MOOD FOR LOVE (6)

“I’m sorry for waking you up. But… I don’t have anyone else to share these thoughts with except you, sir.”

The hero said this as he sat in the place where Mille had been sitting. Feeling that the seat was warm, the hero got up again, examined the chair, dusted it off once, and sat down again. Then he said to me:

“It seems someone else besides me was awake. The chair is warm.”

It didn’t seem necessary to mention that I had been talking with Mille in this spot. I nodded and said:

“The others would also like it if you talked to them. Listening to a comrade’s worries can sometimes be burdensome, but sometimes it’s a bit touching and joyful. If you keep hiding things too much, everyone will feel hurt.”

The hero nodded with a bitter expression after hearing my words.

“…But, I’m the hero. I don’t want to burden my comrades by revealing my worries. Everyone is worried about me and taking care of me.”

“Is it because of Mille?”

The hero nodded again at my question. With a gloomy face, he said:

“To be honest, I thought I had tried… it was a bit of a shock when Mille said she felt like she wasn’t being understood. Have I… felt too much distance from elves? When I heard that, I became worried that the things I did after meeting Mille might have made her uncomfortable. What do you think, sir?”

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Hero.”

The hero had a complicated expression at my words. I added to the hero:

“Mille hasn’t done anything wrong either. That’s how everyone builds misunderstandings with each other and then falls apart without a single conversation. When we wake up tomorrow morning, how about having a serious conversation with Mille? Wouldn’t that be much more helpful than me saying this and that?”

The hero looked blank at my words and then smiled again. He nodded and said to me:

“…You’re right. I feel a bit more clarity now.”

Would I finally be able to sleep? I could pride myself on having properly fulfilled my role as both a porter and a guardian of this party today. I looked at the hero with expectant eyes and said:

“How do you feel? Have you calmed down a bit?”

“…I’m really… always grateful to you, sir. You must want to get to the Empire as soon as possible, but you accommodate our schedule and follow us without complaint even when there are difficult missions.”

“It’s only natural.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The hero said that and smiled again. His face looked delicate and beautiful in the light. After smiling at me for a long time with our eyes meeting, the hero dusted off his seat, stood up, and said:

“I’m sorry for taking your time. You must be tired. We don’t have any specific plans for tomorrow, so I’ll let you rest well.”

“Isn’t it a luxury to rest like this here?”

If I jumped into bed right now, it would seem like I had been forced to listen to him. I decided to stay out for about 10 more minutes. But during those short 10 minutes, the sky changed from dark navy to a deep blue, seemingly mocking me for not getting proper sleep.

In the distance, an elderly elf who couldn’t sleep opened his gate and was stretching, and the innkeeper came out and kicked the trash in the yard to the side.

“Hahaha.”

I suddenly felt like laughing, so I laughed lightly, and waved to the back of the head of a guard who had finished his night shift. Since the sun was rising anyway, I thought I might as well consider myself an early riser and get a good sleep at the inn.

How long would I have to look at the ridge from here to witness the sunrise? Just as I sat on the warm chair to satisfy my curiosity, there was a light movement from the second-floor balcony, and a woman wearing a cardigan came down next to me.

Her name was Bnuel. Like Mille, she had golden eyes and golden hair, and she wore round black glasses. Her rigid expression was full of the common fatigue of researchers, and she held coffee in her hand.

Interestingly, there were 2 cups of coffee, not just 1. She held out one of the coffees to me and said:

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Ah, no. I’ll enjoy it, thank you.”

Actually, I didn’t like coffee. Even when I was in the Empire, I thought coffee was just bitter and only pleasant as an air freshener with a good smell. But if I drank coffee with such beautiful ambience…

“Ugh.”

It was still bitter.

But I couldn’t throw away the coffee saying it didn’t taste good. I disguised my momentary outburst as an exclamation, nodded, and made a sound similar to an exclamation.

“It’s delicious. To think I would drink such delicious coffee. You seem to brew it very well.”

“I’m glad you like coffee.”

Bnuel’s words were somewhat meaningful. She put her empty cup on the windowsill, looked at me, and said:

“Do you know about Mille’s childhood?”

I shook my head and trailed off. It seemed better not to share the childhood stories Mille had told me.

“Not well. Since I don’t know much about the nature of elves…”

“Mille was a special child from a young age. She knew how to empathize with emotions that other elf children couldn’t. Because of that, she was hurt by other elf peers and also bullied. The fact that she grew up to be as bright as she is now is, in a way, like a miracle.”

Bnuel said this while touching the fence. Then she looked at me again and said:

“I want Mille to live a life different from elves. I want her to hold onto the emotions and empathy she has had since childhood and see the world more beautifully.”

“So your help was significant in Mille participating in various competitions or working as a mercenary.”

“Yes. That’s right. I helped her. But it was Mille’s skill that won the awards. Mille is a very intelligent child.”

She didn’t forget to praise Mille. Having just seen an elf urinating on his father’s grave yesterday, I was a bit confused whether her behavior was elf-like. I agreed and said:

“That’s right. Mille will surely become a great elf. Like… her mother, for instance.”

But Bnuel had a strange reaction to my agreement. She frowned, tilted her head, and asked:

“Like me?”

“Isn’t that right?”

Bnuel answered decisively:

“I don’t want her to be like me. Mille can live, well, more ‘humanly.'”

I stared at Bnuel. It clearly existed in her too. A faint remnant of subtle emotions that other elves didn’t have. Bnuel said:

“Yesterday, from the conversation between the hero and Mille, I was convinced. Mille should live humanly, but humans don’t understand her. If even the most inclusive hero doesn’t understand Mille, then other people won’t understand her either. Mille will, eventually, at some point, have no choice but to return home.”

“Aren’t you looking at it too negatively? Even without understanding, we can be friends. We don’t know anything about each other, but aren’t we having this long conversation?”

“Not everyone in the world is like you. The people I’ve seen have said that since they’ve become friends, they should know everything, or they’ve left saying ‘so you have this side, as expected, you’re just an elf.’ Mille has been hurt like that many times, shed tears, and will return here. And she’ll get hurt here again. Because Mille is too fragile to be an elf, and too insensitive to be a human.”

I couldn’t understand why Bnuel was bringing this up to me. Despite priding myself on being perceptive, I couldn’t read the intention behind her blunt face and her emotionless, precise way of speaking.

Bnuel was looking at the village.

Two elves met eyes, but they didn’t even greet each other. As if it were natural, they passed by each other, then one man entered a store through a window, and the other man found a wallet on the ground and put it in his pocket.

“Hey, have you seen my wallet?”

An old man who had come out for a morning walk asked the man who he saw picking up his wallet. The man hid the wallet with an indifferent expression and said:

“Haven’t seen it.”

The old man scratched his head and walked around looking for his wallet. Watching the old man crawling through the dew-soaked grass, Bnuel said:

“Mille will definitely get hurt.”

I took another sip of coffee watching that scene.

“When Mille returns, there needs to be someone here who can understand her.”

I nodded at Bnuel’s words. Because that was true.

Bnuel looked at me and said:

“Please become Mille’s father.”

“Pffft!”

Coffee droplets flew into the air.