Was she impressed or making fun of him? She had spoken in a silly voice while nonchalantly stifling a yawn. Tsushima observed her demeanor and frowned.
“Go to sleep already if you’re tired.”
“I’m okay. Let’s talk for just a little longer. I’ll probably have nightmares if I turn in now.”
She squinted as if gazing into the distance and turned over on the sofa.
Not much time had passed since that dreadful night. Perhaps Holy’s excessive chatter was the flip side of her anxiety. Humoring her, at least a little, was part of looking after her emotional well-being.
Tsushima exchanged a glance with Holy, urging her to talk.
“You said this wasn’t your first time in Balga, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ve been here a few times for work.”
“When was that?”
Tsushima’s face tensed at her probing question. Fortunately for him, however, she probably couldn’t see his expression in the dimly lit room. Holy’s eyes were free from ulterior motives and seemed to bore straight through him.
It had been a long time since he had seen such an innocent gaze, and it put Tsushima in a sentimental mood. A sweet smell arose from the memories he had once put a lid on.
He calmly reached for a cigarette to rid himself of his misleading emotions. Yet, contrary to his expectations, the smoke rising from the cigarette only dragged him into the past.
Something about the current situation had to be dredging up those memories. Otherwise, he would never have spoken about the things he started talking about.
“I used to live here, around ten years back. I worked as a so-called mercenary and just did what the empire told me to do, wandering from battlefield to battlefield. In those days, I would sleep in abandoned buildings like this.”
Tsushima drew on memories that were in the back of his mind. He had experienced many things up to now, but they were all built on the life he had lived in Balga.
How to interact with people. How to survive as an Informationist. How to kill enemies.
Those lessons were extremely bloody and graphic for a child, but he’d learned them calmly. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to survive in that environment.
“At least ten years ago would make it around the time of the War to Recapture Jabar, yeah?”
“Yup. I fought in that one, too.”
“By any chance, did you participate in Elbar’s War of Independence?”
“Well, I suppose it turned out that way,” Tsushima replied ambiguously.
The War to Recapture Jabar was a large-scale civil war between Informationists and the government within the Balga Empire twelve years prior. Although the Informationist-led rebel army had gained the upper hand for a time, a group of traitors in their ranks ultimately caused an internal schism, leading to their crushing defeat.
The Informationists who survived went into hiding both within the country and abroad, deciding to regroup after four years had passed. That was when they fought against the world for the sovereignty of Informationists in Elbar’s War of Independence.
From that sequence of events, the War to Recapture Jabar would go down in history as a large-scale conflict that preluded the War of Independence.
“So that’s what you meant when you said you had experience in actual battles,” Holy quietly mumbled in the dark room. Tsushima let out a self-deprecating laugh and shrugged.
“It’s not rare for people in my generation.”
“Were you also born here? What about your family?”
“I’m a war orphan. I don’t know my birth parents or the country where I was born. But I did have someone who was kind of like an elder sister to me.”
As Tsushima spoke, he noticed a twinge in his heart. The memories that were surfacing were at once irreplaceably important and something he didn’t want to recall.
Tsushima’s feelings must have shown on his face. Being considerate, Holy spoke to him gently.
“She must be very dear to you,” she murmured, clutching something at her chest. Tsushima glanced at her briefly, then quietly exhaled.
“She might have been. But that’s something I don’t know about anymore.”
“But it’s your own past we’re talking about. How could you not know?”
“I decided to bury those memories. Recalling them is… They’re painful to think back on, is all.”
Holy fell silent. It was slight, but even she noticed the meaning behind Tsushima’s choice of words.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” she whispered timidly, her gaze appearing uncomfortable from under the blanket. Tsushima broke into a small grin at the usually defiant girl’s meek apology.
“It’s fine. If not for our present situation, I don’t think I would have dug up those memories.”
“I see. But that’s just a little sad, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“I mean, the memory of someone important gradually fading? It’s kind of heartbreaking,” Holy said, as if this lined up with one of her own memories. Tsushima hated sentimental conversations. He exhaled smoke and responded in an emotionless tone.
“Forgetting is also important. Painful memories affect your future.”
“Is that what they mean when people say, ‘Experience is the best teacher’?”
“Maybe.”
Holy softened her expression at Tsushima’s abrupt response. Then her eyes took on a sorrowful quality as she looked at the ceiling.
“What do you do if you want to quickly forget a painful memory?”
“What? Have you had your heart broken or something?”
“It’s not that.” Holy directed a damp gaze at Tsushima, who had spoken as if he were mocking her. She puffed out her small cheeks before returning her expression to a slightly more serious one. “I have a tough past, you know. Just maybe not to the same extent as you.”
Holy probably didn’t want to speak on what she’d been through. She went under the blanket up to her neck and let out a loud sigh that even Tsushima could hear.
“I wouldn’t be this troubled over one or two heartbreaks anyway.”
“All teenagers tend to fret about being lovesick over someone. I just figured you’d be the same.”
“Isn’t that exactly what people mean when they say, ‘Experience is the best teacher’?”
With his cigarette still in his mouth, Tsushima fixed his gaze out the window for a little while. Then he quietly exhaled a puff of smoke. Holy grinned at the subtle silence.
“Bull’s-eye, right?”
“Everyone goes through that phase.”
Although she’d seemed drowsy just a moment before, Holy abruptly sat up with a brightened expression. The girl was quick to pick up on talk of love.
Tsushima put on an annoyed look at the obvious aura of an infatuated young girl.
“Do you have a partner?” Holy asked.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just interested. It’s fine, right? I mean, we’re in an abandoned building! Our moods will just keep sinking unless we talk about something a bit lighthearted.”
Considering that day’s events, they did deserve to relax a bit. Tsushima made a bitter face, overpowered by Holy’s argument for once.
“In both work and my personal life, I find it more convenient to be alone. That’s something a kid like you wouldn’t understand.”
“Huuuuh… So you’re single. You have a nice face, though. Well, I guess the issue is probably what’s on the inside. You get it? What’s. On. The. Inside.”
Holy was taking the opportunity to pick a fight. Wordlessly, Tsushima glared at her with the cigarette in his mouth.
“What? I’m saying this out of the kindness of my heart, you know. I’m trying to give you advice—you’d be more popular if you showed a little more kindness.”
“It’s none of your business.”
Tsushima snuffed out the last bit of his cigarette and walked toward Holy. He grabbed the blanket and threw it over her head.
“Go to sleep already. We have an early day tomorrow as well.”
Holy let out a short shriek, then revealed just her eyes through a gap in the blanket, looking up at Tsushima.
As she watched him try to forcefully dodge the subject, she seemed to understand he wasn’t seriously angry. She quietly chuckled under the blanket.
“I feel like I understand you a bit better now. Thank you for talking to me, Tsushima,” Holy said to him as he turned around to prevent her from seeing the look on his face.
Tsushima hadn’t expected to be thanked for what was just idle chatter. Feeling awkward, he grimaced and reached for a new cigarette.
Somewhere outside the deserted house, a bird called out.