CH 26

Dante returned just in time for dinner.

We had dinner together as usual, and before going to bed, I was checking the letters I was going to send to Masha. But suddenly, Dante, who was sitting on the sofa in the living room, called me.

“Ei.”

“Hm. Did you call me?”

“Come here.”

When I poked my head out, he saw Dante, who was already well prepared. For some reason, he had a nervous expression on his face, so I went and sat next to Dante without saying anything.

“I have something for you.”

As Dante said that, he took a small box out of his pocket. I received the box, opened it, and found a small bracelet inside.

It was a bracelet with a silver chain delicately intertwined and a yellow jewel in the middle. The yellow jewel wasn’t very large, but its color was very vivid.

While I was briefly distracted by the sparkle of the bracelet under the light, Dante took the bracelet out of the box and continued.

“Originally, I wanted to use a better quality magic stone, but… This is the only thing I could get in a hurry”

“What is a magic stone?”

“Simply put, you can think of it as a stone on which you can engrave magic.”

The link of the bracelet separated from Dante’s hand, and I felt cold metal wrap around my wrist. In an instant, I blinked as I looked at the bracelet on my left wrist.

“Here, I engrave a magic that allows you to have a short conversation with me. When you want to contact me, just cover the magic stone with your hand.”

“There’s something like this.”

While looking at the bracelet in awe, a very fundamental question popped up in my mind.

“But why are you giving me this, all of a sudden?”

“…There are two reasons.”

“Hmm.”

It seems that his nervous expression earlier was meant to say this. With a vague guess, I listened to Dante’s words.

“First of all, since you said you don’t like wedding rings… I wanted to give you something else.”

“When did I say I hate rings? I said I didn’t like things that were expensive enough for someone to steal them.”

“I want to make it as good as possible if it’s for you.”

Seeing him say that and look sad, it seemed like he was sincere. In a rural village like this, if we show off that we have a lot of money, we’re the only ones losing money, right? I let out a small sigh.

“So instead of a ring, you brought a bracelet?”

“Yeah. Of course, magic stones are much more expensive than most gems, but it doesn’t look like that from the outside, so it’s okay, right?”

No, it’s not okay. I wanted to put on a sour face, but I thought that Dante might get really upset if I refused the ring and also the bracelet.

When I checked the bracelet that was already hanging on Dante’s wrist and looked like a pair with mine, my thoughts about what to say quickly disappeared.

If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to hide it in my sleeve… I thought so and nodded my head.

“Then what about the second reason?”

Dante hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth.

“I kept going home in the evening because I had work to do.”

“Yeah, you did.”

And so it was today. When I answered that, Dante continued by glancing at my face.

“I think it would be better to completely deal with the work I was doing, and another thing came up… I probably won’t be able to come home for three days from tomorrow.”

Ah. I nodded. So, if I need to contact you within those three days, you gave me this bracelet to do so. I understood.

In the meantime, there have been days when he went out early in the morning and came back late at night, yet I don’t think there was a day when he didn’t come home. It seemed like something really important.

“Will it be over in three days?”

“Yeah. Three days is enough.”

“You can go longer.”

When I said it in a playful way, Dante sighed and buried his head on my shoulder.

“If it’s longer, I can’t. I can’t stand it.”

“What can’t you stand?”

“…”

Then I heard no answer. Dante’s earlobes, which were rapidly blushing again, were new to me.

“…I don’t want to be away any longer than that.”

“Hmm.”

At that, I clasped Dante’s hand and held it. Dante’s hand was so big compared to mine that it felt a bit overwhelming just to put our fingers together, but I didn’t want to take his hand out.

“It’s about time you don’t get embarrassed to say such things.”

“Don’t make fun of me…”

He’s embarrassed all the time. It’s okay, I love your consistency. While laughing and whispering that, Dante suddenly raised his head.

“Ei.”

“Hm?”

“When I come back in three days, I have something to tell you.”

About what? I blinked a few times and narrowed my brows.

“What are you trying to say with such a serious face again?”

“Nothing much… No. A story about what I’m doing right now?”

“Hmm. Are you committing any crime?”

“No! Absolutely not.”

Just like when I brought up the topic of the Master of the Magic Tower the other day, Dante desperately denied it.

“It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever told you in detail what I’m doing.”

That’s right. There are some things Dante didn’t tell me, but I never even asked them in the first place. I’ve never wondered what Dante was doing, even though he’s been passing over to the extent he seems to be busy these days.

I thought he was just being called around by people looking for magicians, but is there anything special?

Now that I think about it, I couldn’t imagine Dante listening to someone’s orders. Hmm, after listing it like this, it’s strange that I didn’t ask what Dante was doing all this time, though?

I couldn’t answer because I was lost in my thoughts for a while, yet Dante added restlessly, wondering how he interpreted my silence.

“It’s not like I wanted to make it a secret… I’ll tell you everything when I get back.”

At those words, I suddenly came to my senses. To be precise, to the word ‘secret’ that Dante spoke of.

Come to think of it, there was one fact that I could say was a secret. A small laugh broke out as I realized there was something we both didn’t say.

It was a laugh close to relief that I wasn’t the only one hiding something.

Could it be that my conscience has been pricked in my heart that I haven’t been able to tell Dante about my unusual trait? When I laughed out of nowhere, Dante looked at me curiously, but I had no intention of explaining the reason behind it.

Instead, we could talk about something else. The story why I laughed, I will tell you later.

“When you come back, I’ll tell you my secret.”

“…Did you have any more secrets? Besides being a dimension shifter?”

“Your wife is hiding a lot more than you think.”

The day I revealed that I was a dimension traveler, was the day I decided to reveal to Dante that I didn’t die, as usual.

Of course, as Dante was now asking if there were more secrets, I couldn’t tell him until the very end that day. It seemed like it would take a bigger decision than I thought to tell Dante about it.

By the way, Dante’s reaction when I revealed that I was a dimension shifter was this. With a very serious and earnest look,

[I’ve always thought your cuteness is somehow on a different level.]

He was talking nonsense that wasn’t worth listening to.

Anyway, you made a big decision and told me a secret, so I have to try my best again. No matter how difficult it is to tell the truth, isn’t there nothing good if I recklessly postpone it?

I belatedly noticed that exchanging each other’s secrets one by one sounded like child’s play, but I wondered what it was like.

Dante, who had been looking at me with complicated eyes after hearing that I had a lot to hide, leaned on my shoulder again, as if concluding that he would have to listen to it later. I’m much shorter, yet my neck doesn’t hurt.

Well, what am I going to do if he likes it? I immediately stopped thinking of stopping Dante and looked at his face.

After just leaning on my shoulder for a while, Dante lowered his eyelids as if he was about to fall asleep. The light created by magic slid over Dante’s eyelashes, and his white skin shone like flakes.

Seeing that figure from a closer distance than anyone else, it felt new, but Dante, you.

“You’re really handsome even with your eyes closed.”

Even though my favorite part of Dante’s appearance was his mysterious purple eyes. If he looks good even when they’re hidden, what the hell should I do?

Even though it was somewhat out of the blue, Dante just laughed without showing any embarrassment. Still with his eyes closed.

“…I’m glad you like my face.”

“Why are you glad about that?”

I asked that question, yet there was no answer. Instead of an answer, what I heard in my ears was the regular breathing of a sleeping person.

A peaceful sound, which made my heart feel at ease just by listening to it.

While I felt that I should wake Dante up and enter the room, I also felt that I wanted to stay in this state. I quietly listened to Dante’s breathing, then closed my eyes.

It felt like Dante’s hand was holding my hand just before I accepted the drowsiness pouring down my whole body.

It was a night with only the two of us.