The Path to Forgiveness
"Hey, Eli. Are you actually a dragon or not?"
"What?"
"Shouldn't something like this be easy for you to handle?"
"Of course I can handle it. That demon just cut in line!"
"Cut in line? You mean Death is just better at it than you are?"
"Are you seriously comparing me to some demon? Are you done talking?"
As if his pride had truly been wounded, Eli glared furiously and shouted back. Aidan lifted his chin, ready to meet the challenge head-on, but Quinn stepped between them.
"Fight later. Taking care of those two comes first. Otherwise someone else might show up again."
At Quinn's words, Aidan and Eli, still glaring daggers at each other, simultaneously bellowed into the empty air.
"Ingrid! Get over here, now!"
"Shrimp! You're the noisy one, so shut it!"
"Hmph! Like I care what you think?"
Ingrid obeyed Aidan at once, thundering over with heavy stomps, while Innocent stuck her tongue out at Eli and turned her head away with a flick.
"Ugh, that little—!"
"Innocent, Ingrid can't get worked up right now. If you two want to play, why don't you go somewhere without people around?"
"Quinn, can we really?"
"Aidan will say yes too."
At Quinn's gentle tone, Innocent turned to Aidan with eyes full of hope. Looking into those crimson eyes, Aidan found he couldn't bring himself to refuse.
"One hour. That's it. Ingrid, you behave."
"Don't worry! I'll keep her safe!"
Since becoming an intermediate spirit, Innocent's confidence had overflowed to the point of spilling over, and she appointed herself Ingrid's personal escort.
"Let's go, Ingrid! I'll show you something great!"
Hamilton had just as many fun places as Carrington. Innocent, thrilled out of her mind, soared high into the air doing somersaults.
"Kuuuu!"
After nuzzling her head against Aidan's chest in a farewell, Ingrid launched skyward, leaving giant pawprints stamped into the ground behind her.
"Arf arf arf!"
"Woof woof woof woof!"
Jasper and the gem-loving trio, meanwhile, had been faithfully sticking to their real duties(?). Barking at the top of their lungs, they chased after Innocent and Ingrid in a mad dash through the castle grounds.
Chapter 8: To My Father
"Huh? Where'd they go?"
Having killed enough time outside, the three friends returned to where Bayul and Logan had been. They'd figured any heavy conversation would be more or less finished by now — but the two who were supposed to be there were nowhere in sight.
"Did they maybe go out looking for us?"
"In his state of mind, go looking for us? Does that even make sense?"
"Then where did they go? Those two don't just vanish without a word!"
They had deliberately stepped away to give the pair some private time — but having them disappear entirely was truly beyond anything they'd expected.
"Well, there is one place I can think of..."
At Quinn's quiet remark, Aidan and Eli shot him encouraging looks that plainly said well, out with it.
"...Maybe they went to see Bayil?"
"Bayil?"
"Logan said today was the first time he'd come here since Bayil died."
"Right, Logan did say that. That jerk — he should've come ages ago. What's he doing showing up only now?"
"Say that one more time and then drop it forever. It's not as if he's been living comfortably all this time either."
They all knew Logan's nature by now, even if his few words gave little away. Beneath that stony expression, he was the one who worried over and looked after Bayul more than anyone.
"Should we go too?"
"Hmm..."
"Quinn, what do you think? Just wait here?"
"You're asking me to decide?"
"You seem like the most sensible one today."
Until just moments ago, Aidan and Eli had been bickering nonstop. Somehow it felt like following Quinn's lead today was the way to have no regrets.
"I'm not sure either. I get the feeling those two still need some time alone..."
"Then let's head over slowly, then."
"Do we even know where to go?"
"We could ask Rita or someone, couldn't we? They said the accident happened at the river — we'll find it if we head that way."
Standing around waiting idly suited none of their temperaments. Since the two had clearly gone ahead, catching up to them now would leave plenty of time alone together still.
"Let's go, then."
With Quinn in the lead, Aidan and Eli once more slipped quickly out of the room.
Quinn's guess was half right and half wrong. After hearing Logan's story in full, Bayul had felt so suffocated that he simply couldn't stay seated any longer.
Logan gazed up sorrowfully at Bayul as he abruptly rose to his feet, tears brimming in his eyes. He believed Bayul was leaving because he could no longer bear to be near him.
"If you don't want to see me anymore, I'll understand... If looking at me is too painful, you can even quit the academy. When Duke Randert returns, I intend to seek him out myself and tell him everything. It's shameless of me, but even now, I want to beg for forgiveness."
"Logan, what are you saying? Me, not see you?"
"No, I..."
"Do you know how many years we've been friends? Of course I'm flustered right now, and angry, and shocked. But nowhere in any of that is there a single thought of never seeing you again."
"Bayul...!"
"It's just that being here makes it hard to breathe... That's why I stood up without meaning to. I don't know what to do... I don't know what to say to you..."
After two years, Bayul had learned the truth he'd never known. The one who had first fallen into the water hadn't been him at all, but Logan — and he had gone into the river to save him. Then the two of them had both been in danger, and his brother, appearing too late, had rescued them both but never made it back to shore himself.
Even after hearing Logan's entire account, Bayul remembered nothing. Something faint ought to have surfaced, and yet that day alone remained a blank page.
Logan must have been terrified. His brother had died because of him — and not just any brother, but the heir of House Randert. How could he not be afraid? And with Bayul conveniently having lost his memory, he must have lied without even meaning to.
Truthfully, if he said he didn't resent him, it would be a lie. Logan had spent all those years enduring agony under the guilt of having killed his brother.
And yet Bayul couldn't entirely fail to understand.
Logan had been a child, and the situation had been dire.
Having known him since childhood, Bayul knew Logan's character well. He had certainly not been living these past years so much as surviving them. Out of guilt and torment, he had been avoiding him all this time.
"You were afraid to look at me... You did it because you were sorry, didn't you?"
"Saying I'm sorry isn't enough. I know there are no words that could earn your forgiveness. Whatever punishment you choose, I'll accept it gladly. It's the least I deserve."
This is what I should have done from the start.
I should never have told such an ugly lie in the first place.
But it was already in the past, beyond undoing. Owning up to it now, however late, was the only thing left that Logan could do.
"Let's go."
"...What?"
"Let's go see my brother."
"...!"
Logan's golden eyes wavered violently. The truth was, from the moment he had confessed, he had assumed that far from being forgiven, he would be driven out of Hamilton. He had committed a sin against Bayul grave enough that he had no right to remain here at all.
"I... I'm allowed to go?"
"Bayil will be waiting for you."
"...He couldn't be. Because of me, he... Why would he ever want to see me?"
"Logan. Because of me... because I... Let's stop saying things like that. Both of us. From now on."
Truthfully, those words hadn't fully escaped Bayul's own lips yet either. But he was trying to overcome them.
"Father and I decided to accept my brother's death. And once we did, our hearts felt lighter. Sometimes, when I miss him so much it aches, I go to see him. So come with me too."
"No, I have no right. How could I possibly go there? I... I can't."
"Don't you want to see him? Don't you miss him?"
How could he not? To Logan, Bayul and Bayil had been no different from brothers. They were friends who, from childhood on, had understood each other better than blood brothers would have.
Every time he saw Bayul, he thought of Bayil.
That bright, guileless face came to mind — the boy who smiled like sunlight as he called Logan's name — and dozens of times a day, his heart sank into his stomach. All the more so because he was a sinner.
"Your face says it all."
As Logan broke down sobbing once more, Bayul quietly patted his back. He had never imagined the friend who had appeared so suddenly would drop such a bombshell on him.
But he had heard it now, and having heard it, his heart needed to find its footing. In a situation like this, nothing better occurred to him than going to see Bayil.
"The one who should grant forgiveness isn't me. Go, and ask my brother."
It was a words Logan could not refuse. He had fled Hamilton like a coward on the day of the accident, and only now, two years later, had he returned. Going to Bayil would be unbearably painful — but he could not pass up the chance to beg for forgiveness. He had already waited far, far too long.
The place Bayul brought Logan was not the river that had swallowed Bayil, but Bayil's grave. In a spot drenched in sunlight, two rounded mounds of earth rested side by side. It was where his mother and Bayil slept.
"Bayil...!"
The moment Logan reached the grave, he fell to his knees and wept.
It felt as though he was seeing a lifetime's worth of Logan's tears all in a single day.
Bayul simply said nothing. Just as it had been for him, Logan too would need time.
Laying down one's guilt was an extraordinarily difficult thing. For all that Logan had lied, a sliver of responsibility still belonged to Bayul as well.
If he had waited for his brother to come back, his brother would have pulled only Logan from the water — and if he had, he wouldn't have been so drained. Perhaps he might never have been swept away by the current at all.
Logan's lie had been wrong, yes. But Bayul himself had, in part, set the cause in motion.
Guilt was endless like this.
All the endless imaginings — if only I had done this, if only I had done that — rose up and devoured the mind. The only way to overcome them was to fight through them oneself. Bayul had only just barely begun to escape them himself.
Logan...
His heart ached for him. How many years had he suffered alone, wracked with torment?
Thanks to having set down so much of his own guilt toward his brother on the anniversary, Bayul found himself worrying about Logan more than about himself. When would his friend finally be freed from that agony? As a friend, if there was anything he could do to help, he wanted to do it.
"We came too."
After who knew how long, he heard footsteps behind him, and turning, he saw his friends.
"Mind if we pay our respects too?"
Bayul nodded.
At his permission, the three of them walked together to the graves and bowed in solemn silence. Even then, Logan was too lost in his weeping to notice their arrival.
Mother, Brother...
These were the friends he had always hoped, someday, he could show to his mother and his brother. It was the day he'd heard such devastating news — and yet, deep down, Bayul was quietly, profoundly grateful that this moment had come.
You're living well, Bayul. I'm glad.
Riding on the soft breeze that stirred past, it seemed exactly as if his mother and his brother were saying just that.