Will You Hold Me...? (2)
I don't remember all one hundred of my lives in detail.
Three hundred years' worth of experience, and not a fraction of it remains whole. All I carry in my chest are fragments — the memories too searing to forget, too brilliant to ever lose a second time. And even among those, some faces surface with perfect clarity while others have faded beyond any hope of recall.
But there was one thing I knew for certain had never happened in any of those lives.
Someone else remembering my previous rounds. The hundred lives belonged to me alone; when I died, the memories died with me, folded back into my chest and no one else's.
Could this regression truly leave everyone untouched but me?
I had turned the question over many times, and every time I reached the same conclusion — it seemed impossible that only a single soul could ride the current of returning time.
The person who swore they loved me yesterday becomes a stranger the moment I wake. The one who has been my mortal enemy for lifetimes leans in and whispers love again. Whether I was truly the only one who felt that vertigo was a doubt I had chewed on since the very earliest regressions.
I had investigated the Moonstone once, too — only to find that after my first round, no record of it existed anywhere. The Moonstone I had used seemed to have vanished from the world entirely, as if it had never been.
Naturally. I had spent it; it followed that in every round after, it simply wouldn't be there. So I had given up on that line of inquiry completely.
If not for what Adele had said to me, I doubt I would ever have doubted it at all.
"...What exactly did she mean by that?"
I couldn't begin to say. It was the first time she had ever spoken to me that way, and the more I mulled it over, the deeper my thoughts sank into the mire.
Adrian's behavior had been far from ordinary, either. The way she reacted with such conspicuous sensitivity whenever Mirajen's name came up — a woman who was nothing more than my friend — and the way her expression turned subtly wounded whenever she looked at me.
Whatever the reason was, only Adrian herself would know it.
It wasn't simply a question of what lay inside me. It was the strange, murky certainty that there was something more than what she had already told me — something she was keeping to herself.
The room Mirajen had sometimes stayed in — the one I now occupied — turned out to get surprisingly good sunlight. I stared quietly at the light spilling through the window, brushed the sleep from my eyes, and slowly pushed myself up from the bed.
I usually rose before dawn, but today I'd slept in a little. Not that it mattered much; I figured there was still a long way to go before noon.
I washed up briefly and was shaking the water from my hair when I heard a knock at the door.
"Robert, it's Adrian."
It surprised me a little that she would come by at this hour, but I dabbed off the rest of the moisture and opened the door.
She had apparently risen quite early herself — she was already fully dressed and adorned.
I cracked the door open, and Adrian, her attendant standing just behind her, caught my arm and stepped slowly inside.
Her fingers drifted carefully over the sleeve of my robe, and then she tilted her head, peering up at me.
"Those aren't the clothes you usually wear."
"It's a bathrobe. I just got out of the shower."
"...Oh. I'm not intruding on anything, am I?"
"Not at all. I've washed already, so I only need to change my clothes."
At the words change my clothes, Adrian flinched visibly, and I let out a quiet laugh.
Did she really think I would strip down right in front of her? Blind or not, as Berod had so sternly reminded me, the distance between men and women was a serious matter.
Her face had gone red with whatever she was imagining, so I gave the tip of her nose a playful tap and continued, teasing.
"Whatever it is you're hoping for, I'll change a little later."
"W-whatever I'm hoping for? I can't even see anything."
"So, what brings you here? I wasn't aware anything special was happening today."
Our departure for the South was still days away. I needed to receive Arwen's report on everything she'd investigated, and I was planning to have Renald procure a pair of swords in the meantime.
Today was, by every measure, a leisurely one. Adrian hadn't asked to see me today, either.
So when I asked her, puzzled, she hesitated for a moment before her lips finally parted, careful and quiet.
"Th-the cathedral at the base of the Moon Tower... you don't know much about it, do you?"
"I can't say I do."
I hadn't visited it in this life. Knowing its interior in detail at this point in time would have been strange, and I answered with that logic in mind.
Adrian brightened at once.
"Then let me show you around. I have plenty of free time today."
"Is that so? I'm perfectly happy to, of course — I only worry I'm imposing on your day off."
"Anything is better than staying inside the Moon Tower. If you didn't want to come along, I couldn't help that... but that's not it, is it?"
"Why would I not want to?"
Simply being seen at Adrian's side was a benefit in itself.
I was supposedly someone the Saintess cherished — what were the Church's people going to think of that?
It wasn't as though I were using Adrian. She had asked to accompany me with her own lips; whatever the paladins muttered, I could hold my head high.
I hadn't planned to go anywhere today, but if Adrian insisted on my company, I could make the time.
When I agreed, she smiled brightly.
Only one thing about it continued to confuse me.
Was she happy to be with me — or was it simply that she enjoyed going out?
Her causeless kindness had a way of stirring up misunderstandings in people, and there were times it was wise to guard against it.
Adrian walked in one of two ways.
In a place she knew perfectly — her own room, for instance — she could move entirely on her own, needing no help from anyone. But anywhere unfamiliar, or anywhere too vast, required her attendant's assistance.
It might have looked a little comical, her clinging to my arm as we walked, but that kind of support was simply what it took for Adrian to go anywhere at all.
Hold tight— perhaps out of fear of stumbling, her body pressed close against my side. In the beginning she had used my arm only for balance, but after nearly toppling over earlier, she now had it grasped in both hands entirely.
However often she visited a place, the objects within it never sat exactly where they had before. And this was a cathedral — a hall crossed by crowds day after day — which meant that to walk its floors, she had no choice but to lean heavily on me.
Adrian seemed aware of just how much she was clinging, lowering her head with a faint flush.
"I'm sorry. Normally, it would be enough for me to only just touch."
"Please don't worry about it. Everyone else... I'm sure they'll understand."
That was what I said — but in truth, how could I not be aware of it?
I'd barely managed a hollow laugh at the strange, soft sensation of her arm against mine when I caught the priests sneaking glances my way and offered them a wry smile.
The news that I was staying at the Moon Tower had long since spread beyond the walls.
It was a small, close-knit world that gossip circulated through; the people here must have found it curious, the man who had earned the right to be called the Saintess's friend.
They were a touch friendlier than the paladins, though every so often someone's eyes betrayed open hostility toward me.
I ignored such looks and walked on.
Picking apart every malicious gaze one by one would only exhaust me. Better to set all of it aside and concern myself with nothing but what today required.
So we walked for a good while, and as we passed some doorway or other, Adrian came to an abrupt halt.
"This is where I lived when I was little. The Moon Tower wasn't finished yet back then, so Sir Berod used to put me to sleep here."
A faint current of divine power flowed from the direction she was facing.
Fortunately the door wasn't locked, and once we stepped inside, Adrian swept a soft smile across the room.
"I wonder if it's still laid out the way I remember. There used to be a drawer just to the right of the entrance here."
"It doesn't seem to have changed much. Perhaps the Church preserved it exactly as it was when you lived here."
"Is there a bed in the left corner? That's the bed I used to sleep in."
Just as she said, there it was. We walked over together, and I eased her down onto it carefully.
Tum-tum. She drummed her fingers against the mattress and grinned, mischievous.
Recalling her childhood, trading memories of Berod one after another — her face looked, if anything, utterly happy.
"Once, I was jumping on the bed and fell straight off the edge. Berod scolded me terribly for it. I imagine he spread something under here afterward. I've always been prone to falling."
"So that's why the carpet is so thick. I did think it was odd."
The floor was so plush that a finger pressed into it would sink right in.
I could hardly dispute Adrian's claim that she fell often.
I'd witnessed it several times already, and just today I'd had to catch her mid-stumble. But it was no fault of hers — walking with no sight at all was nothing short of a hardship.
She sat on the bed for a moment, then stared at me steadily before rising from her seat.
"Would you like to sit down? You've been so quiet this whole time."
"...Ah."
I had been watching her because I was thinking about how often she fell — but apparently she'd decided I was interested in the bed.
And I had no clever excuse ready, so I lowered myself carefully into the spot Adrian had just vacated.
Naturally, there was nothing remarkable about it.
It creaked faintly with age, but otherwise it was no different from any ordinary bed. The divine power suffusing the room was presumably left in place for preservation's sake — the childhood room of the Saintess, meaningful enough to the faithful that even if it wasn't open for visitors, no one would dare let it decay.
"When it was time for me to sleep, Sir Berod used to read me picture books. It made it so easy to drift off, tucked in like that... and now look how big I've grown."
"Time always flows quickly. It's easier not to dwell on it."
If I were to count every year I had actually lived, my head would no doubt ache from the arithmetic.
So I counted in regressions rather than years — and even that only when necessary. It was far better for one's peace of mind to live without giving it much thought.
She lamented how quickly time seemed to slip by, and a laugh escaped me before I could help it.
Perhaps that was because I had lived far too much of it myself — but for a girl of merely twenty-one to complain that time moved too fast?
How could I not laugh?
But she seemed to mistake my laughter for mockery, and her voice turned a little sharp.
"Robert, you're younger than me, so I don't understand why you keep laughing like that. Have you even had your coming-of-age ceremony?"
"I'll have you know I'm twenty-one. More than old enough, I should think."
"Th... well. I suppose that's true, then."
Part of me wanted to declare that I was a three-hundred-year-old monster, but since it would only be taken as a joke, I saw no reason to say it aloud.
And so we whiled away the time in idle talk.
Adrian retraced her own memories, examining the room piece by piece, while I stayed seated on the bed and watched her.
It is a good thing, to be able to lose oneself in the past. Better still, to be able to smile inside it.
I was gazing at her fondly for exactly that reason when her body lurched — and my arm shot out before I could think.
"Ah—!"
There must have been something in her path she hadn't memorized; her foot caught it, and I caught her swaying frame with it.
But I was already seated on the bed, my balance compromised. Grasping her from that precarious posture, I had no choice but to go down with her in my arms.
I twisted us as we fell, steering clear of the furniture — and then, thud.
A sharp ache flared through my shoulder where it struck the floor, and in the next breath, a cascade of pale hair spilled across the bridge of my nose.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm fine. I think I just stepped on something I didn't remember being there."
Our bodies lay wholly tangled together, and from my chest, Adrian slowly lifted her head. Her fallen white hair brushed my nose, feather-light and tickling.
It took only the barest instant for her to realize she was lying on top of me.
A faint flush bloomed across those pale cheeks, and as her hesitant hand came to rest against my cheek, her lips parted in a small, crawling voice.
"...Oh."
And with that, the blush began to deepen, spreading red across her face.
Like a flower opening at last into bloom — so very, very red.