Episode 21
We walked down the road.
The sky was still blue, but before long the sun would set and darkness would fall.
Everyone we passed on the street was smiling as they walked, no trace of worry or unease anywhere on their faces.
As if they simply believed, without question, that the world was at peace — and seeing them like that made the fact that we’d actually managed to save the world feel real, somehow.
Real. Did it feel real to me, though?
Truly?
But between Teresia and me, the distance stayed exquisitely, deliberately off, and our expressions were stiff and awkward.
I kept trying to close the gap, and every time, Teresia would shift away again, casually, as if by accident.
As if she were carrying something she felt guilty about.
“Teresia.”
She flinched, her whole body twitching, then, still not looking at me, asked, “Is something wrong?”
“That, um — the important thing you wanted to talk about.”
“…Since it’s important, I can’t talk about it here.”
“I see.”
If that’s how she wanted it, then that’s just how it was.
I wouldn’t say anything more about it.
“So, Teresia.”
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow, I mean. I figured we should finally go sightseeing — where do you want to go?”
“Sightseeing?”
At Teresia’s what-are-you-even-saying expression, I explained.
“I mean, we’re finally in Flower Lake, and there’s supposed to be a ton of sights worth seeing. We actually have time to take it slow and go sightseeing now, so let’s go look around properly.”
“That’s true.”
Teresia laughed — with an expression like she was suppressing some other feeling underneath it — and went on.
“Come to think of it, we’ve talked about sightseeing plans for ages, haven’t we. Things like, once we got to Flower Lake, we’d go check out a perfume shop.”
“Did we? Well, it’s the town of our dreams, after all, so it makes sense it’d have famous sights.”
“Yes. We talked about the potions too, didn’t we? I remember you saying you wanted a potion that makes you taller, Yurina.”
“D-did I say something like that? No, wait, actually, I do feel like I might’ve said that once…”
“I remember every single memory I have with you, Yurina. Because they’re precious. So very precious to me.”
“I see.”
“Yes. Things I want to keep remembering forever — that’s how precious they are.”
After that, Teresia closed her mouth and fell silent, as if turning something over in her mind.
She opened her mouth and closed it again several times, but in the end, said nothing.
I was the same — I wanted to say something to break the silence, but unfortunately, no topic would come.
There were mountains of things I wanted to say, mountains of things I wanted to ask.
But I couldn’t figure out which of them I was actually allowed to choose, allowed to put into words.
So, in the end, silence.
An awkward stillness settled between us.
“「So,」”
Our words overlapped — mine and Teresia’s, at exactly the same moment.
It seemed we’d each found something we wanted to say, at the exact same time.
We looked at each other, and then both of us let out a small “hah” of laughter at once.
“Ahaha, that happens sometimes, huh.”
“Fufu. It does. Though this might be the first time it’s happened between us, actually?”
“If you say so, Teresia, I’m sure it’s true.”
“We’ve always been so in sync, the two of us. This kind of thing — our words overlapping like this — has never happened before, not once.”
“That’s honestly kind of amazing, though. We’re really well-matched, huh.”
“Yes, fufu. We really are.”
Teresia laughed, savoring it.
“We’ve always been perfectly matched. The whole time.”
After that, we talked, like a dam breaking, about nothing that mattered at all.
Truly, completely inconsequential things.
Like how the bread we’d eaten that one day had tasted so terrible we could never forget it.
Like how there’d been some gorgeous bird somewhere we’d missed seeing, what a waste that was.
We got genuinely into it, over the most trivial topics imaginable.
Laughing like we were fooling around.
Play-fighting with entirely serious faces.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, we found ourselves at the edge of town.
“Well, then.”
Teresia turned to face me, wearing an expression like something in her had finally broken loose, resolved.
In a tone that sounded like she’d made up her mind about something, she told me:
“Starting now, I’m going to take your power away from you.”