter."
He hadn't torn it open and read it, but the way it was folded said as much.
"What Quinn said earlier has been nagging at me ever since… He kept going on about tying up loose ends, about how we should grow up well, that kind of thing. The way he talked and acted was somehow off, too…"
"Yeah, the mood was suspicious as hell. But you're seriously going to read it without his permission?"
"I know it's rude. But sitting around doing nothing feels wrong — it's been eating at me…"
"You know what? I get that feeling every time I look at you."
Ever since hearing Logan's confession, Aidan had been bristling with barely contained fury. The image of Bayul, beaming at the Academy as he talked about running into Logan — blissfully unaware of everything — stoked the fire even hotter.
"Aidan."
"What!"
At Eli's cautioning tone, Aidan exploded. The hot-tempered boy's temper had grown all the more vicious since Bayul's accident. He had never liked Logan to begin with, and now he looked ready to devour the man whole.
"Punishing Logan isn't our place. The only ones with the right to do that are Bayul and Duke Randert."
"I'm Bayul's friend too! This guy told him he was his closest friend and then shoved him into a world of pain! Do you have any idea how much that tore him up?"
"I know. I know all too well."
After all, the one who had consoled Logan while he wallowed in self-loathing — the one who had laid bare his own lonely, exhausted past — had been Eli himself.
"But you and I are third parties. I understand perfectly why you're hurting, but right now, keep your head down. Are you planning to keep raging like a lunatic out there, too? You think Bayul would thank you for that?"
"…"
Aidan had no answer. He knew. Bayul would forgive even a filthy wrong like this one. Because the idiot was simply that kind.
"When the funeral is over, I'll go to Duke Randert myself and beg for judgment. Whatever punishment he chooses, I'll accept it gladly. I know how shameless that sounds… just bear with me until then."
Logan asked with great difficulty. Watching him, unable to meet their eyes like a criminal awaiting sentencing, only made Aidan's blood boil hotter.
"…Fine, whatever! Just open that thing already!"
He jabbed a finger irritably at the paper in Logan's hands.
After a moment of glancing between his friends, Logan hurriedly unfolded it. Then he read the line written at the very top and his shoulders shuddered in shock.
"What is it?"
"What's written there that's got you so rattled?"
Aidan and Eli closed in on either side of him at once.
To Bayul.
Unless their eyes were deceiving them, that was exactly what it said.
"This… it was a letter?"
"Then why is Bayul the recipient? He wrote it just now, didn't he?"
Instead of answering his bewildered friends, Logan's eyes raced down the page. Then he spoke, his voice hollow with disbelief.
"It's not a letter."
"What?"
"This is… a will."
"Wh-what the hell are you talking about?"
"Why would Quinn write a will?"
Aidan and Eli snatched the letter out of Logan's hands and frantically scanned its contents.
Three pairs of anxious eyes darted from one to another. There was no time to waste standing around like this. They had to stop him. They had to talk Quinn down before he truly did something irreversible.
They threw the letter aside and bolted out of the dormitory.
"Quinn—!"
By the time the friends, with the Crown Prince's help, burst into the place where Bayul lay at rest, it was already over.
They didn't know what had been done or how, but Quinn lay side by side with Bayul. His eyes were shut tight, just like Bayul's. He didn't stir.
They had burst in so boldly, yet now none of them could bring themselves to approach. If their suspicions were right, this was no happy ending at all.
"What in the world is—"
Crown Prince Lindemann, who had followed close behind, stopped short at the strange tableau inside the resting chamber.
Quinn had said there were things he never got to tell Bayul. He had asked for help so that he could say them looking at his friend's face.
The Crown Prince had simply taken it for a final farewell. They had been especially close, so he'd lazily assumed it was Quinn's own private ritual for letting a friend go.
But why was he lying down beside him like that?
Could he have truly gone so far as to follow Bayul in death?
Had Lindemann himself, without knowing it, helped a boy on his way to take his own life?
The Crown Prince moved toward the bed where Bayul and Quinn lay, his steps trembling. Then his pupils shook violently.
He should have suspected. He should have seen it coming.
Losing a dear friend at the height of a raw, sensitive age.
Crushed beneath the guilt of having failed to stop Quinn's suicide, the Crown Prince's heart gave way once more.
"…!"
It was then. Suddenly, the white cloth draped over Bayul's body began to flutter, ever so slightly.
"Wh-what was that?"
Thinking a draft must have blown in from somewhere, they whipped around — but the windows were shut, and the doorway was packed wall-to-wall with knights.
"Did I just see things?"
At the Crown Prince's murmur, not only the friends but even the knights who had hurried in after them swallowed dryly. No. They had all seen the same thing.
Something moved beneath the cloth. A moment later, the neatly draped covering could no longer hold against the motion and slid, softly, to the floor.
"Gah!"
"Kuhk!"
The thing behind that movement was Bayul. The fingers that had been frozen stiff began to twitch, and then the motion spread up his arm, into his legs, through his torso.
"H-how…?"
The dead returning to life was something no sane mind could process. So this had to be a dream.
And a very, very ugly one at that.
Crack!
As if desperate to wake from the nightmare, one of the knights slapped his own cheek hard. Nothing changed. If anything, Bayul's body convulsed all the more violently.
"Kh—!"
Then it happened. At last, Bayul broke into a violent cough and bolted upright.
"UAAAAAGH!"
Screams erupted. Even the most battle-hardened of them could never have anticipated such a thing. When the boy they had all believed dead suddenly sat up alive and moving, everyone recoiled as if they'd seen a ghost.
The friends and the Crown Prince were no different. They simply didn't scream out loud — but they, too, could not bring themselves to speak a single word.
They had read Quinn's letter, the one saying he would go save Bayul — but witnessing it with their own eyes, nothing came to mind to say. They watched, and still could not believe it. No one had ever imagined such a thing was possible.
"Ugh."
After several more wracking coughs, Bayul grimaced at the pounding in his head and pressed a hand to his temple. Slowly his vision cleared, and the room around him began to come into focus.
Where am I?
So I didn't die, after all?
A mysterious assailant had ambushed them, and the knights had been wiped out to a man. He had summoned every spirit he had to fight back, but in the end he'd failed to dodge the attacker's blade.
Right — my throat was cut, and my heart was stabbed!
Bayul reflexively groped at his own neck and chest.
Nothing.
Had the wounds healed while I was out? How…?
Every manner of guesswork swirled up and muddled his mind in an instant. With Amalun's blessing and Priest Wagner's divine power, treating sword wounds was probably no great feat.
But the injuries had been deep…
How long was I unconscious?
Only then did Bayul lift his head, late as it was, and survey his surroundings. The first things his eyes found were his friends. Then he saw Crown Prince Lindemann.
"Your Highness… khk!"
Speaking aloud so suddenly set off another fit of coughing. Still, Bayul was genuinely overjoyed that the Crown Prince had survived. It was nothing short of a miracle.
"Forgive me. The coughing came on before I could stop it…"
"…Are you really Bayul?"
"Pardon?"
Baffled by the strange question, Bayul blinked. Had something happened while he was gone — had his appearance changed that much? Without a mirror, there was no way to check.
He decided to step down from the bed first, as a matter of courtesy to the Crown Prince. And it was then that he spotted him.
"…Quinn?"
Beside him, Quinn lay with his hands folded neatly on his stomach, eyes closed as though asleep.
"Quinn, wake up. Why are you lying here of all places…?"
Bayul reached out to rouse him — then froze, hand midair, and looked around.
The space was filled with statues and carvings he knew well. He had been here before. It was where Rita had dragged him along, saying she would pray for Bar. The prayer hall of the Temple of Despair, where the faithful came to offer prayers to the god.
Why am I here?
The chairs had all been pushed to one side, and Bayul and Quinn occupied the very center of that open floor. As far as he knew, there had never been a place in this hall where anyone could lie down.
Bayul slowly turned his head and looked at his friends and the Crown Prince once more.
Something was wrong. Every last one of them stood there, faces drained white, like people who had seen something they were never meant to see. And every one of their gazes was fixed on him.
Why are they looking at me like that?
What in the world happened here?
Bayul's ash-gray eyes pleaded earnestly with his friends — someone, please, explain — but for some reason, no one answered. They could only stare at him, stunned and uncomprehending.