Episode 6. After Seeing It All
Adel's voice trembled.
"What... what do you mean?"
Fortunately, her face remained expressionless even in this moment. Gray placed the glasses back on her stiff nose bridge.
"Not quick on the uptake? It means you have something to hide."
Adel steadied her heart, pounding so fiercely it felt like it would burst through her ribs. She reflexively glanced at Grace. Just in case she had woken up.
Gray followed her gaze to Grace and chuckled softly.
"Got some unspeakable story, huh?"
Adel fired off an excuse like a bullet.
"It just naturally changed color as I grew up."
"Ah, naturally. Natural is good. Works everywhere. Mutations are natural too, after all."
What the hell is he saying? One of Adel's eyebrows twitched. Gray winked one eye, scrunching it, and whispered.
"I met someone in Hallock with eyes like that."
"……."
"A mutant, they said? Born that way."
Adel's shoulders jerked.
"No. I don't know why, but they were red at first, then they just turned like this. Really."
Gray propped his chin on one hand and stared piercingly at the flustered Adel. Only then did she realize how suspicious it was to desperately explain the eye color of 'Adel Nora' to someone who wouldn't care either way.
Sure enough, Gray laughed again. This time, it was blatant mockery.
"No need to try so hard. I'm not interested."
"…Pardon?"
Gray said indifferently.
"Not interested. Whether your eyes are whatever color, or you have three nostrils, or green skin. So no need to hide so desperately. I won't talk about you."
He dismissed her lightly once more. Just like on the balcony earlier, trapping her behind a glass wall with a mere glance.
"I know a few people who live so complicatedly, and they're mostly a hassle."
"…A hassle?"
"Yeah, those kinds of women. A hassle."
His plump lips, flushed with color, twisted again.
"I hate hassles."
He even squinted one eye as if truly repulsed.
"Don't worry needlessly. No need to fret."
With that, he turned away from her without a hint of hesitation.
This time, with no friends around and no conversation she couldn't join, it felt like an impenetrable thick wall had risen, cleaving the boat in two.
Glancing around, he soon spotted what he was looking for and muttered.
"Should I go get it?"
It was an oar drifting far away.
"What a pain. Should I just push the boat?"
Moments later, a heavy splash echoed as something dropped below the boat again. Snapping back to her senses, Adel's view now showed only Gray's head, heading toward the oar.
The unmistakable silver gleam sank silently into the lake. Adel followed the black ripples left on the surface with her eyes. She just stared for a long while like that.
What was this strange, unpleasant feeling?
He had made it clear. He hated hassles and wouldn't breathe a word about her eyes to anyone.
She should be relieved, but somehow... it felt awful.
Adel looked around the world dyed black once more and unwittingly frowned.
Come to think of it, isn't it ridiculous? He hates complications, so why did he personally put on and take off her glasses? Peering so intently with those oddly smiling eyes.
Not even threatening her or anything.
"Jeez. After seeing everything…."
Watching Gray surface and grab the oar, Adel unwittingly kept muttering.
"Why act like I'm the hassle?"
And in that instant, she panicked. Hassle or not, what did it matter? She had already decided to neatly give up on him anyway.
Pondering her unfamiliar sensitivity, Adel reached the same conclusion: people from the Valoneck family were all rude. Something must be wrong with their upbringing. Nothing but bad, weird bastards.
Her startled heart, pounding like mad, finally calmed as if by magic.
***
That night, Adel barely made it back to her dilapidated house at the mountain base. Leaving Lily at a city stable before going to Full Moon had been a stroke of luck.
Her body, flailing in the cold water, slumped like wet cotton the moment she mounted. Fortunately, smart Lily brought her safely home without instructions.
She didn't remember how she washed or fell asleep. Her last conscious moment was already in bed, under the covers.
And Adel dreamed the dream she always had when exhausted. Without fail, tonight too.
A dream of her siblings.
She was glad to see their dear faces, but just as much heartbroken. A dream like a damp marsh, where pain stained like tears wouldn't dry even after waking.
In the dream, Summer was young and homeless. Having no walls to block the bone-chilling cold was hard for her too, but fatal agony for her even younger siblings.
Her brother Winter clutched his frostbitten feet and cried.
"Summer, my feet hurt and itch so much. I want to scratch, but it hurts too bad. I can't feel my hands."
Her baby sister Autumn, who could barely speak, just clung to Summer and cried.
"Summer, Summerrrr. Hic, sob."
The night before, the children had scratched their frostbitten bodies all night, crying. Skin swollen red then hardened stiff repeated bursting and cracking, bloodied. Unable to sleep from itch and pain, the siblings grew ever more sensitive.
"Winter, watch Autumn for a bit."
"Going to get medicine?"
Summer sighed softly at Winter's teary eyes.
"Yeah."
"Okay. Hurry back."
Thus, Summer left her collapsing siblings in the ruins and headed to the slaughterhouse at the neighborhood edge.
The slaughterhouse main gate was guarded by butchers. Judging it hard to sneak in, Summer rounded the corner of the massive wall.
Climbing nearby trees to barely scale the towering wall, Adel crawled through the slaughterhouse's brutal sights and foul smells. What she finally stole was inedible animal entrails fat.
The stench from the hidden entrails was foul, but spilling even that would alert the butchers and spell disaster. So Adel clutched the entrails fat to her body. Covered in the foul grease, she ran to her siblings.
"Urk, Summer, gonna puke."
Summer boiled the entrails fat thickly over a hot fire, cooled it a bit, and applied it to her siblings' chapped skin. But Winter kept dry-heaving from the smell. Summer scolded sternly.
"Just endure a little. You'll get used to the smell soon."
"Hing. What's the use if only I get used to it? Neighborhood kids throw rocks saying I stink."
Summer's hand paused briefly. But she hardened her face even more sternly.
"Isn't your belly full? Better than getting stoned, better than not sleeping at all?"
"……Sleeping."
"Right. So endure it. Need to apply more, got it?"
She acted resolute. The sister responsible for her siblings had to pretend contempt from people didn't hurt, pretend the vomit-inducing smell didn't bother her.
After evenly applying the grease even to baby Autumn blinking startled at the smell, Summer headed to the riverbank.
"Wahak, urk."
Her empty stomach churned wildly. Holding back calmly in front of her siblings, what she finally vomited was only yellow gastric juice. The midwinter riverbank froze even that dilute bile.
Her hands pressing the frozen ground froze too. Her cheeks felt torn by the fierce river wind.
"Urk, urk."
Dry-heaving brought physiological tears. But the wind was so cold, the tears wetting her cheeks froze instantly. It stung. Naturally, she couldn't cry.
Summer roughly wiped her own cheeks, more burst and red than her siblings' feet, unable to apply anything. As she soothed her stomach and lingered long at the riverbank, suddenly Winter's voice rang loudly from afar.
"Summer! Summer! Autumn's acting weird. Must hurt bad!"
"What?!"
Startled, Summer bolted upright.
"She's clutching her belly, rolling and crying!"
"Wait, just a moment!"
She hurriedly ran back to her siblings.
In the ruins with walls cracked and broken everywhere, the bonfire Summer had lit before going to the riverbank had already died down. On the thickly laid straw, Autumn was truly rolling. Curling her already tiny body even smaller, trembling.
"Summerrrr, Summerrrr."
"Autumn! What's wrong! Why hurt again?!"
"Summerrrr, sorry. Hurts, sorry."
"Come here, quick!"
Summer hurriedly hugged Autumn tight. Though she gently stroked the crying child's small back, no kind words came from her mouth.
"What did you eat wrong? What did you scavenge?!"
"Hicccc, sowwy. Sowwy."
"Ugh, can't live! Really can't live."
Her insides felt rotting. Unknowingly, Summer yelled.
"How many times have I told you not to eat anything scavenged?! Huh?! Is this how you're gonna be?!"
"Sowwy, waaah, hungry. Waaah."
"Can't live, really! Gonna keep making me upset like this? Huh?!"
Summer yelled more out of guilt. The river frozen lately from cold, unable to catch even one fish properly, out of guilt.
Don't hurt, don't hurt, our baby.
Summer cried with Autumn. Don't hurt, our baby.
"Sis is sorry."
"Summer…. Summer…."
The child's cries gradually subsided. More like fading smaller and more distant.
The Summer in the dream sobbed, calling her sister.
"Autumn… Autumn…."
It was the unconscious projection of the current dreaming Summer, Adel. She knew her baby sister had ultimately, truly, died in pain.
Don't cry, baby. Sorry. Don't hurt. Sis is sorry.
"Autumn, Autumn…."
Sorry for yelling. Don't hurt, our baby.
"Hic, sorry."
Sorry for realizing late.
"Autumn, sob."
Sorry for not saving you.
"Hic."
Sorry.
"Sob."
"Sob."
"Hic."
"Hic, Autumn."
"Hic, baby. Hic."
Adel's eyes slowly opened. But even open, she saw nothing. Face buried in the pillow, all was dark.
Tears from sleep had made everything a mess.
Adel flipped her prone body. A white ceiling came into view. The shabby home of 25-year-old surviving Summer, fake Adel.
The young siblings from the dream had vanished before she knew it, and today too, she was alone.
