Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Memories of the Flower Garden

“Come to think of it, you were sitting in front of a flower bed last time too, were you not? Miss Eisel, do you perhaps like flowers?”

Zeto asked me.

I stared blankly at him, then opened my mouth.

“...I do. Very much.”

Using liking flowers as an excuse, I conveyed words I had not even managed to tell him in the previous round.

I like you. I love you.

Thank you. I’m sorry.

There were so many things I wanted to say to him.

But only this much.

This much, uttered under the pretext of an excuse.

It was the best the current me could do.

Soon, Zeto bent his knees and brought himself to my eye level.

It was a good habit of his.

Even though he could not see the face of the person he was speaking with, and even though the eyes that would have met mine were covered, he still tried somehow to create that feeling.

At last, his lips opened.

“...I like them too.”

His warm voice slowly tickled my ears.

Having him stare straight at me while saying those words... even though our eyes were not meeting, it was terribly embarrassing.

Pretending to look at the flowers, I hurriedly turned my head away from him.

Then memories of the previous round circled in my head.

The day I dealt with Krectar together with Zeto, the conversations I had shared with him with the thing’s corpse behind us brushed through my mind.

“We managed to deal with it somehow. To think we would encounter a demon.”

“Indeed.”

“He seemed to know Miss Eisel.”

“...There was a reason for that.”

Looking at his face, where the smile was vanishing at my answer, I had asked him that question.

“Are you scared...?”

“I am.”

“Considering that, you cut him down quite easily.”

“That is not what I mean...”

...I still had not forgotten what Zeto had said to me then.

“...Miss Eisel?”

When I came to my senses, Zeto was calling me.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

I answered Zeto like that and shook my head.

Had he really killed Krectar?

If so, why, and how?

Facing him only made the questions grow larger, and yet it did not even feel as though any clue would unravel.

So I had no choice but to have a meaningless conversation.

“I was curious what flower you like the most.”

“That is... a secret.”

“Even if you tell me the name, I will not know it, though?”

“...Even so, it is a secret.”

I answered that way and lowered my head deeply.

I could not say it.

Because the flower I liked was the flower Zeto liked.

Because I had never had any particular flower I unusually liked in the first place.

“...What flowers do you like, Zeto?”

I glanced at Zeto and asked that.

Soon, he tilted his head and opened his mouth.

“Who knows? I like them, but I do not know much about them...”

“Then choose the one with the best scent in this garden right now.”

“Hmm... That is a good idea. I will look for it.”

Zeto rose from his place.

I also stood up after him.

I began walking through the flower garden behind him.

The sun slowly beginning to set.

The sound of his footsteps, coming like whispers at my ears.

The sound of my footsteps that followed.

The sweet fragrances of flowers pouring from the garden.

All of it was probably close to coincidence, but it was the same as that time.

Even the place where Zeto’s feet stopped after he took a deep breath... was the same as back then.

He stood before the same flower.

Soon, he brought his face close to the flower.

Then he pointed at it.

“I like this flower the most. This scent, faintly spreading far... one that does not give me a headache no matter how long I smell it. What is the flower’s name?”

Zeto asked me that next.

It was like an illusion.

Was it because old memories had remained in him for some unknown reason, and he was imitating the him from the previous round?

Or was it simply because he was the same person, and so the same answer came out?

Either way, it was a complicated problem for me.

What mattered was that I did not want to lose him ever again.

“...Obshion.”

“Obshion. I should remember that.”

I bent my knees and sat before the Obshion.

It was a flower containing a mysterious mix of many colors, and because it was fairly rare, only one bloomed even in this garden.

“There is an old story passed down about Obshion. Would you like to hear it?”

“An old story... I would like that.”

Zeto affirmed, and I began reciting the story of Obshion.

Obshion.

That was a woman’s name.

Since long ago, Obshion had carried all kinds of misfortune with her.

Because of that, she was often misunderstood as a demon.

Even she had one lover who could be called her only fortune.

He was a man named Julian.

One day, Julian, who was Obshion’s lover, earnestly told her never to leave the house until he came back for her.

Unable to understand why, Obshion at first trusted his words and locked the door.

One day passed.

Two days passed.

Obshion felt stifled.

Perhaps Julian had left her.

Perhaps, since she brought misfortune with her, she had made him hate her.

Soon, she decided to check.

In the end, Obshion left the house and searched for Julian, but he was nowhere to be found.

Far from Julian, she encountered the villagers, who had come out carrying torches and weapons.

When they found her, they shouted that they had found the demon, then captured her and tried to burn her.

Obshion fled desperately, but misfortune followed her until the very last.

She tripped over a tree branch.

In the end, the people caught Obshion.

She cried and screamed that she was not a demon, but no one believed her.

...And so, Obshion was burned alive.

Then what had Julian, Obshion’s lover, been doing?

He had somehow persuaded a Saint in the Holy Kingdom and was bringing him to the village.

In order to prove that Obshion, the lover he loved so much, was not a demon.

However, what Julian’s eyes saw... was Obshion already turned to ash.

Ah, Obshion.

The man swept up the ashes and wept bitterly.

The Saint watching this had nothing he could do.

He merely raised his hand high and bestowed the Chief God’s blessing, which now held no meaning, upon those poor, pitiable souls.

The Chief God’s blessing and the tears filled with the man’s grief fell upon the ashes, but...

...naturally, no miracle occurred that brought Obshion back to life.

Instead, within the gray heap of ashes, one small flower bloomed.

“That flower... is Obshion.”

Zeto, who had been listening to my explanation, murmured softly.

“It is a ridiculous story, isn’t it? Why did the man leave without giving enough explanation? Why did Obshion fail to trust the man’s words...? It is such a frustrating story full of flaws that I do not even know whether it truly happened.”

“Well, old stories are all like that. If it were you, Miss Eisel, what do you think you would have done?”

“...I think I would have locked her up myself before leaving.”

Because if she endured and waited just a little, everything would be resolved.

After my answer followed with a short pause, Zeto let out a hum.

“Hmm... So you mean not Obshion’s side, but Julian’s...”

“...Because Obshion was in danger. But he probably did not want to tell her that. Because she might have been hurt... That is how I interpret it.”

I cut off Zeto’s words and added an explanation.

“That is a rather good interpretation. What is the flower meaning? Obshion’s.”

“The flower meaning is...”

The meaning of the Obshion flower was the exact opposite of its tragic story.

“...A happy ending.”

Their story had not been a happy ending.

Perhaps what they had wished and wished for had been engraved as the meaning of the flower.

“A happy ending... What an interesting flower.”

After hearing the flower meaning, Zeto’s expression brightened radiantly.

“Right?”

“Yes, that makes me like it even more.”

I hoped the smile spreading across his lips now would not disappear.

Would I someday make that choice too?

For a happy ending.

For his smile.

A choice where I left Zeto somewhere safe and departed alone.

I emptied my head and rose from my place.

“Then...”

The conversation I had with him was enough at this.

If I spoke with him any more, I felt I would grow confused.

It was overlapping with memories of the previous round.

Before my confusion grew worse.

Before it became harder for me, I had to leave him.

As expected, speaking with him in a place filled with deep memories was difficult.

It was when I moved my feet to leave the flower garden.

“Uh...?”

A startled sound escaped my mouth, and my body tilted. I had tripped over a stone on the ground and was falling.

Like that, my body was thrown without resistance toward Zeto before me...

—Softly.

...and he caught me, hugging me.

“...Are you all right?”

Zeto’s gentle voice reached me immediately.

I could feel his arm wrapped softly around my waist.

“Well... that...”

Words would not come out easily.

...Although I had unilaterally hugged a defenseless Zeto before, I had never been held by him.

I could not even raise my head to look at him.

But I did not want to leave his warm embrace either.

Recently, it had already been hard because it felt as if other women were flirting with Zeto.

The problem was that Zeto was too kind.

Whenever I saw women who became entangled with him unintentionally, I hated him for no reason.

“I wish he would only be kind to me.”

He was my Zeto.

Only my Zeto.

Even in the North...

“You went to a sauna together?”

“No, Kaen came too.”

...I heard that he had sweated together with other women in a place he had never gone with me.

At the time, I thought I would go insane.

I barely held back my desire, my greed.

So at least now.

Just a little.

Would it not be all right to be greedy?

“...I think my legs lost strength because I sat for so long. May I stay like this just a little longer...?”

I asked Zeto that in a careful voice.

Even though I knew what answer the kind him would give, my heart was tense.

“...”

Zeto seemed to be thinking about something.

Fortunately, my unease did not last long.

“...Yes.”

His ready answer soon followed.

At his answer, I gained a little courage and burrowed deeper into his embrace.

I could hear Zeto’s heartbeat.

Thinking that I had always let Zeto hear my heartbeat without hiding it somehow made me feel a little embarrassed.

While I was smiling with such thoughts...

...I sensed a strange energy from his chest.

“What is this...? This energy...”

I could not grasp what sort of energy it was, but at least it did not seem like energy that should be felt from a human.

“...Would this be enough?”

Just then, Zeto pushed me away first.

“Ah, yes. Right.”

At Zeto’s one sentence, I separated from his embrace.

It was strange.

Something inside Zeto’s chest was hiding its energy and lurking there.

The energy I had vaguely felt was close to something negative, wicked.

“A curse...?”

That was all I could think of right away.

I could state firmly that I had never felt such energy in the previous round.

That made it even more shocking.

“Something has gone terribly wrong.”

Suddenly, the conversation I had shared with him after dealing with Krectar brushed through my mind again.

“That is not what I mean...”

My head spun.

“...I am scared that I may lose Miss Eisel. Terrified, too.”

Me too.

I am so afraid of losing you too, Zeto.

I raised my head and looked at Zeto standing before me.

He was still smiling at me.

Zeto, what should I do now?