CH 12

The change was really sudden.

It was embarrassing enough when Dante’s heart, which he had been trying to hide so hard, was revealed in his actions, but now he doesn’t even try to hide it anymore. Even if I tried to ignore it, I only realized that my nerves were on that side.

In the end, I admitted that I had chosen the wrong method of rejection. But it’s not my fault that I made that choice, it’s all because of Dante’s peculiarity.

No matter how good he was, who would have thought that he would say it was fine because he had everything to the point where he didn’t have to care about the other person’s conditions?

Even the visibly shy attitude when he was next to me was nowhere to be found. Rather, he came closer when I approached him, not moving away because he was shy.

Now look. Instead of waiting for me to come out of the living room, he even called me first.

I was lying in bed and staggered to my feet at the clear sound of a knock outside the door.

“Why?”

When I opened the door, I saw a lodger living under a tacit agreement. As soon as I opened the door, he smiled and spoke to me in a soft voice.

“I think you’re coming out a little late today.”

“I’m tired, so I thought I’d go to bed early…”

I said that, but his expression instantly turned sullen. Rather than a deliberately exaggerated face, it was a face that generously expressed what he felt.

Of course, it’s okay to ignore whether he’s sullen or not, but I didn’t go out with the same excuse yesterday. Actually that too. No, maybe even three days ago.

I can’t get rid of the time we spend together, so I tried to reduce it, but my conscience pricks me that it’s been a few days. Because of Dante’s frank attitude.

I don’t know why my conscience is still intact when I have grown so old.

“I was going to come out now. I was lying down for a while, wait.”

Dante’s face visibly brightened as I reluctantly gave the answer he wanted. I took a book and went out into the living room, sitting down on the sofa.

“You can use magic to light the lights now, right?”

“Hmm?”

I looked at Dante, who sat close in the seat next to me. He must have hesitated at the almost glaring gaze, but Dante just smiled brightly.

He must be trying to use his face even now. Trying to slip into the world of beauty, no matter how good you are, do you think that will work?

It worked very well. Defeated by visual stimulation again today, I sighed and buried myself in the sofa.

When I said nothing, Dante smiled and opened the book. I took a quick look at what kind of book he was reading, and realized that the color and shape of the cover was familiar.

It was a book that opened and turned pages on its own whenever Dante cast a spell. It was written in characters I had never seen in my life, so even looking at it from the side, I couldn’t recognize the contents.

I thought I had learned all the languages spoken by the people here, but there are some that I’m seeing for the first time. I glanced at the letters for a moment, then turned my head.

I had to learn to write again when I came over here. There were some letters I knew, but there were a lot more letters I didn’t know, and even the languages I thought I knew were completely different in terms of writing and grammar.

When was that, not too long after I fell into this dimension? Someone noticed that I couldn’t read and kindly taught me how to read.

While learning letters from that person, it seems that I heard that it’s fortunate through words. And they told me to trust them, they’d teach me as many languages as possible.

It seems that they said that they were a teacher, and then, and then again… I don’t remember any more. I couldn’t even remember their face.

It’s a very old memory. It’s also a memory I didn’t have to recall. I blinked my eyes because I felt like I was going to lose my mood for a moment.

Then, Dante’s voice was heard.

“It means, ‘be silent for a moment’.”

“What?”

It was a random remark. When I questioned him and looked in Dante’s direction, he calmly turned the page.

“I thought you were looking at this spot earlier.”

“Well. I only saw it. I can’t even recognize what letters are.”

“It’s natural that you don’t know. It’s an ancient language with little interpretation.”

There’s something like that? I blinked for a moment.

“How do you read it if it’s not interpreted?”

“I’m reading but, um… I’m analyzing. Find where similar letters overlap, and compare them.”

The voice that continued to explain slowly wasn’t bad. Looking at the white fingers across the book, I quietly listened to Dante’s words.

“It’s actually a very difficult task. Each letter has uninterpretable magic and even oblivion magic, and the work doesn’t end just by destroying it once. Destroyed magic can be restored. Every time I read a letter, I have to do it while destroying the magic.”

“I thought you just read the same book every day… You were doing a great job.”

“Well, I do it because it has to be done. It’s not that hard.”

Dante shrugged lightly. It sounds like it’s no big deal, but it’s likely to be hard work for anyone except Dante.

Even as a stranger to this field, I can see that Dante’s talent is dazzling, yet Dante doesn’t seem to know how good he is. He seemed to think that others were lacking rather than thinking he was good.

Hm, when I think about it like this, this is just as bad luck. Suddenly, I wanted to express my condolences to the magicians who would live at the same time as Dante.

I shook my head lightly, shaking off the thought of going somewhere else.

“What do you gain by doing this?”

“I can learn these letters. And if I learn the letters, you will be able to use ancient magic.”

“What else is that… No, enough. One thing is for sure If I had to learn letters this way, I would have quit a long time ago.”

It was a light, half-joking, half-serious comment, but unexpectedly, there was no reply.

When I turned my head in doubt, I saw a side profile that seemed to be deep in thought somewhere.

“Did you come up with your name while learning letters?”

“My name?”

“Yeah.”

For some reason, his voice was lower than before.

“Ei (A) is usually the first letter you learn when learning a language.”

Hearing that, I rummaged for a while. When was the last time I started using that letter as a name?

I couldn’t recall the exact time in the end, but I knew that a long enough time had passed for me to get used to being called Ei. As Dante said, it might have been made while learning letters.

However, it wasn’t chosen as my name simply because it was the first letter I learned here. In the first place, the alphabet existed where I live.

I chose Ei as my name for a very simple and intuitive reason.

“There was a name I originally used, but the pronunciation was a bit unique. So while I was changing it, I just changed it to the most common letter in names.”

Many people ask if it’s a real name every time I say it because it’s so rough, but anyway, that was my original intention.

“What was your original name?”

“Um, well.”

I don’t want to say that much. Because I didn’t want to bring back what I had thrown away along with my name.

Seeing that I was avoiding an answer, there were no further questions. When Dante hesitated for a moment without being able to spout out words, I naturally turned around.

“By the way, magic that prevents interpretation, there are all sorts of unusual magic.”

“It’s not unusual. Well, but there is much more unusual magic besides this one.”

I can show you if you’re curious. It was a light tone, as if it were really just a passing word, but well. I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head.

“If I ask you to show me, what else are you going to ask for?”

“What are you talking about?”

Pretending not to know is useless. I think his shamelessness has increased since he confessed, yet even so, I can’t win. I was the one who had never lost to you.

“The other day, when I asked you to go to the market with me, you wanted me to allow us to hold hands, and the other time, when I asked you to help organize books, you asked for permission to touch my hair, and then…”

“Hmm, did I?”

He must have tried to look away naturally in his own way, but the gestures to hide his face somehow looked very awkward. Seeing him struggling to cover his reddened face makes me feel a bit bad.

Well, it’s cute, too.

“Then, what do you want this time?”

As expected, Dante cleared his throat for a moment, as if he wanted something. As if he had calmed down more than before, only the corners of his eyes were slightly red.

“…Can I touch your hand?”

“I think it’s similar to holding hands.”

“This and that is different, so… No, anyway. It’s different.”

If it’s different, then whatever. When I jokingly said, “If you’re going to show me the most unusual magic in the world, I’ll accept it,” Dante nodded earnestly.

As I put my hand on top of Dante’s, he seemed to flinch for a moment.

He then took my hand carefully as if he wanted to see what my hand looked like, soon after he ran through my fingernails one by one as if he was trying to carve the shape of my fingernails into his own.

I didn’t know there were so many things one could do with my hands. Dante held each of my fingers in his hand, touched the protruding bones in the joints, and intertwined his own fingers in mine.

In a way, it was like touching a toy, and in other way, it was as if he was touching a very precious treasure. When I thought that he was carefully examining my hands that I had nothing to look at, Dante, who was gently stroking the back of my hand, murmured in a low voice.

“It’s small.”

“What?”

“The entire of it. Nails, fingers, back of the hand, everything.”

I don’t know why he says that in such a subdued tone, though.

As Dante’s fingers brushed between my knuckles, my back felt chilly for a moment and an indescribable sensation flowed. It seems to be similar to a sense of crisis, but it’s closer to thrill than that.

As soon as I felt it, the area around my neck suddenly became hot, and I felt strange,  grabbing Dante’s hand.

“My hands aren’t small, it’s yours that are large.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

I looked at Dante’s hand that I was holding for a while and then opened my mouth.

“You’re so strange.”

“…What is.”

“You’ve been fine until now, but at some point, you’re suddenly embarrassed.”

When I looked up at Dante, as expected, his face had turned red.

Does this mean he’s not embarrassed that he catched my hands, and he does when I catched his? Even if it’s just holding hands, anyway.

How can a person’s face color change so quickly? Originally, his skin is white, so the redness may be more noticeable.

Dante, who was avoiding my gaze, pulled his arm as if he was withdrawing his hand.

“I don’t know either.”

“Really?”

I see. Answering briefly, I held Dante’s hand tightly so that he couldn’t let go of it. As the warmth in my hands tried to escape, it was close to a reflexive action, but Dante opened his eyes wide, as if he felt that I was giving him strength.

However, Dante didn’t shake off my hand, he rather stayed still as if he wanted me to hold it. I kept holding on because Dante wouldn’t shake it off, and he didn’t shake it off because I held it.

It might have seemed funny to some, but the situation didn’t seem strange to us. For a long time after that, I held Dante’s hand and sat still.

It was a peaceful night.