Volume 7 - Chapter 5 – Isolated (1/2)
07-05 Isolated
In the town of Delead, they stayed overnight at a farily high-class inn. It was a sturdy stone-built three-storey building with a flat rooftop.
During the night, Jin for some reason or another couldn’t sleep and left his room, then tried going up the stairs to the rooftop. Small lights gave off enough light to let him somehow see where he was walking.
Stars were twinkling in the spring night sky.
“Ooh, what a pretty night sky. Even though I don’t know the constellations here.”
Jin who was looking up at the starry sky began to feel unusally sentimental. Then,
“Reiko, you’re here, right?”
“Yes, Father.”
Reiko, the faithful Automata always protecting Jin, undid her [Stealth] magic and appeared.
“Come over here.”
“Yes.”
Jin who had become somewhat lonely called Reiko to his side, and gently stroked her head.
“Father?”
Reiko raised a puzzled voice due to Jin’s slightly unusual state.
“Mh, yeah. You’re always by my side, so.”
“Yes, that’s because it’s my reason for being.”
“Hehe, you always say that, don’t you. Well, it’s fine, just stay by my side always.”
“Yes, of course.”
It was dark so Jin couldn’t see well, but at that moment Reiko had an extraordinary smile on her face.
“・・・・・・”
Suddenly a song flowed out of Jin’s lips. A song he had for some reason forgotten about until now.
The ending theme of a story about a group headed west in search of a sutra. This was also from the orphanage director’s collection, but he had heard the tune from a video tape, not a cassette tape.
“Father…”
Reiko held Jin’s hand. She hoped that would remove at least a bit of Jin’s loneliness.
“・・・・・・・・・”
Jin stopped singing, and then.
From behind he could hear the sound of footsteps. Reiko quickly turned around and prepared for combat…, but.
“Jin, kun?”
It was Elsa. Apparently as her room was on the third floor, she had heard Jin’s voice and had come up.
“Elsa? What’s wrong?”
Jin asked.
“That’s my line. What’s wrong, Jin-kun?”
“Do you even need to ask. Somehow I couldn’t sleep”
Getting such an answer, Elsa gave Jin a searching look and then,
“Huh.”
Her reaction was that of more or less accepting the answer.
“So, that song just now was?”
“Something or the other.”
As if she wasn’t satisfied with that answer, Elsa showed a deeply pondering attitude then,
“Jin-kun, lonely?”
She guessed exactly right at Jin’s feelings, didn’t she.
“Eh?”
As it was dark she couldn’t see Jin’s flustered and troubled face, but he was still clearly confused. By no means did he expect Elsa to say what she just said.
“W-why?”
With a slightly nervous voice he answered with a question, and,
“Because I’ve been like that.”
Elsa spoke.
“Father is military personnel so he’s seldom home. Mother has a weak constitution so she doesn’t leave her room much. My brothers are so much older than me that we don’t really see eye to eye.”
He had previously heard of Elsa’s family structure, but hearing it again either way made him feel for her.
“There’s no way Rai-nii either could always play with me. Especially after he became a diplomat we’ve not been able to meet often.”
No doubt she didn’t have many friends of her own age. The cause of her not being very good at conversing must’ve been that too, Jin thought.