小嫂子的味道

"You were gone for a week, and you faked your death—no, wait. Was that really faking? If so, it was genuinely a good one; at that time when the room blew up, I thought you were dead for real! And now that you\'ve come back, you\'re covered in bandages from head to toe. Just what the hell were you doing?!"

I waited for her to quiet down, her trembling was visible in her voice as the tone of it was shaking. I could roughly guess that she didn\'t want to ask me all this, but ended up doing it anyway. But that\'s what I think.

"Were you really this worried about me this much? That\'s surprising," I commented.

"Huh? No! I asked because…you know, because of our deal. You remember right? You said that you will protect me from my father, if you end up dead then who will do that—plus when I\'m already doing my part of the deal," she explained in a rushed manner.

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"I see, I see. It\'s because of the deal we have…do you even remember what terms we agreed upon?" I appealed, making it sound like a genuine question despite the fact that it was overflowing with sarcasm.

"Yeah, I do remember. It was that—"

"That I will protect you from your father or anyone else related to him and in return, you will help in my work and do as I say…without asking any questions on what I\'m doing and why," I made sure to emphasize the last words.

Ellyn seemed as if she wanted to say something but then swallowed her words. Her face was a complex mixture of confusion, uneasiness, and irritation.

"B-But still…" she began. I was kinda surprised to see that she wasn\'t backing off after I clearly declined to explain anything to her. "Won\'t it be good if you could tell me a little about what you\'re doing? It\'ll help us build trust and eventually strengthen the relationship we have," she said.

"There\'s no need to do that. Trust leads to doubts, doubts lead to suspicion, suspicion, and suspicion ultimately leads to betrayal. It sure will help strengthen our relationship but in a negative way, thus it\'s better for each of us to not know what the other is doing. This is a give-and-take relationship, there\'s no need to bring trust in it," I described.

"You can\'t be betrayed by someone whom you don\'t trust or betray someone who doesn\'t trust you. That\'s the way I want it to be," I added.

Her face went slightly pale and she was too stunned to speak. No wait, stun probably won\'t be the right word. She was more like…not expecting me to say all this. Yeah, that is right. The difference isn\'t much but it\'s still there.

She stood at her place, looking down at the floor and not saying anything. A minute passed, she didn\'t move, another minute passed, she was still there, around five minutes passed, there was no change.

"I had something to do, outside the academy campus. And the best way to get out was by faking my death, that\'s why I went through all this trouble," I admitted.

Ellyn raised her head in my direction, her expression still confused but in a positive way.

"You see that sword right there?" I said as I pointed at the Requiem sword lying in the corner of the room.

"It\'s the one you told me to bring in this room when you came back, and also mentioned that no one should see me with the sword," she asserted.

"Exactly. And that\'s what I went out to bring. All these injuries I\'ve got are a result of all the hardships I faced on the journey," I acknowledged.

She eyed the sword curiously as she listened to my words, maybe a part of her wanted to go and check what\'s so special in this sword that I\'ve almost got myself killed for. But then the other part of her said that it might be too much, that\'s why she was only observing it from afar.

"Well, if you took such risks then there must be something about it. But honestly, this was a bit anti-climatic. I was expecting you to be on a secret mission or something like that," she stated, her eyes now back at me.

"It is what it is. And just say I was on a secret mission, will I really tell you about it? I mean, how will it even be a \'secret\' mission then?"

"Hmmm, that\'s true...though you told me about the sword—which you weren\'t going to do before. A secret mission wouldn\'t have been tough but eventually, you\'d tell me if you needed my help."

"I doubt that will happen, although I\'m not sure. I mentioned the sword because you had already handled it, and I might need you to move it from place to place in future, so… you can say I just saved the explanation later on by telling you about it now."

A cheerful little smile appeared on her face, the darkness from before also faded and her eyes had their usual gleaming look back now.

"Thank you," she said.

I passed her a confused look, as if not understanding what she said or why.

"For trusting me. I know there are things you can\'t tell me, you must have your circumstances. So just a little is enough. It\'s enough to prove that I can trust you too," she added with a calm, warm, voice. Like she\'s been speaking from her heart.

I didn\'t say anything. There was no need to.

"I hope you get well soon, there are a lot of classes you\'ve skipped, after all."

"Ah, there\'s that too," I mumbled, more to myself though I was loud enough for her to hear as well.

Those were her words before she left the room and closed the door back shut. The silence returned and yet again I was alone. I slumped back and lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling without blinking much.

I waited to see if there was anyone else who was here to visit me although I knew that there wasn\'t. All the people I know in the academy had already come and left.

Then I heard a sizzling sound accompanied by a bright flash that lit the whole room white for the span of a second. Next came a girl. Long and sleek hair dyed in the color of the ocean, skin white as snow, and figure delicate as a doll.

"You\'re pretty harsh, aren\'t you? …Master."

"Oh? How so?"

"Ah, you\'ll make me say it, huh?" a nasty smile appeared on Req\'s face as she walked up to me and sat on the bed near my legs.

"First, you told that girl upright that you don\'t trust her and pushed her in the dark, then you revealed some of your supposed-to-be-secrets to her, making her feel good and indicating that you do trust her even if just a little. However…"

She stared right into my eyes with a look I couldn\'t describe. It was a mixture of many emotions; amusement, curiosity, naughtiness, excitement, joy, cheerfulness, and probably she was impressed too.

"When that girl spoke about how she feels after knowing that you trust her," the grin on her face widened. "You stayed quiet. Neither stating your disagreement on the matter nor agreement. But if looked at carefully, you had already declared that you don\'t trust at all in the starting of this whole conversion. Thus, even if in future you were to discard her or sacrifice her for a greater good, she won\'t be able to charge you or make you feel guilty by saying that you broke her trust or some bullshit like that.

"Since you\'ve already claimed that you don\'t, what she thought was nothing but her childish fantasy; she just assumed it all. This way you won\'t have to bear the guilt but that\'s not the real reason, is it? You did this because if things played out as I\'ve said just now then she will think that all of this was her fault for thinking that you don\'t trust him even after you told her upright—which she wasn\'t able to figure out until now.

"She will blame herself for the consequences, for her inability to be a realist and she was in front of her eyes all the time. In the end, she will be mentally broken and the chances of her becoming a future enemy will be none—the real reason for all this," she finished, her eyes sparkling.

With each word that left her mouth, her energy increased. She was like a child who\'s finally on the way to buy her favorite toy she\'s been waiting for a long while.

"Well, if that\'s what you want to think of my actions then feel free to do so," I clarified.

"Ain\'t admitting it after all, huh? You sure are a piece of work, but it\'s fine. I like it! You can\'t understand how much it makes my blood rush just thinking about what will happen to that girl once you decide to dispose of her!" she exclaimed.

"Idiot. Why will I do that? I\'ve told you about her before, didn\'t I? She is important for keeping an eye on class A and a few other things too. It will be pure idiocy to discard her."

"Then why did you—ah I see," she stopped midway. "All of it is nothing but a precaution you could need in future."

I didn\'t reply. I, of course, won\'t let go of Ellyn this easily. She was important for my future plans, that was a part, but more than anything she was one of the main leads in the novel. I know the storyline is going to change eventually but I\'d prefer to keep it the same for as long as possible.

\'Yeah, it would be better if I didn\'t have to—\' my eyes suddenly noticed Req who was not looking good. She was staring daggers at me with her usual childish but dangerous smile.

A gut feeling rose saying that nothing good was going to come out of this.

"I was just wondering," she said. "That you might need a hug to recover."

"Huh?"

"So here I come!"

\'Wait what!\'

I didn\'t get the time to react. She stood and jumped right over me. That I realized how much it hurts when someone lands on your fresh wounds with some of them being bone fractures. Though I did my best to hold in the scream, as to not startle the students in the next room.