Mirror Therapy (2)
Mirror Therapy (2)
"......."
"......."
After lunch, on the train back to the imperial capital.
An oddly awkward silence had settled around me.
Well, strictly speaking, the train car itself had been quiet anyway.
When I went to Belbur Kingdom in the role of imperial proxy, my escort detail had naturally matched the emperor's level, so the only people in my car were Princess Alice and Princes Jaden and Lucas. That meant one reasonably large compartment was used exclusively for the four of us.
But now that I was boarding the train as an academy student, I couldn't receive special treatment compared to the other students.
Of course, the academy had chartered the whole car. Class A for nobles had only fifteen students, so after chartering one car, plenty of seats remained. Still, it was an ordinary first-class carriage; there were just a lot of empty seats, and it was awkward to walk around and do anything inside.
After I finished my meal as though fleeing from Lena Meyer, I had holed up in my room. At the appointed time, I headed straight to the train station, and the person I encountered was Lena Meyer.
I thought I had arrived nearly forty minutes early, but Lena Meyer had come out even earlier and was waiting for me.
No—maybe she hadn't been waiting for me specifically. Given her diligent personality, she might have simply arrived early and been waiting for the train.
Her expression when our eyes met was still perfectly blank.
Tch.
Again, it was a salute so crisp I could practically hear the sound effect. Tock! I heard the click of her shoe heels locking together again.
"...... You don't need to salute me every time we meet. Now that you've entered the academy, we're simply classmates in the same year."
"Understood."
.......
That rigid tone of voice.
I couldn't get used to it.
It wasn't my first time meeting a deadpan character. In another context, Lottie, who accompanied Jake, was also a deadpan maid character.
But...... how should I put it. The feel was a little different. Lottie was someone awkward about showing emotion. It was the same in the game—her nature wasn't to let her expression melt into a soft smile or to burst out laughing just because you'd grown close. So...... in that respect, she had a similar disposition to Charlotte. Only, compared to Charlotte, she was a little more inclined toward safety and reluctant to cause trouble.
That was why she reacted with annoyance or embarrassment whenever Jake clung to her. Entirely separate from the fact that she did like him.
No one would be shocked if Lottie smiled. That would not overturn her character; it would simply be an expression she naturally came to show as she grew closer to someone.
On the other hand, in my case, I was putting on an act as a character with 'suppressed emotions'......
And for some reason, Lena Meyer gave off a similar vibe. A blank expression, as if she were wearing a mask.
"......."
"......."
Forty minutes early meant the train hadn't even arrived yet. As the northernmost civilian station in the Empire, the train arrived thirty minutes before departure and waited. Further north lay the Autonomous State, Lena Meyer's homeland, but the security near the border was too unstable for civilian trains to operate.
"......."
"......."
With two deadpan characters standing across from each other, the conversation simply would not flow.
Did she feel as awkward around me as I felt around her?
"...... Is this your first time visiting the Empire?"
"Yes, it is."
Even so, when I spoke to her, the answer came right away. And her manner was oddly military. Maybe I should say it felt like looking at an A-grade recruit. Should I put it as her discipline being absolutely airtight?
...... Though she wasn't actually a soldier.
"The atmosphere must be quite different from the Riklant Autonomous State in many ways. Do you think you'll manage?"
"Yes, I'm very much looking forward to it."
She didn't exactly look like she was looking forward to it. Her expression was so blank I couldn't really tell what she was feeling.
...... Was this how the people around me felt when they looked at me?
Come to think of it, there had been that time when I got up before dawn and went to the highway, trying to get ahead of Leo and Claire on their way to a commission.
Was this what those two had felt when they arrived to carry out the commission and saw me waiting at the highway entrance with the target's corpse laid out in front of me?
"......."
Hmm, maybe it hadn't been like that after all.
Because Claire was incredibly glad every time she saw me. Even that dawn, Claire had smiled brightly and greeted me.
The one who'd been uncomfortable was Leo.
...... Had I overdone it?
While I was lost in thought, the train pulled into the station. Even by that time, Leo and his party hadn't arrived at the station. In the game, too, when you cleared the quest to meet the Sword Saint, an event was added where they arrived just moments before the train departed.
And that meant I would have to wait inside the train, alone with Lena Meyer, until the party arrived.
We hadn't been the only students who arrived and waited before the train pulled in, but no one else went out of their way to speak to us. After all, how many people would be willing to strike up a conversation with the imperial princess who could kill without hesitation and a completely unknown, blank-faced student standing together?
Normally, the fact that no one approached me would have been a comfort, but right now, I was wishing that someone—anyone—would please talk to me.
While I boarded the train, I harbored a small hope that Lena Meyer might sit a little distance away instead of near me......
...... That hope was futile.
When I took a seat by the window, Lena Meyer settled herself squarely into the opposite seat, directly facing me.
"......."
"......."
And silence.
That didn't mean I could move to a different seat. No matter how blank her face was, she still had feelings, and if I did something like that, she would be hurt.
If I'd always sat alone to begin with, people might have thought, "Oh, that person is just like that," as time went on. But I usually moved around in a group with my friends. Not that I led the group, of course.
If I sat here, Leo, Claire, Alice, Charlotte, Mia Crowfield, and even Jake would all naturally gather around my seat.
But if I left this girl here, moved to another spot, and then sat with my friends......
...... That would feel a bit like ostracizing her, wouldn't it.
"......."
"......."
So I had no choice but to endure the awkwardness and stay seated. The girl called Lena Meyer was deadpan, but she seemed...... to express her feelings through her actions in her own way. Though I wasn't certain.
Maybe, since I was the first academy student she'd spoken with, she felt a certain closeness to me...... though I wasn't certain.
Had I been sitting like that, keeping the silence, for about twenty minutes?
As other students boarded the train, the car gradually grew livelier. Well, even so, the number still didn't reach ten.
Now that I thought about it, just counting the protagonist's party, they made up over one-third of the class. ...... In the original story, there was no depiction of even a single member of the protagonist's party being ostracized within the class, but thinking about it this way, they were the largest group in the class.
In fact, they were people whose power was so immense that they could have ostracized anyone if they'd wished.
Looking at it now, it really had been quite the popular crowd.
About five more minutes after that, I finally saw some kids scrambling breathlessly into the train car.
They were the ones who had only managed to come down from the mountain in the morning and returned by car with Jennifer.
Come to think of it, since Instructor Jennifer had been with them, even if they'd been a little late and missed the train, they still could've gotten back to the academy anyway, couldn't they? Maybe, being the type who can't rest until they keep an appointment time, they had tried to make it back on schedule no matter what.
"Sis! ...... Huh?"
Claire, who had been greeting me cheerfully while walking toward my seat, looked a little flustered when she saw Lena Meyer sitting across from me.
The moment she saw Claire, Lena Meyer sprang up from her seat as though launched. Without waiting for me to introduce her or anything, Lena Meyer gave that perfect military salute I had already seen twice and spoke.
"My name is Lena Meyer. I greet the imperial princess."
"...... Huh?"
Claire murmured absent-mindedly again.
I firmly resisted the urge to drag my hand down my face.
...... It was so embarrassing.
It was embarrassing even for me, and I wasn't even the one involved.
Apparently, Lena Meyer had mistaken Claire, who called me "Sylvia", for another imperial princess.
...... Ah, well.
Among the imperial nobility, people knew I didn't have a single drop of Fangriffon blood, but a smaller state with comparatively less intelligence might not know that. After all, the Empire never officially announced that I "was an adopted child." The nobility would have kept quiet about it when meeting outsiders as well.
An autonomous state like Riklant would have had its hands full just dealing with its domestic problems, so even if it was right next door, it probably hadn't had the resources to investigate the imperial family's history in detail.
"......."
With Lena still holding her magnificent military salute, the atmosphere inside the train car froze for quite a while.