It had been her love for Livio—the same love that had saved her own heart... Like I could ever actually come out and say something like that!
Wait. Hold on. Hold up.
Sophie sank into thought. Now that she thought about it, what was it Azuello had said? What had he said after he told her to give him a name?
“It seems thou art no fool.”
No, that wasn’t it.
“Then thou mayest grant a name unto me.”
That was it—right after that.
“Thy magical energy—so warm and pure it doth border on embarrassing—hath pleased me.”
“W-Was that what he meant...?”
He’d said it bordered on embarrassing. But now Sophie was the embarrassed one. It was just too embarrassing.
Huh? Just what’re you getting at? Did that mean that every time Sophie used healing magic she’d be proclaiming how over the moon she was for Livio? What? Well, just what does that mean then? In the worst-case scenario, no, make that the most apocalyptically terrible scenario—Sophie loathed to even imagine it, and she hoped that there’d be even less of a chance of such a thing ever happening—that, gods forbid, Livio were to ever be injured, would healing him be like shouting out just how head over heels she was for him? She might as well be saying, “I’ve been going around telling everyone just how crazy I am about you!”
I don’t even wanna think about it...!
“Er, ummm... Lunetta?” Sophie stammered.
“Yes?”
She hadn’t caught on—probably not, at least. Do me a favor and don’t catch on.
She could sense puzzlement in both Lunetta’s eyes, as black as magic gems, and Livio’s own gaze, piercing into her cheek, so Sophie stayed calm... At least that’s what she told herself. Stay calm, Sophie...
“Is it possible to change what you imagine when you use magic?” Sophie asked.
Lunetta looked back at Sophie, confused. “I believe it is possible, but given how strongly the memory of your first success remains in your mind, I think it would be quite difficult to change. That’s why the idiosyncrasies of one’s magic are so difficult to uproot.”
“O-Oh, I see...”
It made sense. People tended to cling to their first impressions of their first time doing something. A prime example of such? One’s first love. Even if one’s first love were a string of embarrassing blunders made in the highest of spirits— On second thought, perhaps that was exactly why the memory stuck around.
No matter how hard she might try, Sophie had little confidence that the events today wouldn’t come bounding back into her mind every time she used healing magic. Everything that had happened had just left too much of an impact on her.
“Livio...don’t ever get injured, okay?”
“Hmm? Uh...okay.”
Don’t look. Don’t look at me. Please.
Sophie couldn’t bring herself to look at Livio. But she found herself equally unable to look at Lunetta’s expressionless face that somehow seemed to ask, Why? What’s wrong? And since Azuello was right there with her in the Why? What’s wrong? camp, Sophie couldn’t look at him either. In other words, she couldn’t look left, right, or even down. Staring straight ahead and feeling like she could cry, she came face-to-face with—ugh—Vyce giving her a mean-spirited sneer.
He knows.
He knows everything—every last bit of it. The look on Vyce’s face made it clear that he knew what Sophie had been thinking and what was running through her mind right now.
Ugh... He already knew full well that Sophie adored Livio, so even she knew it was useless to try and hide it now, but that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t the point at all.
For those among you who haven’t the slightest idea what all this is about, take the time to recall your own first love—so precious but bittersweet, so absurdly embarrassing it made you wish you could just curl up in your blankets and squirm about. If someone had asked you, “Oh, do you like them?” would you have been able to belt out an affirmative “Yes, I do!” in response? That was what this was.
It goes without saying that love isn’t the only situation that brings with it the embarrassment of having one’s feelings exposed. For those of you who might be asking “And just what other situations are there?”—imagine if you’d written a torrent of poems capturing the storm of your fluttering heart and you accidentally dropped it somewhere, or if you’d mistakenly given someone the journal you recorded your dreams in when you were trying to lend them a book. The very thought of it makes you yearn for the warm embrace of your blankets, does it not? If you still have no conception of such feelings, then bide your time with anticipation—the day will come that you will yearn to burrow into your blankets!
Indeed, just as Sophie wished to burrow this very instant!
Incidentally, Sophie had never written a poem and could not recall ever filling a journal to the brim with her dreams. That was just a joke she’d picked up at the tea parties she attended. But now, she truly yearned for her blankets. She wanted to bury herself in them. She wanted to curl up in a ball, like a little larva sleeping inside the ground.
Oh! It was Vyce—he’d opened his mouth.
“Nothin’ wrong with that, now is there?” Vyce started. “It’s the little lady’s first time, so ’course she’s confused. Now let’s hurry up and eat. I’m starvin’ here.”
Oh, Vyce, you saint! Sophie made a vow in the confines of her heart: In the future, when Vyce was writhing in agony over his love for Lunetta, Sophie would be there with a blanket in hand.