“It’s not like we’re never going to see each other again. If anything, it’s more of a problem for you to stay in this house. Father treats you harshly, and just recently, he hit you across the face.”
“That was because I talked to him.”
“That’s what I’m saying. What kind of father hits his daughter just for speaking to him? If you stay, something might happen that you’ll never be able to recover from. I won’t forgive him for cheating on mother, but this might be your only chance to escape from here. Mother thinks the same, which is why, for your sake, she decided to leave without taking us.”
“So, it is my fault.”
Cecil softly patted Yui’s head. “Not at all. It’s not your fault. It’s to help you. You mustn’t mistake the two.”
“It’s to help me?” she asked, wanting to be sure. Cecil nodded.
“That’s right,” Carlo said, showing his toothy grin. “Don’t worry about it, and go with mother. We’ll come see you all the time too.”
“We’ll still be able to meet?”
“Of course we will,” Carlo said.
Yui stopped crying. She had thought she would never see them again.
“We’ll see you all the time. It’ll be fine,” Cecil said. Yui felt relieved, but then he added, “The issue isn’t us; it’s what he’ll do.”
“Right?” Carlo said.
Yui tilted her head in puzzlement, and her brothers chuckled.
“We can’t forget that guy. I’ve already contacted him, so let’s head to his hideaway tomorrow,” Carlo said.
Hearing the word “hideaway,” Yui remembered with a start a person who was very important to her.
The next day, the three siblings arrived at a large, uninhabited mansion in the noble district. No one lived there, but it was regularly maintained, and though the building looked old, it didn’t show any of the usual signs of age. As they headed to the neatly trimmed garden, they caught sight of the person they were meeting, and Yui broke into a run.
“El!” she cried, leaping into the boy’s outstretched arms.
“Yui,” he said with a kind smile on his face.
As a Liefe, Yui had been treated with contempt even at the school she went to. She couldn’t make any friends and was often alone. Once she left the O’Brian household, she would also leave that school and transfer to a school for commoners.
Regardless, her experiences at school had left her incredibly wary of others, and the only person around whom she could let her guard down besides her mother and her brothers was the boy standing in front of her. The brilliant green of his eyes suited his jet-black hair, and even Yui, who didn’t pay much attention to physical appearance, could tell that his face was attractive. He was the same age as her brothers, and his looks were still fairly androgynous, but it was clear that once he got a bit older, his features would grow more masculine and women wouldn’t be able to take their eyes off him.
“El!” Yui cried again.
The boy was startled by Yui’s moistening eyes. “Yui?” he asked. He hesitated, just as Carlo had the day before, and looked to Cecil and Carlo for help. The twins just waved their hands. “We’ll leave the rest to you,” one said, and they both left.
Realizing he was on his own, the boy peered into Yui’s eyes. Because of her father, she didn’t like to show her emotions, so it was rare for her to cry. In other words, for Yui, this boy was one of the few people with whom she was able to be up-front about her feelings.
“Yui, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“Um, father and mother are getting divorced, so I have to leave with mother, and my brothers and I are going to have to live separately.”
“I see,” he said. He knew that Yui’s parents had a poor relationship, so he didn’t appear surprised.
“In a few days, we’re going away to mother’s parents’ home in the commoner district. I know I won’t be able to meet you here at the hideaway anymore.”
She had few people she was close with, so the time she spent with him at the hideaway had become a great source of comfort for her. She was sad that she was no longer going to be able to live with her brothers, but they’d said they were still going to see her, and her belief in them made her feel better about it.
However, the only place where she and this boy had been able to meet was here at the hideaway. Once Yui moved, it would be difficult for El to go visit her in the commoner district, and it’d be equally difficult for her to travel to the noble district to see him. The two parts of the city were divided by a border with inspections at the gate, so it was hard for commoners to enter the noble district. That wasn’t to say that it was impossible, but frequent visits by a commoner to a house that nobody was supposed to be living in would stand out, causing problems for the boy and her brothers, which Yui hardly wanted. Even more than that, though, Yui hated that she wouldn’t be able to see him anymore. Unable to bear it, she began to cry again.
“El,” she said through tears, “I don’t wanna stop seeing you.”
Troubled, the boy hugged Yui tightly and patted her on the back. “Yui,” he said in a kind voice that made her feel calmer. He was like a third brother to her, only different somehow, but she didn’t yet have the words to convey her feelings.
The boy let go of her, then took out a pair of pendants from his pocket. They bore engravings of the Elphie flower, the national flower of Garlant, and when the pendants were held together, the engravings formed a single pattern. There was a stone set in each of them; one was green, like the boy’s eyes, and the other was a light blue, like Yui’s eyes.
“Pretty...” Yui said.
“Do you like them?” the boy asked.
“Yeah.”
“These two are a set,” he said. “They mean that, even though we’ll be separated, we’ll be able to meet again someday, no matter what. This pendant will protect you even when I’m not by your side.” He hung the pendant with the stone that matched his eye color around Yui’s neck and fastened the one that matched Yui’s eye color around his own. “It’ll be okay. We’ll see each other again, so just wait for me.”
“Yeah. I’ll be waiting. I’ll try my hardest, so come see me.”
“I will.”
After the two exchanged that promise, they parted.