The Marble Toss
Rita dashed off the moment Bayul gave his permission. The way she wove through the crowd was nothing short of remarkable.
"Young Master, over here! Come this way!"
He had Ian, his escort knight, and Death, who had tagged along as a porter — and yet it was Rita, the only girl among them and a girl of just sixteen, who was carving out the path. Bayul couldn't decide whether he ought to stop her or simply let her be.
"Come on, hurry!"
Apparently his hesitancy was getting on her nerves, because Rita grabbed his hand and pulled. By the time he came to his senses, he was standing at the very front of the line.
"Step right up! Marble toss, fun for men and women, young and old alike! Two throws for one kuna, five for two kuna, and for three kuna — a whopping ten throws! Ten! Think it looks hard? Ha, you clearly haven't been paying attention! See that handsome young man at lane four? Just watch him for a second. All he has to do is stand there and toss a marble into one of the jars up front. Easy as anything. Too easy, really!"
Pling!
"Oh-ho! A marble just went in! That's one of the medium-difficulty jars. Go ahead and pick any prize you like from this shelf!"
"Young Master, look at that white bear over there! Do they really give away dolls that big as prizes? It must be so expensive!"
"Hey there, pretty young lady with the glasses! Yes, that's right — even a doll like this one is yours to win! Provided, of course, that you can get a marble into one of our hard-difficulty jars! Not a single soul has managed it yet. Care to give it a try, miss?"
"N-no, thank you!"
Caught off guard by the man's sudden question, Rita waved her hands in a flustered refusal.
"Three kuna over here!"
"Two for me! Five throws, right?"
"Yes, yes, that's correct, sir! Lanes seven and eight, please!"
With no signboard bearing the stall's name, Bayul had no idea what to call the place — but to his eye, it was a gambling den of sorts.
The game was simple enough. Three jars each, spaced apart in separate rows, were classified as easy, medium, or hard according to their distance. Players paid for their marbles and hurled them from the starting line toward the jars. Land one in the farthest jar and you claimed a top-tier prize; the middle jar earned a mid-tier one, the nearest a modest one. Drop your marble on the ground, and naturally, you walked away with nothing.
Behind the play area, the prizes were laid out by grade, and even a cursory glance showed the top-tier items to be of genuinely fine quality. From the person-sized bear doll that had caught Rita's eye to bags, shoes, socks, and accessories, the variety was impressive.
"Rita, do you want that doll?"
"That one? No, it's not that I want it exactly. I've just never owned a doll before."
"...Not even when you were little?"
"No."
Nearly everyone had a memory of playing with a doll or two in early childhood. Bayul's own favorite had been a pair of twin rabbit dolls that looked exactly like him and Bail.
Why had I never known? If I'd known then, I could have shared with her.
Rita spoke of it with perfect composure, but somehow, hearing it left a bitter taste in Bayul's mouth.
"Shall I give it a try?"
"You, Young Master?"
"Mm. I don't have much confidence, but if I win a doll, it's yours."
"Really? Yay!"
For someone who had just insisted she didn't especially want it, Rita's expression transformed in an instant. Behind her glasses, her green eyes shimmered with anticipation.
"All I have to do is get a marble into a jar. Even I can manage that, right?"
"Of course! If it's you, Young Master, I'm sure you'll sink all ten!"
"All right, then I'll—!"
Just as Bayul was steeling himself under Rita's cheering—
"I'll do it."
Ian cut in abruptly from behind.
"Sir Ian, how long have you been standing there?"
"The whole time."
"Ah — there were so many people, I assumed you were somewhere in the back."
"So did I," Rita agreed with a nod.
Ian turned to her and pointed at a doll hanging from the partition wall.
"Miss Rita, will one bear doll do?"
"...You're really going to play, Sir Ian? The marble toss?"
"If you want the doll, then someone has to."
"I could do it myself, but..."
"Look closely at the mouths of the jars. They seem similar, but the hard-tier jars at the very back have a subtly different angle at the opening. See? Every marble thrown at them bounces right out."
Indeed, an astonishing number of marbles were rattling off the rims, coming close only to be flung back. The medium and easy jars saw success rates of half or less — while not a single marble had yet passed through a hard-tier jar.
"Different angles? I can't really tell..."
Distance aside, it was approaching dusk, and the mouths of the jars were hard to make out in the fading light.
"Think of it as a kind of trick. Consider it — if they handed out a doll that size for every marble, a stall like this would have to shut its doors in no time. The losses would be guaranteed."
"Well, sure, that makes sense. But then how are you going to get one in, Sir Ian? Is there some special technique?"
"A little strength and a little skill. That's all it takes."
A rare smile bloomed at the corner of Ian's mouth — one that almost never saw the light of day.
"Two throws for one kuna, wasn't it? Miss Rita, is there anything else you'd like?"
There wasn't the slightest hint in his voice that he considered failure possible. As if his confidence were contagious, Rita narrowed her eyes in earnest and studied the prizes.
"That bag! The leather one at the far right!"
"Understood."
Extracting one kuna from his wallet, Ian strode toward the stage. And yet — why was it? The same man who had been cheerfully welcoming customers now showed a flicker of hesitation.
"Lane nine — lane nine is open."
His voice had dropped noticeably too. Paying it no mind, Ian handed over his coin and took his place at lane nine with perfect composure.
Clack. Clack.
Two marbles clicked together in his palm. There was no hesitation in him at all — he merely glanced up at the sky for a moment.
"Whoa!"
His wrist moved in a light, effortless flick. A beat apart, two marbles shot up into the air side by side.
"Wh-what was that?"
A murmur ran through the crowd. And no wonder — the marbles weren't arcing toward the jars at all. They were soaring straight up toward the sky.
"Looks like he botched the throw!"
"Guess he got confused!"
But the murmuring soon gave way to cheers. The marbles that had climbed too high even to see clearly were already plunging back down. Just as everyone had secretly begun to hope, the two marbles drew a parallel line through the air and dropped cleanly into the jars.
Thud! Thud!
The onlookers erupted, showering applause on what was very nearly a miraculous feat.
"Amazing! Young Master, did you see that? That's how the marble went in!"
Rita was jumping up and down, shouting with excitement. When Ian had first thrown, her face had been clouded with suspicion; now her eyes had gone entirely heart-shaped.
"Miss Rita."
Ian returned like a triumphant general, marching back with the bear doll in one hand and the leather bag in the other.
"Waaah, thank you so much!"
Accepting a doll bigger than herself, Rita offered her thanks over and over. Her slight frame was all but swallowed up by the bear.
"What the — so this is where you were?"
That was when Eli appeared. At the familiar voice, Bayul turned to find him at his side already, dressed in a flamboyant suit.
"It got so noisy I wondered what was going on, and the star of the show is you? What on earth did you do to stir up this crowd? Let me in on it too, then... huh? You're not alone...?"
The reunion lasted only a moment before Eli's eyes narrowed at the sight of Ian beside Bayul. He seemed to grasp the situation at once, and his displeasure was plain.
"Uh, well, you see, Eli..."
Bayul had dragged everyone along on impulse because he'd wanted to visit the night market, but now that the moment had come, he had no idea how to explain himself. He didn't even want to imagine Eli's reaction upon learning that he hadn't brought one chaperone, but five.
"I really did try to come alone, but..."
"Tried?"
Eli's sharp gaze followed Bayul's glance as it strayed toward Ian.
I should have known. You're the culprit.
"Sir Ian said... that on a day like today, when a big ship comes in, it's dangerous..."
"Dangerous?"
"Yeah, apparently a lot of people would be flooding in. But I really wanted to come, so..."
"So you had no choice but to bring along an escort knight?"
"..."
Bayul's voice, already shrinking as he spoke, died entirely at the words one escort knight. Eli evidently hadn't noticed yet, but there were three chaperones in this spot alone — and adding the Lizai and Libai brothers, watching from somewhere in the crowd, made five in all.
I never should have come at all.
By now, belated regret was washing over him in waves.
"Um, here, listen to this!"
The one who stepped in to rescue the cornered Bayul was Rita. She handed the bear doll she'd received from Ian over to Death, then bowed deeply and cheerfully.
"Hello! It's so nice to see you again!"
"Whuh — you...!"
Eli recoiled and took a step back. He clearly hadn't imagined that Rita would be here as well.
"I heard all about it from the Young Master. You did wonderfully on your exams thanks to the notebook you lent him. Thank you so much! You'll be blessed for it!"
Rita pressed her hands neatly together and bowed twice in quick succession.
"Ah, well... we're friends, so..."
"Even friends come in different degrees! I know you look after our Young Master in all sorts of ways. I'd love to repay you sometime — when would you be free?"
"...Free?"
"Yes! I do a bit of cooking, you see. Is there any food you especially like?"
"I eat pretty much anything, honestly..."
Under the barrage of Rita's headlong questioning, Eli found himself answering despite his better judgment. Because of that, he couldn't get so much as a word in with Bayul. Handling a thoroughly worked-up teenage girl was no easy task, even for him.
"Hold on a moment!"
Then Eli pointed at Death standing beside Rita — or rather, at the bear doll.
"You were carrying that bear until just now, weren't you?"
"Yes, Sir Ian gave it to me as a gift."
"Then who is the person holding it now? Don't tell me there's yet another member of your party?"
"Um... Eli, how about we go get some sea air instead?"
"Bayul? I'm asking you a question right now. Did you not hear me?"
Eli leaned in close, a smile fixed on his face. His eyes, blending with the sunset, gleamed like jewels — but Bayul had no room to admire their beauty. Cold was practically dripping off him. Now was the time to come clean.
"...So, Eli, this one is a servant we hired just recently, and... he's not here right now, but... I doubt I'll run into them again either, but... there are two more..."
"Two more? What is that supposed to mean?"
Bayul gave a brief explanation about the Lizai and Libai brothers, hidden somewhere in the crowd, assigned to guard him.
"I'm truly sorry, Eli. Even if I had ten mouths, I wouldn't know what to say."
It felt as though what should have been a happy gathering of friends had been ruined because of him, and Bayul was genuinely sorry. The first time he'd ever let himself want something, he hadn't thought it through. He should have held himself back, no matter how much he'd wanted to come.
"What are you all doing here?"
Just as Bayul hung his head in apology, Quinn appeared, voice sharp as a blade.
"Oh great, you too?"
Eli's face twisted all over again in an instant.