At a glance, his tone was friendly — but the chill in it came through just as clearly as his silver hair.
Rodeo glanced at the name tag on the man’s shirt and spoke.
“Dr. Colbert.”
“Evan is fine.”
“Isn’t my face incredibly swollen?”
Evan silently raised both eyebrows, as though he’d just heard something completely out of nowhere.
“It seemed like you weren’t curious about what happened.”
“Would you prefer I ask in detail?”
“……”
“If so, I can certainly do that.”
“No, that’s fine.”
At Rodeo’s look of exasperation, Evan smiled. His eyes weren’t smiling.
“How did the meeting go? Did they grant your requests?”
“Yes. I got everything I asked for.”
“That must be a relief.”
“I got everything I asked for… but I’m not sure if I achieved what I actually wanted.”
At those words, Evan quietly slipped a notebook from his inner pocket, picked up the pen tucked into his shirt pocket, and began writing something down.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I can’t tell whether I did it because I felt I had to, or because I wanted to.”
“Which do you think it should be?”
“It should be the former.”
Evan’s eyes widened briefly, and his gaze shifted from the notebook to Rodeo.
“Do you think it’s wrong to do something because you want to?”
“In this particular matter, yes. I’d rather not go into detail.”
“I see. That’s all right. Whatever you’re able to say is enough.”
Rodeo gave a small shrug and stared at Evan’s face for a moment. He spoke trustworthy words and wore a kind expression — yet somehow he always seemed a little sly.
“Dr. Colbert, you’re around your forties, aren’t you?”
“It’s Evan.”
“Evan, you’re in your forties, right?”
“Yes, forty-six. Even if your time had flowed normally, I’d still be nine years older than you.”
Seemingly aware of Rodeo’s attitude throughout, Evan smiled and placed emphasis on nine years.
“……”
“……”
At the obvious intent, Rodeo only narrowed his eyes and stared, and Evan, too, maintained his smile in silence.
“Does a person normally reach their forties and just want to give up on everything?”
“…It would be hard to say otherwise. But what can you do — life is a matter of cleaning up your own mess.”
“He wasn’t like that before… He acts like he doesn’t even want to find a way out of the situation.”
It was a mutter that paid no mind to Evan’s barbed answer — but Evan, unperturbed, stared at him steadily and spoke.
“You mean Chalice?”
“…How did you—”
“One reason the facility was buzzing today was Rodeo, and the other was Chalice. How could I not know?”
“You seem… quite close to Chalice. No title or anything…”
“Yes, we go way back.”
At Evan’s vague but easy reply, Rodeo raised one eyebrow. Then, for a moment, he let his guard down — tilting his head back and forth several times before speaking with a look of half-belief.
“Have you perhaps seen me before? …My memory is hazy, but I keep feeling like I’ve seen you somewhere. Could it be a Time Warp side effect — someone I know that I’m just not recognizing?”
At that, Evan’s expression stiffened for a split second before relaxing. The unreadable expression that had flickered across his face quickly faded, and soon he was smiling broadly again as before — but Rodeo wasn’t foolish enough to miss the fact that something had been there in that passing expression.
“Don’t worry. Around the time you first arrived at the facility, I was stationed at a facility in another country and wasn’t here — and I returned here while you were missing. Chalice is someone I knew when we were young. Back then, he and I were quite close.”
The blatant attempt to redirect the conversation was obvious — but the expression and tone with which he said it was apparently quite provocative to Rodeo, because the faint hostility that instantly colored Rodeo’s face was one he made no effort to hide.
“What was your facility-given name?”
“…That’s a name I’d rather not use.”
“……”
“Now then, let’s set my story aside and return to yours. This is Rodeo’s treatment time, not mine.”
Even as Evan changed the subject again, Rodeo did not open his mouth — and from Evan, who had seemed to be thinking for a moment, came an unexpected remark.
“All right. What does Chalice know about your plan?”
“…What are you talking about, ‘plan’?”
“If you push it through without explanation — like some act of charity — he will refuse to the end, even if you tell him it’s for his own sake.”
Even as Rodeo deflected, Evan continued speaking as though he knew everything, and Rodeo, at a loss for what to say, couldn’t manage to produce anything resembling a proper comeback.
“From what I’ve heard, when it came to missions with Chalice, you’d either go off and handle things alone without saying a word to him — or you’d botch it completely. Even though your teamwork with others was excellent.”
“……”
“It seems like it was intentional in the past — but by now, hasn’t it just become habit?”
“What do you think you know—”
“If all of this was done not because it was ‘something you had to do’ but because it was ‘something you wanted to do’… then communication and conversation will matter a great deal. It’s something I learned the hard way myself recently, so I’d like you to know it in advance.”
Rodeo, quietly seething at Evan for quoting his own earlier words back at him, asked:
“Is this what counts as treatment for you, Mr. Colbert?”
“Facing things head-on is an important starting point.”
“……”
“Part of me wants to be helpful as an old friend of Chalice’s… and part of me is a little jealous of you, honestly.”
Rodeo shot to his feet at Evan’s words, his voice rising.
“Jealous? Who are you to Chalice?”
Evan burst out laughing where he sat, and after barely managing to settle it, spoke. The counselor’s gentle smile had vanished from his face without a trace.
“Childish as it is, I’m curious too. Who are you to Chalice, that you’re even asking that?”
“…Chalice will be my dedicated Guide. The facility was buzzing about it — you wouldn’t be unaware.”
“In the old days, that would have implied something — but these days, even dedicated Guides only do Guiding through the Decorker… Are you perhaps hoping for something by submitting the dedicated Guide registration?”
“You’ve got some nerve—!”
Rodeo lunged forward with both arms outstretched as if to grab him by the collar, and Evan dropped the pen in his hand, ducking down under the pretense of picking it up to dodge the attempt. As Rodeo, having lost his composure in an uncharacteristic way, stared at him with an expression of disbelief, Evan smiled his gentle smile again and spoke.
“It seems like you don’t have the energy to focus on treatment after all that meeting. Let’s stop here for today — I’ll see you tomorrow. You’ve worked hard, so I’ll count it as two hours.”
Watching the back of Evan as he made a show of rushing out of the room, a short, breathless hah escaped Rodeo’s lips — and at that very moment, his phone on the table in front of the sofa buzzed loudly.
“Hello.”
[Hey, the basic Decorker sync setup is all done. Applying without Chalice’s signature meant it took a bit of time to get the supporting documents ready — but apparently, since Chalice was the original applicant, it’ll be fine as long as we submit the additional paperwork later.]
“Okay. Then I’m heading out. I sat through quite a conversation waiting for this.”
[Huh? What do you mean?]
“Forget it. See you later.”
Rodeo grabbed his coat and trudged out of the office. His face, reflected in his phone screen, looked quite a mess — his expression deeply furrowed — and just thinking about having to meet Chalice and convince him made his head ache.
“What a rough road ahead, seriously. I have only myself to blame.”
He let out a long sigh, then shook his head as if trying to lift his spirits — only to stop almost immediately, his face scrunching up in pain. One side of his face must have been hurting too much to ignore, and Rodeo spent the rest of the walk to the elevator gingerly rubbing his jaw.
