The sight of them unfamiliarly walking together was very innocent and heartwarming but also one that made onlookers wish they’d explode. They were certainly mutually in love.
Virgo was full of resolve, so she would respond if Sei held his hand out to her. In fact, it’d been a year by now, so she wanted him to make a move.
As for Sei, he was a healthy boy. If asked whether he wanted to hold hands or not, he would always answer yes. Though he wanted to act like a gentleman, he was walking next to a beautiful girl he’d fallen for. If he could, he would hug her, lift her up, and whisk her away to a love hotel to make her his right away, of course.
However, he had...misgivings. The two of them had an insurmountable difference in life spans, and no matter how much they loved each other, Sei was fated to die before Virgo. In the first place, Virgo was already one hundred years old, though she outwardly looked like a young girl. She mustn’t be considered a cradle-robber in disguise, since from a heaven-winged standpoint, she was very much still young. Dogs would grow old and die in a mere ten years, far faster than their human owners. Similarly, the time over which a human grew old and died was just a “few decades” to Virgo.
That fact bothered Sei. He didn’t want to leave her alone after he died. No matter how much he loved her and held her dear, they were still unable to share their entire lives together. That alone was enough to delay Sei’s determination. Can someone like me really make her mine? Isn’t there someone much more suited for traveling through life with her? It was because he liked her so much that he wondered, Shouldn’t I leave her for her own sake? These days, this was all he thought about.
That was why he could never quite take the next step. They dated, ate together, and played around...but that was all. On top of that, the fact that they were both rather late bloomers just made things worse.
If Virgo had the personality to just push Sei over and take him it would have at least helped things along, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that, and of course, neither could Sei. That was why their relationship just dragged on like this, and they continued to waste their precious, limited time.
Eventually, night fell, and they ended the date, unable to move forward once again.
“Um... Then... See you again, Sei.”
“Y-Yeah. Be careful going home,” he said.
“Yeah... Um, Sei?”
“Hmm?”
Virgo paused for some time. “Sorry, it’s nothing. I’m going back, then.”
“Y-Yeah. Got it.”
It seemed that Virgo wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get it out. Even Sei could tell something like that. She wants our relationship to move forward.
Normally, this was something Sei should have brought up as the male with those desires, and if Virgo were human—or if Sei were a heaven-winged—then he would already have done so. However, the issue of their life spans was stuck in the back of his mind like a persistent stain. Sei couldn’t help but imagine Virgo living alone after he was gone, and that stopped him cold.
Virgo could somewhat tell that was what Sei was worried about as well. This was why she simply smiled somewhat sadly as she lifted up her bracelet. When she did, a tunnel between worlds—an Exgate—was formed, which Virgo used to return to Mizgarz from Earth.
After Virgo had left, Sei continued to stare at the place where she had been with drooped shoulders.
After some time together, he said, “I’m such a worthless pansy... I know I should say it, but...”
He had to be the one to say it, whether they continued forward or stopped here. Either way, he needed to tell her clearly.
There was no point in continuing to drag out this current situation. Time was limited for them. If they were to continue, then it would be best to get this out of the way as fast as possible so they could enjoy their time together. If they were to stop, then Sei should end it as quickly as possible in order to hurt her less. Sei was unable to commit to either option though, leading to him being unable to give up this current situation and dragging it on uselessly.
Sei was hit by a bout of self-hatred, causing him to punch at his own head. Of course, doing so didn’t improve anything. He only felt even more wretched.
＊ ＊
Virgo sighed. “I couldn’t say it today either...”
After returning to Mizgarz, Virgo was just as troubled as Sei. She knew why Sei couldn’t take the next step in their relationship. He knew about the difference in their life spans and the fact that he would die much earlier than she would. However, Virgo liked Sei in full knowledge of that, and because she knew they only had a short time together, she wanted to make the most of the time they had.
When she first met Sei, he was an unreliable boy. However, as they continued to interact, she realized that he had a very strong core. In terms of strength, Sei was much weaker than Virgo. He was even weaker when compared to Virgo before she had gone on her journey with Lufas, let alone now.
However, Virgo only had a high level. At her core, she was not nearly as strong. She just lived from day to day, swept along by events without any real goals or desires for her future. Though she’d had the ability to fight from the beginning, Virgo had found that she herself was weak, weak enough for her Pressure to have been fought off by demihumans who were of a lower level than her.
However, Sei was different. Though he was weak, he simply accepted his weakness and tried to find something he could do despite that instead of sulking and becoming cynical. Eventually, Virgo started to respect that side of him, and by the time she’d noticed, she was looking towards him whenever they were together.
Lufas had said before that the one who had truly been strong in that battle was Sei. Now, Virgo understood well what Lufas had meant, and that was exactly why she wanted to be with him. Because Sei was too nice for his own good, however, he could never bring himself to say the words. Virgo also wasn’t brave enough, so she couldn’t confess to him either.
I know I need to change, but I can’t. I just don’t have the courage to take that first step.
Virgo hated herself so much because of that.
“Huh?” she said after a moment of pause.
Suddenly, Virgo realized something was off. The bracelet that Lufas had made in order to make it possible for her to travel between worlds was supposed to take her to the moon. More specifically, it was locked on to Dina’s coordinates on the moon and had apparently been made to send her there every time. This was because the power imbued into the bracelet was Dina’s, since the ability to form Exgates and manipulate cognition was all hers.