By Zephyria 
I was caught in the swirling flames, drifting here and there without any will of my own, when something wrapped around my arm. It tickled my skin like a warm spring breeze, then pulled me sharply upward.
“……”
I was aware that I was waking up. The constant, noisy hallucinations in my ears told me that my consciousness was still half-submerged in sleep.
The crackling of wood burning, the rustling of blankets, the fidgeting beside me…
I forced my heavy eyelids open. It was the first time I’d heard sounds like these, not the bloodcurdling screams or the war drums of the battlefield.
I opened my eyes, but everything was blurry, and I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. The dizziness was so bad that I unconsciously groaned.
“Don’t try to get up. Just lie down.”
A small, quiet voice spoke. It felt unfamiliar, but after thinking about it, I thought I knew who it was. My memories were all jumbled up, giving me the strange feeling of meeting a character from a book in real life.
“Your fever’s gone down a lot, though.”
“……”
A cool hand touched my forehead. The stroking was overly cautious, as if touching a glass doll. It felt somehow uncomfortable, so I lightly turned my head to avoid it, and the hand easily fell away.
“Why can’t I see?”
I mumbled to myself, my voice hoarse and cracked.
“There’s nothing wrong with your eyes. You’ve been asleep for too long, so it’s just temporary. Does it hurt?”
“Too long? How long?”
“About a week. Does it hurt?”
A week? Hearing that, I suddenly felt a stiffness in my back, which had been fine until now. I shifted my body, and Aska asked again.
“Does it hurt?”
Why did he keep asking the same thing? It was still blurry, but I was slowly starting to make out colors and shapes in my vision. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand and said,
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“Let me see.”
A slightly cool hand carefully turned my cheek. Even though I couldn’t see, I could feel his face coming close.
“You seem very dry. And your capillaries are showing.”
“……”
Now that he mentioned it, my eyes did feel a little sore. More than that, though, his closeness brought a sudden, pleasant scent. I could feel his breath, and the rustling sounds every time he moved…
Then, a soft, warm mass swept across my eyeball. My dry eyes were instantly soothed by the soft, moist touch, but I couldn’t just be happy about it. What kind of beast licked someone’s eyes with its tongue?
I was so dumbfounded that I froze like a stone and just let him lick me several times. I finally came to my senses and pushed his shoulder away, and he easily moved back.
“Are you okay now?”
I reflexively closed my eyes and rubbed my wet eyelids on the blanket.
“Gently. What if you scratch them?”
The blanket wasn’t sandpaper. What could get scratched? Aska lifted my face again, as if telling me to stop. Maybe it was because of Aska’s bizarre behavior, but I could finally see.
I was already speechless, but seeing his pale face made me even more so. It was obvious to anyone that Aska had been crying, his eyes and the tip of his nose red. He couldn’t have gotten so red from crying for just a short time, so he must have been shedding tears for quite a while.
But I didn’t want to ask why he had been crying, so I just pretended not to notice and turned my head. The room was very small, and besides the bed, there was only a stove, a chair, and a table.
“Where is this?”
“It’s a rural inn on the outskirts of Calderia. Do you remember where you were before you lost consciousness?”
I nodded unconsciously, then stopped. I remembered being entangled with Aska on the floor of the cave. It was something I had experienced myself, but it still felt awkward and distant, as if I had only watched it happen.
“Didn’t we fail to find the exit?”
Aska nodded as I recalled my memories.
“I found it and got out. Since there was only an exit and no entrance, it seems like it’s a place you can only get to by other means, like how we were transported from the Ruins.”
The structure I had never seen before, the unique Magical creatures, and the advanced magic technology made me feel like I had returned from another world.
It was probably a relic from ancient times, but could I ever go back? At least I should leave some kind of record…
Then, Aska, who had been staring at me, suddenly kissed my cheek. He moved so naturally, as if he were just removing a leaf from my hair, that I couldn’t react at all.
While I was still bewildered, Aska kissed my lips again this time. There was no hint or preparation, so I couldn’t predict his actions at all.
“What are you doing?”
I asked, rubbing my lips with the back of my hand.
“What?”
“Why do you keep rubbing your lips?”
“I just wanted to, so I did.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“Do I need a reason? I just did it.”
His confident words left me speechless once again. In the strange silence, I gave up asking any further and changed the subject.
“Did you contact Abyss?”
“Not yet.”
“Why? I think I saw the wolves when I briefly came to my senses.”
Aska answered more sullenly than before.
“I told them to stay out. Anyway, Chichi is watching them, so they’ll let us know quickly if anything happens.”
“The cat?”
This time, he didn’t answer or nod. I pushed the blanket aside, got out of bed, and pulled back the curtain. As soon as I opened the window, a cold wind rushed in, and I unconsciously stepped back. Aska, who was already behind me, reached out and closed the window again.
“Don’t open it. It’s cold, and you don’t handle the cold well anyway.”
“It’s stuffy.”
I pushed Aska’s hand away and opened the window again to look outside. I expected it to be rural since he said it was, but it was more underdeveloped than I thought. I could tell just by looking at the unpaved dirt ground.
Amid the chaotic mess of buildings that weren’t really buildings, and livestock and people mixed together, there seemed to be some kind of order.
As I carefully observed the people, Aska brought the blanket from the bed and hugged me from behind. As Aska’s arms wrapped around me along with the warm blanket, my trembling body quickly calmed down.
It was uncomfortable having him stuck so close behind me, but it seemed even more uncomfortable to start a conversation and get a response, so I just left it.
“Do you want to wash up and go for a walk? But it rained a lot this morning, so the ground will be muddy. Or should we go to another village? I checked the location in advance, so it won’t take long. We can call a carriage and go sightseeing.”
As the quiet voice that tickled my eardrums continued, I unconsciously frowned. My scalp was pressed every time he moved his mouth, probably because his chin was on the top of my head.
It wasn’t very heavy, and it certainly didn’t hurt, but his actions kept making me more cautious. Eventually, even breathing started to feel uncomfortable, so I finally pushed one shoulder back slightly to separate Aska from me.
“Let’s join up with Abyss right away. He must have been very surprised that we suddenly disappeared.”
I moved closer to the window, almost taking my body outside, so that there was no part of me touching Aska at all. Every time I breathed, my breath came out in a white cloud, obscuring my vision.
Aska didn’t say anything even after waiting for a while. I couldn’t see his face, so of course I didn’t know what kind of expression he was making. Feeling uneasy for no reason, I blurted out whatever came to mind.
“Why are the people here wearing so little clothes when it’s so cold?”
Still, no answer came. The uncomfortable silence continued for a long time, and before long, I finally heard Aska’s voice.
“Are you angry?”
I couldn’t help but turn my head at the unexpected question. I could see his narrowed brow and his eyes shaking anxiously.
“Did I see your dream again without permission?”
Hearing that, I felt my heart sink. When I woke up in the middle, my memory was so faint that I wondered if it had been a dream, but it must have been real.
I had expected it since the wolves.
“I didn’t try to see it on purpose.”
Aska said urgently, as if making excuses.
“You wouldn’t wake up, so at first I was just trying to wake you up, but…”
“It’s okay. It wasn’t a secret or anything.”
I cut Aska off because he looked more and more anxious. I was just a little embarrassed that my past, which had been a series of failures every hour and every second, had been exposed so nakedly.
And to the person I wanted to look the coolest to, of all people.
“Do you want to see it too?”
I said it was okay, but Aska didn’t seem to believe me very much. I was tempted for a moment at the question, but I forced myself to resist. I shook my head and said,
“It’s okay, so don’t worry about it. My memories are still a bit jumbled up, so I’m just confused.”
I even imitated Mahir’s tone and spoke as kindly as possible, but Aska’s expression only became stranger and stranger.
“Aren’t you curious? How I lived when I was a kid.”
I was curious, but what could I do about it if I saw it? He must have had a difficult life. Then I would inevitably feel pity for Aska, and I would only become more attached to him than I am now.
“What’s so important about the past?”
“……”
Aska’s expression completely distorted. It wasn’t so much anger as shock. Then he tilted his head to the side and looked at me for a long time before asking.
“Have all your memories come back?”
“More or less? The order is a bit strange, and there are some blurry parts, but I’ve mostly recovered.”
“Do you remember when you first met me?”
I hesitated for a moment at his words, then shook my head.
“Not really… There are a lot of holes from there on.”
“But why?”
Aska looked puzzled and sulked again. His lips were pouting, but it felt more like he was disappointed than sulking.