Chapter 1 – The Last Vacation Among Classmates
1
The last time all six of us had come down into the streets together with the sun still high had been back in our days at the Philnotes officers’ academy. With the change of emperor barely behind it, the Empire’s military and its civil administration had both gone briefly unsteady, and for weeks now the work had been heavier even than in our first days here. Paperwork piled higher on the office desk night after night, and Rune-sama, plainly worn thin, faced the business of state day in and day out.
Flegel, who shared the burden of assisting her with me, was losing the color in his face by the day, and, judging on her own that at this rate our efficiency would only keep sliding, she abruptly handed the two of us a day off.
A rest at last, a rest wrung out of days spent working from dawn to dusk. And that precious, hard-won holiday—
“Wait, you and Flegel are off tomorrow too, Al? Turns out so am I! Come on, the three of us should go somewhere for once!”
“Oh my. What a coincidence, all three of you. Mia and I are off tomorrow as well.”
“Heyyy, Petra-chan! Bro-suke’s off tomorrow! Isn’t that great? That’s our load-bearing pack mule secured for tomorrow’s shopping!”
“…Don’t tell me. Everyone’s off tomorrow, all six of us?”
By pure chance, it had landed on the same day as the whole rest of the old classmate crowd.
“Aldia, Steano! Get a move on, both of you! We’ll be late for our reservation at the play!”
Petra had gone on ahead at a half-run, fretting over the time at every step, threading through the crowded peddlers’ quarter of the Imperial capital. The road was one long clamor, so packed with people you couldn’t see the cobblestones underfoot. Watching those streets brim with life, you could almost forget the Empire’s administration was in the middle of upheaval.
“Lot of people.”
“Well, it’s the Empire’s capital.”
“No kidding. And the peddlers’ quarter especially draws a crowd, I might just get sick from all the bodies and throw up…”
“Don’t be dramatic. More to the point, is it fine, Petra charging on ahead by herself like that?”
I pointed out Petra, silk-fine gold hair swinging as she pressed boldly into the throng, and Steano shook his head as if to reset himself, then said in a voice pitched slightly too high.
“Crap! We’d better hurry too!”
“Right.”
Steano broke into a light jog after Petra.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“…Nah, I’m about ready to keel over from malnutrition. Skipped breakfast to make room for stall food. I’ve been looking forward to today that much.”
A hand pressed to his stomach, Steano was breaking into a cold sweat, his breathing gone somewhat ragged. An empty gut in a crowd this thick would take it out of anyone. For all his good mood, his color was rather poor. Still, hearing the cause was nothing worse than hunger, I was relieved.
“But man, today’s gonna be great!”
If he could keep grinning through the ache of an empty stomach, part of it was surely the air of the streets, so like our student days come again. So many people, each of them happy just wandering from stall to stall. The merchants cried their wares as if in competition; the passersby answered by stopping to weigh up the goods lined out in rows. It was the daily life of a lively citizenry, peace itself made into a picture. Something nostalgic rose off it, and the memories of Philnotes came back vivid.
“Still, all six of us together, now that’s a rare thing.”
Steano toyed idly at his own brown hair, a rapt little smile on his face, drunk on the bustle around him.
“Most we ever managed was three or four with the same day off. Someone’s on the roster just about every day.”
“Yeah, and most of the time it’s you and Flegel, buried in civil-side work.”
“Sorry about that. I’ll try to work more days off in from now on.”
…Try being the operative word; whether I’d actually manage to rest was another matter entirely. Steano had it right, though. Between us, Flegel and I seemed to get dragged out somewhere in or beyond the castle every single day. As Her Majesty’s personal knight I might be trailing her through the streets to see how the common quarters fared, or shut in with Linos arguing reform after reform of the military. Even back at the barracks with the day’s work done, my head ran at full tilt on tomorrow’s.
Turn my mind to the last little while, and though I crossed paths with the Philnotes classmates often enough on the job, the days when all six of us were free at once could be counted on one hand since we’d come to the Empire.
“One way or another, our days off never did line up.”
“Right?! That’s exactly why I thought it was such a great idea when Mia said she wanted all six of us to go look around the peddlers’ quarter together!”
‘We’re all off for once, so let’s get everybody together and do something!’
It was that one word from Mia that had us meeting up in the peddlers’ quarter of Aldan. What had started as a plan for Petra and Mia to take in a play hugely popular in the capital had become an outing for all six.
We shouldered our way through, slipping along the edge of the main avenue. Slight as she was, Petra threaded neatly between one body and the next, but there wasn’t a gap wide enough for a pack of grown men like us to move through without knocking into anyone. Little by little, the distance to that bobbing gold head opened up.
“Hey, Al.”
“I know. Keep on like this and we lose Petra.”
Worst case, I figured, we’d regroup at the theater. But Steano drew a breath as if bracing himself, then forced his way against the current of the crowd, stepping hard toward where Petra was.
The closer we came to the theater, the denser the crowd grew. Just as I was about to lose sight of Petra up ahead—
“Petra, quick, stop!”
“Huh? Wh-what, all of a sudden?!”
“…It’s just, we’ll be in trouble if we get split up. Al’s way back there too.”
“Th-that’s… true. Sorry.”
Steano caught Petra’s hand as she forged on ahead, and by the barest margin we avoided losing her.
“Hey. Steano, aren’t you gripping too hard?”
“Sorry. But there’s a ton of people, so bear with it.”
Hands joined, the two walked on, and I followed a pace or so behind, parting the waves of people as I went. Normally Petra would be pouring some acid remark over Steano, but just then she let herself be led along quietly by the hand. Eyes lowered a fraction, she murmured under her breath.
“…Honestly.”
Whether it was the crush of the crowd wearing her down or the muggy heat that came with all those bodies, I couldn’t say, but Petra’s face looked to have gone quite red.
2
“Heyyy, over here, you three, over here~!”
Out of the crush and up to the theater, we found Mia, Ambros, and Flegel near the entrance. Perhaps because they’d traded their usual dress for plain clothes, all three had a loose, easy air about them.
“Sorry, sorry. Been waiting long?”
“Hmm. About five minutes, I’d say!”
“Y’know, I read in a book that the polite thing is to say you just got here.”
“What a stupid book. Anyway, never mind. Leave the tiresome-clinging-Steano routine for later…”
“Hey, now.”
Ignoring Steano as he skittered about at her heels, Mia held out the theater tickets she must have bought in advance.
“Al-chi. Here, your ticket for the play.”
“Thanks.”
Once I’d taken it, she walked over to stand in front of Petra.
“Here’s yours too, Petra-chan… huh, what’s wrong? You look kind of down.”
“I-it’s nothing! Thanks for buying the ticket for me!”
Petra all but snatched the ticket, then fidgeted, winding a strand of her prized gold hair around a fingertip, and looked down. Mia’s face took on a shade of suspicion at the meekness of it, and she came over to me and whispered in my ear.
“…Hey, Al-chi. Did something happen to Petra-chan on the way here?”
“No, nothing I can think of.”
I told her as much under my breath. She looked unconvinced, but shook it off at once, seized the meek Petra’s hand, and marched brightly into the theater with her.
“Ahh, Petra-chan! The play, I can’t wait!”
“…Right. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I mean, going out to have fun all together like this, it’s the first time since we were students, huh!”
“Now that you mention it, it is. We’ve been busy in our own ways since coming to the Empire…”
“All right! Today I’m playing until I can’t move a muscle!”
“W-wait, Mia?! There’s no need to rush, the show doesn’t start for a while yet!”
Mia hauled Petra bodily along, bounding and skipping ahead in great surges of energy.
“Huh. Shouldn’t we go help her?”
“Leave it. We don’t want the fire spreading.”
Petra stretched a hand back toward us, mutely begging release from high-strung Mia’s grip, and every one of us shook our heads and saw her off.
“Come on…”
She said it in a scraped-thin voice, throwing a look our way as if in protest, but in the end she was held fast in the crook of Mia’s arm, unable to resist, dragged along by that unruly bounce and led to the theater doors.
Steano watched it with an exasperated eye and let a wry laugh slip.
“Honestly, she never does shut up.”
“She looks like she’s having fun. Where’s the harm?”
Steano, who called Mia a scatterbrain, and Ambros, soothing him, followed the two toward the entrance. That left Flegel and me.
“Rowdy as ever.”
“Nine-tenths of the noise is Mia, though. And most of the other tenth’s Steano.”
For all the grumble in it, Flegel’s own face was calm.
“Aldia. Let’s go in too.”
“Yeah.”
I nodded, and we made for the theater doors together. Near where we’d all met, the crowd had swelled steadily as the start drew near. Once we’d finished at reception and gone through into the theater itself, a wide space opened before us, faintly dark under only the barest of lights.
3
The play behind us, we spilled back out into the streets of the peddlers’ quarter.
“That play was incredible!”
“You could feel exactly what the characters were feeling, in the acting.”
“Right? I couldn’t stop getting swept up in it!”
While the women were busy talking up the play—
“Hey, doesn’t that look good?”
“Let’s go buy some!”
“…Oi, how much are you two planning to buy?”
—Steano and Ambros had their eyes shining at the stall food. Their hands were already full of a mountain of food and drink, and still they were scanning the surroundings. Dodging the waves of people with unlikely skill, Steano bore straight for a stall he’d set his sights on.
“Flegel, we’re gonna go grab from that place over there!”
“Sorry. Go on ahead without us!”
“Ah, wander off on your own and you’ll get lo— …hah. Not listening.”
Before Flegel could get a word out, the two had joined the long line at the stall. He stood there dumbstruck for a moment, then cut his eyes away from them.
“So much for the finer things in life…”
“Steano skipped breakfast for today, apparently.”
“Even so, he’s got no restraint at all. How many stalls is that now…”
“…I can’t argue with that.”
Flegel and I left the two to their line and walked on behind Mia and Petra, who were still deep in the play, talking as we went. A lively scene, and time spent with close friends. Cut it wherever you liked, it was all noise and no rest, and yet every moment of it left me feeling about as happy as it was possible to feel.
“Good that everyone’s having fun.”
“You having fun too, Aldia?”
“Yeah. Just walking around like this is enough.”
An ordinary scene from an ordinary day off. And to me, that was more precious than anything. How many more times, from here on, would all of us gather and laugh together like today? The thought that it might be the last only made me want to hold this time close and savor it.
“I’d like all six of us to meet up again.”
“Anyone gives a shout, we’ll all be together in no time.”
“…Yeah.”
I only hoped a time I could believe that of would go on and on.
“Huh? Where are Steano and Bro-suke?”
“Held up. The stalls got them.”
“Ehh, again? Those two bottomless pits, honestly.”
“Well, we can let it slide just for today. Better they’re enjoying themselves.”
Flegel’s words were the very thing all four of us there held in common.
“True. It’d be graceless to scold anyone today of all days.”
“Flegel and Petra-chan, you’re both too soft.”
Mia called the generous pair ‘soft,’ but she herself seemed to have no real intention of coming down hard on Steano and Ambros for going their own way, and a moment later an innocent smile spilled over her face. For all our griping, we recognized one another for what we were; not one thing about how we’d been at the academy had really changed, most likely.
“Then let’s go on to a really special shop without those two!”
Setting the pace, Mia sprang two, three steps out front, turned back to us, and walked backward.
“Come on, come on, this way, you three! Hurry, or the popular stuff’ll sell out!”
To Mia, leading us along in high spirits, I offered one remark.
“…That’s not going to turn out to be a Crimea Company shop, is it?”
“Gh-glk… n-no way. Al-chi, you say the funniest things.”
“…So I’m right on the money.”
“I-it’s not as if I get a ten-percent cut of the sales as a margin for bringing everyone to the shops, not at all, absolutely not!”
“So there’s a margin too… you’re so rattled you’re leaking the extra details.”
“N-no, I’m not rattled in the slightest. Not one bit, okay?! Oh, say, the moon’s lovely today, isn’t it~.”
“It’s the middle of the day.”
“Ughh, it’s no good. I’m hopeless at keeping secrets…”
Her eyes darted every which way, and in the end she was reduced to confessing she couldn’t lie. A thoroughly honest reaction, that was Mia.
4
The moment we stepped into the district where the Crimea Company’s shops stood in ranks, Mia’s spirits hit their peak. It was the continent’s largest trading house, and it showed: everything set out in the storefronts was of fine quality.
“Well? Well? Pretty great, right!”
Wrapped in all that clamor, even Mia’s voice got drowned out. Catching only the faint gist of her delighted words, Petra nodded, stopped before a stall, and turned her gaze to the accessories. Necklaces and rings, done up in pretty ornament like jewelry made for women, lined the front of the shop.
“This is cute.”
“Yeah. It does look like the sort of thing you’d like, Petra.”
She liked cute things more than you’d expect, and I watched her fondly enough that she puffed out her cheeks and pressed a light fist to my shoulder.
“You’re thinking it wouldn’t suit me, aren’t you. I know that much without being told.”
“…No, it’d suit you. You’re plenty pretty, Petra.”
“—?! I— r-right. Thanks.”
Every reaction out of Petra today was strangely free of thorns. I turned the question over, wondering why that might be—
“…So Petra really can’t take a compliment, huh.”
“You… that’s one word too many. Honestly, go die!”
“Gh…?!”
The moment I put the conclusion I’d reached into words, a merciless blow gouged into my gut.
“Hold on… I didn’t say anything… wrong, I’m pretty sure…”
“You did. You said something rude! I’m not the least bit easily won over, thanks!”
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I’d be the one to take the hazing Steano usually got. …Also, I had absolutely never called Petra easily won over. Having dealt out her unreasonable violence, she spun on her heel and walked on ahead alone.
“Aldia. That one’s on you.”
“Al-chi really doesn’t get how a girl’s heart works, huh. Well, don’t sweat it! That obliviousness of yours probably isn’t getting fixed anytime soon, but!”
Their words, half meant as comfort, barely reached me; until the sting of that blow subsided I couldn’t move a muscle.
5
As I was making my way around the Crimea Company’s shops, a hand tapped me on the shoulder from behind. Wondering who it was, I turned to find Ritziareite, standing there in something a little more casual than usual.
“Sir Aldia. Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”
“General Ritziareite. Good to see you. Are you off today?”
“No. I’m here to talk terms with the Crimea Company over military supplies. I had a little time before the meeting, so I thought I’d look around the shops nearby, and there you were, quite by chance.”
It seemed she was hard at her duties again today. She oversaw everything from the command of troops to the procurement of matériel; there was nothing to say but that it was impressive.
“See anything that caught your eye?”
“Let me think… I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but the bracelet at that shop was very finely worked, very lovely.”
The shop Ritziareite pointed to was the accessory shop Petra had taken to earlier. This place really was popular with women, then. Passersby often stopped in front of it too. The finely made ornaments were rich with a sense of quality and refinement, and yet they didn’t seem to be aimed only at the upper class; the prices were within a commoner’s reach. Quality and cheapness both, and thanks to that the foot traffic held up; the shop was doing brisk business.
“And which one has your eye, General Ritziareite?”
“Which one…”
At my question she thought it over as if torn, then pointed to a white, C-shaped bangle.
“That one, I suppose, if I had to choose. The shape’s simple, and if you mind the sizing it would fit snugly to the arm, so I don’t think it would get in the way of everyday movement, either.”
At an opinion that put practicality first, I found myself nodding along. But having said it, she slowly lowered the finger she’d pointed with and wore a self-deprecating little smile.
“Though I can’t imagine something like that would suit me. Odd, isn’t it, a general of the army wearing a pretty bracelet like that.”
…Ah. Why is it that women in the military always lace their words about themselves with denial? I, for one, would never think it strange for Petra or Ritziareite to dress themselves up. Fretting so keenly over one’s position and how others judge it can’t be a good thing.
“Wait here a moment, would you.”
Leaving Ritziareite where she stood, I headed for the shop in front of us.
“Excuse me. Could I have this?”
What I bought was the bangle Ritziareite had said caught her eye.
“Here.”
When I tried to hand her the bangle in its small wrapping, she shook her head, looking apologetic.
“I couldn’t. I’ve done nothing to earn it.”
“This bracelet’s too small for my arm, and you’ve helped me any number of times, General Ritziareite. Consider it thanks for all of it.”
“Helped you… if anything, it’s I who’ve been saved, over and over.”
Modest as ever, she stubbornly refused to take it.
“There’s no need to run yourself down. I said it before, didn’t I? Rune-sama and I need your strength, and that’s why we named you the general we’d entrust the Provisional Elite Corps to.”
“…Yes.”
“That’s on account of your skill as a dragon-mount soldier, of course, but more than that, we asked you because you’re someone we can trust. I’d never make the fool’s play of drawing an untrustworthy person in as an ally. It was precisely because you’re warm-hearted and never once let your earnestness toward the work slip that I could hand you a role that important. As a colleague, I respect you. It was because you led the Provisional Elite Corps and fought with everything you had that we won against Marquis Rigel, and that we could hold the Empire against the Kingdom and the Order’s threat in the Dyrst region. This is a small token of thanks from a man who’s leaned on you all this time.”
When I threw the honest truth of it at her without a word of falsehood, Ritziareite laughed, looking abashed.
“Put that way, Sir Aldia, refusing would be the ruder thing to do, wouldn’t it.”
She came slowly up to me and touched the bangle in its wrapping.
“Thank you. I’ll treasure this all my life!”
She cradled the bangle to her chest as if it were precious, and smiled.
6
Lately Mia and I had been going out together more and more.
If our days off happened to fall together we’d usually spend them in each other’s company, and a few times a week without fail we’d head into town after work to eat. Back when we lived in Philnotes, Mia and I rarely moved as a pair. It was only after coming to the Empire that I started spending so much of my time with her. Ending up in a land where I had no roots or ties, and her being the only other girl I could talk to easily; that was surely the biggest part of it.
We’d wander the stalls together, the small talk blooming between us. Today too we’d pass the day off as we always did, and end it with a chorus of ‘what a good day,’ the mood high. …That was how it was supposed to go.
“Hey, Petra-chan.”
“What?”
“…Bluntly, though. You’re in love with Al-chi, aren’t you? In the romantic sense.”
“Wh-what—?!”
The heart of a thing always gets struck out of nowhere. In the middle of savoring a girls-only shopping trip, apart from Aldia and the others, Mia had lobbed an outrageous question at me with all the offhand air of idle gossip. Seeing how it had rattled me, she gave an ‘ahaha’ of a laugh and said, deadpan:
“Heheh. I see, I see, so it’s true~.”
“I-I didn’t confirm anything! Don’t be ridiculous—”
“Nope, nope, one look at that reaction and it’s case closed. Nothing gets past the great-trading-house prodigy Mia! I can read Petra-chan down to the very last corner! Sparkle!”
“Aren’t you embarrassed, saying that about yourself?”
“Honestly, super embarrassed! Everyone’s staring at me and it stings like anything.”
The passersby were indeed turning curious eyes on the posing Mia. That loud declaration of her own embarrassment let me claw back a little composure, and once I’d fully reset with a clearing of my throat, I set my mind to picking apart her mistaken theory.
“Mia. For the record, it’s all a misunderstanding.”
“Ehh. What’s the misunderstanding, exactly~?”
“Wipe that lewd look off your face. I will simply kick your shin.”
To Mia, wearing a slack, silly grin, my words surely weren’t getting through. The teasing, mocking manner and the look of someone who understood me only made it more infuriating. Sidling along to press right up against me, she kept prompting in my ear, ‘And? And?’ as though we were sharing some secret.
“Nngh… listen. First of all, I do not think of Aldia as a man.”
“Ah, mm. Already doubtful.”
“Huh? Doubtful how?!”
“I mean, the feelings you’ve got toward Al-chi, Petra-chan, they’re plainly different from what you’ve got toward me or anyone else in the army.”
She said it, but I had no memory of any such thing.
“I’m equally hard on everyone, thank you.”
“Yeah, no, that I get completely. Same drill-sergeant brain you’ve had since Philnotes.”
“That sounds rather like an insult, but fine, let it stand for now. And? If you admit I treat everyone the same, then why is it, Mia, that you think I hold some special feeling for Aldia?”
I drove at the contradiction folded into her words and felt rather triumphant, but Mia told me without her expression shifting so much as a hair.
“It’s like, Petra-chan, only with Al-chi, this sense that you’ve placed your absolute trust in him seeps out of your ordinary conversation. Especially right before a big fight.”
“And how does that connect to romantic feelings?”
“It happens all the time, doesn’t it. Respect turning into love. In other words, that’s exactly it! Trembling before my brilliant deduction yet?”
“The grounds for that conclusion are awfully thin… I’m not trembling in the least.”
No good. Pathetic of me to have been thrown off by intuition dressed up as reasoning like that. I pulled my gaze from the blue-haired airhead throwing out her chest so proudly and looked up at the clear, open sky.
Well, true enough. As Mia said, I did place great trust in Aldia. As a friend of long acquaintance, and as a goal to be overcome, someone stronger than myself. But there wasn’t a scrap of anything so impure as romance in it. What I felt toward him was no infatuation. It was the affection you turn on a one-and-only friend and the pure admiration you hold for someone unassailably strong. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Mia. Like I said, it’s all your misunderstanding.”
“…Hmm. Is it, really?”
“…It is.”
A silence fell between us. The foolery of a moment ago broke off in an instant, and just for a breath, truly only a breath, a conflicted look crossed Mia’s face, as if she pitied me.
“Come on, Petra-chan~, lying about your own feelings only hurts, you know!”
“I always put my own feelings first.”
Yes. I was lying about nothing.
“You’d do better to be honest, let your feelings out where they show~. Because if a time comes when you want to say it and can’t, then knowing your personality, Petra-chan, you’ll regret it enough to die!”
“Hmph. You talk as if you’d been to the future and seen it.”
The instant those words left my mouth, the loose air of before shifted, all at once, into something heavy and hard to breathe.
“Ah, mm. …Then, say. What if I told you I really had seen a sad ending? What would you do?”
“What… what are you suddenly say—?!”
I felt the air freeze against my skin. I might have said something that touched a nerve of Mia’s. The girl before me still wore a smiling face, yet with a thorniness so unlike her usual self that I found myself cowed despite it all. A cold sweat traced down my cheek. It might well have been the first time, even now, that I’d felt so clear and definite a feeling coming off Mia. Usually she was all vague, unhurried surfaces, her thoughts often impossible to read, but just this once I understood plainly. This feeling was grief and pain, wrung to their essence and mixed together into one.
“…You.”
The words to follow wouldn’t come out right. Unlike the way I dealt with her as a friend, this time I too was choosing my words with care. It felt as if a single wrong choice would put something beyond any hope of recovery. As I watched Mia’s face for a sign, she looked at me, brows drawing together, and opened her mouth as if startled, as though she were bewildered at having created a situation she’d never meant to make.
“Ah. S-sorry, Petra-chan! I made it all weird, huh. Ahaha… I don’t usually say stuff like this. Guess I’m a little off my game in various ways today. Ahh, we’ve been on the move nonstop, maybe I’m just tired!”
A forced, papering-over smile. As if driven by some compulsion to keep talking no matter what, she reeled off a slightly too-fast string of empty words. It was the bad habit Mia showed whenever she was trying to hide something inconvenient.
“…Ahh, hey, come to think of it, aren’t you hungry? While we’re here, let’s go get something tasty over that way!”
“…Right. All right.”
“Great! Then, off we go~!”
There were mountains of things I wanted to ask her, but the courage to press any deeper simply wouldn’t come.
7
Dusk came before we knew it. Against a sky dyed a vivid vermilion, jet-black crows wheeled and danced overhead, and the flood of people that had filled the peddlers’ quarter gradually thinned.
“Urp… flat-out ate too much. Even walking home is rough.”
“C-can’t… move…!”
Steano and Ambros, who’d been eating their way through the stalls ever since we split off, sat slumped in evident misery on a bench in the shade of a tree. When I came near, they noticed me and waved, looking pleased.
“You two. About time to head home.”
“Al. Where’d the other three go?”
“Flegel went on ahead, said he had to prep for tomorrow’s work. Petra and Mia are probably still in the district with the Crimea Company shops. Doesn’t look like we’ll regroup; more like everyone just heads home from where they are.”
I sat down beside the two, too full to move, and stretched my own legs out, if more modestly.
“Haah… back to work again tomorrow, huh.”
“But we got to enjoy today to the full!”
“Well. All we did the back half was eat and drink on repeat.”
“True! But I got to eat so many unusual dishes you’d never come across in ordinary life. It was a blast!”
“Ambros. Next time let’s do the rounds, just the two of us!”
“Mm, a fine plan! We two shall conquer every eatery in this peddlers’ quarter!”
Steano and Ambros launched happily into shop talk about food. It was good that a shared love of eating had deepened the bond between them. What sentence Petra would hand down later on the pair for going their own way to the very end, I couldn’t say.
“How was today for you, Al?”
Steano, in a lull in his talk with Ambros, turned to me next.
“I had fun, of course. Left to myself I’d never have come to a place like this. Everything felt fresh.”
“Yeah? Then I’m relieved you actually got to enjoy it. Lately you’ve looked stretched pretty thin.”
“…You’re right. There wasn’t any slack to spare.”
Day after day, I’d kept my nerves honed to an edge. As personal knight to Her Imperial Majesty Valtrune, I’d grudged even the hours of sleep in guarding her person. Not a single day since coming to the Empire had I slept easy. Back when she was still a Princess, political rivals and outside enemies alike had swarmed thick around her, and I’d worn myself frantic beating aside every last spark before it could reach her. To have something precious harmed, or lost, I never wanted that experience again. It was a fear that gnawed at me, day in and day out.
“Knew it. You can tell, huh.”
“Course I can. I’m your best friend.”
“I know.”
No one knew it better than I did. There’d never be a better male friend than him, not in all the years ahead. We’d fought side by side, and his end, his life scattering before my eyes, was carved into my memory deep as a curse, deep enough that I dreamed of it still, now and again.
“Anyway, that’s the thing. Don’t go carrying it all alone too much. I’m not some upstanding guy who could be a personal knight to Her Majesty like you, and I don’t know the first thing about political tangles. But I can hear you gripe anytime. If there’s stuff you need to get off your chest, I’m always here to talk it out. That goes for you too, Ambros!”
Steano threw an arm around both Ambros and me and laughed in a ridiculously loud voice. This man was as good and open-hearted as ever, I thought. It was because Steano was who he was that, after regressing, he was the very first person I could ask to come with me to the Empire. Without even noticing it, I’d had this man save my heart any number of times, I was sure.
“Glad you’re my best friend, Steano.”
“And I think you’re the best friend a guy could have, Al!”
To keep this bond from breaking, I’d go on agonizing over things after this too, most likely. And yet, if I could smash through the high walls thrown up in my path and solve every last one of the piled-up problems, then surely even the bitter, painful things I’d tasted until now could be raised into fond old tales to look back on.
“Someday, for sure… I’ll tell you all of it.”
Impossible right now, but to Steano and the rest of the irreplaceable friends who’d believed in me and come all the way to the Empire, I’d tell everything I’d been through. The joys. The good times. The hard things. The griefs. All the many things I’d felt in one lifetime that had already ended once would sound, to them, as wild as some invented adventure. Even if I told them I was moving back through time, reliving history, they might not believe me. And that was fine. What mattered most was that, at the end, a situation remained in which I could tell them what had happened to me, hidden nothing, even if only as some tall tale.
8
Once we’d taken a good long rest for our stomachs, the surroundings had gone fully dark.
“See you, Steano. Back at the Imperial Castle.”
“I’ll scout out the eateries around here before our next food crawl. Later!”
“Yeah. See you, both of you!”
Parting from Aldia and Ambros, I walked the night road alone. From the noisy space of three men a moment ago to this: apart from the faint clamor drifting in from around me, there wasn’t a single voice nearby. It was a way home with hardly anyone on it, but oddly enough I made out a figure coming toward me from up ahead.
—Not that it crossed my mind for a second that it might be someone I knew.
“Surprise. Didn’t figure on finding you out here alone, Petra.”
“…That’s my line. Steano.”
A sky full of stars, and half past nine, a chill night wind blowing. We’d all broken up wherever we stood, but by some twist of fate I’d run into Petra on the way home.
“You didn’t head back with Mia?”
“No. There was… a bit of that.”
Petra fumbled the words with something held back in them, and looked away.
“…Huh. Not that I get it. Girls have their stuff too, I guess.”
I didn’t dig. She didn’t have the air of someone who’d talk even if I got curious and pressed, and I had no wish to sour her mood over nothing.
“You… you’re better at reading a room than I’d have thought.”
“…Well. Even a guy like me’s been knocked around by the real world a bit lately.”
“Pff. What’s that supposed to be!”
It was half a snort of derision, but I was glad to see even a little of a cheerful smile come back to Petra. She and I fell naturally into step, walking the quiet night road.
“Honestly. Getting split off because you couldn’t rein in your appetite, what were the two of you even doing?”
“My bad. First time downtown in ages, we got a little carried away.”
“I’m sure. I knew you would.”
“Figured. Thought you’d have the whole thing pegged.”
Gold threads swaying with a lustrous sheen, Petra clasped her hands behind her back and looked up at the stars. Somehow, time spent alone with her felt nostalgic.
“Y’know. Just the two of us like this, Petra. Takes me back to Philnotes.”
“Just the two of us…? Ah. When I taught you your lessons.”
“Ngh. Some nasty trauma just came surging back…”
I’d never forget it. That hellish one-on-one study camp with Petra. It was what came of me, a fixture in remedial classes, clinging to her in tears to help me cram for the test of a course I absolutely could not fail. A brutal week began, one where I wasn’t allowed to leave the study desk day or night. Al and the others, worried, brought snacks by from time to time, but at bottom it was nothing but torment: solving practice problem sets over the test range on my own, under Petra’s watch the whole while.
“That was the worst.”
“Oh? But weren’t you overjoyed at scoring your first perfect hundred in that course?”
“I got shut up a whole week under those extreme conditions. Of course I was thrilled to death when it actually got results!”
“Then it was worth it, wasn’t it. One course cleverer.”
“And in exchange I got saddled with a trauma I’ll carry to the grave!”
Petra wore a smile now, the shadow of unease she’d carried before wiped clean away. One way and another, I’d spent all day steeped in memories of our student days.
“Plenty happened, but the days up to now really have been full ones.”
At that, Petra tucked her hair behind an ear and nodded.
“They have. Nothing but things worth remembering.”
A day spent walking the peddlers’ quarter with all six of us, and I’d grown certain of something. However many years passed from here, this group of six would surely stay a bunch who could share the same fun we did as students.
“Today, too. Six of us out to play, getting worked up over stupid stuff same as the old days, seeing the same sights, larking about the same way we used to… everything I’m worried about, everything I hate, I forgot all of it and just, purely, got to enjoy that time.”
“…Even if today’s already over now.”
“Yeah, well. But come tomorrow, we’ll still be friends, no different.”
A day like today would never come again, but the years could pass and our friendship wouldn’t waver. Even when all six of us had become doddering old men and women, I figured, we’d deal with one another no differently. And even if this bond someday faded, we’d never forget it; it would be carved somewhere in our hearts as a precious memory and stay there until we died.
“I want to come again.”
“Yeah.”
“…Next time too, I hope we can get all six together.”
To the offhand line I let fall, Petra spoke a cruel one.
“If everyone’s still alive, that is.”
“—!”
—That was right. It wasn’t as if we could go on laughing together, all six of us, forever. There was war with the Kingdom ahead of us, and we’d go to the battlefield as soldiers and fight with our lives on the line. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten. I’d only been pretending not to notice.
“Today might be the last time all six of us can gather.”
“…Yeah.”
“And there you and Ambros go, running off wherever your cravings take you.”
“…Sorry.”
The usual perfunctory apology wouldn’t come. Because I’d been made to realize that today’s gathering might be, for us, the last memory we’d ever make.
“I mean it, I’m sorry. After you and the others put so much thought into it.”
“Haah. What are you apologizing so sheepishly for. It’s ridiculous.”
“Ridic— ridiculous? I’m being serious here—”
“You don’t need to worry about that. You had fun today, didn’t you. We all met up for the first time in ages and did exactly what we wanted to the hilt. That’s enough, isn’t it.”
As I moved to argue back, Petra pressed a forefinger to my lips and smiled.
“If today became a fun memory for you, then that alone is more than enough… I’m glad.”
“——!”
She usually talks with a much cooler face, so the way she smiled at me plain and unguarded at a moment like this really was, I thought, unfair of her.
“Seriously… I can’t win against you.”
Petra was supposed to be the same age as me, and yet there was a composure to her that made me half feel I was the younger one. It was always her doing the leading, where I was concerned. Today too she’d taken care over my low mood and, with a warmth she almost never showed, leaned close and stayed near so that I wouldn’t take things to heart.
“Petra.”
“Hm?”
“You were looking out for me, weren’t you. Thanks.”
Where Petra was concerned, I could never hold my head up. It was because she existed that, at Philnotes and in the Empire both, I’d come to feel it mattered to put in the work. To set a goal and truly want to climb past it: that genuine drive I’d never even have held without her.
“Not really. As if I’d be looking out for the likes of you, now of all times.”
“Ha ha… is that so.”
That one was an easy lie to spot. She’s surprisingly guileless, so it shows on her face. Ever since I’d thanked her, the corners of her mouth had been twitching happily. Pretending to comb her hair to desperately hide the grin, that too. So very easy to read. She was the same as me: the type who tries to keep something hidden and has it surface on her face right away, seen through by the other person at once.
“You know, the two of us, we might be more alike than you’d think.”
The thought slipped out of my mouth. Petra’s eyes flew wide at the words—
“Huh? No, sorry. I don’t get what you mean at all?”
“…Ehh?”
—and, wearing a dubious look, she cut my words down on the spot without mercy. No, that was the part where you say ‘maybe you’re right,’ and we get that mutual-understanding thing going. Why do you shoot it down instantly right there? But no matter how hard I appealed with my eyes, not one bit of what I felt reached her.
“Uh, what? What’s wrong?”
Petra, apparently, didn’t think for a moment that she was anything like me.
“We’re not alike?”
“Are you and I alike? Hmm. Maybe we’re al— no, we’re not. Not, not, not. Absolutely not. I’m not that much of an idiot, and I take a much wider view of what’s around me. Completely different.”
That the way she denied it was far too rude to me is another matter entirely. Had all her earlier consideration flown off somewhere? She said whatever she liked without a shred of reserve.
“…Hey. You could stand to look out for me a little more, you know.”
“No. Too much bother.”
“Ah, there it is… so that earlier one, you meant that straight too.”
“Earlier one? What are you talking about.”
One thing had become clear. The kindness Petra showed now and then was, to the woman herself, something she wasn’t aware of. And nothing’s crueler than kindness a person doesn’t know they’re giving. Because you get the feeling, all on your own, that you understand each other, and go and pin all sorts of hopes on it.
“Hold on. What have you been trying to say all this while? I don’t follow at all.”
Genuinely unable to grasp what I meant, she pressed in on me, looking uneasy. Well, all right. Passing the time riding along at her pace like this wasn’t half bad, unexpectedly.
“Nah. It’s nothing.”
I took Petra’s hand just like that.
“Wh—!”
“It’s cold, let’s hurry home. We’ve both got an early start tomorrow.”
The hand I’d joined with mine was faintly cold, from being out in the wind, maybe.
“Don’t just grab it out of nowhere. Same as this morning… you scared me!”
“Sorry, sorry. You just looked cold, so I sort of… and my hand was freezing too.”
“…Don’t warm yourself up with my hand!”
The sharp glare she turned on me, business as usual. It had become the same old familiar pattern, but it was far and away better than the conversation going stiff and awkward over some touchy subject.
“…Hey. I’m getting hungry.”
“You’ve been eating your way through the stalls this whole time since we split off, haven’t you? What are you, a starving brat?”
“There’s a good place up ahead. Mind if we stop in a bit?”
“I don’t mind. Just don’t overdo it.”
“I know!”
No good comes of thinking about what’s ahead; it only stokes the worry. For now, if I could just go on enjoying this time, that alone was more than enough.