# Chapter 35
I involuntarily flinched at the large hand, but it didn’t touch my body. It only carefully unwound the scarf that I hadn’t fully removed yet.
“Arden. It’s always only Arden who appears.”
“…That’s a lie.”
I intended to push Rite away and go to my room. It was all lies. Clearly just harsh words meant to hurt me, to throw me completely off balance.
Just as I was about to pass by Rite, an arm suddenly appeared before my eyes. Following the strong arm that blocked my way by pressing against the wall, I looked up to see Rite with a sunken expression.
“You know it’s not a lie.”
With the wall behind me and Rite blocking the front, I had nowhere to escape. I was essentially trapped in Rite’s embrace. I couldn’t breathe. I could see my chest rising and falling as my breathing quickened. I wanted to escape this situation.
“You saw it clearly that day, Arden.”
“You should know that this is wrong. Think about it morally, rationally. What kind of person would feel this way about someone who raised them…”
“No. How would I know? You’ve never taught me.”
“That’s why I’m telling you now. That this isn’t right.”
“Is that why you met Jack? For me to see?”
Rite’s expression crumpled instantly. So what was the right expression for me to wear here? Should I frown too? What should I be feeling? I wasn’t even sure about my own emotions. I was just confused.
“Did you think I would give up after seeing that? Did you not think about how I would feel?”
“You should give up! If you know it’s not possible!”
“You haven’t even tried!”
Both our voices had risen. My ears hurt from the loud sound at such close range. As I frowned and tried to cover my ears with my hands, Rite grabbed my wrist before I could.
“Do you really not know how miserable I feel?”
“You’re the one who came down to the village to see that. What if someone had seen you? Why would you do something so dangerous?”
“That’s why I watched from hiding. Even seeing you go in with that guy, I just stayed hidden. I didn’t follow you in, couldn’t even stand beside you and say Arden is mine.”
Resentment and sorrow appeared in Rite’s eyes. His distorted face looked as though he might cry.
“If Arden goes off to meet someone else like that, then what about me? Who do I meet? The monsters in the forest?”
“Rite!”
“Why are you trying to leave me here alone?”
Rite reminded me once again that I was all he had.
Sensing a weakness in my resolve, Rite gradually leaned his body toward me. I pushed him away as he tried to lean into my embrace. Perhaps not expecting this, Rite backed away with a bewildered expression.
“Who I meet has nothing to do with our relationship.”
“…Arden.”
“What’s not possible is not possible.”
Perhaps it was all my fault for raising the child incorrectly from the beginning. If so, I needed to correct it now. That was my role.
I walked past Rite toward my bedroom door. Despite feeling his piercing gaze on my back, I turned the doorknob.
“I think I’ve indulged you too much all this time.”
“…”
“Don’t come into my room anymore. Day or night.”
“…”
“I won’t go into yours either.”
Deliberately ignoring Rite’s gaze, I closed the door. Only after securely engaging the lock did I curl up as if collapsing. I had an ominous feeling that the path ahead would be even more difficult than this.
* * *
The next morning, it took a lot of courage to open the door. I couldn’t readily go out, worried that Rite might continue to be stubborn. However, contrary to my concerns, Rite acted indifferently. As if nothing had happened.
That actually made things more awkward. Rite was making an effort right now.
“You woke up a bit late today.”
“Huh? Oh… did I?”
When I opened the door, my eyes immediately met Rite’s as he was setting breakfast on the table. Rite was the first to avert his gaze.
The breakfast prepared for me was similar to usual. White bread with butter and jam, a small salad, and one well-boiled egg. As I sat down and cut the boiled egg in half with a knife, I glanced at Rite’s plate.
“Are you going to eat that?”
“It’s what Arden bought for me.”
Rite’s breakfast was different from mine. The roast chicken I had bought yesterday. It seemed a bit excessive for breakfast, but if he wanted to eat it, there was no need to stop him.
So, did you eat dinner last night? I wanted to ask Rite that, but couldn’t easily open my mouth. I was worried my voice might betray tension, or that bringing up yesterday might stimulate Rite again.
“Are you going down to the village today too?”
“Huh? Oh, no. I’ll be staying home today.”
“Working on the jobs Markus connected you with?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
In fact, I hadn’t yet received proper order forms, but I said yes anyway. Since these weren’t orders from villagers, it would take a few days to rewrite and send the forms. I didn’t need to lie, but the words just came out. For some reason, I felt I needed to impress upon Rite that I was busy and had things to do today.
Rather than going down to the village with nothing to do, it would be much better to pass time in my room. I could read books, or do things I had been putting off that didn’t need to be done immediately. So what should I do to pass the time today? While pondering this, Rite spoke up.
“Is it difficult?”
“What?”
“You look troubled.”
Rite said, casually pointing at my face with his fork. My worries must have been evident on my face. Trying not to appear flustered, I shrugged casually.
“No, it’s just that the materials are a bit tricky. It would be easier if I had Achris horn… but that’s hard to come by. Combining substitute materials is cumbersome.”
It wasn’t a lie. Perhaps that’s why the words flowed smoothly. Engineering and alchemy were inseparable, and monster materials were common ingredients for magic and alchemy.
Given that alchemy’s motto is “Everything can be created,” there were certainly substitutes available. However, having to do something two or three times that could be done once couldn’t be considered convenient.
Rite didn’t ask for more details. Perhaps because he had been weak at engineering and numbers since childhood, he didn’t show much interest in my work even now that he was grown. When he was younger, he would sit beside me and watch me work, but now that he was grown, that no longer happened.
“Your birthday is coming up soon.”
“Ah, you’re right.”
As I turned my gaze to the calendar on the wall, I noticed a date circled in red pen. August 28th. In place of my careless self, Rite would mark both my birthday and his on each year’s calendar.
“I wish your birthday wouldn’t come.”
Rite’s words made me chuckle. It was a natural laugh as the slight tension that remained dissipated.
“You only want to celebrate your own birthday?”
“Yes. I wish we could skip your birthday for a few years.”
“Why? Let’s just celebrate your birthday for the rest of our lives then.”
“I think I could catch up quickly if we just skipped it for a few years.”
Catch up to what? I looked at Rite, about to ask this. Rite was methodically dismantling the chicken with a composed expression.
“My growth has slowed a bit lately, but my time still moves faster than Arden’s.”
Now I somewhat understood what Rite meant. The age gap between Rite and me was gradually narrowing. Initially, the difference was over twenty years, but now it was close to ten. Since I couldn’t know Rite’s exact age, I couldn’t tell if it was less or more than ten years, but what was certain was that the difference had decreased from before.
“…What are you trying to accomplish by catching up to me?”
The tension that had eased returned. Rite seemed unaffected, but I wasn’t confident about how I appeared.
I had asked, but the moment of waiting for Rite’s answer was frightening. Would Rite say something ridiculous again? Should I not have asked in the first place? Silent self-recrimination continued. I glared at the innocent bread, repeatedly stabbing it with my fork.
“Just because.”
“…”
“I don’t want Arden to die before me.”
When I stopped staring at the bread and looked up, my eyes met Rite’s smiling face. It was a pure smile, untainted by anything impure. Only then could I finally release the tension that had stiffened my shoulders.
“It’s not like we could die on the same day at the same time anyway.”
I spoke lightly, pretending I hadn’t been tense from the beginning. Rite raised one eyebrow and spooned a few pieces of neatly cut meat onto my plate.
“It’s not entirely impossible.”
“Even if the probability isn’t zero, it’s close to it.”
“Do you have to analyze everything like that?”
You have no romance, no romance at all. Rite grumbled as he put the meat he had saved for himself into his mouth. It was like our usual daily routine. Not the unfamiliar Rite of recent days, but the familiar Rite I knew. I couldn’t have been happier to see that.
I picked up a piece of the meat Rite had given me with my fork and put it in my mouth. Though it must have gotten cold overnight, it seemed to taste better than what I’d eaten at the restaurant yesterday. Was it a shop known for good roast chicken? I chewed the food while storing this new information in my mind.
