“In that case, it matters even less — so spare me the unsolicited concern. Unless you really were in a bad mood because of it.”
Rodeo raised an eyebrow as if testing him. Chalice squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers to his temple, as though watching the illogic of a child.
He remembered the Rodeo who had wrecked his car and picked fights over every little thing even during the days when he was respected throughout the entire facility — so he knew well enough that Rodeo did as he pleased. But the fact that one had to meet — or at least attempt to meet — some baseline standard of social normality in order to adapt and live in this new world seemed to be something he didn’t understand at all. In the face of the endless resistance and refusal, Chalice couldn’t hide his frustration any more than Rodeo could.
“Ha…”
But there was nothing to be done about it.
Rodeo was that kind of person. A wild horse that had only been forcibly tethered to the facility — caring nothing for anyone, galloping alone. Then and now, Rodeo existed as no one but Rodeo. Standing as the paltry weaker party on the receiving end of his help — however much it might be for his sake, it was neither possible nor clearly within any boundary to suddenly try to change his fundamental nature.
“Right — up until just a few days ago, this was probably your normal. Your everyday. It’d be hard to stop suddenly.”
“My everyday…?”
At the condemnation that slipped out as casually as breathing, Rodeo asked back with a sour look. Perhaps because he had confirmed there was no one around, Chalice no longer kept his voice down either — his words came freely.
“And on top of that, it would have been your first time receiving close-contact Guiding from a Guide with a matching rate of 90% or above — so I understand that you lost your head.”
“Ha, that’s an odd way to put it.”
“But the fact that you stopped yourself — means you’re capable of control, in the end. If you have the will and make the effort.”
“No, will or whatever — it was obviously because you seemed scared—!”
Rodeo cried out as if deeply wronged. Chalice’s words stopped. The eyelids framed by dark lashes blinked twice. Chalice stood with his lips not quite closed, simply listening to what Rodeo blurted out.
Rodeo, startled himself, paused for a moment — then, as if irritated, crumpled his expression and didn’t stop the words pouring out of his mouth. While it seemed like he was letting his words run freely, Rodeo’s voice grew smaller and smaller as he watched Chalice’s face.
“Why would I do something you don’t want? Even when I lose my head — once the seizure symptoms have settled from the Guiding, why on earth would I bother forcing myself on someone who doesn’t want it—!”
“……”
“So your contempt for Espers really does come straight from the core. There’s only so far you can go treating someone like an animal — are you not even pretending to hide it anymore?”
“…No, I’m sorry, but that wasn’t contempt, was it?”
Caught off guard by Rodeo’s indignation, Chalice thought quietly for a moment, then raised a palm to stop Rodeo’s words and spoke.
“…I said stop several times, I believe.”
“……”
“…Because you kept going.”
“……”
“I assumed it was because you couldn’t come to your senses from the euphoria the Guiding was giving you. Is that not the case?”
In what felt like the longest two seconds in the world, Rodeo made a relentless effort to find an answer that would smooth things over. But no matter how much cold sweat he broke out in and how wildly his eyes darted, his mind had gone completely blank and thinking at all was difficult — and in the end, instead of telling the truth, he had no choice but to reluctantly accept Chalice’s hypothesis.
“…Let’s go with that. Yes — a high-ranked Guide was Guiding me, and the matching rate was high too, so I lost my head. It felt like my mind went particularly numb.”
Though delivered in the tone of someone reading from a textbook, it wasn’t a lie. Since the falling-out with Chalice — how many years had it been since he’d received Guiding from someone with a high matching rate? He couldn’t deny that his eyes had gone blank, like someone who hadn’t had clean water in a million years finally getting a taste of it.
On top of that, the closeness of the contact had been entirely unlike anything before. Quite literally like Hansel and Gretel stumbling upon a candy house — he had wanted to pull that warm skin closer and take his fill of it. If things had gone further, he truly didn’t know whether he could have stopped, even if Chalice had shouted at him to.
As his thoughts reached that point, Rodeo found himself unable to meet his eyes, and mumbled the rest of his admission out.
“That’s right. Just as you said — I couldn’t come to my senses, yes.”
It was technically an agreement, but the answer sounded so wrong that Chalice narrowed his eyes and stared at him. Rodeo felt those deep blue eyes boring straight through him, and deliberately avoided his gaze and closed his mouth. Chalice considered Rodeo’s words for a moment like a judge — and then, abruptly, offered a belated defense.
“…I wasn’t scared.”
“Yes, yes. I didn’t know then. That you had experience with it.”
Chalice gave a dry cough, and Rodeo rolled his eyes and answered dismissively, as though thoroughly fed up. Chalice stood there doing his best to look unbothered, with ears that had turned red again without him realizing.
“But… using Esper abilities on me is a different matter. In a situation where it’s just the two of us — even for you, isn’t that too dangerous? As long as you don’t use your ability, I can stop you before you come back to your senses — “
“How? …You mean hit me?”
“If necessary.”
“……”
“……”
“Wow, that’s quite persuasive. Really makes me want to do everything I’m told.”
As Rodeo spoke with a teasing lilt, Chalice rubbed the back of his neck and explained.
“Asking you not to use your ability isn’t an unreasonable request, is it. Unless you really want to kill me. And I’m not saying I’ll refuse to engage with you entirely. There will need to be a transition period — when it’s genuinely necessary, I’m willing to cooperate. I’m old-fashioned enough that I don’t have any particular aversion to this kind of thing. But that doesn’t mean I can indulge your every whim one hundred percent.”
“Please — I used my ability carefully, and only to keep you in place. Wouldn’t that just be the instinct of an Esper starved for Guiding? You said yourself I’m someone who can’t keep his head in the euphoria — do you think I’d use my ability to kill you? And besides — you’re making it sound like I was the only one losing my mind and going wild.”
“…What?”
“I’ll admit that Chalice got swept up in the situation, and that it started out of necessity. But you weren’t lying there completely unresponsive like a block of wood, were you.”
Rodeo smiled — quite an unpleasant smile.
“And you’re not even an Esper — yet the person providing the Guiding had soaked through the front of their underwear.”
In an instant, Chalice’s face flooded red, helplessly, like ink bleeding into wet paper.
“Do you really think it was purely because I used my ability — that you had no choice but to end up like that?”
“……”
“Shall we test it again to find out?”
Rodeo grinned and pointed upward with a finger.
“There’s still plenty of time before the counseling session. Shall we go up?”
“Rodeo!”
At hearing his name called directly like that — something that hadn’t happened in a long time — Rodeo smiled like a flower in full bloom. It looked somehow dangerous — and yet somehow, too, entirely too delighted for that to be quite right. Chalice, at a complete loss, turned on his heel as he was, and moved his feet in a hurry with the intention of getting away.
“Hey hey, are you actually going up to test it?”
Rodeo gathered his things and hurried after him. The sight of him prattling along behind him like a child drew the eyes of the people who had gathered before they knew it. The more Chalice sensed it, the faster he walked — but several of them had already begun murmuring, dropping their names.
To be continued in Volume 2.
