34
After washing away all that sticky mess as cleanly as possible, I felt refreshed and my mood improved considerably. So with a lightened heart, I changed clothes again and approached Cedric…
“Did you finish washing?”
Seeing his face made uncomfortable feelings prick up again.
In the end, instead of answering, I just glared and moved ahead first. I felt Cedric following a beat behind. Breaking the silence that was about to stretch on, he asked carefully.
“…Eddie, are you angry?”
“……”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re apologizing without even knowing what you did wrong.”
“Tell me what I did wrong.”
“Ha, because of you I…”
I started to answer but swallowed it back.
No matter how much what happened between us was unavoidable, I wanted to ask if he knew that my thigh skin was all chafed because of him, but then I felt embarrassed as if I was just being petulant.
Cedric followed behind, seeming to think it over by himself, then started throwing out various guesses.
“‘Because of me’? Why because of me?”
“……”
“Maybe… is something wrong with your body?”
“……”
“Did your thighs get rubbed raw? Or does your stomach hurt?”
Both my thighs and stomach were areas that had been overworked from that bastard pressing and poking at them yesterday.
“N-no they don’t!”
“I was right.”
“I said no.”
My face burned red with embarrassment at having my inner thoughts exposed.
I moved my feet quickly, wanting to get away from Cedric even a little, but the guy who was much taller than me with long arms and legs easily caught up.
“Should I apply medicine for you?”
“Are you crazy?!”
“Why? I’m just saying I’ll apply medicine.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll handle it myself.”
“…Does it hurt a lot?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Sorry. For making you hurt.”
“……”
Cedric stuck close to my side, chirping like a bird constantly murmuring for me to cheer up, that he was sorry.
Even though I grumbled that it was fine, my sulky mood strangely lifted. It’s not like hearing an apology heals wounds.
It was really strange.
* * *
Afternoon when the sun had tilted slightly.
After filling my stomach with a hearty lunch of monster meat, I temporarily kicked Cedric out of the cabin and applied medicine to the chafed areas.
On the first day of being stranded, I’d used some when my forehead was torn, and today I’d smeared it thickly on the chafed thigh area, so the spare medicine that had been left in the cabin was all used up.
It had originally been left behind by the previous cabin owner, so there wasn’t much to begin with.
‘Now there’s no medicine either…’
When would we be able to meet up with our companions? The spirits knew our location, so once Riette finished her business there, she’d come find us soon, but…
“Eddie. What are you doing?”
That’s when Cedric, who I’d kicked outside, asked from behind the cabin door. I was briefly lost in thought but snapped out of it with a start and quickly grabbed my pants hem.
“Ah, wait a little more. Don’t come in.”
I warned him like that and hurriedly pulled my pants up. Only after roughly adjusting my clothes did I open the door, but Cedric’s chest was standing right in front of the door, so close that I stepped back in surprise.
Did I avoid him too obviously?
I became self-conscious afterward and watched for his reaction. Cedric looked down at me with an expression that was hard to read, then opened his mouth gently.
“Did you finish applying the medicine?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Is the stinging area a bit better?”
“It’s fine. You don’t need to worry about it.”
I cut off Cedric’s concern and slipped out through the gap beside him.
After yesterday’s… incident in the cabin, it was still uncomfortable to be stuck alone with that guy in there, so I decided to go outside instead.
I sat on the tree stump that had been placed in front of the campfire to use as a chair, and Cedric, who followed, also sat in the opposite spot.
But I kept staring only at the campfire.
Because I was too embarrassed to face him.
Though my sensitively bristling mood had calmed down somewhat after hearing his apology, embarrassment and awkwardness came on even stronger instead, tormenting me.
‘How am I going to look at his face and get along from now on?’
The more I reflected on what happened yesterday, the more embarrassed I became until I felt like I’d go crazy. Even though I didn’t want to remember, I kept remembering anyway and wanted to bang my own head.
‘Ugh. I want to die. I want to erase the memory.’
It’s a dark history that will never happen again.
Ah. I wish our companions would come find us soon. If I could just do something about this situation of being alone with this guy, it would be better than now. That’s when I was unconsciously sighing and rubbing my face.
“Eddie.”
“…What.”
“……”
He called me but didn’t answer for a long time.
Thanks to that, this silence felt even more awkward.
“Cedy. Do you want to just go into the cabin first?”
“…Do you hate being with me?”
“That’s not it, but, no, you…”
Even in this situation, you’re asking if I hate being with you? Words I wanted to argue with rose to my throat but I couldn’t spit them out and swallowed them.
His seemingly light reaction annoyed me.
‘This guy really… it didn’t matter to him at all.’
Because it was rut and couldn’t be helped.
Because it was just an accident.
‘He just doesn’t think anything of it.’
As long as he could resolve his rut, it wouldn’t have mattered who he rolled around with, and to that guy I’m just ‘anyone.’
Despite all that talk about always waiting for me to look back at him… does he even think of me as a friend?
My mood soured completely.
Maybe I’m feeling hurt. At Cedric’s indifference that makes me doubt whether we’re even friends.
‘How annoying.’
Since when had I been paying this much attention to him? The asymmetry of emotions felt unfair. I even thought that maybe this was the price for being neglectful toward him for the past few years.
I was making all sorts of faces and radiating discomfort when—
“What about you?”
“……”
“You want to ask ‘why are you so nonchalant about it?'”
Cedric pulled out the question I had swallowed first. Feeling spiteful, I glared once and twisted my lips sourly.
“No, forget it. Like you said, it couldn’t be helped, so it’s weird for me to keep feeling embarrassed and worrying about it…”
“I’m worried about it too.”
“……”
“I’m embarrassed and feel awkward too.”
“……”
“I’m not unaffected by it.”
My thought processes stopped dead for a moment. My head felt like it was turning completely upside down, making me wonder what I’d been thinking all this time.
“But yesterday… it felt fucking amazing.”
“Y-you don’t need to say that much!”
After going well, Cedric said something he didn’t need to say, making me want to pinch his mouth.
Even without him confirming it again, yesterday he had looked extremely pleased.
“What about you? Did you hate it?”
“……”
“To my eyes, you looked like you felt good.”
“……”
“You felt it better than I thought.”
“…You want to get hit again.”
“No. Your hands hurt because they’re so harsh.”
Cedric curved his eyes mischievously.
‘Ugh.’
I grabbed my brow for no reason, but my low mood stabilized. Anyway, I wasn’t the only one worrying about it, and he was actually embarrassed too and just wanted to gloss over it.
‘Right. It wasn’t something friends should do.’
I’d already received an apology about getting hurt. If he wanted to gloss over it, I planned to do the same. No, that was the right thing to do.
I awkwardly rubbed my cheek and subtly changed the subject.
“When will Ret come? It’s about time she showed up.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to see her soon.”
“Hmm.”
Cedric made an inscrutable sound at my words. His strangely lukewarm reaction made me wonder why and observe him closely, when suddenly a ball of light flew toward us.
[Human, human.]
What was fluttering and circling by my ear was a spirit.
When I unconsciously held out my hand, the spirit that landed on my palm soon told me that our companions would be coming this way. It seemed Riette had finally finished all her business.
“Ret will be coming soon.”
I sent off the spirit returning to Riette’s side and looked back at Cedric. Cedric only responded briefly to that and got up from his seat.
Not long after, I felt signs of people nearby. As several voices echoed from the forest, I jumped up and saw familiar figures approaching through the bushes.
“Ret!”
As I approached closer, the outlines of Riette, the coachman, and the porter men began to show clearly. The group over there seemed to have spotted me too and came running in one stride.
Around them were several balls of light that appeared to be spirits.
“Eddie!”
Riette, finally reunited, hugged me gleefully with great joy. I also happily hugged Riette back.
“Ah! We finally met!”
“Are you okay? You weren’t hurt anywhere?”
“Yeah! What’s wrong with your forehead? Are you injured?”
Riette belatedly noticed the gauze stuck to my forehead and widened her eyes. Just as I was answering that it was just a scratch and reassuring Riette—
“Why did you come so early? It would have been fine to come a little later.”
Cedric said something that made no sense.
Did he misspeak ‘why did you come so late’?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
Seriously Cedric, you can keepthose comments to yourself lol