I Thought You Were a Good Person
“Eat plenty of meat for a few days and it'll be fine. Oh, come to think of it—did I ever tell you about the time I picked up a gold coin off the street?”
“……”
“It felt amazing, I swear. Except I was so distracted picking it up that I lost my own money. So I guess I came out ahead in the end, but still.”
“……Robin.”
“The point is, when something good happens, something bad follows, and when something bad happens, something good comes along. That's just how life works, isn't it?”
“Robin!”
“Agh, you startled me.”
For once, I'd raised my voice at her. Robin looked genuinely surprised too—the startle hadn't been an act.
No. That trivial nonsense wasn't what mattered right now.
Slowly, I turned my gaze to the right. Slightly down from her face.
To her shoulder, wrapped tight in bandages, unable to move.
“What's with that face? This much will heal up in no time, I told you.”
“……”
It was wrong, all of it. She was the one in pain. She was the one who'd been hurt. She was the one bleeding.
She was the one bedridden, unable to move for days—all of it, her.
“So please, stop making that gloomy face. It's dragging me down with you.”
While she smiled, was I the one left grieving?
She said she'd been ambushed. That she'd put up a fight, but the gap in ability had been too overwhelming, and she'd taken a direct hit because of it.
One thing nagged at me: she'd clearly had the person's life in her hands, and yet she'd simply let them go. Even Robin herself couldn't find the answer to why.
“……Can I ask you just one thing?”
“Anything, as long as I can answer it.”
Robin's injury alone was enough to make my emotions bloom wild and ugly—but there was a single possibility, no, a single certain reason, that made it impossible to bear the ache in my chest.
As if someone were carving into my chest with a blade. Into my conscience.
“You got hurt… because of me, didn't you?”
A stabbing sensation.
Robin—Robin just quietly closed her eyes. No answer came at once.
“Lying to me wouldn't work this time, would it?”
This time, I closed my eyes. I didn't even open my mouth. The moment I cut off one sense, the others grew sharper.
A short, breathy laugh—pfft. I hadn't imagined it; her voice carried, clear as anything.
“You're right. That's exactly what happened. I was heading somewhere to deal with your problem, and out of nowhere, some lunatic of a woman came at me.”
Her tone was light. No—it looked like she was straining to sound light, for my sake. A sense of wrongness crept up from the soles of my feet.
“Do you know why I was attacked? Do you know who sent them?”
“I don't know the one who did it, but I'm pretty sure I know who's behind it.”
She stopped right there. But I heard it, plain as day. But I don't want to tell you.
Robin surely knew I'd caught that, too.
That attitude of hers—wrapping up the conversation as if she assumed I'd accept it—proved as much.
I knew perfectly well that the old me would have let it end there.
People are imperfect—and that's precisely what makes them human.
Because someone, once, had pushed my back forward.
“So? Who is it?”
“……”
Now it was her turn to do something out of character. Her fully dilated pupils told me she was feeling something intensely, violently stimulating.
“Don't look at me like that. It makes it hard to say no.”
“Then don't.”
“What would I even be relying on? I can't even kill a single person properly.”
“You know better than anyone that killing isn't the only way to end something.”
“I've ended up like this—what do you think's going to happen to you?”
“Because you ended up like this! I—”
Once again, my voice shot up. This time I startled even myself, and the words died halfway out of my mouth.
Because what I was saying amounted to nothing less than this: Robin mattered to me.
“……I'm amazed. Truly. Something joyful is trying so hard to come bubbling up.”
Robin understood that too. She was laughing—haha—but it was an awkward kind of laughter.
The reason that smile wasn't pure happiness left her mouth almost immediately.
“Is it because this body got hurt? Or because I got hurt?”
“……”
The question cut straight to the heart of it, and my mouth sealed shut. It felt like being underwater.
No matter how I tried to speak, only bubbles rose, frothing and boiling.
“……Right now, just—right now, just…”
“……No. Don't answer. Whatever you say, I think it'll only wound me.”
“No, I—”
Still, I barely managed to move my lips—and she stopped me.
Even that awkward laughter faded away, and I found myself meeting the coldest face Robin had worn all day.
Within those violet depths, I was searching for something else.
Haah. A sigh. No need to point fingers at anyone—we both let one out at the same time.
Which of us carried the heavier weight of feeling? I didn't bother to weigh it.
Because neither of us wanted to put that uncomfortable truth on a scale.
“……That red-eyed lunatic who latched onto you. She's the one behind it.”
“……What?”
The truth drove in without warning. I faltered—but it wasn't over yet.
“I mean exactly what I said. You remember when I explained Tocalos to you? She's their Vice Leader. And the reason she approached you… is probably the same as mine.”
“Wait, hold on—what do you mean—”
“That's all I have to say. I want to be alone for a while. Leave.”
And with that, the conversation was over. Robin pulled the blanket up over her head without a word. She was telling me, with her body, that she had no intention of talking further.
The shocking information had landed so abruptly that I had a dozen questions I wanted to ask. It was far too soon for me to process any of this.
But just this once, I chose to go along with her will of my own accord. After all, part of this was my fault—I'd failed to answer her right away.
And so, just as the door creaked open—
“Until I'm fully healed, you are never to do anything reckless.”
The voice slithered in, slow and deliberate, winding up from my lowest parts and coiling through my whole body. It was a serpent's nature.
Familiar—yet always a sensation that made me want to vomit. Without meaning to, my body shrank in on itself.
“……Is that a request? A suggestion? Or an order?”
“……Think whatever you like.”
But with the resolve of someone prepared to cough up blood, I made myself speak. After a flicker of hesitation, Robin closed the conversation with one final line.
I stepped quietly outside and looked up at the sky. It was still bright, but the sun's time was nearly spent.
In other words, the perfect hour to do something as the day drew to a close.
And as it happened, I had a very specific motive burning to act.
“……Because it's my problem.”
I pulled two dark-crimson orbs from my coat, blazing madly within its folds—but the moment I moved, something caught, and I stopped dead.
Until I'm fully healed, you are never to do anything reckless.
The tail-end of those words still clung to my skin, like a serpent's tail refusing to release me.
My feet stalled once more. But even so.
“……I have to finish this with my own hands.”
I carved it out along with my skin, and shook it off.
Tocalos—now the other half of the darkness dividing the Underground City with Shatrira.
Its defining trait was, above all, a strict separation of powers and the loyalty of its members. Where Shatrira was a tower built tall on raw strength only to crumble easily, Tocalos was its mirror opposite.
But setting all that aside, the important thing was this: it was one of the most dangerous organizations in the Underground.
They commanded half the darkness of the back alleys—their reach was beyond anything I dared imagine.
And yet.
“……”
There I stood.
I stared at the two spheres still glowing bright. The dark crimson pointed unerringly at the building directly ahead of me.
The end of the light that had guided me here was this place.
Quietly, I closed my eyes.
“A scar by the eye, gray hair—and the thing in your hand. Zeo Frizian Ernest, correct?”
I opened my eyes. A man in black had appeared directly in front of me.
His hair was swept back, and the ring on his finger was the first thing to catch my eye. He had the look of a rather heavy, solid man.
“……Yes.”
“I was told you would come within days. We shall receive you with every courtesy.”
And with that, he led me inside. I couldn't even manage a hollow laugh. Had everything—every single thing, from start to finish—been planned from the very beginning?
Could even our first meeting have been something manufactured?
As those thoughts tore wildly through my head, the man quietly stepped back, leaving me before a single door. For a brief moment, I was alone again.
But there was no time to savor the solitude. Without hesitation, I seized the handle and twisted.
A dark-crimson light, fit to burst, wrapped itself around everything I was—
“I kept thinking about when you would come here. Waiting makes time stretch, you see—even if it's only a single minute.”
“……”
“And yet you were very, very late. Since you wouldn't come, I had to make myself a reason to seek you out.”
“I thought… you were a good person.”
My vision, distant for a moment, returned, and I looked around the room.
Books, books, books—and name plates. Her name stamped everywhere, in every direction, as if flaunting ownership.
It was a name I knew well.
“A good person, a bad person—who decides which is which?”
State of mind reveals itself in demeanor. Hers did, brazenly—haha, she laughed, openly mocking me.
Even that polite speech of hers no longer sounded gentle in the slightest.
“It's an entirely subjective thing. Suppose word spread far and wide that I was a good person—and then, for some private reason of my own, I refused someone's earnest request on the grounds of official duty. Would that person still think me good?”
“I could only pray that it wasn't a lie.”
“It isn't a lie. It's just… just… that I didn't speak the whole truth.”
“Isn't that one and the same?”
“No. You didn't ask—so I didn't answer.”
Word games. It had a different flavor than Robin's teasing, but my disgust doubled for it. I covered my face with a palm.
Then I dragged my hand roughly back through my hair. I no longer shied away from the crimson.
“Lize Valles. Vice Leader of Tocalos.”
I put her name in my mouth.
“……That feels wonderful.”
Across Lize's face spread something—I couldn't tell if it was a smile or a distortion.