# Chapter 43
“Why.”
My body flinched at the sudden touch, but I tried to sound calm.
“…Huh?”
“Why are you turning your back to sleep?”
Rite’s hand turned my body back to a proper lying position. I hadn’t even managed to fully turn my back. It was an unfair accusation.
“No, it’s cramped.”
“Are you uncomfortable?”
“Aren’t you curling your body up right now?”
“I’m fine. If it bothers you that much, just lie facing this way.”
“…No. I’ll stay like this.”
It felt awkward to sleep facing someone. When I was young in the orphanage, we slept packed tightly in a small room, but I thought that discomfort was normal. After going to Plin’s house, I always slept alone, and even after entering the imperial palace, I had my own room. Though there was hazing from people, the treatment from the country was not lacking.
So I had my own room since I was seven. Or more precisely, until I started raising Rite. Even after raising Rite, I only held him on top of me when he was very young; after he grew to a certain size, I gave Rite his independence too, so we rarely slept together. There were occasional nights when he claimed he had bad dreams and slept with me, but…
‘I’ve never had nightmares. Even when I crawled into your bed with a much smaller body, there were no days when I had nightmares.’
Rite’s voice suddenly came to mind. I had wanted to forget it so badly, yet it returned without missing a single letter. My heartbeat gradually quickened. My pulse, having lost its calm due to anxiety, made me even more uncomfortable.
“Good night, Arden. For real.”
“…Good night.”
I closed my eyes. I tried my best not to think about anything, but the more conscious I was of this effort, the more thoughts came to mind. This was a worry I couldn’t even ask Plin about, but even if I did, I don’t think Plin would have the answer. Because I had never been like this. Besides, Plin was no longer in this world anyway.
Like a child, I imagined pushing away the thoughts that came to mind. I imagined firmly pressing down on the thoughts that were squirming out of my brain, which led to wondering if I could make a machine that would prevent thinking. When I concluded that would be in the realm of magic rather than engineering, I drifted into a light sleep.
* * *
It felt like I had just closed and opened my eyes, but I could instinctively tell that quite some time had passed. It was too dark to see the clock hands, but it seemed about two hours had gone by.
I felt something inexplicably strange. With a foggy mind, I retraced everything one by one. The dark interior, the cold air on my cheek not covered by the blanket, and the faint sound of howling wind. All of these were familiar elements.
And hearing the breathing sound right next to me, I slightly rolled my eyes to look beside me. I could see Rite curled up tightly with his body turned toward me. Due to his higher than normal body temperature, I could feel warmth just from him being next to me.
Is it because Rite is beside me? Something feels missing, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe because I was half-asleep, my mind wasn’t working properly.
In this uncomfortable state, I slowly raised my upper body. I wasn’t fully awake, but it seemed difficult to fall into a deep sleep again even if I went back to sleep. I got up thinking of taking a sip of alcohol. I moved slowly and carefully, afraid of waking Rite.
“…Haah.”
Only after completely leaving the bedroom and closing the door did tension release and a sigh escape me. I had raised him since he was a baby who couldn’t even open his eyes, yet how could it be this uncomfortable? In all the years of raising Rite, I never imagined a day would come when I would feel uncomfortable with the child. My sigh sound lingered low in the quiet house.
Sound. That’s when I realized what had been missing. I couldn’t hear the rain. The rain that had been pouring steadily for two days had stopped. The rain had seemed so unfamiliar, yet I felt empty now that it was gone, as if I had already grown accustomed to it.
Even after pulling back the curtain by the entrance window, I couldn’t see properly because it was dark. Had it really stopped? As I was staring out the window, I put on the coat hanging beside me and opened the front door. Creeeeak, an unpleasant noise came from the door hinge. Thinking I would need to oil it again soon, I stepped outside.
The forest at dawn gave a less desolate impression than during the day. The area close to the horizon was tinted purple, which gradually changed to a deep navy blue as it rose to the higher sky. The snow had melted quite a bit, making the trees greener than usual, and the stars embedded in the sky made the forest more vibrant than the usual winter forest. During the day, the stars were hidden by the sun, and only white snow fell from the gloomy gray sky.
After absentmindedly gazing up at the stars, the cold wind brought me to my senses. I walked a few steps to check the condition of the ground. I walked until passing the tree house and stopped at a suitable spot. Just as I was bending down to touch the ground, I heard something breaking.
Reflexively, I turned my head toward the sound. The source of the sound was the cabin I had walked out from. There was only Rite inside the house.
I immediately stood up and ran back to the house. Even in that short time, my mind was anxious. Suddenly, I remembered the old days. The time when Rite couldn’t even open his eyes properly, when I would wake up and run at just the sound of crying.
Now, Rite made me just as anxious as back then.
“Rite?”
As soon as I opened the door and entered, a strong sweet scent stung my nose, so intense it felt suffocating. My breathing became irregular. My eyes wandered, searching the dark interior of the house. The door, which had been creaking in the wind, slowly closed.
When I found Rite, my disturbed breathing gradually stabilized. Unlike me, Rite didn’t appear stable. As evidence, two horns had sprouted from his head.
Rite, who had been facing away, slowly turned to look at me. In the cabin where no starlight entered, his purple eyes shone brightly.
“What was that sound just…”
“Where did you go?”
Around the time I was becoming accustomed to the strong vanilla scent that had been stinging my nose, I could faintly detect a fishy smell. As my eyes gradually adapted to the darkness, Rite’s clenched right hand came into view.
Below his wrist, where black scales had appeared, drops of blood were falling through the gaps between his fingers. Following that blood trail with my eyes, I saw scattered glass shards and a ribbon strewn on the floor. It was the perfume bottle. Thick blood was dropping one by one onto the liquid pooled generously on the floor. The bright red smell of blood was overlaying the soft vanilla scent.
“What’s that?”
“Ah.”
When I asked, pointing at the broken bottle on the floor, Rite slowly lowered his gaze to look at the shattered perfume bottle. His eyes, looking at the messy floor, resembled the dawn sky I had just seen.
“I broke it by mistake. I’m sorry.”
Mistake. How should I interpret that word? How should I understand a child who says he broke it by mistake and is sorry with such an expression and in such a voice?
The evidence that it was a lie was not just circumstantial. The perfume bottle was originally in my room, so why would he “accidentally” break it in the middle of the living room?
“I’m hurting, Arden.”
Rite showed me the fist he had been clenching until now. His blood-covered palm sparkled in the darkness. There were fragments embedded across his entire palm.
I could imagine how Rite broke it. He didn’t throw the bottle on the floor or “accidentally” knock it over. He gripped the glass bottle in his hand and broke it with his strength.
“Haah…”
A sigh escaped me involuntarily. I had seen blood flowing from Rite three times recently. Had this happened before? Even searching through eight years of memories, I couldn’t recall Rite being injured like this. Especially not actions close to self-harm like this.
What should a proper guardian do when a child self-harms? Should I scold him? Should I pretend not to notice and let it pass? Will Rite get better if we continue this power struggle? How long do we have to repeat these days where we only hurt each other?
No answer came. No book described how to deal with such behavior. I turned around and turned on the living room light. The Aether’s distinctive blue light flickered and instantly illuminated the house.
“…Go sit in your room. I’ll bring a wet cloth.”
I heard Rite’s footsteps behind me. Only after the sound stopped did I turn around, and only a tragic scene entered my eyes. More and more bright red traces were accumulating in this house.
* * *
The rain continued. Just when it seemed to have stopped, it started again at some point. Rain fell in the Winter Forest for a week. The once snow-white forest gradually began to be stripped bare. If only those bright red traces could be washed away by that rainwater. I harbored a wish that would be difficult to fulfill.
Thanks to this, I was stuck in the cabin unable to leave, watching over Rite—just as someone wished. Since I couldn’t go down to the village, I couldn’t properly work either.
Occasionally, very briefly, the rain would stop and snow would fall, but the peace didn’t last long. Plague, war, irreverent rumors about the Emperor, continuous rain.
“…Will you really be okay?”
And Rite. I turned my gaze from the window at Rite’s voice. I glanced at the arm where scales had frequently appeared recently. Rite’s right arm now had the soft skin of a human as if nothing had ever happened.
Elements threatening the country were increasing one by one. It felt like the entire country was gradually being shaken.
Rite, holding firewood in front of the stove, looked at me with worried eyes. The stove, which had always blazed with fire, was taking a rest for the first time in a long while.
“It’s fine.”
“Getting some wood isn’t a difficult task.”
My brow furrowed involuntarily. That was absolutely not going to happen. Considering that Rite had entered the forest twice already, it seemed like I should be the one confining Rite to the cabin, not the other way around.
“No. Who knows how sensitive the forest monsters have become.”
“No matter how much we conserve firewood, we’ll eventually run out.”
“The rain will stop before then.”
It was a hopeful statement without any basis, but that was all I could say. There were numerous concerns. Sudden climate change also affects machines. It was uncertain whether the machines installed near the house were working properly.
Recently, the sensors had not responded at all. There was no way to check whether the forest creatures had stopped moving and were holding their breath in their territories because of the rain, or if the machine was broken. Magical tools were not affected by rain, but the anxiety was unavoidable.
Nevertheless, the biggest problem right now was firewood. Although I usually stocked up plenty of food ingredients that could only be obtained by going down to the village, firewood was different. Since it could be easily obtained nearby, I never spent money to buy firewood. There was no need to stock up a lot.
“What if you catch a cold? You’re quite sensitive to the cold too.”
“I’m wearing clothes. And it’s not that I’m sensitive to cold, it’s that you’re unusually resistant to it.”
I said, pointing to my body bundled in outdoor clothing. I had forcibly dressed Rite in the same way this morning, but he must have felt stuffy because he was already in light attire.
He really doesn’t listen these days. What if he catches a cold like that? I looked at Rite with a dissatisfied face, but Rite paid no attention. He put down the firewood next to the stove and picked up a book that had been placed face-down on the chair. As he plopped down in the chair, his fine black hair fluttered.
It was an ordinary and peaceful scene. Except for the fact that the rain sound filled the surrounding space instead of the stove sound. With that small sound, even an ordinary scene looked somewhat special. As if this place wasn’t the Winter Forest…
Knock, knock.
Amidst the rain sound, a slightly heavier sound was heard. Rite reacted first to that sound. By the time I recognized the sound, Rite had already turned his head and was staring fiercely at the entrance.
