[11] Chapter 2. The Desired Form (4)
When Fernciana was sitting on the edge of another carriage’s luggage compartment, swinging her legs, Ilyas appeared. It seemed he had finished his conversation with the caravan leader, Stihan.
Soon, people began to organize the luggage, clear away the burnt items to one side, and set the carriages in motion. Perhaps to reach a nearby village before sunset, their pace was a bit hurried.
When Ilyas had properly settled into a seat in the carriage’s luggage compartment, Fernciana handed him the pouch she had just received from the merchant.
“He said it’s the remaining Erasil. Apparently, there was too little left to be of use, so he told me to eat it as a remedy for motion sickness.”
“Ah, I’m saved. I thought I would have to endure the journey to the village while feeling like I was dying.”
Ilyas quickly swallowed the Erasil and water. After diligently chewing and swallowing the Erasil, Ilyas closed the water bottle, pushed it to one side, and took something out from his bosom. It was a small box made of paper.
“Huh?”
“Since it’s a caravan, they had a lot of small things. There were a few left, so I bought them.”
“What is this?”
“Open it and see.”
Fernciana tilted her head and carefully opened the paper box. As soon as she opened the lid, a sweet and sour fragrance wafted out. Inside were translucent glass-like beads coated in fine white powder. Fernciana raised her head and looked at Ilyas, still with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Beads?”
“No, take one out.”
Fernciana tried to put her fingers inside the paper box to take one out, but it was not easy with her hands completely covered in bandages. Ilyas quickly snatched the paper box and took out what was inside. It was a translucent yellow bead.
“Open your mouth.”
“Huh?”
Fernciana blinked her eyes. Ilyas urged her again. Open your mouth, he said, and Fernciana, with a dubious expression, slightly opened her mouth, and Ilyas pushed the bead inside.
When Fernciana was startled and tried to spit it out, Ilyas, a little flustered, quickly covered her mouth.
“Ah, really! It’s edible! You’re supposed to eat it!”
“!”
When Ilyas removed his hand like that, this time Fernciana grasped her own throat.
“I swallowed it…”
“I’m really going crazy…”
“What is this?”
“Candy. It’s made by melting sugar and then hardening it.”
“Why do they make it like that?”
“…Isn’t it because it’s more convenient to eat that way? Powder spills, you know.”
Ilyas muttered with an almost despondent face, and that expression was enough to stimulate her guilt. Though she couldn’t understand what she should be sorry for.
“…Oh, um. It’s delicious, it’s tasty. I want to try one more.”
“…”
Although Ilyas couldn’t straighten his slumped shoulders, he readily took out another candy from the paper box and handed it to her. Fernciana, while acutely feeling the sensation of the candy stuck in her throat, put the candy Ilyas offered into her mouth. This candy had a rose scent.
“But why the sudden candy?”
And with that final question, Fernciana completely sank Ilyas.
It was only after comforting Ilyas for a long time, who was so dumbfounded that he was on the verge of losing his mind, that Fernciana heard the whole story about the candy from him. Ilyas was almost in tears.
“I’m human too, so I’m sorry for making you cry like that…”
“Aha. Was it candy given as an apology?”
“…It’s a token of gratitude, you fool!”
In the end, Ilyas let out a deep sigh and said, and Fernciana blinked her eyes with a dumbfounded expression. Ilyas leaned against the wall of the carriage’s luggage compartment, lowered his head, and sighed. His lament about having to explain every little thing one by one was sparsely mixed in.
“I thought that since martial arts and swordsmanship are not my specialty, I would only be a hindrance if I intervened, so I stayed still, but…”
There was a slightly bitter taste lingering in his voice. Fernciana blinked her eyes. For some reason, she couldn’t interpret the expression on Ilyas’s face as he sighed.
“I didn’t even know you were injured like this.”
“Isn’t it lucky to end up with just these scratches against that many people?”
“Who was the one crying like a baby, saying it hurt when applying the medicine, and now you say it’s lucky?”
“That’s because the medicine was exceptionally painful!”
I, too, have cried at this age, Fernciana tried to retort like that, but then she remembered how she had shed tears just by hearing the name “Peirun” not long ago.
She couldn’t bring herself to say any more. As if Ilyas had also recalled that incident, he suddenly ruffled Fernciana’s hair into a mess.
“Come to think of it, Peirun is a crybaby!”
“No, I’m not!”
“So this big brother bought candy for our baby~!”
“I said I’m not!”
When she shoved him away, Ilyas crashed his head against the wall of the carriage’s luggage compartment with a loud bang. The sound was loud enough for the coachman pulling the carriage at the front to look back, and the one who provided an explanation was not Ilyas, who was holding the back of his head, but Fernciana, who had candy in her mouth.
*
“I said I’m sorry~!”
“…”
“Ilyas, did it hurt a lot? Did it hurt that much?”
At Fernciana’s soothing words, Ilyas abruptly bent down, snatched Fernciana’s hand, and firmly placed it on the back of his head. Fernciana suppressed a laugh at the warm sensation and round shape she felt at her fingertips. The sound was quite loud, so it seemed a bump had formed.
“I might have lost a few memories…”
Ilyas let go of Fernciana’s hand and muttered with slumped shoulders. It was clear that rather than being in pain, he was now exaggerating. Fernciana quickly popped the candy Ilyas had given her as a gift into her mouth.
Perhaps because they had hurried a bit, it didn’t take long for the caravan to reach Maroila, a small province near the capital. Maybe Hakan had sent a messenger ahead to inform them that they had encountered a rough situation, as the city welcomed them from afar as soon as they came into view. Thanks to the city arranging accommodations for them in advance, the caravan members were slightly delighted despite their shock and fatigue.
“Hmm, so they were allied with the imperial family.”
“Huh?”
The accommodation was a luxury hotel. Fernciana, indifferent to the fact that she had been assigned a room with Ilyas, unpacked her luggage without any emotion, and Ilyas, who was looking out the window from behind the curtain, muttered. When Fernciana raised her head with a puzzled expression, Ilyas closed the curtain again and answered.
“The mayor here is sworn brothers with the Orchid Empress. The fact that they are welcoming us like this, and the caravan side is accepting it without suspicion means they have some acquaintance with each other or something like that. In other words, they’re on the same side.”
“Then Hakan too?”
Fernciana asked while rolling a lemon-flavored candy in her mouth. Hakan and the caravan leader Stihan did not seem to be just casual acquaintances. Moreover, Hakan seemed to know the reason why Stihan was transporting Erasil. He even went so far as to help them when they were in a difficult situation after losing that Erasil.
“It seems so? …I didn’t know that person worked with the imperial side…”
Ilyas muttered in a small voice. Fernciana glanced at Ilyas and took off the shoes she was wearing, one by one. At the sound of shoes bouncing around, Ilyas seemed to come to his senses and raised his head, then sighed and laughed.
“Oh my, if you enter a shoe-throwing competition, you’d win first place.”
“I’ll clean it up myself!”
Fernciana shouted, but Ilyas, laughing, bent down and tidied up Fernciana’s shoes for her. Then he ruffled her hair again. It was a gentle hand, as if treating a younger sibling.
Fernciana glared at Ilyas while holding her messed-up hair. Ilyas quickly grabbed the back of his own head and retreated as if running away.
“Are you going to hit me again!?”
“I won’t hit you!”
After bickering a few times, Ilyas took out a towel and held it out to Fernciana.
“I’ll go get some food, so wash up first.”
“Okay…”
Ilyas naturally headed out of the room. The door closed softly without him having to close it deliberately. Fernciana blinked and stared at the closed hotel room door.
‘Did he deliberately consider letting me wash alone? Did he realize I’m a girl?’
Even if he had noticed, it wasn’t something to be greatly surprised about. It would be more surprising if people saw her as a boy, to the extent that she herself didn’t focus much on pretending to be one. Moreover, with Ilyas’s remarkable information-gathering skills—although she hadn’t seen it yet—and his own judgment—which she also hadn’t seen yet—it was understandable if he had noticed that she was a girl.
‘His attitude seems kind too…’
Fernciana awkwardly fiddled with her hair, feeling a bit embarrassed, and headed to the bathroom. It was slightly shameful to have been pretending not to be a girl in front of someone who had noticed.