“Wow, you really are huge. Seeing it again like this...”

Rubian muttered as she looked down at the jacket hanging absurdly loose on her.

“It feels like I’m wearing Dad’s clothes. But why did you come?”

She sat down on the large sofa. Khalid dragged over a blanket too and wrapped that around her before finally breathing again.

“I figured you wouldn’t be asleep.”

“Ah... I’m busy.”

Rubian glanced toward the table.

Formulas and all kinds of books were piled across it in complete disorder. Judging by the look of it, she had had no real intention of going to bed at all.

Since when had it been like this?

Since when had she been spending long nights alone like this...?

That thought made Khalid feel faint for a moment.

“This is why you get nosebleeds.”

“That’s not it. I’m genuinely busy...”

“What’s driving you hard enough to wear yourself out like this?”

Khalid waited patiently.

Rubian fidgeted with her fingertips, hesitated for a long time, then finally said, “Actually... there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

For an instant, Khalid wanted to crouch down in front of her and take her hands in his.

“You might have heard, but Sir Delmon died. You know, right? The man you fought during the admission test...”

“Yeah.”

“After I went through someone’s death, I got kind of impatient.”

Rubian said it as briskly as she could.

“The Magic Kingdom is starting to move again too, and because of that, I want to gather the stele formulas as fast as possible and go defeat the Mage King, but it’s not working...”

Why was she always this slow, this clumsy?

“If the stele formula you brought turns out not to be the answer, I’m going to go to the memorial garden in Zelox. And if that’s not it either, then... I don’t know. I’ll just have to start over from the beginning. I’m not sure whether I can do it well, but even so, it’s better than just sitting still and doing nothing—”

“Wait, Rubian.”

When Khalid cut her off, Rubian frowned. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

“What? I’m talking right now.”

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not—”

But the moment she blinked, a tear fell.

Her white hand clumsily rubbed at her cheek.

“Huh?”

Khalid couldn’t hold back any longer. He lowered himself in front of Rubian where she sat on the sofa.

“What are you worried about?”

Rubian fell silent for a long time again.

“...You know, Khalid.”

Her voice came out thick and clogged.

“I went to the funeral.”

“I know. I heard.”

“The stone coffin was huge, and it was freezing cold. Sir Delmon was lying inside it... and when I saw that, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

The coffin had been filled with special anti-decay magic tools Leviathan had prepared himself.

It was the Babilon funeral custom—preserving the body in as whole a form as possible for as long as possible.

Even so—

“A corpse is... a corpse. There’s no such thing as someone dead looking peacefully asleep. It just looked like a wax figure that happened to resemble someone I knew. And that... that felt so unfamiliar, and so terrifying...”

Rubian lifted her head. Thick tears dropped straight down.

“What if Dad ends up like that?”

“Ruby.”

“What if Mom winds up lying there? Or you? Or my brothers, or Grandpa...”

“Ruby, calm down.”

“Because of me.”

Rubian scrubbed at the tears pouring out of her with her palm, then the back of her hand.

“What if Dad came all the way here because of me... and he’s suffering through things he never would have had to, just to protect me?”

All the fear that had been piling up layer after layer burst at once like a broken dam.

Rubian cried miserably as she finally let out what she had been holding back.

With no other choice, Khalid rose carefully and pulled her into his arms.

“Wouldn’t the easiest thing just be for me to go to the Mage King? If I had, Sir Delmon might not have died.”

The guilt she had hidden so tightly raised its head at last.

“I can’t say that to Dad and Mom. It would obviously upset them... But, Khalid.”

“Ruby.”

“I’m scared. Before, I was scared because I had nothing in my hands. But now I’m scared because I’m holding too much. So... I’m scared.”

Her small, burning body heaved against him as she cried and cried without end.

Khalid patted her back gently.

How much time passed like that?

“You done crying?”

Khalid held out a handkerchief. Rubian sniffed hard and rubbed her whole face against it recklessly.

“Mm. I feel better.”

Her eyes and nose were completely red.

Khalid looked at that little face with aching pity, then handed her a glass of cold water.

“Then...”

He waited for Rubian to finish drinking, took back the empty glass, and said,

“Do you need feedback sentence by sentence?”

“What are you, some red-pen teacher...?”

He had no idea what that was.

While he was wondering, Rubian answered in a muffled voice after a pause.

“...No.”

Snff.

Another loud sniff.

“Actually, I know... this isn’t my fault.”

She had just never had the chance to loosen the dark, tangled lump of feelings inside her.

Now that the thoughts circling in her head had finally been spoken aloud, she felt much better. It was as if the tears she had spilled had washed those black emotions away with them.

“Even if I hadn’t existed, Dad would have turned against the Magic Kingdom over the child-soldier issue anyway, and the outcome probably would have been similar.”

The Magic Kingdom becoming an enemy could not really be blamed entirely on Rubian.

“That’s right.”

Khalid said it softly as he brushed her hair back.

“What was bound to happen happened. None of it is your fault.”

“Yeah...”

“As for Sir Delmon, it’s tragic, but it wasn’t because of you either. He died rescuing people according to his convictions. Thinking of that as your fault might actually be insulting to him.”

“...You’re right.”

Rubian took a deep breath.

At some point the two of them had ended up pressed very close together, and she shifted her body back with a short laugh.

“Now that I’ve actually said it out loud, I do feel better. This whole spot here had felt blocked up the entire time, like I had indigestion.”

She rubbed slow circles just below her breastbone.

“Thank you, Khalid.”

Her small voice continued, and Khalid, who had been smiling faintly, deliberately put on a stern look and spoke as though scolding her.

“Then you’re going to sleep now, right? It’s not your fault, and there’s no reason for you to work this hard like you’re trying to atone.”

“...I’ll sleep. My eyes feel scratchy from crying anyway.”

Seeing her smile like that, Khalid felt, for some reason, as if the inside of his mouth had gone bone-dry. Rubian let out a small breath, got to her feet, and began briskly tidying the table.

Feeling the sudden emptiness where she had been, Khalid looked down at his now-empty hands, then abruptly stilled.

Come to think of it...

Wasn’t this the first time?

Touch that had nothing to do with magic.

The moment he realized it, sensations he had not even consciously registered came flooding in like a tidal wave.

She was warm.

Soft, too, and smooth. Now that he thought about it, she had smelled incredibly sweet as well.

Without thinking, he licked his lower lip. His eyes slowly followed Rubian as she moved busily around near the fireplace.

The flames swayed low.

Feeling as if he had swallowed that fire, Khalid thought, without meaning to—

Just a little more...

Couldn’t he touch her again?

Not just her hands... something else...

Then he shot to his feet.

“I... should go.”

“Huh? Hey! Your clothes!”

Bang.

He fled and shut the door behind him, and Rubian’s clear voice cut off instantly.

“What the hell am I saying...”

Khalid stood with one hand braced against the door, breathing hard.

The air was cold, but the blood in his whole body was running hot.

*****

The next evening.

The last day of the festival was supposed to end with fireworks using fireworks magic tools.

Dad gave me permission to go watch them with Khalid. Yay!

Dad looked absolutely hollow under the eyes from dealing with the King...

Poor thing.

I’ll hang out with him later.

We were walking through a crowded street when, even from far away, boom! boom! fireworks began going off.

“Fireworks!”

People ran toward the square, and I nearly got swept up in the crowd for a second before Khalid turned and blocked them with his body.

“There are a lot of people. Be careful.”

A large shadow enclosed me.

For a moment, the feel of his hand drawing me in as it curved lightly around my back made my breath catch.

Yesterday too...

He had hugged me like that yesterday too.

Thump thump thump.

Something was moving busily.

It was my heart.

I slept really well thanks to him yesterday.

Honestly, maybe it was nothing that serious.

But the anxiety had been quietly pressing on me the entire time, needling at me in the background.

After dumping all of it out in front of Khalid and crying, I felt strangely relieved.

Maybe what I had needed was simply the chance to whine like that.

“Do you want to go toward the square?”

Khalid asked slowly. I looked up at the languid eyes resting on me and nodded almost as if bewitched.

“There are so many people, huh?”

“Probably because it’s the last night.”

“Oh...”

We walked side by side through the noisy crowd. After a while, I bit softly at my lower lip.

The backs of our hands...

For some reason, they kept brushing.

Just as I was about to wiggle my fingers because the feeling was oddly ticklish—

“...Ruby, magic.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you need magic?”

The voice that asked sounded slightly husky.

He gave me some yesterday...

But somehow I didn’t want to say that. No—come to think of it, maybe coming somewhere this crowded had made me a little tired after all?

“I do—”

“You do.”

Before I could even finish, he grabbed my hand.

...Nothing’s coming in?

A moment later, soft blue magic began to drift in.

Guess there’d been a delay.

“Don’t say you don’t need it.”

“No, I was about to say I did.”

“Ah...”

Khalid looked a little flustered, which was rare for him.

“I thought...”

He turned his head awkwardly, and the tips of his ears were bright red. Catching that unexpectedly boyish side of him, I relaxed and smiled.

...Even his neck is really red.

Boom! Boom!

Was it because of the fireworks?

If I bit him, would strawberry juice come out?

I snickered to myself.

Then I froze.

“Your mother, you know... she wanted to bite your father.”

Why was Mom’s voice... coming back to me right now?

“Like, chomp! And then before I knew it, I realized it was love.”