Swallowing up the conflict storming within him, Benet slowly closed his eye.
“Belle…”
Even from this side, he could sense Belle tensing up and preparing to lunge with her sword, her face screwed up into a dangerous glare. Her arms were trembling.
Why do I feel so powerless? Why am I trying to cut him down with this sword?
“I’m here to check on you.”
Something got blown away with a loud thud—the slash was unleashed with intensity, faster than her thoughts could catch up to it. She felt like she could cut him down now. She was absorbed in it, completely, but the sword in her hand was nothing but a lump of metal. There was no resonance whatsoever between her and it. She understood that. In a droplet of time, briefer than a moment, everything within Belle lashed out, hating how powerless she was. But what else was she to do? Simply swinging the sword—that was the symbol of power.
“Belle!”
For a moment, she had no idea what had happened. Her sword stopped in its tracks. Exhibiting her natural strength, she’d been able to stop the sword in midair. The tip of the sword had just barely sunk into the door, and Belle noticed dust falling over her. Looking up, the sword’s tip had cut through the ceiling in an arc when she’d swung it.
Slowly, she turned her eyes to the door. A different voice and presence reached her from the other side.
“Who’s there…?”
She asked with a trembling, fearful voice. She gently pulled the sword’s tip from the door, her eyes nailed to the wood like she had trouble believing what was there. Her hands tensed, but unlike earlier, she knew this time she was clinging to her sword in both fear and anticipation.
She heard an intentionally loud sigh.
“It’s me, you know,” said a haughty voice. “Open up already. I’ve got a lot in my hands, and I’ll drop it if I stay like this much longer.”
“Who are you?”
“What are you saying? I brought all sorts of things. The kind you like. You’ve got good taste, you know? If only you weren’t such a glutton. Oh, but I prefer demitasse tea to maisen tea. Especially during this season. I should have brought that instead.”
“Why…? Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, stop that. I went out of the way to see you. Come on, open the door already.”
“But I…”
“You’re hurting. Hurting so much you feel like you’ll lose it if you don’t suppress your heart.”
The sword’s tip hit the floor with a thud, sinking into the wood. Her right hand still held on to the hilt, while her left hand slowly reached out to unlock the door. She removed one chain, then unlocked the door and fearfully turned the knob. Light seeped in, overflowing as it opened.
“The window…”
Belle stammered, unsure of what to tell the woman standing in the blinding light. Finally, she found an excuse.
“I was going to open the window.”
The other person smiled cynically. It was a showy expression, but strangely not unpleasant, because beneath it Belle could see there was kindness.
The woman brushed back her hair, the sun glittering against the scale bones on her elbows and neck, typical of her race.
“You look terrible.” The woman jerked her chin at Belle with a scowl, appalled by her appearance.
Belle still only wore her long shirt, with nothing else under it. She really did look awful. Her mostly bare skin was covered in scratches. Glancing at them, she spotted blue bruises that looked like lashings from a whip, running along and across her skin. The woman’s gaze raked over those as well, and she stared straight at Belle with a provoking look that spelled out that she had indeed seen it. Her two amethyst eyes met Belle’s frightened black ones.
“Your eye…,” Belle whispered.
“I brought all sorts of things.” She cut Belle off and strode into the room, then— “Look at the state of this place!” she screamed. “My word… Fine, I’ll clean up for you, so just rest there. Ugh, see, this is why I can’t stand visiting the sick… Go on, shut the door. Your hair is a mess, too; I can’t stand to look at it. How did you get like that? Are you dense?”
“Wh-what’s gotten into you, all of a sudden? Why are you here?”
Belle locked the door like the other woman had asked and tried to direct a disapproving look at her but failed. Her voice faltered.
The woman placed the bags she was carrying on the dining table and looked around the room without making any effort to mask her shock. She walked up to Belle, who stood dazed in the hall, put her hands on her hips, and cocked her head arrogantly.
“Don’t just stand there. Get in bed. You’ll catch a cold, the way you’re dressed.”
“I… I thought you died.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean…”
The woman narrowed her eyes. Two eyes. There was still a scar running from her left brow down to her cheek. The eye under that scar should have been all white and injured beyond the healing powers of even sacred ashes. And in most cases, losing one eye means the other eye becomes strained and its sight also gradually fails, leading to blindness. But it hadn’t impacted her day-to-day life thanks to the traits of the Mermaid race, allowing their triangular ears to perceive the world through sound.
Yes, this woman was a Mermaid. A hermaphroditic race, containing both masculinity and femininity within one body.
“I thought you were dead. Ever since your masculine self appeared… Benet, all this time, I thought you died…”
Benedictine neither denied nor confirmed it. She smiled sarcastically, raised her hands from her waist to rest them on Belle’s shoulders, pulled her closer to relieve her tension, and hugged her gently.
“I still need to get back at you, after all. For cutting down Gordon and my sword…”
Her tone was mischievous, making it hard to tell if she was serious, but within it, Belle felt like she heard something forlorn and tragic. Why? The moment she asked herself this, she felt a stuffiness fill her nose as hot tears welled.
Benedictine’s hand brushed Belle’s back soothingly. “I’ll pour you some tea. Maisen tea is fine, yes? And we can take our time and talk. You can tell me what made someone as cheerful and reckless as you become like this.”
“I… I-it’s my fault.”
“Is it, though?”
“I mean, I…”
“You can take your time and explain it however you please. I’ll go make us tea. I’m quite parched. And I can’t eat everything in those bags on my own.”
The whole time, Benedictine kept rubbing Belle’s back soothingly, holding the girl against her warm, well-endowed bosom. Belle realized that she’d started crying at some point. It felt like the opposite of something that had happened before. Benedictine was the one clinging to Belle, though fed up with having to tend to a bawling woman, and she never let go of her.
Remembering that put her at ease. Belle wailed, sobbing openly.
“You did nothing wrong,” Benedictine concluded firmly. “But if feeling like you’re at fault makes it any easier for you, go ahead and feel that way.”
Benedictine answered while cleaning up the room, which made her responses come across as casual, but it only made Belle feel more comfortable. Lying sprawled out on the bed while hugging her sword, she whispered her uncertainties.
Her eyes traced the spots where the ceiling’s plaster was painted over, vertical and horizontal. Lines at right angles to each other. That’s what their exchange was like the whole time. But which was horizontal and which was vertical, she wondered.
Belle tilted her head, and the vertical lines became horizontal, and vice versa.
See? she whispered to herself.
It was just like their words. Or like Adonis and Belle. Or conversely, like Belle and Benedictine.