CH 82

“…Dante?”

A bewildered voice leaked out at the harsher reaction than expected. I unknowingly tried to get out of his arms, yet the more I did, the stronger Dante hugged me.

Beyond the grip that was so strong that it took my breath away for a moment, I could feel the shallow trembling of the hands holding my shoulders.

As expected, it’s weird. I realized Dante’s hands were cold and his face stiff. At this point, it’s so strange that he’s worried.

This wasn’t a reaction that would come out if I hadn’t seen him in a few hours. If I had to say it, it was something I would do when I met someone whom I didn’t know was alive or not for days.

Just looking at Dante’s reaction now, it was as if we had gotten separated once again.

“Dante. What is it?”

“…”

Before questioning the situation, I tried to calm Dante, who still held me tightly and refused to let go.

As I stretched out my arms and hugged him, the faint trembling that had been transmitted before could be felt more clearly. I pretended not to notice the trembling and patted his back lightly. At regular intervals, neither too hard nor too weak.

Just like I always do.

After being patted for a long time, I felt Dante gradually relax.

“Where have you been?”

“…Back at you. You weren’t in the room, where have you been?”

“Me, well, I came to the library right after I finished talking with Masha.”

When I answered, Dante let out a small sigh. It seemed that it came out of relief, and it seemed that it came out of desolation.

Why did he search for me hard enough to let out a sigh? I gave Dante a tight hug and escaped from his embrace.

“Where have you been?”

“I met Lisa…”

He just said that and then kept his mouth shut. When I raised my head in doubt, I saw a face full of worries.

“You met Lisa, and?”

“…”

Even when I stared at him in the sense of asking for an answer, all I got back was silence. I had to resist the urge to shake Dante’s shoulder wildly because it made me more frustrated as the kid, who wasn’t like this, became like this.

“Why don’t you answer me? Is it difficult to say?”

But is there something that he can’t tell me, not anyone else? Even with such urging words, I couldn’t hear Dante’s answer.

I mean, being mature and soothing doesn’t really seem to suit me. In the end, I had no choice but to give up talking about it today and ask openly.

“Tell me honestly. Are you hiding something from me these days?”

As soon as Dante heard that, he opened his mouth, then closed it again without saying anything. Like a person trying to talk yet quits halfway through.

I know very well when he reacts like this.

Typically, this happens when he tries to tell a lie but can’t bear to tell it.

“If you don’t tell me, I will ask Lisa. What you were talking about.”

Although the tone came out in a threatening tone without my knowledge, I didn’t care too much. If I could make him tell me what he has been hiding inside by threatening him, I feel like doing it.

However, there’s no way Dante can be that easy. It was the same when the child who had kept his mouth shut until now answered with a crawling voice.

“…Lisa won’t even tell you. Because I told her not to.”

You told that little kid to shut up? Before I even asked this questioningly?

As if he’s been prepared for the day I’m going to ask. Even if I tried not to, a sigh of despair leaked out without my knowledge.

“So you’ve been trying to leave me out from the beginning?”

Even when I spoke in an absurd tone, Dante only looked guilty and didn’t say sorry.

It seems he has no intention of telling me the end, but just because you don’t talk doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.

“You… Answer this first, then.”

I also matched my eyes with his purple eyes as if you were staring at him, meaning that if he closed his mouth again, I wouldn’t let it go.

“Is what you’re hiding now related to your anxiety these days?”

Upon hearing that, Dante widened his eyes slightly, like someone who had heard something unexpected.

Convinced that he couldn’t figure out the reason for that reaction, I let go and spit out what I had been feeling until now.

“You keep trying to stick by my side these days. It seems like you’ve been like that before, so I’m just skipping over it, but you keep getting startled and anxious about something. You also check my complexion often.”

“…”

“At first, yes. I thought it was because I thought I had been dead for 10 years.”

I paused for a moment and took a short breath.

“But now you know that we will never part.”

Maybe you still don’t believe me? As I whispered the question, I saw Dante shaking his head, albeit slightly.

“Then why? Even though you know that, you still feel uneasy?”

It might be better if it was like that. It means that even if he acts like this right now, there is a high possibility that Dante’s anxiety will gradually disappear as time goes on.

But why do I keep vaguely thinking that it might not be the only thing?

I can’t find the basis for my thoughts either, but sometimes it helps to follow my feelings like this. As I forcibly grabbed Dante’s face, who kept turning his head, and made eye contact with him, his purple eyes swayed back and forth.

“I want to know why you’re like that. I don’t know what it is, but maybe I can help.”

“…”

“Why do you want to be the only one who knows?”

The last words sounded pretty upset even to me. As the words continued, conflict gradually spread across Dante’s face, and then he slowly opened his mouth.

At that moment, I thought that Dante might spill his feelings.

However.

“…You don’t have to know.”

After some hesitation, the words that came out were words that once again hid their true feelings.

“It’s not something so serious that even you have to be anxious. Just wait a little bit and I’ll take care of everything.”

“Do I look anxious right now? I just want to know why you’re doing this.”

Saying that ‘even I’ don’t have to be anxious is the same as acknowledging his own insecurities. That for some reason, he was anxious. Besides, it’s something that makes him anxious as well as myself.

A solution or not, that’s a problem to think about after hearing the cause of Dante’s anxiety.

However, even though I deliberately cut him off, Dante didn’t break his stubbornness.

To be honest, Dante’s attitude was just as bewildering. He has never done this in front of me, though.

Just as I was about to open my mouth to ask more questions, Dante suddenly stood up. The overlapping arms fell off before I knew it, and the warmth escaped in an instant.

Without looking at my flustered side, Dante spat out quickly.

“I’ll just go. Continue the book you were reading.”

“Suddenly, book… No, wait. Dante?”

He turned around and left before I could reply properly. Very fast, as if telling me not to chase him.

I knew he wouldn’t respond meekly, yet he ran away openly like this. I watched in bewilderment as his back walked away.

Where did he learn to run away from people?

“You won’t stop there?”

I stood up belatedly and shouted, yet Dante had long since disappeared, as if he had never been here before.

No, why do you refrain from telling me to this extent?

Why the hell?

***

From that day on, Dante and I… To be precise, Lisa was there too, but for some reason Lisa couldn’t be seen, so we spent most of our time playing hide-and-seek in the Magic Tower with just the two of us.

Isn’t it a very cute metaphor? Yep, I said this on purpose to neutralize my irritation.

Hide-and-seek is, in a nutshell, something like this. Dante hides from me, and I go looking for him.

That too, all day long.

Once I woke up in the morning, Dante wasn’t with me. In my sleep, I could feel a hand stroking my hair or cheek, yet when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see Dante.

Then, I want to find out where he went again, so I go out and spend time chasing Dante’s tail or the hem of his clothes that I sometimes catch in my sight.

He would leave a note if he wanted to say something, but he would never appear in front of me. When I looked at the note and replied in the voidㅡactually close to irritationㅡI don’t know how he heard it, but another note was sent.

As this situation continued for several days, even I, who lived according to the flow, had no choice but to feel frustrated.

Did you have fun hiding or what.

I wouldn’t go looking for him if I didn’t see him at all, but I was more annoyed that I could see him slightly from time to time, perhaps because we were inside the Magic Tower.

It was a situation that had no choice but to be against me in the first place. Dante, who knows the geography of the tower, as befits the title of the Master of the Magic Tower, and me, who tends to get lost when I go somewhere I don’t know. Isn’t this game obvious?

Dante was avoiding me just because he wanted to refuse to talk.

What pissed me off even more was that if I went to the wrong place to find Dante, he would suddenly appear and take me back to where I was.

Look at it now, as soon as I feel someone hugging me from behind, I’m back in my room.

“What am I going to do, now?”

I must have been looking around the place where there were a lot of big stones on display until just now. I was watching so hard in the atmosphere as if I was in a museum that I forgot for a moment that I was looking for Dante.

This is the result of muttering to myself, ‘Come to think of it, how do I get out of here?’. To return to my room, led by Dante’s hand who appeared out of nowhere.

Although I tried to get angry in the room where I was alone, no one listened to me. I walked at a rapid pace, almost as if I was running, and opened the door, but as expected, there was nothing like the hem of Dante’s clothes in the hallway.

“If you keep doing this, I’ll get out of here on my own!”

My voice spread through the wide, empty space like an echo. I know you’re listening, but look at you not answering.

I was more annoyed knowing that the next day he would leave a lot of food or books I would like in front of the room, as if he was reading my mind and paying attention to the matter of him not showing himself.

Seriously, why are you even doing this?