The Truth of That Day
"Aidan!"
The moment the last student finished the practical assessment, the bell rang as if it had been waiting for that very instant. Bayul, who had spent the entire exam glancing around uneasily, never finding a spare moment to speak, dashed toward Aidan the second Professor Jannet turned away.
"I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that..."
Bayul apologized with genuine sincerity.
"I was too rash. You were only trying to look out for me, and I just... I couldn't help myself."
"Is it okay if I stay here?"
"Huh?"
"Logan. He's heading over there."
Aidan pointed sideways toward where Logan was walking off, his long hair streaming behind him. Of course Bayul wanted to chase after him. But the apology came first.
"Aidan, I'm really sorry. It's all my fault. I wasn't good enough, and..."
"Enough. Stop."
"Aidan, I—"
"I said enough. I figured you'd run straight to Logan, but you came to me first, so that's good enough. I'll let it go."
"...Really?"
"Or should I not?"
Bayul shook his head vigorously at Aidan, who asked the question with a sideways tilt of his eyes.
"Thank you, Aidan. I was fully prepared to take whatever anger you dished out for days, but you understood me instead."
"What am I, a leech? You think I'd sulk for days over something like this? I was just a little hurt, that's all."
"I'm really sorry I hurt you. I know it might sound like an excuse, but Logan avoiding me is entirely my fault. I made it that way. He did nothing wrong... nothing at all."
"What wrong? What on earth did you do that you're suddenly taking his side again?"
The moment Bayul defended Logan, Aidan's mood soured all over again.
"That's..."
Just trying to bring up that day made his mouth go dry. It had happened two years ago, and yet it was still so hard to put into words. Perhaps it always would be.
Bayul, who had been staring blankly at Logan's retreating back, finally spoke as if he had made up his mind.
"My brother died. Because of me..."
"That again? We've told you over and over it wasn't your fault. How long are you going to cling to that like an idiot?"
"I know. I do. I know I didn't do it on purpose. I know full well that I never wanted it to happen."
Bayul barely managed to suppress the sorrow threatening to overwhelm him at the thought of his brother.
"But the accident happened, and I was the cause of it. That doesn't change."
"What about Logan? What's he got to do with it?"
"...He was there."
"There?"
"Where my brother... died."
"So you mean they were both there?"
"I told you I don't remember. I heard it from Logan. It wasn't only my brother who leapt into the river to save me that day I fell in. He and Logan pulled me out together, and then it was only my brother who..."
What if Logan had been the one lost instead?
In that moment, the shock of losing his brother had left no room for such thoughts. But afterward, the realization had struck him out of nowhere — that it could just as easily have gone the other way — and there were nights he lay awake, too terrified to sleep.
"My brother, me, and Logan. The three of us grew up like siblings from the very beginning. Whenever summer came, Logan always came to escape the heat at Hamilton."
That was only true for the first few years; from one point on, he visited in spring, summer, autumn, and winter alike. Back then Bayul was a sickly child, so the one who did all the moving was Logan.
"My brother and Logan were like twins themselves. Even when the three of us learned the same things, those two were always a step ahead. I only looked like Bayil — in every other way, it was Bayil and Logan who resembled each other perfectly. And I took my brother away from him."
From Father, too...
The nightmare of that day threatened to surface once more. Memories he could not remember — and so could only imagine. Those wretched hours in which he had prayed and prayed again, begging to forget everything instead.
"...Bayul?"
Aidan grabbed his trembling shoulders.
"Are you okay?"
His face had gone deathly pale. Beads of sweat had broken out across his forehead, and the sight was ominous.
"That's it. We're going to the temple. Come on, I'll carry you!"
"No."
Bayul raised a hand and blocked Aidan's back as he turned to lift him.
"I'm fine. I'm just... a little dizzy, that's all."
"Dizzy? That is your illness! Get on my back! You look like you're about to collapse right now!"
"This just needs rest. I know my own body, Aidan."
Had there not been plenty of moments like this before? In times like these, time itself was the only medicine. He would sleep for a while and wake up feeling better. He didn't want to make a fuss over nothing.
"Please — could you just walk me back to the dormitory?"
Unable to refuse any longer, Aidan gave in to Bayul's request, delivered through a forced smile on that ashen face.
"Ugh! Fine, fine, I got it."
Letting out a long sigh, Aidan readily held out his right arm for Bayul's sake.
"What's wrong with this guy?"
Returning to the dormitory after his Magic Department class ended, Eli was greeted by the sight of Bayul lying in bed, groaning in pain. He pressed a hand to Bayul's forehead — his body was burning like a furnace.
"You should've gone straight to the infirmary at this point! What do you think you're doing, lying here like this? I'll carry him myself, so you two get him up."
"Leave it, Eli. Just let him be."
"What?"
Eli, who had been bending down, snapped upright and craned his neck around. The situation was already grating on his nerves, and that sounded like sheer lunacy.
"Bayul didn't want to go to the temple, so we brought him here. You think I would've just stood by otherwise?"
"Even so, you should have dragged him there! Can't you hear how much pain he's in?"
"What was I supposed to do when he refused? You know how stubbornly stubborn this guy can be."
"He was perfectly fine this morning, so why is he suddenly like this? Did something happen last period?"
At Eli's ambush of a question, Aidan shot a furtive glance at Quinn.
"What? Why are you looking at Quinn?"
It meant there was something the two of them knew that he didn't. When Aidan kept hesitating, Quinn answered in his place.
"Logan, wasn't it?"
"Logan? What about him?"
"They met."
"Met? Where?"
Eli barely had time to ask before the realization dawned on him.
"Ah! You mean Logan and Bayul finally ran into each other, right?"
A nod.
"But so what? Wasn't this exactly what Bayul wanted? Don't tell me the two of them fought?"
"No, nothing like that. Only one of them was happy to see the other, but they didn't fight or anything."
"Then what is it? He should be over the moon that they finally met — bragging about it, at the very least. Why is he lying here sick like this?"
Eli's patience was starting to wear thin. Aidan didn't hesitate any longer and spilled everything he had heard only moments ago.
"...So Logan was there that day?"
"He and Bayil pulled Bayul out of the water together, apparently. Bayul can't remember any of it. It was all Logan telling him."
Aidan couldn't begin to imagine what Bayul must have felt, learning the truth through a friend's mouth.
"He really did seem happy to see Logan. But then the bad memories came rushing back too. I feel kind of awful — I think it happened because I stepped in when I shouldn't have."
Late regret washed over him. Had he pushed the guy too hard?
"Why did you come out here, then? It's got nothing to do with you."
Worrying about Bayul alone was already more than enough. Eli had no room in him right now to comfort Aidan too.
"Anyway — what was Bayul's next class again? Etiquette studies, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, Professor Stone's class."
"Got it. I'll go talk to the professor myself. Next up is lunch, so let's all meet back here."
"I'll go try to find some medicine. He refuses to go to the temple, so I should at least get him some herbs."
The bell would ring soon. Leaving their sick friend alone, none of them could easily bring themselves to walk away. As they looked down at the sleeping Bayul, their faces each wore its own shade of worry, pity, and unease.
"I think he's having a bad dream."
The problem was that they could all guess what kind of dream it was. Thinking of how much pain he must be in made their hearts sink. He had to get through this. He simply had to.
Dong— dong— dong—
Just then, the bell announcing the start of class rang out. One by one, they forced their eyes away from Bayul and moved off to their next lessons.
Click.
And yet, for some reason, Quinn — who had left the room with the others — came back and stood at Bayul's side. Still wandering through his nightmare, Bayul furrowed his brow and let out a low moan.
"What an idiot..."
It was something Quinn simply could not understand. Death comes for everyone. There is no order to it — only a appointed hour, set for each of us.
Bayil simply went when his time had come, because fate willed it so. That was what Quinn believed.
"It wasn't your fault."
The words Bayul most wanted to hear.
And yet the words he could never fully accept.
As if trying to brainwash him, Quinn repeated the phrase over and over.
"It wasn't your fault..."
Perhaps it was the faint tremor woven into that voice — but before long, peace settled over the sleeping Bayul's face. Quinn's complexion, on the other hand, grew steadily ashen and dim.
It was the hour when every student was in class according to their own schedule. And in an empty dormitory room, just like Bayul, someone else had been left behind, drowning in anguish.
"Hnngh... Bayil...!"
The one in question was Logan. He sat slumped on the floor, face buried in his knees, weeping. Not a trace remained of the brimming confidence he had shown at the riding grounds only a short while ago.
The piteous sobs, the shaking shoulders, the frail, hunched posture — it was enough to make one doubt this was really Logan at all.
Some time passed like that.
Just as Logan's weeping began to slowly subside, a faint glow suddenly kindled in the darkened room. More precisely, it was streaming out from the dagger resting on the bed.
...Logan...
What happened next was extraordinary. In a room where Logan was the only living soul, a man's voice suddenly resonated, deep and low.
It was no ordinary human sound. It was extremely hoarse, as if something were caught in its throat, spoken slowly with almost no rise or fall in its tone. It felt, one might say, like a voice calling out from another world entirely.
Could it be... that you have met Bayul...
The man's voice was thick with concern. Perhaps that was why Logan's head lifted, slowly, little by little, toward it.
"Gideon..."
Yes... speak.
He was always ready to listen.
"He saw me... and he ran straight to me."
Logan raised his tear-soaked eyes and murmured toward the empty air.
"He looked so glad to see me. He asked if I recognized him... asked if I'd been well."
...And then?
"And then? Hah."
A sound that was neither quite laughter nor quite weeping burst from Logan's lips.
"All I did was nod. What kind of idiotic question is that? Me, not recognizing Bayul — as if that could ever make sense?"
Two years meant nothing to him. Then as now, Bayul was more than a friend to Logan. No matter where, no matter when, no matter what form he took — he would always recognize him.
"Gideon, he asked about you too. Whether you'd come with me. And he said he'd left Jasper behind."
Jasper... you mean that little guard dog? He must have grown quite a bit by now.
"Probably."
And his health... did he seem well?
"I don't know... he didn't look seriously ill, but... right now, who can say..."
The moment the practical assessment ended, he had bolted from the grounds as if fleeing. He had abandoned Aidan — who'd been defending him, insisting it was all Bayul's own fault — and slipped away to save his own skin.
He had turned his back on the boy who was surely reliving his brother's death in agony, and hidden himself away here alone. He couldn't even fathom what state of mind he'd been in during the exam. Showing up to class today at all had been the mistake.
"I never should have come to this place. No matter whose order it was — Father's or anyone's — I should have refused to the very end!"
Regretting it now was useless, but having come this far, he needed someone to blame. If only he could, he would quit right this moment and go back.
You cannot hide forever... Your guilt will break you apart, piece by piece... And I cannot stand by and watch that happen...
"Are you telling me to confess? Now, after all this time?"
...Yes.
"How? Say what, exactly?"
Logan's emotions surged to a boil.
"He missed me so much that the first thing he did, seeing me after two whole years, was worry about my wrist. And I'm supposed to tell him — I'm the one who made your brother die! That I pinned it all on you, who can't even remember it! That's what you want me to say?"
Logan shouted, as if he were about to retch.