In the Dark (4)
Mornings at the monastery were always quite hectic.
The dining hall in particular was a complete crush after dawn mass, nuns and children pouring in all at once until the place was packed wall to wall.
And yet, off in one corner of that crowded room, there sat a seat like a lonely little island — a place where, for some strange reason, no one ever chose to sit nearby.
Clink.
Her black ears twitched upright. Every time the clatter of dishes rose from the tables around them, those pointed ears tilted ever so slightly toward the sound.
That was where our officer sat — the one who only seemed prickly on the outside.
"Aren't you afraid of me?"
At her question, aimed squarely at me, the children who'd been stealing glances from a safe distance flinched and hastily pretended to focus on their meals. One panicked kid even crunched straight into a hard chunk of bread that hadn't softened in his soup yet.
Oof. That's gotta hurt.
"Hmm. Not really."
She always kept that cool expression fixed on her face. But her tail had drooped, as if she were fretting that her presence made the seat uncomfortable for everyone else. Her eyes kept drifting restlessly around the room. Even her shoulders had gone rigid with the effort of hiding how she really felt.
Honestly, I just felt sorry for the other kids who couldn't appreciate how cute she was.
But she must have read something else entirely into my attitude, because she turned to me with a surprisingly serious look.
"…Do you want to join the army?"
She'd probably gotten that idea from how blatantly I'd been sticking close to her these past few days. My real goal had nothing to do with enlisting in the Imperial Army. I was simply curious about the person sitting in front of me — the one who, for some reason, reminded me far too much of Kkamkkami, the first creature whose heart I'd ever been able to hear.
"Yes, that's right. I don't have anywhere else to go."
I answered with a bright smile, playing the part of a boy full of admiration. Telling someone I'd only known for a few days that I was interested in her would have been far too much pressure.
"The Imperial Army isn't such a good place—"
Especially not for an orphan with no status—
"…Never mind."
…I can hardly disparage His Majesty's army with my own mouth.
Crushed under the weight of her own thoughts, she closed her mouth. I had nothing particular to say to that either, so I just played the clueless kid who hadn't understood a word.
Before long, the soup and bread were gone. All that remained on the tray were two steamed potatoes, their heat long since faded.
She stared down at them and hesitated. Peeling a potato while wearing those black leather gloves probably didn't appeal much.
"Want me to peel it for you?"
"…There's no need—"
I casually picked up one of my own potatoes. With bare hands I stripped away the cooled skin in easy strokes, revealing the pale flesh underneath. Then, as naturally as breathing — the same old habit from my past life of feeding snacks to a puppy — I held the peeled potato out toward her mouth.
"Say ahh~."
I'd expected her to swat my hand away and tell me to stop fooling around. Instead, she just stared blankly at the potato in my fingers. Then, as if something had taken hold of her, she parted her lips ever so slightly and leaned her upper body forward.
But just before the potato at my fingertips touched her lips, her dilated pupils snapped tight.
"…!"
Only then did she seem to realize what she'd been about to do. A deep red flush bloomed across her brown cheeks. Her ears, standing stiff with shock, trembled faintly.
"…Don't play games with me."
She averted her gaze, her voice trembling ever so slightly as she clenched her fist. Then she shoved her own unpeeled potato straight into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed it whole.
An officer's daily routine was simple enough.
Wake up in the morning, get ready, eat breakfast — and then spend the entire day sitting out in the courtyard.
The reason, of course, was obvious.
"Aaaargh!!"
"Thomas, pull harder!"
She had to check the children eligible for conscription. Thomas, insisting he finally understood what mana was, had gone red in the face squeezing the testing box for all he was worth — but nothing had changed. Roughly half the kids had already given up after five days of a box that refused to budge, and were now just going through the motions.
Even so, she didn't seem particularly concerned. She never pushed the children, never threatened them with a deadline. You'd think she might at least look after the ones who were trying hard, like Thomas or Lucy — but she simply sat there, staring blankly at whatever the kids were doing.
Every so often, if someone looked like they were overdoing it, she'd tell them to stop. Beyond that, she just sat upright in the wooden chair the nuns had prepared for her and quietly watched.
At first, the kids had forced themselves to try under the weight of that heavy atmosphere. Left to their own devices like this, though, they naturally split into two groups: the ones still thrashing desperately to open the box, and the ones who, with no one stopping them, were only pretending to try.
Outwardly, I clearly belonged to the latter.
That didn't sit well with a certain model student who'd been working hard.
"Ian, aren't you gonna try?"
Lucy shoved herself into my field of view — red hair and freckled cheeks caked in dirt and dust.
"I am trying, in my own way."
"…By just staring at that lady the whole time?"
"It all means something."
"……."
I did my best to ignore Lucy's pouty glare and turned my eyes back to the officer. From the outside she looked like she was simply watching in silence — but our officer's inner thoughts were shifting through every color of the rainbow.
That one's forcing his mana up. His breathing's going to get tangled at this rate. …If I leave him, he'll pass out.
Sometimes she analyzed the children's conditions with perfect accuracy and fretted over them.
The sun is far too warm. ……No. I must not fall asleep.
Sometimes she waged a fierce battle against the drowsiness pouring over her.
…So this village only lasts until tomorrow, then.
And sometimes she carelessly leaked information this important.
My eyes narrowed at that last thought.
Tomorrow.
I'd been slowly closing the distance — but it turned out I had far less time than I'd thought.
…That boy. No — he'd be happier if he never came to the army. It would be better to take those other two children instead.
Apparently the way I'd been trying to get her attention had sparked some completely different misunderstanding. At this rate, my plan of gradually drawing closer simply wouldn't fit the schedule.
"…Fine! Then I won't do it either if Oppa's not doing it!"
Maybe she was just upset that I wasn't paying attention to her. Lucy stuck out her lower lip, flopped down onto the dirt without a care for her clothes, and started poking my shoes with her muddy feet.
Ordinarily I would have coaxed her up, fretting about her getting dirty. Right now, I didn't have the time.
"Sorry, Lucy. Something just came up. I've gotta go."
"Huh?"
Leaving Lucy's dumbfounded little noise behind me, I got to my feet without delay. If I started preparing now, I could have everything ready by nightfall.
Night's darkness had settled over the room when a woman entered, exhaustion written plain across her face. There wasn't a single light on.
She took off the beret she'd worn all day, set it on the desk, and threw herself onto the worn-out bed. The uniform had grown a little tight; she undid a couple of buttons that had been bothering her and stretched out her arms and legs.
She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and sink into sleep right there.
"…I can't."
She shook her head and forced herself upright. She undid her belt and shrugged off the rest of the cumbersome outer layers, carefully draping the uniform over the back of a chair so it wouldn't wrinkle. A faint sigh slipped from her lips.
She would have loved nothing more than a hot shower right then — but a rural monastery like this was never going to have such a luxury. She settled for washing her face with cold well water she'd drawn earlier, cooling the heat from her skin. It helped a little; her nose cleared and she felt somewhat refreshed.
The smell of livestock manure. The sweat of children who hadn't washed properly. The musty straw-and-timber scent unique to old wooden buildings. The unfamiliar country smells had worn her down — her sense of smell was far too sharp for this place.
When I get back, the first thing I want is a hot shower.
But this stretch of country living would end tomorrow. Early that evening she'd gone down to the lower village and told her subordinates to be ready to leave first thing the morning after next. She only needed to inform the abbess that no one had opened the box by tomorrow, and that she would therefore select two talented children at her own discretion and take them with her.
She'd still need a justification for her superiors, so she would cut the orphanage subsidy according to regulations — then later, anonymously, dig into her own pocket and send a generous donation. That should keep any real trouble from arising.
With both her mind and her clothes put in order, she slipped into a thin nightgown and sat before the mirror. The ears that had stood so rigidly all day now hung limp and listless.
"…It's not like anyone's looking."
She gently stroked her drooping ears, and her gaze drifted slowly down the mirror. The nose that had suffered all day under unfamiliar smells. And below it, her lips.
Her lips…
Say ahh~.
"…Kh."
The memory of the afternoon rose unbidden. The way she'd parted her lips like an idiot for the potato that boy had held out. Why on earth had she done that? There was something about that boy — some inexplicable charm that dismantled a person's guard. A feeling that she ought to listen when he spoke…
Pinch.
She pinched her own thigh hard and shook the useless thoughts away. Looking out the window, she saw the white moon had already tilted quite far toward the west. The trip down to the lower village had cost her more time than expected. If she didn't sleep now, tomorrow's schedule was going to be brutal.
She let out a small yawn and was just about to lower herself onto the hard bed when—
Knock, knock.
A careful rapping broke the night's stillness and echoed through the room.
Her hand closed by habit around the hilt of the sword she kept beside the bed, and her ears snapped upright.
"Officer?"
The voice beyond the door was a familiar one. The boy who'd been clinging to her lately — Ian. But why at this hour?
Dark thoughts stirred — remnants of the old kingdom, fanatics from the Church — and then the boy's languid voice drifted through the door.
"Would you like to go for a walk with me?"
"There's a lake nearby where the moonlight falls beautifully. It's a place I like."
A lake.
After a full day of musty smells, the word walk held a certain appeal. And besides…
…It's the last night anyway.
She could at least indulge the boy's enthusiasm this once. He'd clung to her so persistently — if he found out in the end that she still wouldn't take him with her, he was bound to be a little hurt. If she stepped outside and gently set him straight beforehand, maybe the blow would land a little softer.
Using that as her excuse, she rested her hand on the doorknob.