MB Chapter 19

"Goiyo, your dress is a little different today—you look so neat!"

"I hate standing out. I get embarrassed and flustered when people stare at me. Anyway, this dress—it's similar to the one you recommended before, Therio. Is it all right?"

"Yes, it's very pretty!"

The boy's face, bright with an unclouded smile, made Goiyo fidget with her fingers in embarrassment. She was ten years old, standing among children adorned with fairy-tale skirts dripping with lace—and she alone wore a plain skirt with no ornament at all. It was, just slightly, mortifying.

She had deliberately dressed this way because she found it embarrassing to be decked out prettily and receive compliments, and yet this also embarrassed her. It was contradictory. But she regretted it all the same.

And then, the moment she heard Therio's words, she reversed entirely, and her mood lifted in an instant. Goiyo felt a little ashamed of her own fickleness.

"You know, Goiyo. My mother used to wear a lot of this kind of thing too, apparently."

"Can you remember that?"

"No, I've only seen her in portraits. I don't really remember her."

Ah. Goiyo nodded, and Therio smiled with easy confidence.

"But I'd have known even without the portrait. Alte people are all knights—we don't like dressing garishly."

"Yes? Why?"

"People should have inner substance. Spending all that money on outward appearances—it makes you seem a little empty-headed."

"Empty-headed is too cruel... You can't help it if you like pretty things."

Goiyo didn't think badly of garishness—she only disliked drawing attention—and so Therio's words fell on her like a personal attack.

He tilted his head at the sight of the crestfallen girl. Was gaudy the same as pretty?

"But Goiyo is pretty even without wearing gaudy things."

"What are you saying—that's embarrassing."

"But it's true. Plain and neat suits you better. It makes you look even prettier."

Does it? Goiyo glanced down at herself.

"Goiyo. Could you keep dressing like this from now on?"

"Huh? But for birthdays and big parties..."

"It only matters that you're pretty. Won't you? Please?"

He was almost pleading, asking again and again, and Goiyo had little choice but to nod. She disliked standing out anyway, and if this suited her better, it made more sense to wear what suited her.

"All right."

"Then it's a promise?"

"I said all right, I mean it."

At her words, Therio smiled like the sun. But that radiant smile faded at once, and a cold blankness settled over the young Therio's face as he looked at her.

"You promised. So why."

"What?"

"Why did you marry the marquess?"

Therio reached out. Before she could recoil, the hand that seized her throat grew in an instant, transforming into an adult's hand.

Ten years old to twenty-nine—Therio, who had grown in a moment, strangled her. She had grown too, and not only Therio, but she could not even manage to struggle properly.

"Why did you marry that gaudy, extravagant man? Why, Goiyo? I told you—garishness doesn't suit you."

"The—rio...!"

"Why are you breaking your promise, Goiyo. Why won't you listen to your mother, Goiyo."

It was a dream—no pain came to signal that—yet the terror of it was absolute.

"I told you not to get married. I said you'd be unhappy. So why did you, why did you not listen to me and marry him. Goiyo, Goiyo, Goiyo. I loved Melishi, and you clung on and married me anyway, and Melishi died—died in your place."

"Let—go—!"

"You have to take responsibility, Goiyo. Did you not think of me, left alone when you ran away like that? Why won't you listen to me. I was the only one who was ever by your side. Your friend, your lover—it was all me."

"Ngh!"

"Goiyo. Come back, come back, come back, come back."

Still gripping her throat, Therio tilted his face to one side. He broke into a pleased smile and brought his face close.

Lips that could brush hers at any moment. He watched her flail against a rising tide of contempt, and then shaped words without sound.

It isn't too late yet.

"Goiyo!"

"Hah—!"

It was another nightmare.

Goiyo woke gasping, heaving air in rough, ragged pulls.

The world before her had changed; every trace of Therio Alte had vanished—yet her heart would not stop its uneasy hammering.

Entzi, who had woken her, stood at a loss for a moment before carefully drawing her body—slick with cold sweat—into his arms. There was no force at all in the embrace; he left it loose enough that she could push him away at any moment.

At the contact, Goiyo flinched. But the sound of another person's heartbeat—slightly too fast—proved more steadying than she had expected.

The rigidity in her slowly drained away. When he confirmed she wasn't pulling back, Entzi closed the circle of his arms and held her properly.

Her ragged breathing quieted, bit by bit.

"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't quicker to wake you."

"No, no. ...It's all right."

Goiyo pressed her eyelids shut as though to smother the unease. Open or closed, it was all darkness either way—but with her eyes shut, she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat more clearly, and that seemed, somehow, a little better.

The panic and dread from within the dream shed their power slowly, here in the waking world. When the feelings dispersed into the air, sorrow moved in to fill the space they left behind.

What had she ever wanted, that it led to this. Why must she still suffer—even now, when she had already resolved to die, when an ending had already been arranged for her?

Why must she dream of a face she was no longer obligated to see, and submit to its cruelties?

There had been many days when Goiyo had felt this sorrow. Sometimes it welled up because of her family. Sometimes because of strangers. Sometimes, one by one, because of Therio Alte—sharp and sudden, without warning, countless times over.

But there had never been a day when the sorrow was soothed. Her family were nothing more than formal blood relations to her. Therio had never known how to meet her sorrow with understanding.

And so Goiyo had learned to soothe herself, and in time even a briefly rising emotion would drain away again quickly. But it wasn't working now.

Because of the warmth of the arms around her. Because of the low voice saying I'm sorry I wasn't quicker to wake you. Because of the hand patting her back, clumsily, as though it wasn't quite certain what it was doing.

Because of Entzi. A heart softened by water opened her dry lips.

"In the dream—in the nightmare—Therio appeared. Just like you said. Scrap metal."

"I see."

"Therio never put his hands on me—not once, in real life—but it was so vivid. He strangled me. Why won't you listen to what I say, he said, and I—"

"Looks like I need to strangle that bastard too, then."

"That's too scar—what?"

"Nothing. Go on."

"And so... and that's all, really. Just—he said I shouldn't have gotten married, why wouldn't I listen, and he cursed me to be unhappy, and come back, come back—"

With each word Goiyo spoke, the pressure in Entzi's clenched jaw increased. He was aware that her face was buried against his chest and he could not be seen, so there was no need to manage his expression.

His hand, meanwhile, continued to move in slow, unhurried pats against her back—utterly gentle, utterly without force.

Not knowing what face Entzi was making, Goiyo finished unburdening herself and felt embarrassed after the fact.

It had been nothing more than a dream, after all—what was there to lament so deeply? Entzi had simply been too willing to listen, and so the thought of stopping had never occurred to her.

'An overly kind pretender is a problem in its own right.'

Her lips, embarrassed into silence, opened again to offer an excuse.

"The dream was too vivid. I'm prone to nightmares normally—I'd be fine—but tonight's was especially vivid."

"You have nightmares often?"

"Yes, a little. ...Anyway, I'm sorry for making such a fuss. You must have been exhausted today."

"No, I—I wasn't sleeping anyway, so it's fine. And that wasn't a fuss. Even in a dream, before you wake, you experience it fully, don't you. The sensations and the emotions—they're all real."

Goiyo blinked, listening to him. She could find no fault in what he said.

"...That's true."

"Even if it didn't happen in reality, it's something you lived through. Being hurt by it is entirely natural. Which means, by the same logic, that scrap metal has committed a genuine crime against you."

"What?"

"But crimes committed in dreams won't be processed by a court of law—so I suppose I'll have to handle it myself—"

"That's a joke, isn't it?"

The voice that asked was quietly, fervently hopeful. Entzi answered with perfect composure.

"Of course it's a joke."

"What you said a moment ago, about strangling him—that too?"

"A witticism."

"...All right. It wasn't very funny, but."

Goiyo nodded. It wasn't terribly convincing—but once her words had stilled, silence settled naturally between them.

She lay there listening to the mingled sound of their breathing, and something about it—the way the terror of waking already felt so remote—made drowsiness creep up on her again.

'Is it because I'm in this person's arms.'

She had been about to ask Entzi to let go, but decided to leave things as they were.

If he found it uncomfortable, he would release her on his own. There was, too, a small and selfish reason: his warmth felt pleasant.

Pressing her flickering eyelids shut, Goiyo spoke the thought that had surfaced.

"You know, Entzi. I think you were right not to burn the rose garden."

"Is that so."

"I want to try liking roses."

The words Therio Alte had spoken in the dream.

'People should have inner substance. Spending all that money on outward appearances—it makes you seem empty-headed.'

'The one who was empty—inside and out alike—was you.'

'But it's true. Plain and neat suits you better. It makes you look even prettier.'

'Don't force that on me.'

'Then it's a promise?'

'A promise you never kept yourself. I have no reason to keep it for you.'

Whether the dream had been a true memory of something that happened long ago, or whether she had dreamed it because of the conversation she'd had with Entzi about gaudy tastes—she couldn't say.

The dream's exchange had looked plausible enough, but it wasn't anything Goiyo could remember having.

Yet just as she had, without quite noticing when, grown accustomed to the scent that clung to Anzik Bethelgius—a scent she had initially found so abrasive—perhaps the things she had believed she disliked were not truly things she disliked at all.

Perhaps she had only been frightened of them because they were strange. Perhaps she could come to like them.

Sleep was muddying Goiyo's voice.

"Perhaps I don't dislike gaudy things after all."

"That's a relief."

She couldn't tell how he had understood her, blurred as she was. Goiyo laughed softly, from somewhere half inside a dream.

"Entzi."

"Yes, Goiyo."

"Thank you."

The hand that had been patting her back went still. The sleeping woman's breath soon settled into an even rhythm, and still long after—

In a room with nothing but silence, the man finally managed to part his lips.

"...Yes."

The sound was low and muffled—too small, too quiet—such that even if Goiyo had been awake, she would not have heard it.

"Sleep well, Goiyo."

Entzi pressed his lips to the sleeping woman's hair. The face buried in darkness looked unutterably complicated. Nothing at all like the face of a man wearing a mask.