A Disgusting Human (2)
After Chloe Winterland's bed vanished beyond the hospital room door, only Sergeant Klaus Müller and Lieutenant Julian Weiss remained inside.
Weiss was still smiling.
Müller watched him for a long moment before he finally spoke.
"Why did you lie?"
"What lie?"
"…About Anais Schoen."
The smile on Lieutenant Weiss's face thinned. It settled exactly halfway between blank and smiling.
"You overheard that conversation?"
"Yes. I was outside the door."
"Eavesdropping is a bad habit, Sergeant Müller."
"……"
"Silence can wound people sometimes too."
"I'm sorry."
Weiss smoothed the blanket with his remaining hand.
His gaze fixed on the left arm that was no longer there. He stared for a long time at the empty space where nothing remained.
Every so often his shoulder twitched, as if trying to move the arm that did not exist.
And each time it did, Lieutenant Weiss's smile twitched with it.
The taste of war is terribly bitter.
"…I remember Anais Schoen, Sergeant Müller."
"……"
"How much do I remember, you ask?"
"……"
"Her smiling face. The strange shapes she made with her fingers. How she explained they meant victory and peace. How her hands shook in her first battle. And… even how she used B Magic to protect me right before she died. I remember all of it, Müller."
Müller asked,
"…Why?"
"Kids that age need someone to blame, Müller."
"So you pretended not to know?"
"Yeah. Because the one who sent Anais Schoen to me was Chloe."
He was still smiling.
Not happy in the slightest, yet he kept the smile fixed in place.
"I—"
"That's far enough, Müller. I've known you a long while, but I'm not ready to tell you everything about myself just yet."
"I'm sorry."
"Müller, I don't know what you think of me, but I truly want peace."
Peace.
By now the word felt impossibly distant.
"Even if it means earning a child's resentment? Is that what you're saying?"
"Yeah, Müller. Hating me helps that kid more than hating herself."
"…That's true."
"I'm not doing this because I'm kind, either."
"Then…"
"When that Chloe kid looks at me with hatred on her face, she makes a rather interesting expression."
The faint respect that had lingered in Sergeant Müller's eyes vanished in an instant.
Lieutenant Weiss corrected himself at once.
"Just kidding. Okay?"
"……"
"About half of it?"
Müller decided he had no desire to deal with this man any longer.
Julian Weiss was always like this.
Jokes delivered like truth, truth delivered like jokes.
He made it impossible to know how much to believe, then smiled in the space between.
That was what made him so unpleasant.
"Curious about Anais Schoen?"
"No. It's not something I need to be curious about."
"Hmm. Then just think of it as me rambling and stand there and listen."
"…Yes."
"Anais Schoen believed until the very end that she was someone special. Since she got to die saving one of the Imperial Stars, she was certain she'd done more than her share."
Bitter.
Extremely bitter.
A bitterness sharp enough to make him frown unconsciously in front of a superior officer, lingering on his tongue.
"Is that so."
"No thoughts?"
"I came here to make a request of you."
"Hm? Suddenly?"
"Do not approach Chloe Winterland."
"Why?"
Weiss smiled at Müller, who offered no answer.
Yes. That same smile he always wore.
"……"
"Müller. That kid is similar to me. Right down to the part where she'll one day be strangled by the very things she toys with."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll find out later. I used to think of other people as toys myself, you know?"
"She's not that kind of child."
"I know. Just listen for a moment."
Lieutenant Weiss cast his mind back.
"Mauer and I were classmates. Same school. The Empire's twelfth star—who's gone now—came from that school too. You know that?"
"Yes."
"And you know the twelfth star looked a great deal like that kid, and that her aptitude was the same as that kid's?"
"…Yes."
"Then you also understand why Lieutenant Mauer and I care so strangely much about her?"
Müller nodded.
"So what does any of that mean?"
"Just that kids like her naturally enchant the people around them. And they're always precarious."
"……"
"If Mauer and I aren't watching that kid, then you have to. That's all I wanted to say."
"She's just a private second class."
"Yeah. And because of that one private second class, you've already talked back to two lieutenants. Doesn't that strike you as a little strange?"
That ended the conversation.
Müller left the hospital room.
Some time later, Sergeant Müller finally came to the hospital room I had been moved to.
My yuryeol concentration was starting to drop, so I wanted to wring a little more out of him.
It's quiet.
No narrow-eyed man in the next bed making pointless conversation. No psychopath clutching his chest with one hand and pretending to be wounded.
Both of them were the same person, but still—good riddance.
Even so… an empty hospital room is a bit much, isn't it?
There ought to be a moderate number of people! People who look at me, worry about me, and twist their faces because of me!
Am I supposed to just sit alone in here waiting for Sergeant Müller to show up?
Horrible.
Thud.
Ah, the old saying about speaking of the tiger and it appears was dead right. Footsteps approached.
"How's your condition?"
It was Sergeant Müller.
"…It's nice and quiet."
"I asked about your physical condition."
"I'm alive."
"I can see that just by looking."
"It seems fine."
Sergeant Müller sat in the chair beside my bed. The chair must have been old; it creaked faintly.
I studied his expression.
Hmm. Still wearing the mask. Blank, blunt face. It reminded me of the first time we met.
I think I'm starting to tell them apart.
That man's ordinary blank face and his performed blank face have slightly different flavors.
A subtle difference, maybe?
A tiny sense of incongruity that lives between a face where emotion has been forcibly buried and a truly empty one.
As expected, good.
I wanted to dig that emotion up.
"Sergeant."
"Speak."
"…Private Anais Schoen."
The instant I said the name, Sergeant Müller reacted. The look in his eyes shifted, just a fraction.
An ordinary child would have missed it, but for someone who had spent a lifetime reading other people's faces and attention, it was effortless.
"What kind of child was Private Anais Schoen?"
"Why are you asking me?"
"…When I asked Lieutenant Weiss, he said he didn't know."
"……"
He fell silent.
You know how a rice cooker steams for a little while after the cooking finishes? To me, this silence felt exactly like that.
A short wait I was happy to endure if it meant even more delicious rice!
I moved my fingers a little.
Pain is an excellent prop.
Throbbing pain rose from my fingernail-less fingers and the bandages.
The fact that it actually hurt was inconvenient, but a worthwhile sacrifice if it would squeeze out a few tears.
"I…"
I forced my voice lower. Made it sound tearful. The cracked tone came out sounding exactly like a child blaming herself.
"I was the one who sent her."
Sergeant Müller said nothing. He simply stared at me for a long time.
Good. A good reaction.
Let's keep going.
"I sent her to Lieutenant Weiss's squad in my place."
"……"
"Because I wanted to live, I recommended her to Lieutenant Weiss."
This was the truth.
Because it was not a lie, it shone all the brighter.
I had wanted to live, and Anais Schoen had gone to Lieutenant Weiss's squad instead of me. And she had died.
The connection looked perfect.
"Did I kill her?"
I finished the line carefully.
It was magnificent acting.
Force a choice on someone and they have to pick one of the two.
It isn't your fault.
Say that, and it becomes comfort.
You killed her.
Say that, and it becomes a wound.
Either way, an expression appears. The blank face cracks. I wanted to watch Müller's mask break.
At last he opened his mouth.
"You sent her."
Ah. So he chose that after all.
A little disappointing, Müller.
"But that doesn't mean you killed her."
Aha?
Dodging it this way, are we?
Sergeant Müller lifted his head and looked straight into my eyes.
"You can't simply divide a person's death into whose responsibility it is. Wanting to live isn't a crime."
"……"
"You pushed someone away so you could live. Is that a crime? No. It isn't."
"……"
"Just remember. Put the person who died in your place into your head and make sure you never forget them. That is your responsibility."
Not affectionate.
It was advice a little different from what I had expected, but well—I could feel some emotion in it, in my own way.
Should I be satisfied with this harvest for today?
I had wanted a wounded face. A face that had tried and failed to comfort a child. That kind of face.
Shall I add a little more weight?
"In her final moments… do you think she resented me?"
I did not forget the detail of letting my voice tremble.
Do you know?
What is more terrible than resentment is gratitude.
If she had hated me, it would have been easy. If she had cursed me, I could have laughed.
But Anais Schoen, in the last letter she sent me, conveyed her thanks.
That part I did not like.
I do not know this emotion.
I cannot understand it. I cannot empathize with it.
"I don't know."
Sergeant Müller said the same thing.
"…What?"
"The living should not freely speak about the hearts of the dead."
"……"
"What you need to do is not feel guilt. It is to remember the name of the girl called Anais Schoen. You have no sin. Only a duty."
I drew a breath.
Pain bloomed in my chest, and a cough tore free.
"Cough, cough…!"
It was not intentional. It felt as if my lungs were being scraped raw, and the taste of blood rose in my throat.
Sergeant Müller hastily reached for the water cup.
Flinch.
He started, then set the cup straight back on the side table.
Apparently he had belatedly remembered the military doctor's order not to give me water carelessly.
He set the cup on a cloth, let a little water spill, and wiped near my lips with the damp fabric.
His touch was terribly awkward.
Hmm. I didn't dislike it.
"Sergeant."
"Don't force yourself to speak."
"I…"
"I said don't talk."
"Am I a bad child?"
A bad child.
Don't you think that is a splendid word for a girl lying on a hospital bed to ask?
Müller's expression grew complicated once more.
"You're a soldier."
"……"
"I don't know what makes a bad child. But I know what makes a bad soldier."
"……"
"You're a soldier who survived. Since you didn't die, you're a good soldier."
He gently set the damp cloth back on the side table.
"Is that the answer?"
"That's all the answer I can give."
This was not the situation or conversation I had been hoping for.
It was not fun.
He rose from the chair.
"Then rest."
"……"
"What you need to do now is recover."
"Once I recover, what happens to me?"
"We'll think about the next thing then."
"…Will you come again, Sergeant?"
Müller turned his head and looked at me.
"If necessary."
I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed.
Sergeant Müller's footsteps gradually faded, and at last I was left alone in the hospital room.
I had a feeling things would stay quiet for a while.
I performed self-reproach. I performed guilt.
At least, that was what I believed at the time.
…Acting is truly strange.
If you keep making the same expression long enough, at some point your face remembers that expression.
In the end, it stopped being an act.
Anais Schoen.
I still remember that girl. Because I promised.
And a few days later.
Sergeant Müller stood before me holding a proposal I had never expected at all.