I turned my head. Levia was standing at a distance. He didn’t approach me. He didn’t even raise his hand.
“Why? Aren’t you going?”
“…If I go further from here, would that be wrong?”
When I asked cautiously, Levia didn’t answer and tilted his head slightly. Then he spoke very slowly.
“Well, that’s up to you. I’d be disappointed if you left, but that can’t be helped. But I’d like it if you stayed.”
Those words felt somehow frightening to me. They were words that didn’t presuppose my will. He said it was fine if I left, but it sounded paradoxical. As if I couldn’t leave.
I frowned. Strength gathered in my toes.
“Why are you so certain?”
Those words came out much sharper than I intended.
“Certain about what? Is it a problem that I’m telling you to do as you wish?”
Levia tilted his head as if puzzled.
“You really are as spiteful as a cat, as sensitive as a mimosa. And more cowardly than a hummingbird.”
That answer was blunt, but calmer than I expected. There was no threat, no coercion. It was closer to simple petulance. But I couldn’t grasp the sincerity in those words.
My mouth went dry and my fingertips tingled. Just moments ago I had merely been walking among the trees, but now I felt like I’d been thrown into an entirely different world.
“Did you intend from the start to let me leave?”
At that question, Levia narrowed his eyes. It was a deep gaze unimaginable from his distant observation.
“Not exactly. But I had no intention of holding you back. I’ve already made mistakes twice, you see.”
His words trailed off strangely. It wasn’t an explanation but a declaration. I understood instantly.
For a moment I couldn’t say anything. Even though we were facing each other from opposite sides, from some point this space had been growing more and more distant between us.
Levia looked at me.
“Do you want to go back?”
That question wasn’t coercion. But strangely, it sounded like “you must go back now if you don’t want to stay.”
“Go back where?”
“To your world.”
My world. Levia said it as if it were obvious, but it felt eerily unfamiliar. After catching my breath briefly, I shook my head.
“No, not yet. I’ll go inside.”
“Take a walk at least. The weather’s nice.”
“I’m fine.”
“Mm. Well, if that’s what you want.”
As I turned my steps, the grass blades trembled beneath my feet. Their tips touched my legs. A subtle ticklishness passed through, and Levia followed from behind without blocking my path.
The way back into the forest was familiar. But strangely, that familiarity felt uncomfortable. As if the time I’d spent here had never been mine to begin with, as if I’d been forcibly fitted into someone else’s frame.
“Why? What’s strange?”
“…Nothing.”
“Then why did you slow down?”
Is it because I have a lot on my mind? It seemed I’d slowed my pace without realizing it. When I turned my head, Levia was holding something out to me.
“I’ve been thinking about how you got hurt last time, and I think some adjustments are needed.”
“What kind of… thing… do you mean?”
“A way to keep fragile you from getting hurt.”
He smiled brightly again as if he’d never been deflated, pulled my hand toward him, and placed something on it. It was a strange thing. It looked like a water droplet, but also somewhat like pudding or jelly. It was oddly cold.
He puffed out his chest proudly and said.
“It’s morning dew. From now on, ask me for it when you wake up in the morning.”
“This is… dew?”
“Very special dew. This will make you sturdy. Fragments are too much.”
It was still incomprehensible. The time I’d spent with him wasn’t very long, but I could vaguely sense it. That this was, in its own way, kindness and goodwill.
“What does this mean again?”
My voice was surprisingly calm even to myself. Levia tilted his head briefly before speaking.
“Just my wish for you to be sturdy?”
Levia’s words continued.
“You don’t tell me what you like. So I thought I should give you what you need first.”
“Why are you trying to… give me something like this?”
“Because you’re pretty.”
It was such a simple answer, so like him. There was no explanation, no persuasion. But somehow that alone made it strangely acceptable.
I don’t know how he interpreted my expression. His proud face showed puzzlement again. Then he gestured at the air and I felt some kind of indiscernible vibration.
Soon a rustling sound resonated subtly, and a Dryad was waiting near the entrance to the nest. Holding a tray with a small wooden board and earth-colored charcoal on it. She had been holding it, and when she saw me, carefully held it out. Levia, who had been following, asked me in a somewhat excited voice.
“Can you draw pictures too?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve tried before.”
“You drew on the ground. You wanted to move your hands.”
It was unexpected. Had I? The fact that he remembered such a minor action that I didn’t even recall gave me a strange feeling.
No, I remembered now. Right, that’s true. I had tried carving meaningless wooden scraps and such. I’d roughly scratched something on the ground too. Probably, anyway.
“Shall I try?”
“There’s some colored ink left that Miros used to use. Miros loved this. He only played with it when he was very, very small though.”
I don’t know how this situation came about. After watching what Levia was doing for a moment, I accepted it from the Dryad.
What was this? Things like chunks of colored chalk and a wooden board. When I grabbed one and drew a line, color appeared on the wooden board. Was it like charcoal? This is a toy? If this really was something children played with, it was quite a luxurious item.
Paint is expensive. To take that expensive paint and clump it together this large just for a child’s toy—what kind of extravagance is this? It’s also unfamiliar to smear and play with this on a wooden board like this.
Setting aside being treated like a young child.
“But where did you get this?”
“Where did I get it? I bought it. You don’t think I stole it, do you?”
At my words, Levia laughed and said.
“I could suck the liver out of a flea—what meaning would there be in me taking such things from you people?”
That wasn’t what I meant. It was a belated question. Levia’s nest was a vast forest.
I’d sometimes had such thoughts before.
The fact that there were too many ‘human things’ here in this nest. At first I was too distracted to properly recognize it. The wooden bowls, scraps of cloth, and a few tools that came into my hands daily seemed like things that ‘could just exist.’
They weren’t strange in themselves. If Levia was the master of this forest, it seemed he could create anything, and he actually did have such ability.
But now I knew. These weren’t clearly ‘made’ but ‘left behind.’ These were things someone had used. They existed in the way humans made them, with traces of human use remaining.
So that would mean someone had been here. Besides me.
Only then did a sense of incongruity brush past me. The sensation that this space hadn’t been prepared for me alone from the start. A strange imagination that I might be taking someone else’s place. It was a baseless delusion, but at the same time it approached me quite plausibly.
No, perhaps it might be true. Levia had clearly said so. Though it was only names, he had mentioned certain existences, and he’d just said it too. That he’d already made mistakes twice.
“Who is that?”
“Hm? Which one?”
“The name you just mentioned. Didn’t you say this was something someone used?”
Levia tilted his head, then smiled brightly and said.
“Ah, you mean Miros? Miros is a really pretty child. He received a Star.”
Though it was something I already knew, it was truly regrettable. Levia seemed to be trying to explain sincerely in his own way, but perhaps because his standard was himself, the explanation was really terrible to my ears.
Actually, it wasn’t that important an issue. Who that person was didn’t matter much. In any case, they weren’t here now, and I didn’t need to know. Though I don’t know why I’m so bothered by it.
“But why suddenly?”
“…It seemed like you mentioned it often, so I asked.”
“I did? Did I?”
“Where is that Miros?”
“I sent him back. He was such a precious specimen, it was too pitiful to keep him beautiful for myself alone.”
Human hearts are truly fickle. To think I’d feel better at Levia’s nonchalant attitude. Whoever that person was, in the end doesn’t it mean they were driven out?
“More importantly, aren’t you going to use that?”
“Ah, right. This was here.”
At Levia’s words, I finally remembered the colored ink and wooden board I was holding. When I said I’d go inside to draw, Levia followed eagerly with a flushed face. The Dryad who had been in front carefully retreated, and I moved my steps back into the forest.
And I sat on a flat stone like a small bench. Perhaps because of the colored ink in my hands, powder had gotten on them and my palms were faintly stained. But that sensation wasn’t unfamiliar. A light and fragile material, the texture of lines left on it.
I slowly moved my hand. Colorful lines remained long on the wooden board. Ah, this. Isn’t this a bit too extravagant? In the end I put it down and picked up the black charcoal. And moved my hand again. At first it had no meaning. But when the second and third lines were added, a form began to take shape.
“Why? The colored ones are prettier.”
“…It seemed too extravagant.”
“It’s made to be used, and pretty things are good. Why did you deliberately choose the black one?”
Levia seemed dissatisfied with my choice, but didn’t particularly stop me. The hand that had paused moved again after some more time passed. I just drew out what was in my head.
A sword. A dagger. The decoration at the end of the handle. And a window. A long narrow window, a fortress window framed with metal. I didn’t even know what made me draw it. But my hand moved that way. My fingers remembered. My head was still empty, but my hands knew the direction.
My shoulders grew heavy. I felt a gaze. I could tell without raising my head. It was Levia. The strange energy I felt from time to time, the overwhelming silence. Levia was close, but cast no shadow.
I didn’t stop my hand. Finally, I drew an old wooden chair. Long, sturdy legs. A seat where someone might have sat. I carefully finished the curves of that chair.
“Where is that?”
Levia’s voice was very low. Like water seeping into earth, soft and composed. I shrank my neck slightly. I couldn’t answer that question.
Where could it be? A place I knew? Or just somewhere I wanted to be? A place that came out just from following some form, neither memory nor dream. Yet it also seemed like something that had definitely ‘existed.’
I carefully put down the charcoal and opened my mouth.
“…I don’t know.”
It wasn’t a lie. Levia quietly nodded. He didn’t ask any further.
At that moment, my chest tightened. An inexplicable anxiety washed over me. The thought that the dagger, the chair, the window in the drawing might all actually exist somewhere. And the conclusion that if they had been mine, I was someone who had lost them.
