“… We should go back.”
So, even though he didn’t say anything, Alle finally said the obvious, as if it were painted in his eyes. Rayan remembered the last time he met him, a year ago.
It had gone something like this even then.
Rayan, who came ashore, avoided Alle, and Alle tried to persuade Rayan, saying ‘let’s go back, it’s not too late, Ayla and Yuri also wish for your return, maybe Mer too’.
Maybe it was true for the first two, but there was no way Mer would say that, but Alle tried to use it as a factor of persuasion anyway.
“You know what my answer will be, Alle.”
Rayan lowered his eyes and whispered.
“Do you like that person that much?”
“…”
“Enough to throw everything away?”
Various emotions appeared on Ale’s face. Longing, slight resentment, or even deep worry.
“Rayan.”
If he had been a little alert, he would have known that Alle was coming. Maybe it’s because he had been thinking about Erich since last night, but he had become less alert to his surroundings.
“… I told you not to come like that.”
Regretting his carelessness, Rayan gently stroked Alle’s hair. There was sadness in his gray eyes that were close to blue.
But Rayan really wanted Alle to live a normal life; not bound by the past, but living in reality and seeing the future. But it seems that only Alle had been stuck in the same place since three years ago.
“You’ve done enough to prove your love.”
“…”
“So come back to the world you should be living in. Mer will also be willing to understand and accept it.”
Alle continued to insist while the other was silent. It was really a coincidence that they met like this, and he was desperate as if he didn’t know when he would be able to see Rayan again if he let this opportunity slip away.
“I wonder.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ejsjc ijeutfv ylaafgis.
Lf tjr cb lcafcalbc bo ublcu, yea fnfc lo tf ujnf eq bc fnfgsatlcu jcv kfca, kbeiv Zfg jmmfqa tlw joafg tf tjv ibra tlr uejgvljc rabcf? Ktf xlcu gfwjlcfv lcvloofgfca ktfc tf vlv cba gfjmt jveiatbbv. Pa kbeivc’a yf vloofgfca atlr alwf flatfg. Yo mbegrf, fnfc lo rtf jmmfqafv atja ojma wlgjmeiberis, tf bcis tjv j ilwlafv jwbeca bo alwf ifoa.
Rayan didn’t want to show his demise to his guardians and friends who cared for him. He wanted the last thing they remember of him to be him being happy with the human he wanted to be with even though he went against the law.
“Alle. My guardian.”
So, now was the time to prepare for the end. For Alle to never find him again. So that Yuri and Ayla, who are still curious about his current situation, could no longer think of him and let him slip away as a remnant of the past.
“Go back to your world.”
“… It is also your world.”
“And when you go, don’t come back here again.”
“Rayan!”
“Even if you come, you won’t see me.”
“Why? Are you leaving? Because of me? Does it bother you that I keep coming back and asking you to go back?”
At the incessant questions, Rayan shook his head lightly and denied.
“It can’t be. How could you bother me?”
“Then why?”
“I met Erich.”
Alle raised his eyes. He pursed his lips, as if he didn’t know which one to choose first among the countless words he wanted to pour out.
“… Are you going to follow him?”
“…”
“At last?”
After a while, Alle appealed again, asking if he was going to follow the human, whom he had lived his whole life for and loved so much, turning his back on Atisa. Rayan touched his cheek without answering him.
It was a relief. That Alle didn’t pry.
If Alle had been more rational and had dug deeper, Rayan wouldn’t have been able to fake a lie so easily. He would have noticed the blind spots in his words and actions right away. Even now, living on the surface world, Rayan was still not very good at lying.
“I don’t know if you remember, but you said it to me before.”
‘I want you to be happy’. This was what he had muttered to Rayan, who had just failed to mature and was depressed, thinking that he was sleeping. Alle also kept his mouth shut as if he were vaguely recalling the memories of that day.
“And this is my happiness.”
Rayan whispered and kissed his round forehead. The killer whale, who would usually gently flick his tail and close his eyes when he kissed him on the forehead, did not smile this time.
***
It took a long time to appease Alle. Alle said he didn’t know where he had gone wrong, and he complained that his biggest mistake was that he was never able to win against Rayan. There was a mixture of grief and regret for the past in his sighs.
Rayan was able to send Alle back only after hearing the stories of his precious people that he would never hear again – even though Ayla’s worries were bordered on threatening. To be precise, he did not send him back, but rather, Rayan left the spot. He couldn’t help it, it was unlikely that Alle would ever leave if he didn’t step away first.
“…”
Rayan, after complaining to the letan and taking some rest, had to go back to town. After looking around, the place where he settled down was a tavern located in a corner location. Rayan sat in the back seat and took a sip of the drink he ordered.
His brow wrinkled as he sipped his drink, too afraid to touch with his tongue. It was bitter. Even though he could count on one hand the number of times he’d had it, he still hadn’t gotten used to the bitter taste. At first, he drank, not knowing anything, then spat it out, but now he knew what this was and drank it. And now he had a vague idea of why humans drink this bitter thing.
It was good for forgetting his worries.
His mood was strangely lifted, and the troubles that he was worried about became blurred. It gave him a false sense of confidence that things would work out. Of course, it was an unfounded confidence that would vanish without a trace the next day.
Anyway, Rayan continued to drink. Several empty bottles were already lined up in front of him.
“…”
Emptying another glass, he opened his palm. A small patch of blue scales fluttered. It was the one he had been given before leaving Alle earlier. Of course, it wasn’t Alle’s, it was a mermaid’s fin scales.
Was it Ayla’s? It seemed too dark to be hers, but no one but her would have given them to him. Giving scales was both an expression of friendship and a token that, in case of any threat, one would come to another’s aid if they were in danger.
They couldn’t go against the law to find him anyway, and they wouldn’t be able to call back Rayan either.
Rayan closed his hand, tucking it away, and took another drink. The owner seemed a bit fed up with his appearance of being almost unperturbed by the bottles that piled up over and over again. The sun was still shining, and he looked pathetic as he emptied the bottle.
He wondered if he should leave, but he didn’t know where to go.
So he rested his chin on his hand and stared at the light coming through the crack in the window. Dust wafted through the light. Rayan imagined the sun to be seen when the window was opened. What was once longed for and curious had now become a daily thing that could be easily imagined even if he could not directly see it.
Come to think of it, the sun hadn’t been so special since the moment he’d met Erich, who was as bright and shiny as the sun, perhaps even more so.
“… Ah.”
Looking at the scattered dust under light, Rayan swallowed a short sigh.
He felt dizzy. He seemed to be short of breath, and his body was drained of energy. He had already skipped meals for two full days and sang all night long, so it was only natural.
Rayan barely managed to catch his breath. He sat still, intending to leave when the dizziness subsided, but he bumped into a man who strode briskly across the room. The man who took a step back suddenly glared at Rayan with a stern expression. However, upon looking down at his face revealed through the disheveled robes, he broke into a smile.
The gaze that looked up and down was stark and tenacious, and unpleasantly sordid.
“Hey. If you bumped into someone, you should apologize.”
Even though he was rather the one who got hurt while he was simply sitting, he got into trouble. Rayan didn’t hide his annoyance and raised his body, feeling more dizzy than before.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
As he rose, this time, the man grabbed his wrist. Wondering if he should shake him off, Rayan looked at his caught wrist and contemplated. No matter how weak he was, it wasn’t hard to shake him off like this. His physical strength was on the side of exceeding that of most humans, so he was conflicted about hurting the arm of the man who grabbed his hand.
“… Let go.”
The conflict was eventually expressed in small resistance.
“What if I don’t want to?”
Naturally, the man was not going to listen to Rayan, who appeared smaller than him. The man chuckled at Rayan’s resistance, dismissing her resistance as nothing more than a nuisance.
‘Should I just shake him off? I don’t think it will hurt much if I use my strength gently. Or should I just get out of here and try to find a good opening to get away?’
Rayan was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not recognize the shadow approaching behind the man’s back. The approaching shadow pushed the man’s hand away from Rayan.
“He said to let go.”
A low growl mingled with the groans of the man who was holding Rayan by the arm.
“…”
It was familiar. When Rayan suddenly raised his head in surprise, he saw a person he could not have imagined to see here.
Erich. Rayan swallowed a name he couldn’t bear to pronounce out loud.
»Various emotions appeared on Ale’s face.« Alle’s
Oho~ what’s he doing there?
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶