“It’s, not, a mistake,” Azriel barely said. Her words were all crumbled together as if she was going to cry at any moment. “You said it’s your duty. You said wizards are an exception from your promise not to harm the people I know. You already warned me not to give affection. So, it can’t be a mistake.”
“No. It’s a mistake.”
“What? Getting caught by me?”
“That’s also true, but,” Rhema, who meekly agreed to her, carefully organized her hair, which was wet in tears and sticking together, and brushed it back. He, then, continued slowly. “I didn’t know that you’d be this sad. So, it’s a mistake.”
She was frightened by his remark. Azriel struggled and escaped his arms. Rhema instantaneously grasped her and immediately released his strength. Azriel, who stepped away from him, held her own body. “Just because I’m sad now, don’t, don’t try to leave me again like when I was ten. Don’t do that.”
“…Wouldn’t that be better if I do that? I can prepare it well so that your life won’t be as hard as before…”
“It’s not about that!” Azriel raised her voice. “Don’t try to resolve everything by making things like they never happened. You’re not resolving anything but covering them up. Nothing will change that way!”
Rhema turned blank to hear Azriel’s remarks. Then he asked quietly. “Then, what do you want me to do?”
“Let’s talk,” Azriel held back her tears and said as calmly as possible. “Not everything will be resolved by talking, and some things can even get worse, but I think it’s better than not talking about it.”
She was still sobbing while saying that. Then, she barely stopped crying. “That’s the beginning of everything. You said that even this world was created by the conversations between God and the primal dragon.”
She wiped her tears clean and approached him, with her reddened eyes. “If we don’t talk, nothing begins. So, let’s not shut down the possibility, but talk.”
She stopped at a distance where she could touch him if she stretched her arm out and looked up at him. Rhema slightly avoided her eyes and said. “There are a lot of things that I can’t say, Azriel.”
“I know, but that’s alright. If you can’t say it, I will find it out,” she said.
“Even if there is no guarantee that finding out will be better for you? Many things in this world are better off not knowing.”
“But I have to know them.”
“There is another way for you. The way you can choose anytime, much more convenient and happier for you.”
While saying so, he did not make eye contact with her. When he said it earlier in the room of chess, he was not looking at her eyes. Suddenly, she remembered what Blanchet said, “Don’t believe everything Rhema says.”
“Rhema, you are a liar,” Azriel said.
“…?”
“You say that there’s another way, but don’t you want me not to choose that in fact, do you?” Azriel did not miss him flinching very slightly. She continued. “I don’t want to forget you. I don’t want to exclude you from my life, either. Is it only me who feels that way? Is it truly okay for you to make this like it never happened, Rhema?”
There was no way. Azriel was certain. She took a step closer to him. “In reality, you don’t want to do that, do you?”
“Azriel,” Rhema finally made eye contact with her. His eyes had been blurred like the clouded sky. He said in a low voice. “Please don’t shake me anymore.”
“Why?”
“It will put you in danger.”
“How is it going to put me in danger?”
“You won’t be able to take it.”
“Take what?”
“My desire.”
Azriel was startled. Desire? It was a word that seemed really far from Rhema. Because he could have everything, he did not want anything. Rhema, whom Azriel had seen so far, was such a being.
“What kind of desire is it?”
“Azriel, do you know what I wanted to ask if I beat you in the game of chess?”
Why is he speaking about chess all of a sudden? She shook her head absentmindedly. Rhema slightly raised a corner of his mouth. It looked like a made-up smile.
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