Chapter Ninety-Two: Flashback to a Nightmare That Never Faded and a Sweet Dreamlike Day That Disappeared
A while later, Haruka finally stopped sweating, and color returned to his face. He looked so much healthier that it was hard to imagine he was the same boy.
“Will it not be painful anymore when I move them…?” Haruka gingerly spread his wings. Each glossy feather on the large, encompassing wings glimmered like jewels.
“Pretty…” Sai was totally mesmerized, and the older boy grinned faintly at her.
“Thanks. The pain’s completely gone too.” He paused and repeated solemnly, “Thank you, Sai.”
“I am very glad to hear that!” Sai was over the moon. Then she remembered where she was. She was an illegal trespasser. “I shall go back now. Goodbye.”
“W-Wait.”
Sai tilted her head in question.
“Ah…” Haruka placed a hand over his mouth, looking conflicted as he gazed at Sai. He seemed to be feeling a mixture of regret and surprise at the fact that he had stopped her on reflex. He sunk into silence, and his eyes swam for a few seconds.
Then he folded his wings as small as he could and whispered, “Hey, Sai… Can we talk for a little longer? Um, I… Recently, I haven’t really had the chance to talk to other people.” His cheeks were slightly flushed as if he was embarrassed.
“Understood. May I sit here?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Sai plopped down next to Haruka on the bed. A smile lit up his eyes and face as she approached him. Up close, his hair looked fine and soft, and his skin was so white that he almost seemed to glow. Again, Sai found herself thinking that he was pretty, almost doll-like.
“It’s been too long since I last talked with someone who would meet my eyes…” he murmured. “I’m really happy.”
“Have you stayed here all alone for a long time?”
“Yeah. Because…I can’t let people see me like this.” He cast his eyes down, and his long lashes fluttered like butterflies as he fiddled with the tip of a wing. “Right now I’m in the process of ‘molting,’ as they call it. I only just grew my wings, and they’re still unstable. That’s why I’m in such pain and agony all the time…and I’m not supposed to let people see me in such an ugly state.”
Sai blinked. “But I saw.”
“…You’re okay. It’s, well, too late. We can’t change the past.”
For a long time after that, the boy and Sai chatted about all kinds of trifling topics. Sai shared her background and the reason she was in the Centorian capital that day. The boy told her about his life before he grew wings—about the things he used to like.
“Ah, so you were not living with your real mom and dad, I see.”
“Never lived with them and never even got to see their faces, in fact.”
“Didn’t you feel lonely…?”
“Not about that, at least. I used to think that the people who raised me and the person I thought was my brother were my real family.” He paused. “But then they pick now, after all that time, to say that my parents are different people. That my life is going to change. How am I supposed to cope with that?” He sighed. “Well, I don’t have the time to complain and whine. I need to become strong, and fast.”
“You are admirable. I need to work hard too.”
“You’re already working hard though, aren’t you? Way too hard.”
“No, not nearly enough.” Sai looked at the sky outside the windows. It was a rich blue without a single cloud in sight. Even in her nightmares, she had stared up at the blue sky countless times. “I have nightmares. I am trying very, very hard so that the nightmares don’t become real.”
“Nightmare…?”
“Scary nightmares.”
“If you’re feeling up to it, you can tell me. They say that if you describe your nightmares to someone else, they won’t come true.”
“Really?”
Sai had never told anyone about her dreams; she didn’t want to worry her parents. But for some reason, she felt like she could confide in the boy whom she’d only known for a day.
She slowly told Haruka about her dreams in bits and pieces. About how she would be all alone as an evil priestess, have her house burned down, and then be executed. About how she was trying her very best so that those events wouldn’t become reality. At first, she worried that he might laugh her off as silly for taking a dream so seriously, but Haruka listened solemnly and attentively to her anxieties to the very end.
When she was done, he asked, “Aren’t you scared? What if it’s a fate you can’t change no matter how hard you struggle?”
Sai nodded honestly. “I am scared. But sitting down and crying while scared is different from being scared after doing anything and everything I can. Even if it does turn out to be real one day, I want to be a good girl for a really long time so that I won’t embarrass Mom, Dad, Grandma, the people in our domain, or…you, Lord Haruka. Even if I have to die, I want to be a girl worthy of the title of Wagtail Priestess so that I can puff out my chest and say, ‘I am me!’”
“…You’re dazzling,” Haruka whispered before ruffling Sai’s dark hair so vigorously that her head swung left to right.
“My hair is black. I am not dazzling at all,” she objected.
“Ha ha, I’m not referring to that.”
“The dazzling one is you, Lord Haruka. You are almost like an angel.”
“Angel?” He tilted his head. “What’s an angel?”
“Huh? Now that you mention it, what is it? Huh…?”
At that time, Sai’s memories of both timelines were a chaotic jumble. She didn’t know whether it was knowledge she had learned as Sai Cutrettola or during her previous life, but she spoke aloud the impression she had of Haruka. “Someone with wings, with fluffy hair, and very mysterious. And very pretty,” she replied.
“I…see. So that’s how I look in your eyes, huh?”
But neither of them could say more, because two knocks sounded on the door. Both of them jolted in surprise.
“Lord Haruka,” said a woman’s voice, “I am here to deliver your meal.”
“Leave it there. Also, fetch a towel and a change of clothes.”
“Understood.” The maid promptly left. It seemed that he had been telling the truth when he said he barely saw anyone of late.
Sai quietly hopped off the bed. “I shall get going then.”
“Mm. I’ll miss you, but I hope to see you again one day.”
“I will also do my very best so that I don’t become an evil priestess and get executed.”
“Oh, it’s just a nightmare; you don’t have to be so worried. Knowing you, you’ll be fine.”