The Way to Love in the Place of Dead Chapter 30

“And… regarding the fact that we didn’t know the missing Espers were in that kind of danger… I’d like to personally apologize.”

The center publicized the biological experiments at the research institute, including the missing Espers, using it to demonize the enemy. The anti-android propaganda was successful, and it was a highly effective card to establish a just cause and boost morale ahead of the fortress siege in Sector H. The way they diligently recycled even lives they hadn’t placed the slightest value on was almost admirable.

“Don’t apologize like it’s something new.”

Kay looked expressionlessly at the person who didn’t understand his meaning.

“Lives have hierarchy. Always.”

“Are you criticizing?”

“I’m just stating a fact.”

“…We can’t save everyone. Limpus is… at least the center. They made the best choice.”

“Then accept the criticism.”

If they made a choice, he wished they wouldn’t make excuses.

If you weigh someone’s life and death and then want to avoid criticism too, isn’t that too cowardly?

What excuses can even work, what can be forgiven, is only the results of things where no choice could be made at all.

Kay turned his back on the memorial, densely inscribed with the names of the fallen, and walked away.

As if it had been waiting for just that, the next mission popped up on his bracelet.

The idea that all life holds equal value is an ideal, but it’s a consensus that doesn’t truly exist.

Reality is never a desktop theory, and for everyone, there is a gradient in the value of life. A friend is more precious than a stranger. Self-defense, killing another to survive, is also recognized.

[“Black hair and red eyes. Acquired.”]

Swinging his sword, he cut down the enemy before his eyes. And the emotions that kept rising up.

[“Kay.”]

In the mechanical voice mixed into his name, Simon’s voice from just before he died overlapped, and he hesitated.

[“Match confirmed.”]

The android, which had been charging solely aiming for openings, slashed through Kay’s uniform in that split second. Blood seeped from his forearm, grazed by the tip of the blade.

‘It hurts.’

Just because one wound forms over another doesn’t mean it stops hurting. But for a loss one can never grow accustomed to, only the coping mechanisms increased.

— All the living can do is mourn.

But El.

Is there meaning in hurting over a wound that won’t heal, in grieving?

From the deepest part of the large android that had raided the residential sector, he swung his sword wide, and the blade aura wreathed in flame hotly tore through the air. As he drove his blade deep into the core of the bisected machine, a fragment bounced up and cut his cheek.

Around the time the damply flowing blood wouldn’t stop even when pressed down with the back of his hand, giving off a metallic stench…

“Are you alright?”

Turning his head at the cautiously asking voice, a man he had seen before flinched, but without withdrawing his hand, asked again.

A man with faint, pale red hair and hamster-like round eyes. He was the Esper who had willingly sacrificed himself to find Simon. Though upon being rescued and regaining his senses, he had lost the friend he wanted to find.

“I’m…”

The answer ‘alright’ didn’t come easily. Still, he had to be alright.

“I’m fine. You?”

Flinching as if frightened by the short, indifferent answer, yet true to being an Esper who had resolved himself enough to throw his own body away, he held a sword slick with green oil and nodded.

“I’m… fine too.”

Resembling self-brainwashing and an excuse, those words covered the wound of loss as a stay of death.

∞ ∞ ∞

Having finished his mission and returned, Kay entered the living quarters, holding the bandage that kept unravelling with his teeth.

In the space where he scanned his bracelet first and his biometrics second, a notification alert popped up.

[NOTICE: A package is being held for you at the lounge management office.]

Package? For me?

Harboring suspicion that something had been delivered by mistake, he scanned his bracelet at the management office inside the lounge, and an item with the recipient name written as ‘Kei’ was handed over. The sender was Aran.

[Please sign for receipt.]

Unable to shake the doubt, he finished signing and first took the item. Holding the palm-sized package, he shook it lightly in the elevator he boarded, but whether the inside was firmly fixed, he heard nothing. Guessing what might be inside, he entered his quarters, where a pair of dirtied combat boots greeted Kay.

“Welcome back. Did you miss me?”

Kay held up the package toward him as he approached, still wearing one glove he hadn’t finished taking off.

“What’s this?”

“A gift.”

“What kind of gift?”

“I said I’d get to pick whatever I wanted until this month.”

“This month? …Ah.”

Only then did he realize the given box was the ‘price of the bet.’ The word wrapped on it was clearly ‘gift,’ but the reason he suspected an ulterior motive was probably because the giver was Aran.

Opening the box, not knowing what might pop out, the name written on the outside caught his eye. He briefly debated whether to mention something so trivial.

“My name.”

“Huh? Yeah.”

“It’s y. Not i.”

Not Kei, but Key.

The fact that pronunciation and spelling were subtly different during their time apart despite using the same language was something he had learned while reading books. It was simply a point he brought up about the different spelling, but Aran’s reaction was strange.

“Isn’t it usually i? The spelling is weird.”

“In my opinion, you guys are weirder.”

Most of all, El, who gave him his name, was from Limpus, so it was strange for Aran to call it weird.

Quietly watching Aran, who wore a questioning look, Kay noticed a subtle difference from his usual face.

“Aran.”

“Yeah?”

Watching the movement of his facial muscles, he became certain. The corner of his eye was twitching minutely. The fact that he had been in the middle of taking off his glove when Kay entered also flashed through his mind.

“Take it off.”

“Suddenly?”

A flustered look crossed Aran’s face, and Kay, not missing the opening, grabbed his hand.

“The glove. I said take it off.”

At the sudden demand, Aran’s smile twisted.

“Why?”

“Take it off if I tell you to.”

“You’re putting me in a tough spot here.”

“Then stay in a tough spot forever.”

Seeing the lips flushed red from holding back curses, Aran entangled the other’s hand. He didn’t back down, even though just lightly grazing between the palm and wrist with his fingertips elicited a reaction.

“How did you know?”

“Just. A feeling.”

It wasn’t like he’d been trying particularly hard to hide it anyway, and given the chance, the desire to swallow it right up took over. As he peeled the glove off, cold air streamed from the frozen hand like dry ice.

“Are we that close? That you can tell just from a feeling.”

With his numb, frozen hand, Aran smoothly pulled Kay’s waist and embraced him.

“Can I touch you now?”

Kay, who had been thinking ‘What nonsense is this when you’re already touching me?’, recalled the moment he had slapped his hand away. He admitted it. He hadn’t been in his right mind then.

“You hold grudges.”

“It’s not a grudge, I was hurt.”

Words that suited him so poorly.

“I was just worried.”

Should he apologize? Or should he snap that it was none of his business?

His head chose the former, his heart the latter. Every time they were together, petty emotions and pride reared their heads, making him fall into self-contradiction.

Unable to choose either, Kay simply held the other with his fidgeting hands as he glowed pure white and crumbled.

“Yeah, this is nice.”

The whisper at a distance so close their legs crossed tickled his ear, but he couldn’t move. While he guided him, taking the place of the defenseless one, time passed with his nerves on edge. Each moment stretched long, as if someone had deliberately lengthened them.

In the meantime, he felt the weight leaning against his body more and more vividly, and though he tried not to think about it, it was like Simon, who had vanished from his arms like this.

“How… do you endure it?”

The question slipped out.

“Endure what?”

“When a bond dies.”

The pulse he could feel because they were touching. Words that worked because they were alive.

He felt wretched because he welcomed the contact with the person against him. The irony of feeling loneliness because of warmth.

“Who knows. I’ve never grieved over someone dying.”