My Childhood Friend Became an Inquisitor

“Young miss! Oh my, you’re not a child anymore, how can you be so close to a boy like that!”
“But I was so scared…”
“What would the master say if he knew! I knew you were often together before, but to think it was to this extent… Young miss. You haven’t crossed the line, have you?”
“N-No, I haven’t!”
*

I still don’t really understand all this talk about darkness and heresy.

But one thing I could face was that I couldn’t persuade them, and the more I struggled to deny reality, the more I alone would suffer.

Why didn’t I realize that what they, the Church, you, the Inquisitors truly needed was just a wooden puppet that would nod its head in time?

“Your body and mind must have been shocked a lot, so rest well for a while.”

See, it’s become so comfortable now.

Anne lifted me up, who was staggering and barely able to support myself, and laid me on the bed. Then she frowned and muttered lowly.

“The smell of blood…”

The resentment I had scattered all over the place while self-harming and raging. I thought it had all been erased, but it seems some remained.

“That person called Teacher didn’t do anything to you, did they?”

“No, they were a good person.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

Anne’s eyes narrowed as if displeased that I defended them unconsciously. But she didn’t press further, and just silently covered me with the blanket.

The priestly robe that was unnecessarily tough and couldn’t be taken off. The bed was hard, and the blanket was rough too, so it wasn’t a good environment even as a white lie. It’s a prison after all.

But to my already battered body, it felt comfortable as long as it wasn’t the hellish torture room.

To the point where I couldn’t complain even in this environment and my eyes were closing from fatigue. Well, even if I voiced my discomfort, they probably wouldn’t listen.

“We’ll talk in detail later. For now, just sleep a bit.”

“…Okay.”

Anne, sitting on the bare floor, looked more uncomfortable than me, but she remained motionless in her kneeling position.

A neat and seemingly very familiar posture. As if feeling my gaze even with her eyes closed, Anne opened her eyes and gave me a slight smile.

A moment of eye contact. Soon, Anne closed her eyes and returned to her original posture. With her knees on the cold floor, both hands clenched into fists resting on her thighs.

Her unwavering appearance, like a devout statue, seemed to tell me this. That she would stay by my side, that she would protect me. One action more trustworthy than a hundred words.

Indeed, you haven’t changed.

“…Will you stay here the whole time?”

Indeed, you have changed.

Anne opened her eyes again at my careful question. The slate-blue eyes, slightly curved with puzzlement, lightly gazed at me.

The gaze is still as calm as a lake, but I now know that storms can arise in those eyes at any time.

“Do you… dislike it?”

The innocent appearance remains, but there’s consideration inside. Anne no longer whined, nor did she struggle with moving her body.

It’s certainly something to be happy about that the innate weakness that clung to you like a curse has disappeared, but it was a bit sad that you had become too perfect of a superhuman for me to rely on. No, maybe I’ve just become shabby.

But even after your deficiencies were filled, the weight of your attention towards me didn’t lighten but became even heavier, and things I used to take lightly now weigh me down.

“I don’t dislike it. I just thought you might be uncomfortable.”

I can’t fall asleep.

With you by my side, the hallucinations and auditory hallucinations that tormented me have all fallen silent, but instead, you fill that space and torment me.

You probably don’t even realize it yourself.
Your appearance, your breath, your scent. Sweet and bitter things mix indistinguishably, and I can neither swallow nor spit them out, only pacing restlessly.

“Ah, because of my posture?”

“That’s right. Probably.”

“Thank you for worrying. But, I’m really fine.”

I want to hate you but can’t, so in the end, I search for reasons to forgive you.

When it’s time to forgive you, I’ll probably look for reasons to hate you again. Either way, they pile up like mountains.

“I’m used to it.”

“…That’s good if you’re okay.”

In the end, I can’t say anything due to the rising numbness, and my mouth closes.

She doesn’t groan or get numb even in that posture. You who used to pant heavily as if you’d die from just a little running, and suffer from coughing for a long time if you just breathed wrong.

You’ve grown too much in places I don’t know, and unfamiliarity stirs my heart as much as familiarity. I cover myself with the blanket and block my view while looking at you. Or, I hide my face.

The sharp light pierced even through the thin cloth and tormented me, but its force was somewhat diminished. Just by not seeing you in front of me, my heart that was dizzy because of you calmed down somewhat, but the voices that had been suppressed came back to life.

“Are you there?”

“Hm?”

A voice heard through the blanket. With my vision blocked now, I can only sense you when you speak.

Was having another person around this comforting? I hear some sounds. A short laugh, and the rustling sound of someone getting up.

Pat. Pat. Light footsteps. I flinched unconsciously at the touch placed on the blanket. For a moment, even though I knew it couldn’t be, I mistook it for Anne trying to beat me to death.

“It reminds me of the old days. Right?”

A conditioned reflex close to paranoia. Not knowing or pretending not to know my inner thoughts, Anne continued speaking in a calm voice.

“Old days…?”

“Shh, don’t recall. Even older. When we were together, I mean.”

The throbbing headache subsides before it even starts, calmed by the soft voice. As if comforting me, Anne lightly played my arm with gentle touches. Tap. Tap.

“Yes, together…”

“On rainy days. When I was scared of thunder and knocked on your door asking to sleep together, the nanny would stop me saying it wasn’t allowed.”

There was one unfamiliar word in the familiar story. Nanny, so you don’t call the lady mother anymore.

“So when I was sniffling, not knowing what to do, you came and hugged me, remember?”

That’s right. Originally, our house and Anne’s yellow-roofed house were close, and I was often alone at home, so there was no adult to stop me even if I wandered around late at night.

I had long since overcome the fear of thunder. I was so used to sleeping alone that even if I cried, there was no one to comfort me.

That’s how it was until I met you.

“Louis, are you scared?”

“……”

And after meeting you, I tried not to cry more in your place, who cried a lot. I wanted to always appear strong to you.

That clumsy mask wore down in the face of years of separation, and finally shattered in the face of the cruel present. There was nothing left to cover my wretched bare face.

I want to see you, I don’t want to see you, even this blanket I covered myself with. Anne pulled at the blanket I had covered myself with. I reflexively applied force and tried to resist, but I was helplessly pulled along by the difference in strength like that between a child and an adult.

Instead of completely taking the blanket away from me, Anne half-lifted it and came in herself.
Just as I had done that night, she hugged me.

“We got caught and scolded terribly, remember? Come to think of it, it would be the same now.”

She covers us again with the blanket. The veil that used to hide you and me has now become a small hideout that hides us from the world. In the returned kindness, my muscles that had been painfully stiff gradually relaxed.

In the past, you were small enough to fit snugly in my arms, but now after meeting again after a long time, we had become almost the same size. Able to face each other at an equal eye level, and able to hug each other mutually instead of one being in the other’s arms.

“Even now?”

“Yes. If we were caught like this now… Well, even I might be burned at the stake, don’t you think?”

Giggling like a mischievous child, Anne calmly said such things.

“…What?”

“The Church is much stricter than a nanny. Yes, what clearer circumstantial evidence could there be than lying in the same bed with a heretic?”

It was something I hadn’t been aware of because I had become too used to it, and because I didn’t have enough mental capacity left to care about such things.

Once I realized it, we were pressed together excessively. Unlike when we were young, I became embarrassed and tried not to feel the graceful curves of the female body touching me through the thin clothes.

In this situation, would there be anything as ugly as feeling lust towards this person?

“Don’t worry too much, I told you, didn’t I? That I would protect you.”

At this moment when the murderer who sacrificed everything of mine whispers that she will sacrifice everything for me.

“Somehow, yes. Somehow, definitely.”

Anne’s cheeks and ears were slightly flushed, perhaps from the heat. I’m probably in a similar state, though I can only guess since there’s no mirror.

The emotions that set fire to each other’s faces must be different. Even though you’ve matured so much, become so adult-like, become so perfect, you’re still you.

There were things that could only be seen after the heart was lit a little. What was at my feet that I couldn’t see until now because the path ahead was so dark.

It was Anne’s face, as red as mine, pretending to be composed so that I wouldn’t be anxious, for my sake. Though that Anne didn’t say a word, I, who knew you so well, could read all the words you swallowed.

Even though I’m trying so hard, for you, only for you, everything.

Why you. Stems that could grow into resentment if they sprouted just a little more.

“Are you… still afraid of me?”

Don’t hate me.
There was only one answer I could give back to that.

“I’m not afraid.”

The chills and trembling that had been assailing me along with fear had stopped without my realizing it.
Whether your warmth had been transmitted to me and the cold had gone away, or whether my trembling had been transmitted to you and you were trembling with the same resonance as me.