Rina Rosewell's Sincere Apology
Rina Rosewell's Sincere Apology
"Ian..."
A gloomy room with the curtains half-drawn.
Dressed in disheveled sleepwear, a thin black handkerchief wrapped around her neck, Rina lay vacantly on the bed.
Anyone who knew her usual lively self would have been horrified by the sight.
Rina knew perfectly well how pathetic she looked.
By now, her feelings for Ian should have dulled. And yet, they stubbornly refused to.
"Just once. Just let me apologize properly, so you can just once more... So he could hold me tight like that, one more time."
At this point, rational thought had long since left her.
Obsession over someone only digs deeper the more you give in to it.
Before she knew it, she was keeping Ian's black handkerchief wrapped around her neck at all hours, using it to choke herself whenever the anxiety grew unbearable.
Whenever she had a spare moment, she found herself drifting toward wherever Ian was, stealing glimpses of him from afar.
Watching him with Danya, Sylvia, and recently even the Imperial Princess made her feet itch to dash over. But there was a reason she couldn't just approach him.
"I have to know my place..."
Hadn't she already been every imaginable kind of nuisance to Ian? She was the one who had thrown him away back when he used to pack lunches and come looking for her. She couldn't possibly be any more of a fool.
To have cast him aside so gleefully then, only to cling to him like this now. When it came to wisdom, wasn't she at the level of a ragworm or a slug?
"Ian must think that about me..."
If Ian thought of her that way, then a slug she would be. So she'd be careful not to cause him any more trouble. She'd be content just watching him from a distance.
That was what she resolved.
"But Ian... a slug isn't that smart, you know..."
Even for a slug, she couldn't stop the fantasies.
Visions of herself apologizing to Ian and begging for his forgiveness. Visions of Ian scolding her. And then, after devoting herself to serving him to wash away her sins...
"We'd go back to my hometown together..."
They'd go back to her hometown, nestled in a scenic spot in the Central Great Forest. She would introduce Ian to her younger siblings. They would stroll together under the sunlight filtering through the giant trees. They'd wake up at dawn, share a lunchbox packed with sweet-and-sour fruits and fresh vegetables, laughing happily together... Those were the images that filled her head.
"What a completely ridiculous thing to think..."
Rina clutched her pillow and buried her face in it.
Whenever she started thinking about Ian, she'd inevitably fall into these delusions. And this was actually an improvement.
Until the disciplinary committee, where she could be of some small help to him and get a chance to speak to him again... it had been nothing short of hell.
At least these flower-filled daydreams were better than that.
"...What kind of shameless thoughts am I having? Get a grip."
Fantasies like these were only appropriate after Ian accepted her apology.
Rina, who had been suffocating herself in the pillow, picked up her Kirtos terminal while still lying down.
"Please, let there be a ton of new posts about Ian...!"
The one place Rina could find any comfort was the Kirtos Network bulletin board. Ever since the grade assessment ceremony, posts about Ian kept popping up endlessly, and they helped fill the Ian-shaped hole in her heart, even if only a little.
Binge-reading posts and leaving comments made her feel like she was somehow being useful to him, which brought her joy.
— Tap. Taptaptap.
But that joy was short-lived.
- No new posts.
"Ah......"
Rina's face fell into instant gloom.
Just as she was sinking into despair, an alert rang from her Kirtos terminal.
[Kirtalk!]
[You have received a message from 'Ian Blackangus.']
"I-Ian?! Eek!"
Thump.
The dropped terminal smacked into her forehead and nose.
Rina endured the burst of sharp pain with a few hurried rubs and then frantically opened the Kirtalk message.
[ Ian ] : There's something I want to check. Can you come to this café?
[ Rina ] : Yes. Yes. I'll be right there! Thank you!!
If he wanted to check something, then it had to be...
"Whether I'm a virgin or not..."
Rina found herself pressing down the front of her pajama top.
"He asked me directly about it before, too."
Was he asking because he had a preference for that kind of woman?
Rina had heard that plenty of men were obsessed with their partner's purity.
Did that mean... could Ian possibly be interested in her, as a woman?
Rina's ears flushed bright red.
"O-Of course not."
Thump. Thump.
Whatever the case, her heart was pounding just from the fact that Ian wanted to talk to her.
Rina dashed straight to her closet.
She picked out her outer clothes instantly.
The real problem was her underwear.
"S-Something plain is better, right?"
But would something like that make her look too childlike?
She didn't want to blow the chance she'd finally gotten.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Rina's heart hammered fit to burst.
◆
My growth was coming along nicely.
"Even for me, this is a little scary."
No. Quite nicely, in fact.
While waiting for Rina, Ian inspected his own condition.
He'd finally gotten quite proficient at using Transformation.
Even with a slight deficiency of mid-to-low-grade materials, he could easily form simple shapes like a shield.
Assuming high-grade materials like Lunar were attached to his body, he could even mold something like a gauntlet freely.
Furthermore.
Once he covered his fist with Lunar and transformed it into the shape of a gauntlet—
— Shink.
He could then sharpen it out into something resembling a dagger.
Visually, it looked like a blade sprouting right from the back of his hand.
"This could definitely serve as a wild card."
Ian released the transformation with satisfaction.
Even in a room that guaranteed privacy, someone might get a scare if they saw it.
"Hyeet! I-Ian! H-Hi!"
He turned toward the source of that startled voice.
Reassured by the familiar tone, he found it was Rina.
Her white blouse contrasted handsomely with the black choker, and her neat but flowing long skirt subtly hinted at her figure.
Just as Ian was about to try and soothe her clearly frightened state,
"Ah-uhn! I wasn't scared! I mean, I was just a little, s-surprised? I know you're a good person, Ian!"
Rina rushed to speak, as if apologizing for being startled herself.
Then she looked flustered by her own words.
"N-No! Not that 'good' means, like, stupidly good. I meant cool! Yeah! Cool."
Just what exactly was she trying to say?
Lately, Rina always seemed so desperately urgent whenever they met, as if something was chasing her.
"It's fine, just sit down and have some water."
"O-Okay."
"Herbal tea is fine for your drink, right?"
Seeing that she seemed to need to settle down, Ian ordered an herbal tea.
"O-Of course! Yeah. Thank you!"
She ducked her head in a slight bow, then fixed her gaze rigidly on the table.
Ian was taken aback for a moment, but since things had come to this, he took the opportunity to observe Rina at his leisure.
Thinking about it, this quiet, face-to-face moment with Rina was likely the first since the 'Blue Mushroom' incident.
They'd met just before the disciplinary committee hearing too, but Rina had been so worked up then, just pouring out words. And Ian had been too busy with the pre-hearing chaos for it to really sink in.
After that, Rina had been wilting like a person with shattered self-esteem.
'Well, it looks like she has a lot she wants to say.'
Ian glanced at the clock.
Now that he thought about it, the Imperial Princess's people would be handling the miscellaneous preparations. There didn't seem to be anything particularly more important after this.
If he could put Rina to good use, she'd certainly be a big help on the Northern Expedition, so...
'I suppose I can spare some time to hear her out.'
The moment Ian reached that conclusion.
As if steeling her resolve, Rina clenched her fists and raised her head.
"I, um! I won't babble like last time, I'll say this right! I-I practiced a lot at home. So 15 minutes is all I need! I-If that's okay with your schedule, Ian."
"Yeah."
"Th-Thank you!"
Rina's eyes lit up brightly.
They were filled with hope, like a person lost on a mountain path who just spotted a light.
"So, what did you want to say?"
"J-Just a moment!"
Hahhh— Hahhh—. Rina closed her eyes, took two deep breaths, and then opened her mouth.
"I've thought a lot about you. The things you showed me, the words you gave me sometimes. The confession you gave me back then, and the cold gaze you gave me later, almost like a warning."
There seemed to be some degree of misunderstanding, but Ian simply nodded for the moment.
"So— I've reached a conclusion. That incident where you fell from the rooftop and left a suicide note. I think someone framed you. And every misunderstanding about you started right there."
"And that's why you helped me out at the disciplinary committee."
"Yeah! Everything I said then was what I truly believe! So, um, I really have to say this..."
Rina bit her lip, then forced her mouth open with difficulty.
"I'm sorry."
Once the words started, the rest of her speech flowed out.
"I'm sorry that I didn't reject you clearly when you confessed to me, because I was too desperate for your help. I'm sorry that I looked down on you when you were being so kind to me. And I'm sorry that I got jealous when you suddenly started to change and do well for yourself. I'm sorry that I couldn't handle that feeling and ended up attacking you with the Blue Mushroom's power. I was... wrong."
Drip.
Tears streamed down from Rina's eyes.
Even so, she squeezed her eyes shut and wiped the tears away.
With trembling lips, Rina continued.
"You took care of me, and then you looked at me coldly. And so, in the end, I found my courage. I decided to shatter the mold of the 'good Rina' who had to live like a fool, being sweet all the time.
"So you're my savior, Ian. And I'm the idiot fool who stabbed my savior in the back. So, if, if it ever so happens..."
Sniff, hic—
Swallowing her tears, even as her overflowing emotions made her hiccup, Rina desperately spoke up.
"If you ever feel like it, I wish you'd punish me someday. Cuss at me, hit me... whatever it is, I was the one who did wrong. So please, just don't treat me like I don't exist."
Rina squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head.
The moment she stopped speaking, an immense stillness filled the air.
A warm yellow glow softly illuminated the surroundings, and the subtle scent of herbs gently settled the atmosphere.
— Plink. Plink.
The droplets falling through that silence were the tears spilling from Rina's eyes onto the back of her hand.
"......."
Ian looked at Rina.
- Tight.
As if awaiting a sentence, Rina's clenched fists trembled violently.