Chapter 44 — The Always-Smiling Knight's Mask Broke in Thirty Minutes

Eva entered the counseling room at exactly the appointed hour. Her blonde hair was tied back neatly, and her face wore its usual smile.

"I'm perfectly fine today, too. Slept well and everything."

Instead of answering, I pointed at the door. "Shall I leave it open, or closed?"

"Close it, please. Today I'm not going to run."

The first twenty minutes were about mess-hall food and training. Eva laughed naturally at the bit where Karin put away three pieces of bread. When I asked about her sleep, the laugh came half a beat late.

"'Slept well' means how many hours?"

"About as much as usual."

"And 'usual' is how many?"

"……Two and a half."

Eva's smile thinned a little. The problem wasn't the sleepless nights themselves — it was the standard that said this much was fine. Rather than open with a diagnosis, I had her write down her bedtimes and wake times for the past three days. Two hours the first day, three the second, an hour and a half the day before. After waking, she would walk the corridors or tend to her comrades' equipment in their place.

"In all that time, did you ever ask for help?"

"Everyone was asleep. I couldn't wake them up."

"And if Eva found a comrade dozing off on watch, what would you do?"

"Have them relieved. Before something went wrong."

"Then why doesn't that judgment ever apply to you?"

Eva couldn't answer right away. The smile wasn't the cause of the problem; behind it sat a rule that struck her alone from the roster of people allowed relief.

"Are you already reading my mind, by any chance?"

"No. Today's permitted scope includes no memory access."

"Then why do you ask as though you already know everything?"

"Because I don't know, so I check — with questions you can correct if I get them wrong."

For the first time, Eva leaned back against her chair. It wasn't in front of someone who knew everything that her words finally came — it was in front of someone whose mistakes she could fix.

"You tried to smile the night Tae-hyun died, too."

The corners of her mouth froze where they were.

Three years ago, when their comrade Rita died, Eva had been the first to smile, afraid the remaining squad members would fall apart. From that day on, a rule was born: if I stay bright, everyone lives. Tae-hyun's death had woken that rule up again.

"The day Rita died — was there a moment when smiling actually helped?"

"There was. The bridge had given out, and the recruits froze solid. When I smiled and said we could cross, they moved. It saved three of them."

"Then the smile wasn't entirely fake."

"I'm sorry?"

"That day, it may have been a necessary act of command. The problem is that an act which saved lives once became a duty for every day after."

Even remembering Rita's death, Eva said at first that she didn't want to give up the smile — because three people had truly been saved by it. I struck the word mask from my notes. Calling it only a mask would brand everything Eva had endured to survive as a lie.

I wrote the two sentences side by side.

"If I don't smile, who holds everyone together?"

"Today, no one has to hold anything up. Karin and Sophie each cried on their own — and they're still alive."

"Maybe they were only pretending to be fine in front of me."

"They could have been. So don't guess — ask them."

"If I ask, they'll worry about me."

"Is never making anyone worry about you the goal of a relationship?"

The corners of Eva's mouth lifted again — then stopped halfway.

"No. But I don't know how to be worried over."

"That's something we can practice today. Not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠receiving it gracefully yet — just starting with saying that you need it."

At the thirty-minute mark, Eva's mask came down. The crying wasn't pretty, and her words wouldn't string together. Which was exactly what made it real.

After the crying subsided, I proposed a single sentence to Eva.

"You mean to put it in as a common-sense alteration?"

"Yes. If you don't want it, we end with talk alone. Even if we do it, I won't touch your memories of Rita or your bright nature."

Eva didn't answer at once; she asked three questions instead.

"How long does it last?"

"For level three, the duration hasn't been confirmed yet. So we have to account for the possibility that it's permanent."

"If I come to hate it, can it be undone?"

"I can attempt to reverse it, but I can't promise it will be exactly as it was."

"And if I stop feeling like myself, who decides?"

"You decide first, and an outside verifier who knows nothing of today's session reviews the changes with you."

The royal record-keeper waited outside the door, noting only the start and end times. She was not to hear the session itself, but if a signal rang to say I had exceeded the permitted scope, she would come in. Eva moved the small bell on the desk over to her own side with her own hand.

"Then looking into my memories is forbidden. So is erasing my desire to smile. And making you the person I have to turn to for help — that's forbidden as well."

"I'll make a note of it."

Eva wrote out the permitted scope in her own words and signed beneath it. More important than the single line 'the subject consented' was what she had not consented to.

Eva read the sentences three times over and changed a single word.

"Make the second one 'asking for help is not weakness.' If it's called a technique, I'll feel like I have to be good at it all over again."

The revised sentences read:

We agreed not to implant both at once, but to test the first sentence alone. The wider a power's reach, the smaller the amount it should change in a single pass.

"Before we apply it — shall we put a number on how much you believe it right now?"

"That it's all right for me to rest — two out of ten. That it's all right for others is a ten. For me, it's a two."

"I won't try to make it a ten afterward. Just enough that the two you already have doesn't get eaten away by anxiety."

Eva read the revised sentence aloud herself. Only after her consent was given did I lay Non-Contact Suggestion and Emotion Manipulation over it, and only shallowly. I lowered the anxiety that had surged whenever she failed to smile, and tied the sentence to the relief in a recent memory of asking for help.

A scene of Rita rose at the edge, but I did not enter it. Eva had not specified which memory to attach it to. Instead, I used only the moment from the day before — asking Karin for water, and Karin handing it over without a word. It was a recent memory whose facts Eva could verify herself.

Eva opened her eyes. Even with no smile on her face, her breathing held steady.

"It feels comfortable. And that frightens me."

"Then record that feeling. If only the comfort remains, there will be no next adjustment."

"Where does the 'it's okay to rest' sentence stand now?"

"Five. Not a ten. There will be days you don't want to rest, after all."

This was no sudden conviction; the opposite choice was still open to her. I did not apply the second sentence. Until one change had passed through a real ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠day, I decided to build nothing further on top of it.

After the value adjustment came the rebuttal test. I deliberately read out the sentence Eva had believed the longest.

"A commander must stay bright at all times, or her people will never feel safe."

The corners of Eva's mouth rose by reflex — then stopped.

"No. Only when a commander says she's hurt can her people report their own wounds."

"Leaning on your comrades makes you a burden."

"Leaning is taking turns with the weight. The one who carries it alone, all the time, is the one in real danger."

The answers came instantly — in her own words. I made the last question deliberately harder to sit with.

"Asking Do-hyun for help is the safest thing to do."

Eva thought for a long moment, then shook her head.

"Not always. Sometimes Karin comes first. Sometimes Sophie. And you can be wrong too."

It was confirmation that no sentence binding her to me had slipped in with the rest.

At the very bottom of her sheet, Eva wrote down what she would do the next day: tell the adjutant at morning assembly that her condition was poor; ask Sophie first to share her lunch; and at night, tell Karin about Tae-hyun without forcing a smile.

An abstract change had turned into three concrete acts. Only then did I close out the session.

Eva came around to stand before me and asked whether she could kiss me.

"Not today."

The instant she heard the refusal, the smile came up by reflex. Eva pressed the corners of her mouth down with her hand and asked again.

"Because I'm your patient?"

"Today you underwent a value adjustment through my ability. You've just spent a long while crying. And I am the one who conducted that process. A single declaration that the session is over doesn't erase that imbalance of power."

"This isn't a feeling born today. I've watched you since the front, when you sat beside Karin every single day. I just didn't want to say it wearing nothing but a smile."

"I don't doubt that. But if I accept now, then later, neither of us will be able to tell which of your feelings were shaped by the adjustment."

"Then how long am I supposed to wait?"

"At least one day. In the meantime, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have someone else verify your state after the adjustment, and your follow-up sessions will go to Erika. If the feeling is the same after that, ask me again — outside the counseling room."

Eva did not agree right away.

"Is the change of counselor because I asked for a kiss?"

"I'm not holding your treatment hostage to purchase a relationship. If you don't want Erika, you may choose someone else to conduct your sessions; even if you never choose a private relationship with me, the transfer stands. And if you'd rather come back to me, we'll review that separately too."

"Then is today's answer a refusal, or a deferral?"

"Today it's a refusal. And I won't promise an answer on behalf of tomorrow's Eva, either."

Eva didn't hide how much it stung. And still, she did not smile to put me at ease.

"All right. It hurts, but — all right."

I did not log that answer itself as a recovery score. A judgment like 'Eva accepted the boundary well, so she must be ready for a relationship with me' would only have become one more pressure laid on her.

Eva looked back before opening the door.

"Tomorrow, I'll be the one to ask first again. Don't steer me toward the answer you want, Doctor."

"Understood."

The next morning, Eva kept her promise and asked for her training intensity to be cut in half. The adjutant asked why, and then granted it. No one called her a weak knight.

That didn't mean things turned easy all at once. When the first run ended, Eva started, out of habit, to sprint for the front of the column. She smiled and insisted she was fine even with her breath ragged; when the adjutant repeated the order to run only half, her face went rigid.

"If I rest now, everyone falls behind because of me."

"Today's plan already includes your rest."

The adjutant split the column into two groups — a structure in which training would not stop just because Eva had stepped out. Even seated on the bench, she tried to rise three times, and each time she read the first line of her own record sheet aloud.

"Resting is not betrayal."

On the third try, she added words of her own after the sentence.

"And right now, obeying the adjutant's orders is my duty too."

She hadn't parroted an implanted line; she had interpreted it to fit the situation. Even so, her hands kept drifting back to her sword hilt. I recorded the fact that the anxiety remained, too.

At lunch, Sophie had set a place aside for her before she arrived; at dinner, Karin offered her a shoulder without a word. Three times in all, Eva confirmed that the bonds did not vanish simply because she wasn't smiling.

That afternoon, Erika took over the independent verification. I never entered the room; I handed over only the sentences from the previous day's record that Eva had consented to disclose, along with the scope of their use. An hour later, Erika returned with a transfer document bearing Eva's signature.

Beneath the final line was a sentence Eva had appended in her own hand.

After evening training, Eva appeared at my office door in plain clothes rather than uniform. She hadn't brought the counseling records.

"You remember yesterday's question?"

"I remember."

"My feelings are the same today. I want to kiss you."

I hid nothing about my other relationships, or the limits of what I could promise for now. Eva answered that she wasn't asking on the premise of exclusivity — and that if the day came when she minded, she would tell me so.

We set the terms first: no use of my ability, no alcohol, contraception and health to be confirmed beforehand, and no demanding a reason if either of us chose to stop. Only after that did our lips meet.

The intimacy of that night was neither a reward for what had changed in the counseling room nor proof that Eva was better. She named the pace and the distance herself, and I did not step outside the words she gave. Even afterward, she didn't force a smile.

"Even without making any expression at all — nothing broke."

"Because I was never taking your expressions as payment to begin with."

Only then did Eva smile, very faintly. Not a mask — a smile that came because she wanted it to.

At the follow-up session, Eva evaluated the previous night's intimacy herself.

"No regrets. But it's true that, fresh off crying, you felt larger to me than usual. Next time, let's leave a day between the session and the meeting."

"Agreed. That's a better rule than yesterday's."

We did not treat our private intimacy as proof of recovery; we used it, instead, as material for setting the next boundary. A distance Eva had drawn with her own hands.

In the post-session record, I did not enter the intimacy as a stage of treatment. All that went in was that it had been a separate, mutual choice made after the session closed, and that the next meeting would open by checking boundaries and regrets first.

Before she left, Eva opened the door once more.

Karin and Sophie were waiting at the end of the corridor. Eva did not put on her fine-and-dandy smile for them.

"I cried a lot today. Have dinner with me."

Karin hooked an arm through hers at once, and Sophie took her other hand.

The proof that the first value adjustment had worked was not that she came looking for me. It was that Eva had asked her own people for help.