Like a Doll
"How long has it been? Six years?"
"Five."
"Five years! Wow... five years."
Labin felt a sudden wave of transience at just how much time had slipped away.
She had lived in a frantic blur, waiting for the man standing before her, and five years had already flown by.
Yet, the pride of finally welcoming Rin—no, Lee—into the domain she had built for herself far outweighed any melancholy.
"You've changed so much, Lee. I never expected you to get this muscular and built. Your voice is deeper, too. The only thing left of the old you is that strangely gentle face."
"Is that so? I wouldn't know. I was too busy focusing on earning enough to eat day by day..."
"Oh, come on. Don't be like that. You've become someone amazing."
Labin wanted to keep chatting happily, but she suddenly realized there were too many eyes around them.
Although the Thief Guild was the ultimate hub of information, any news regarding Rin was classified as top secret.
Truth be told, it wasn't even about the security clearance; Labin simply hated the idea of anyone else knowing Rin.
"It's awkward to keep standing here. Let's go to my office."
"You have an office?"
"I might not be as well-off as you, Lee, but believe it or not, I'm the head of the Thief Guild."
As Labin walked ahead with a proud swagger, Lucy whispered to Rin, her voice laced with discontent.
"Rin, why does she call you Lee?"
"Shh."
Rin quickly pressed a finger to his lips, whispering so Labin wouldn't hear.
"Very few people know my real name."
"Really?"
"They said a commoner like me shouldn't have a last name, and since I never told them my first name, they just called me Lee."
"I see."
Seizing the moment, Lucy pressed further.
"Then... how many people actually know your name, Rin?"
"Hmm. Three?"
"One is me. Who are the other two?"
"Uh..."
Should I tell her?
As he hesitated, fearing it would only cause unnecessary trouble, Lucy's eyebrows instantly shot up.
"Are they women?"
They were.
He could have just said yes, but for some reason, he felt reluctant to answer.
As Rin stood there in awkward silence, a sudden thought crossed his mind.
One of them had never cared about him in the first place.
And the very first one had likely forgotten all about him long ago.
If that was true, it was a rather painful and sorrowful reality for him.
"They are women, but..."
"But?"
"It was so long ago, they've probably both forgotten by now. You're the only one who ever actually cared to ask, Lucy."
"So that means I'm the only one who truly knows you?"
"...I suppose so."
"I'm glad."
Lucy gently stroked the back of Rin's hand with her thumb.
"I'm the only one who knows the real Rin."
She pressed her body close to his.
Just as she was about to rest her head on his shoulder, the lively thief cut her off.
"Alright! Here's my office!"
Lucy glared at her, but her hood hid her face, so Labin couldn't see it anyway.
She called it an office, but there wasn't even a desk.
It was a humble room with nothing but a single cot and a few backless wooden chairs. It was highly questionable whether this place could even be called an office.
"Make yourselves comfortable."
Labin sat on the edge of the cot and gestured for them to sit, but she froze slightly when she noticed their clasped hands.
Sensing her gaze, Rin tried to subtly slip his hand away, but Lucy only laced her fingers through his, tightening her grip.
Naturally, Labin did not like that one bit.
"So, you rejected my offer and ended up as a porter for the Hero's party, huh?"
Still unaware of Lucy's true identity, Labin decided to needle her.
She used the past that only she and Rin shared, along with the details of the Demon King subjugation campaign—a topic Lucy desperately wanted to avoid—as her weapons.
"And after all that, it looked like they didn't even treat you like a human being."
Goosebumps broke out all over Lucy's body.
How does she know that?
She had no idea that Labin was a thief so exceptionally skilled that she had once been considered as the final candidate for the Hero's party.
"What was with that ridiculous mask anyway? Did the Hero and the rest of the party say they couldn't stand the sight of your face?"
If Labin knew that her playful jab was the absolute, literal truth, how would she react?
"..."
"...Wait, is that actually true?"
"Who knows."
"That's ridiculous. No one in Gutter Alley ever treated you like that. You were the best of the best!"
"That's not true. Don't overpraise me."
"Well, whether you were a genius or not is beside the point."
If you were going to drop it so easily, why bring it up in the first place?
Rin found the topic uncomfortable.
Even putting Lucy aside, those days had not been pleasant for him.
But Labin growled, spitting out a specific name.
"Arciel."
At the unexpected name, Lucy's ears, which had been drooping, perked up.
If Labin wanted to criticize those days, she should have targeted the entire Hero's party.
Lucy wondered why she was singling out the Saint.
"Why did that bitch join in on tormenting you, Lee?"
"That's..."
Because I hid it from her on purpose.
But Labin didn't give Rin a chance to make excuses.
"Did you do something wrong? The Lee I know would never be a nuisance to anyone. Besides, you were Arciel's right-hand man since we were kids. How could she treat you like garbage? And that bitch always...!"
"You're getting too worked up, Labin."
"How can I not get worked up?!"
"I wore the mask and hid my identity from the Saint on purpose."
"Why? If you had just told her who you were, she never would have let them treat you like that."
The mage had asked him the same question once.
But Labin, you of all people shouldn't say that.
You know exactly why.
"If I told her I was Lee, the Saint would have asked me what happened to Gutter Alley."
"...And whose fault was that?!"
"You're acting out of character, Labin. You never liked that alley anyway."
"It's not about liking the place! It's about the people we lost there!"
Rin felt the same.
And Arciel surely did too.
Although he hadn't chosen to wear the mask initially, he had been incredibly relieved that it spared him from revealing his identity to the Saint when they first met.
It would have been disastrous if the Saint's spirit had broken at the very start of the journey.
"Everyone died. The people who followed me, the ones who followed Arciel after she left—all of them! Only you and I are left. That's why I wanted us to go together. But you kicked my offer aside, and for what? To be treated like trash in that party?!"
Her earlier composure was entirely gone. Labin's lips trembled with rage.
The notorious thief who had once robbed the banks of the financial capital with a sly smirk was now throwing a furious tantrum, all because her childhood rival had been mistreated.
Rin didn't know whether to be touched or to tell her to drop it.
Even for Rin, those memories still stung.
"They prepared food and stuffed their own faces, leaving you with absolutely nothing!"
Lucy flinched.
She could barely stand.
It felt as though all the strength was draining from her body.
"That elf gave you nothing but looks of sheer disgust!"
"The mage didn't even acknowledge your existence!"
"That stupid bitch Arciel sat there and didn't offer a single healing spell while you bandaged your own wounds!"
"The shield knight pretended to look out for you while subtly putting you down to feed his own sick sense of superiority!"
"And that bitch of a Hero had nothing but venom in her mouth, saying whatever she wanted to you before running off to fawn over the shield knight!"
"Is that how you treat a comrade? Even the most pathetic kid in Gutter Alley wasn't treated like that! It's no different from lying to someone you accepted into your pack. It's a betrayal of the promise to treat you as one of their own!"
With a soft slip,
Lucy let go of Rin's hand.
That list was only a fraction of what the Hero's party had done.
Yet every single word gouged at her heart.
Realizing anew just how shameless and pathetic she had been, Lucy wanted nothing more than to crawl away and hide.
Looking down, she saw the red thread—visible only to her—glowing faintly.
She felt utterly disgusted with herself for having giggled so happily while weaving that thread.
Fawning over Reinbold.
She had fawned over her former fiancé, the man who had hidden his hatred for her only to sever her limbs in the most agonizing way at the crucial moment.
It was the truth.
It was a past Lucy desperately wanted to deny—a past she would have cut away and destroyed with her own hands if she could.
She had wanted to flirt and play around, completely oblivious to whoever was beside her.
Whether it was the elf, the mage, the Saint, or the porter.
Her eyes burned, but she had no right to cry.
Now, she understood a little.
Why Rin kept pushing her away.
Since she had behaved like that right in front of him, any attempt to cling to him now would only feel awkward and breed suspicion.
It was strange.
She had no right to weep, yet her burning vision blurred and wavered.
Just then,
Rin spoke up.
"Betrayal... I suppose few people have been betrayed as deeply as you and I."
"Yeah. Two nations conspiring to wipe out the slums at the same time..."
"And no one has suffered the kind of betrayal 'we' did."
When Rin took her hand once more, Lucy nearly broke down.
I have to hold it in.
I can't let a single tear fall.
Be grateful for the rest of your life just because he's holding your hand.
"We?"
"Yes, we."
Finally, Rin pulled back Lucy's hood.
A long, crimson ponytail.
Feline features, and eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Hero Luciena...! How dare you show your face here with Lee...!"
"They severed Lucy's limbs the moment the Demon King was defeated. They wanted the Hero dead to the very end, so I took her and ran."
The tension in the room was explosive.
Labin looked ready to tear Lucy apart then and there, but Rin stood firmly between them.
"It's obvious. I knew she had a foul mouth, and she got stabbed in the back by her own party because of it, didn't she?"
"What are you talking about, Labin?"
Even as he stepped forward, Rin did not let go of Lucy's hand.
Her warmth felt incredibly comforting against his palm.
"We are the Hero's party. Those others were just puppets of the Empire. Only Lucy and I make up the Hero's party. We weren't betrayed by the party; the Hero's party was betrayed by the Empire."
"...Are you really Lee?"
The conversation looped back to the beginning.
"The skinny, weak Lee I knew got muscular, his voice got deeper... and even his personality changed?"
"My personality hasn't really..."
"No."
This time, Labin cut him off.
"The entire time we've been talking, your expression hasn't changed once, no matter what topic I brought up. You actually looked peaceful."
Her boots clicked against the wooden floorboards.
Stepping right up to Rin, Labin grit her teeth.
"What on earth happened to you? What kind of pain made you this numb?"
Lucy couldn't understand.
Rin had always been like this to her.
"Right now, you look like a doll."
At those painfully spat words, Rin's grip tightened reflexively.
Squeeze!
Feeling the sudden pressure, Lucy hung her head and finally let the tears she had been holding back spill over.