More Than Wine (4)
Soft jazz drifted through the café, and Han Seoyeon let it settle in her ears as she quietly studied the man before her.
His hair was still long, but unlike the last time she had seen him at the Ninomae family home, it was no longer unkempt — it had been neatly kept. The look that could, at a glance, pass for sheer indifference had not changed in the slightest.
Ninomae Hajime, come to the café at his daughter's urging, had said nothing at all since arriving, only sipping his coffee. Several minutes of silence had already gone by, and Seoyeon stole a careful glance at her lover.
Hitomi, for her part, was every bit as lost. Her father had always been blunt, but never cold, and she could not help being thrown by this.
Does he not like Shion...? No — but last time he even went so far as to gift us a couple's illustration...
She was still turning it over when Hajime finally opened his mouth, his voice low.
"Hitomi."
"Y-yes."
"I gave it some thought. Naming the great-granddaughter Mary... I suspect that is something we ought to reconsider a little more carefully."
"Koff— wha—?! What did you say?!"
"From your position, she would be a grandchild."
"That is not the part I was asking you to explain! Out of nowhere?! And wait — is that what you've been sitting there thinking about this whole time, with your mouth shut?!"
Hitomi shouted, flustered. Had he not called her name first and left her no room to brace herself, she would almost certainly have sprayed coffee across the table.
"You were fretting over a grandchild's name, were you not?"
"I— how would you even..."
"Naturally. You are my daughter."
"No, seriously, how did you do that?!"
Thinking ahead all the way to a grandchild's name was the sort of thing that made the rounds online as a joke — fair enough to call it the universal reaction of people unaccustomed to romance. But knowing the exact name was another matter entirely, and Hitomi's horror was no empty fuss.
Her father, having just performed that little feat, went right on drinking his coffee with the same deadpan calm.
"Anyway. As for when the two of you began seeing each other."
"Ah. It has only been a few days."
"I see."
The brief exchange passed, and silence settled over them once more.
"...Is that the end of it?"
The conversation had refused to go anywhere, and Seoyeon had answered in the hope that this, at least, might be the end of it. But Hajime only fell silent again, and in the end it was Seoyeon, unable to bear the awkwardness, who spoke first.
"The end?"
"Well... I am not sure. I do not know much about situations like this either, but... do people not usually ask all sorts of questions?"
To take the measure of their daughter's partner, for one. Even hearing that, Hajime only stared at Han Seoyeon, blank as ever.
"Why?"
"Pardon?"
"There is no need for me to know."
"Are you not worried about your daughter?"
"Which is precisely why I ask. Why?"
He drew his brows together, as if he could not imagine where the cause for concern was supposed to lie.
"I do not know whether you have already heard, but she was a child who once closed her heart to people. If someone like that has chosen to accept a person again, then that is enough."
Hitomi had always been keenly sensitive to malice. Anyone she opened her heart to for the first time was hardly a person worth worrying over. Grasping that as logic, of course, and truly accepting it in one's chest were two different things.
A moment later Hajime scraped his chair back and rose.
"Ah— Dad. You're leaving already?"
"I told you this once before. I have no intention of spoiling my daughter's date, rare as the occasion is."
"It's not really spoiling anything, though..."
"I know that is how you see it."
Even so, he had no mind to change it. His voice was firm enough to declare he would say nothing more, and Hitomi closed her mouth as well. She knew perfectly well, though, that it sprang not from her father's coldness but from his consideration.
"Next time I have the chance, I'll come up to the family home again."
And so that was all she said.
Still no answer came, and nothing in particular shifted in her father's expression — and yet Hitomi thought he looked, somehow, quietly pleased.
"I felt it last time as well. He really is a good father."
"Yes. He is."
Blunt as he was, she must have grown up well loved, and that was why she had turned out to be such a good person. Han Seoyeon smiled, small and faint, and Hitomi smiled too, watching her father's back as he went.
"Would you tell me the next time you visit your family home? I would like to go and meet your parents as well."
"Anytime. If anything, I'd be even happier if you did."
Her parents would probably be glad of it too, she thought, lifting the coffee cup that was still more than half full. A sweet richness pooled thick across her tongue, and beneath it she tasted a faint bitterness.
"Um... Shion."
"Yes. What is it?"
Hitomi had been staring at her own face reflected in the cup, and the words came out halting, as if she were hesitating over something. It was that hesitation that drew the question from Han Seoyeon.
A moment later, as though she had made up her mind, Hitomi spoke again.
"What sort of person is your father, Shion?"
What left her lips was a question about someone she had, until now, only ever heard mentioned in fragments. From the way Seoyeon spoke of him, she had gotten the sense that the two of them were not on bad terms, and that guess had given her the courage to ask.
"My father, you mean?"
Even so, it seemed to be a question she had not expected. Seoyeon appeared to consider it for a moment, then let her gaze drift quietly up toward the ceiling.
"I believe you already know, but I was originally from an orphanage. I was raised in a facility from the time I was small, so I do not know the father who brought me into the world."
Hitomi, of course, would not have meant the parents who bore her. Nor that other father — her godfather.
"The ones who picked up a child like me, in a childhood I can barely remember, were my teachers. From what I am told, they acted as a party of four at the time, but by the point I was old enough to remember, there were only the two of them."
One of the two people Han Seoyeon acknowledged as her masters — plainly, the man who had given her his surname. Her eyes rested on something far off, the way one's eyes do when they turn back toward the past.
"Picked you up? I thought you were living at the orphanage."
"Well. It happened to come down. A fire, tied to an anomaly. I am told I was the only initial survivor."
At Hitomi's question she gave a small shrug, and went on.
"On an ordinary day, they would have left me at another facility and been done with it. They lived, more or less, the life of wandering mercenaries."
A small child was no good to take along, for either side — a hindrance to them, and a danger to Han Seoyeon.
"But they didn't, did they?"
"No. Well — it simply happened to turn out that way."
As for the cause, even Hitomi could guess at it well enough.
A moment ago, Han Seoyeon had not called herself the only survivor. She had said the only initial survivor.
Initial survivor. By any ordinary standard, it was a plainly awkward turn of phrase. What people usually said was something closer to initial casualties.
As a rule, there was no such thing as failing to survive at the outset and then surviving afterward. ...On the surface world, at any rate.
"A miracle of resurrection so rare it could be counted on one hand across all of history. Far too dangerous a power for a child with no one at her back."
"Mm... yeah. That much is certainly true."
If word ever got out that she possessed an ability like that, it would not have been strange for someone to abduct her on the spot. Her two masters had thought the same, she explained.
"And so they kept me beside them, and I traveled with them so they could train me. So that I would have at least the barest ability to protect myself — and also because, once I became a Holy Knight, I could receive the Church's protection, at least to a point."
The title of Holy Knight alone would not move the Church to step in and shield someone no matter the circumstance. But Han Seoyeon's case was different: her very existence was an immense resource. Even setting duty aside and judging by interest alone, protecting her so that no other power could take her would have been the sensible choice.
"Well... in any case, that was the position I was in, so they raised me strictly in all sorts of ways. Even apart from that, I was told he was never a warm sort to begin with."
So saying, Han Seoyeon tapped the table lightly with her fingers.
"Before I met Nino— ...Hitomi, I spent my life being told I was the very image of my father, so I imagine you can guess well enough."
"The old Shion... mm. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean."
A wry smile crossed Hitomi's face. She must have been remembering that former self — no expression to speak of, blunt to the bone.
There was another master as well: Giacomo Marchisio. While traveling alongside them he had become an Apostle, and for a stretch the time he spent with Han Seoyeon grew short. Through the years when her character took shape, then, it was her father who had left the greater mark.
"Still, he raised a child he had only just met, in order to protect her. He must be a good person, right?"
"Yes. That much, I can say for certain."
At Hitomi's question, Seoyeon smiled. Faint, as always, but unmistakable.
"...Well. Looking back, I do sometimes think he may have driven a child too hard. At the same time, I know it is because he did that I am still here, whole."
She made the sign of the cross. Whether it was nothing more than a Catholic's habit, or whether it came of recalling the words she had just spoken — that he had driven her hard — Hitomi decided she would not pry.
"If the opportunity arises, I will introduce him to you as well, Hitomi. ...You are my lover, after all."
"...Hehe."
Perhaps the words added at the end had pleased her. Hitomi giggled and rested her head against Seoyeon's shoulder. The two of them were seated side by side, a leftover of having shared the table with Ninomae Hajime only moments before.
Han Seoyeon pressed a brief kiss to the crown of her head, then went on.
"That said, I honestly could not tell you when that opportunity might come. I ought to say that much in advance."
"Is he very busy?"
"As I mentioned, he lives as a sort of wandering mercenary. He is a professional at exterminating vampires, so it seems a great many places call for him... He is someone you can hardly even reach, let alone meet."
"Ah. I see."
Then there was nothing to be done. Hitomi smiled wryly.
Well — to hear her put it that way, meeting Han Seoyeon's adoptive father would be a very long while off indeed. Years might pass without them ever meeting him at all.
...Well. That, at least, was what they thought — until then.