CHAPTER 3
THEIR ENCOUNTER
Five years ago A small village in the mountains
In a certain country
The last time Huey Laforet saw his mother, she was definitely smiling.
It might have been a fantasy, just something he desperately wanted to see, but Huey believed it.
And wearing that all-forgiving smile…
…his mother disappeared under the water forever.
The witch hunts.
A type of “hunt” barbaric, cruel, and widespread.
Ordinarily, the term should have been suffused with the sacred significance of a hunt for evil beings. However, in later years, in most cases, it would be spoken of as a pernicious custom.
The practice is thought to have begun sometime around the twelfth century. Although generally considered to have been instigated by the church, it actually had nothing to do with any broad religious trend. It originated among the common people and gradually spread across Europe. Over the next century, the practice of witch-hunting permeated the governments, cultures, and religions of every country.
Witch trials were of the people, by the people, and for the people in the truest sense.
As if to say that the greatest enemy of the people was the people itself, they used the witch hunts as free license to reveal a certain something within themselves, something even deeper than their fear and anger. In most cases, it was aimed at women.
Originally, the church’s inquisitions were held to try heretics, and they were indifferent to intangibles like “magic” and “witches.” However, the popular movement spreading throughout Europe gradually began to permeate government and religion as well.
The trials of those suspected of witchcraft generally involved severe torture, and many people died before they ever reached the stake.
The number of victims is ultimately considered to have been around thirty thousand, but the term carried such tenaciously genocidal connotations that for a time, some said it was nine million.
There are several theories regarding the cause of the custom’s decline, but in the 1670s, reports of witch trials rapidly decreased, and it’s said that by 1700, almost no one was executed on suspicion of witchcraft.
In other words, by the year 1700, in nearly all regions of Europe, the people had sealed away the reality of the witch trials in their hearts as something whose time was past.
However…even in 1700, thirty years after the decline of the witch trials, the custom persisted in that village. It might be better to say that people kept it with them, hidden deep inside them.
It was a sparsely populated village in the mountains, far from any city; almost no news from the towns reached it, and it wasn’t near any major military outposts.
Huey Laforet was a perfectly ordinary boy who had been born and raised there. His father had died when he was young, and he and his mother lived together as a family of two.
Their daily lives were far from easy, but Huey grew up healthy, safe in the care of his mother’s kindness and discipline.
The village had a population of about three hundred, but the boy was still young, and to him, that world was wide enough. It was also his reason for living.
He’d never given any thought to why he was alive; he simply lived because the world was there.
His mother was always smiling, and she often asked him the same question:
“Say, Huey? Do you like this town?”
Huey loved his mother’s soft smile, and he would always answer with the best smile he could give her in return. “Yeah! I love it here!”
The young boy loved his mother and his village, living as his natural instincts dictated.
He loved the kindness the villagers showed the two of them as well.
Though he didn’t know what it meant to love, his heart simply loved the world.
The boy didn’t know.
He didn’t know how adept adults were at cleverly hiding malice.
Not until his fateful tenth birthday.
On the day Huey turned ten years old.
On that very day, his mother was taken away from him.
…As a wicked witch who was spreading heresy among the villagers.
When the band that called themselves inquisitors came to the village, Huey didn’t really understand what they were. He didn’t understand—but the ominous aura around them was like a wedge splitting his heart in two.
Then that sinister aura reached out in the flesh and grabbed his mother’s hand as he watched.
There were about twenty armed men, and another ten who looked like priests.
He’d lived his whole life in the village, and he’d never seen this group. About the only thing he knew was that the priests at the church dressed a little like them.
Even so, Huey couldn’t associate these men with the kind people at the church. He just latched on to them, trying to take his mother back.
The men brushed him off easily. He couldn’t remember how many times he got back up. In the end, the only thing he remembered was that he failed.
Days and days passed, but his mother didn’t come home.
The boy was still only ten, and it took time for him to understand what had occurred.
What were “witches,” and what happened to them?
Five days after his mother disappeared, he found out. Villagers came to visit him, saying they were worried about him, and little by little, he heard the story from them.
To a ten-year-old, the facts were horrific and hard to accept.
Why did his mother have to be tried as a witch?
Who on earth could have accused her?
Why wouldn’t anyone save her?
Why didn’t he have the power to do it?
As these thoughts ran through his head, the boy screamed, cried, and raged as if he’d gone mad.
However…the villagers patiently admonished him, soothed him, and took care of him.
As he saw their kindness, Huey gradually calmed down.
“It’s all right, Huey,” said the older girl who lived next door. “We all believe in your mother.”
She was about ten years his senior, but Huey thought of her as a big sister. When he heard what she said, he was deeply relieved.
After all, her gentle smile, and the smiles of all the villagers taking care of him, looked exactly the same as his mother’s.
I know Mother will come home.
How could I think badly of the villagers? What an awful thing to do.
Maybe it’s my fault they arrested her.
Please forgive me; I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…
The boy spent the night whispering the words into a straw-stuffed pillow, over and over like a spell.
Over and over, he apologized for whatever he’d done wrong, not even knowing what it was.
His mother had been taken away by mistake. After the trial, she was sure to come home safe and sound, he believed.
Quietly begging forgiveness, he just believed.
His faith was not in God so much as in this village he loved…or which he thought he loved. In the world.
The boy just believed with all his heart.
Genuinely and blindly.
Until, on the day of the trial, he saw his mother for the first time in a week.
Huey’s mother was dragged out in front of her son and the villagers, half-naked.
Every inch of the skin beneath her tattered rags was scarred.
Actually, it would be better to say that none of it was—all the wounds were raw and torturing her even now.
Blood dripped from her fingertips where nails had been driven into them. Her fingernails had been torn off, along with the skin on the backs of her fingers all the way up to her wrists.
But that was only the beginning.
Huey didn’t remember any of the other details clearly.
He’d looked away.
He couldn’t bear to see the wounds covering her body. Until he saw her face, he probably wouldn’t have been able to believe it if someone had told him who she was.
Only her face had been partially spared from the marks of torture. Even then, there were bruises that showed she’d been struck again and again, but they hadn’t left her unrecognizable.
Later on, Huey heard from one of the alchemists that they’d left her teeth so that she could speak clearly, to avoid any problems with her confession. The other reason had to do with his mother’s reputation as one of the prettiest women in the village, but that was so nauseating that Huey pretended he hadn’t heard it.
They said the witch trial would begin.
Huey didn’t know exactly what they’d do to her, but when he saw the fire blazing on a stand shaped like a chalice, he instantly understood.
They’re going to kill Mother.
The boy tried to scream something, and that was when his mother spotted him.
Even as the pain of her raw wounds racked her body—she smiled quietly at her son.
Huey had never seen this expression before.
It wasn’t her usual soft, all-embracing smile, but there was no hatred or wickedness in it. Later, Huey would murmur, “Strength. Yes…it was strength I saw in her smile.” And indeed, that smile had shown her unyielding will.
At the sight of that smile, Huey fell silent in spite of himself…
…and his mother quietly began to speak.
Before the central figure of the band of inquisitors—a man who was dressed like a priest—could ask her anything, Huey’s mother reverted to her usual soft smile.
She told them in a clear and resonant voice:
“Lord Inquisitors… There is one thing I must confess.”
What happened after that…was something Huey would never forget.
1705 Lotto Valentino
The Third Library Private collection Second floor
……
“You see, this is a problem of mind-set. We’ve always taken results and looked for the cause. There is something that makes gold become gold, and there must be something that makes magnetism and gravity work the way they do. By thoroughly investigating these causes, we attempt to understand everything at a fundamental level.”
A woman’s familiar voice filtered into Huey’s groggy mind.
He glanced around the room, noting that the class was in the middle of an ordinary lecture.
Renee was meandering around the central table, imparting her knowledge with exaggerated gestures. In his own hands was a half-read book. Its pages were slightly damp.
Realizing that his palms were sweaty, Huey gave it some more thought.
A dream? he nearly concluded, but then he internally shook his head, slowly. No, that wasn’t a dream. It may have turned into one, but…I was remembering during class.
As he turned the pages of his book, Huey began to analyze himself.
Ignoring him, Renee enthusiastically continued.
“Buuut Mr. Isaac Newton of England is a bit of an eccentric, and— Well, I think you already know this, but in his law of universal gravitation, um… Well, to put it very simply, Mr. Newton says it’s all right to ignore the cause of gravity. He says humans can’t understand the things God has done. It’s a fairly religious approach, but in any case…”
Letting 90 percent of what she was saying go in one ear and out the other, Huey quietly thought to himself:
Since yesterday evening, all I’ve done is remember what happened, over and over. It’s been exactly five years today.
Today was Huey’s birthday, but it was also the day the inquisitors had taken his mother away.
Thinking back now, he had several doubts about those inquisitors. Had they really been from the church? Couldn’t they have been bandits or impostors dressed up to look the part?
Still, at this point, Huey had no way to check. It was all over and done with, and the end result was the hate that remained inside him.
Nobody could change that.
To Huey, even the girl who’d confessed her love to him was merely part of the world he hated. He was aware that his perspective probably made him the most loathsome of all—and yet Huey Laforet continued to hate the whole world, himself included.
“But this is really amazing, you know? Both for alchemy and for science, this method of simply accepting the existing facts and applying them is revolutionary! It’s hope! That said, in medicine, they’re already using anesthesia even though they don’t understand the underlying principles.”
Right there in front of him, Renee was speaking happily about hope for the future.
To Huey, all futures were things to be equally quashed, and he didn’t even want to hear about hope.
As he watched Renee continue with the class in her usual way, another thought drifted into his mind.
I wonder what happened to the new boy who was supposed to be coming?
His memories were closer to the surface partly because of what Monica had said to him the previous day.
She’d said the new student who would be joining the class today was “the son of a witch,” just like him. Huey didn’t think that was particularly relevant, but he couldn’t honestly say it didn’t interest him at all.
“At any rate, if Mr. Newton’s idea spreads, there may be incredible innovation up ahead! He’s fantastic, isn’t he? Come to think of it, I hear he’s going to be knighted by the British crown this year! Wait… Has that already happened? Still, becoming Master of the Mint and president of the Royal Society… He must be so busy. I have plenty of time, myself, so I take life easier.”
Renee’s lecture was drifting off topic in her excitement.
Deciding there was nothing to be gained from listening further, Huey snapped his book shut and slowly stood up.
“Hmm? What is it, Huey?”
Renee was perplexed. Lowering his eyes slightly, Huey told her impassively, “I don’t feel well, so I’m going home to rest.”
His expression was resolute, and he didn’t seem the slightest bit ill. But Renee just blinked rapidly and replied, “Are you all right? Would you like to see a doctor?”
Politely refusing the offer—
“If you’ll excuse me.”
—Huey left the room by himself.
He stepped out of the place where old and new knowledge intertwined and into the outside world that always left him devoid of hope or expectations—
—and there he met a boy.
“Hiya.”
The moment he entered the corridor, someone called to him in a laid-back voice.
“What’s the matter? It looks like the lecture’s still going. Not feeling so good?”
He’d never heard the voice before, but whoever it belonged to was talking like an old friend.
“…?”
He tried to locate the speaker, but no one was in the corridor.
“Here, over here.”
Picking up on the direction the voice had come from that time, he hastily turned toward it, and—
—there was an upside-down boy outside the window.
He was hanging from a tree that grew in the library courtyard, right next to the window, and wearing a gleeful, inverted grin.
“…Who are you?”
Huey suspected there was another question he should have asked first, but for the moment, he opted to wait, warily, and see what the other boy would do.
The boy was dangling with his legs hooked over a horizontal branch, swaying in the breeze like so much laundry. He responded to Huey’s question absently.
“Oh, now that you mention it, we haven’t met before, have we?! I’ll go first: I’m Elmer. Elmer C. Albatross… Although you can call me whatever you want; I don’t care. It’s nice to meet you. And you are?”
“…Huey. Huey Laforet.” Huey gave his name in spite of himself, then dubiously examined the other boy’s face. That said, it felt strange to stare at a kid who was hanging upside down outside a window, and he glanced away, taking a step closer. “Are you the new student Maestra Renee was talking about?”
He got the feeling he’d asked the wrong question yet again, but he decided to wait for the other boy’s answer.
“I guess that would be me, yeah.”
Elmer smiled brightly, still upside-down. Huey was silent for a while, and then…
…he finally asked the question he really should have been asking.
“And? What are you doing out there?”
“Heh-heh-heh. I’m so glad you asked! I really wanted you to. I bet we’ll probably get along. Um, she told me to come in when she called me, but it looks like she completely forgot about me and just started teaching. Then, when I looked out the window, what do you think I saw?!”
“No idea.”
Clack.
With a noncommittal response, Huey shut the window and latched it from the inside.
“Huh,” Elmer said, tilting his head beyond the glass. He waved both hands in an exaggerated, upside-down gesture.
Without even looking at the new boy, Huey marched off.
As he went, the memory of that smile really rubbed him the wrong way.
…I just did something out of character.
As he descended the stairs, Huey thought about what he’d just done. It struck him as odd.
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have done that.
He probably would have put on an insincere smile, gone along with whatever the other person had said, and walked away.
However, for some reason, that boy had been strangely irritating.
Elmer… That’s what he said, wasn’t it?
The witch’s…son.
Maybe knowing about the similarity had triggered it; after all, they say you hate people similar to yourself.
But for having such a similar background, the other boy had seemed completely different from himself. He didn’t even know what sort of person he was to begin with; they’d exchanged only a few words.
Either way, the encounter had ended in the worst way possible. Considered from another angle, that was convenient.
Now he probably won’t try to talk to me.
Elmer might get mad at him for what he’d just done, but if that happened, he’d just muddle through. If the other boy wanted to hit him, Huey wouldn’t stop him. If he let himself get hit, then ignored him, the boy would never think of trying to approach him again.
…No, that’s not it. That isn’t how I normally do things, either.
Ordinarily, Huey kept a moderate distance between himself and others, not too close and not too far. He maintained that space, but he chose methods that wouldn’t make people feel clear hostility toward him. And yet, Huey had tried to push the boy away completely just now.
They’d only just met; what on earth had he sensed in him?
As he was walking along, analyzing himself, someone else spoke to him.
“You there, lad. A thousand pardons.”
Turning at the sound of incredibly stiff Italian, Huey saw two men.
Foreigners?
One had dark skin and was dressed very oddly. The other looked relatively normal, but both he and the darker man wore what appeared to be swords at their waists. From their appearance, it was obvious at a glance that neither of them was from this country, but even if they had been, the pair would have made a peculiar impression.
Jet-black eyes glaring, the dark-skinned man asked a question in a courteous tone unbefitting someone dressed so roughly. “We seek a gentleman by the name of Dalton…”
Huey was well acquainted with the name. “Oh… If you mean Maestro Dalton, he should be in the reference room in the main building now.”
“Hmm. My apologies, but we are unaccustomed to buildings such as these. It would be a great help if you’d guide us.”
“Yes, of course… It’s this way.”
Today is a strange day, Huey thought as he set off ahead of the two men, wearing his usual superficial smile. No, I guess it started yesterday.
A whole series of odd things had been happening, starting with the incident with that girl the previous day. From a wider perspective, something had seemed odd since Monica’s confession the other day.
Still…I think I managed to deal with these two the way I usually do.
In that case, why hadn’t he been able to do it with that guy Elmer a little while ago?
Even as these things ran through his mind, Huey quietly showed the men the way.
…To Dalton Strauss.
He was the man who had pulled Huey into the world of alchemy…
…the man who had taken him from that village and introduced him to this town…
…and the headmaster of the school.
The Third Library Special reference room
If someone asked whether the place was a reference room, the answer would technically be yes.
There were all sorts of objects on its shelves—fossils and ancient stone tools; rare books, including original copies of a certain type of manuscript; the seeds of plants that didn’t exist in this country; and other items whose identity wasn’t apparent at a glance—and the atmosphere they lent to the room was hard to describe.
However, a wide area had been left open from the back to the center of the room, and considering the chairs that had been placed in the middle, the place could have been taken for a reception room, designed to let the owner of those articles boast about his collection to his guests.
The two “samurai”—Zank Rowan and Denkurou Tougou—were seated in the chairs on one side of the set.
Zank said he was from Polynesia, while Denkurou was Japanese.
They were utterly alien to the Italian Peninsula under Spanish rule—but the man who was sitting across from them didn’t regard them as the least bit strange.
“Well, I’m glad you two came,” said the white-haired man in his husky voice.
He seemed to be around sixty, with a long mustache and beard, and he wore a broad-brimmed hat. His bandaged right hand seemed to be a wooden prosthetic, and if you’d switched that hand for a hook, the man could easily have been mistaken for a pirate captain. His bearing made him seem less like an alchemy teacher than a seasoned, wealthy merchant, and no one would bat an eye if they’d heard he was one of the leaders of the Age of Exploration.
“And may I add, I’m amazed you had the gall.”
His voice might have been hoarse, but it held more than enough dignity. His large eyes glittering, Dalton Strauss shifted in his creaky chair.
“Ha-ha-ha, oh, it wasn’t that impressive.”
“That was not intended as a compliment, Zank.”
Zank laughed bashfully as Denkurou pointed out his mistake with some exasperation.
Denkurou seemed to feel ashamed of what they’d done, but Zank didn’t seem particularly concerned.
As he took in the differences between the two of them, Dalton spoke impartially to the pair.
“No sooner do you arrive in town than you decide to mete out justice and start a brawl? You certainly did draw attention to yourselves, didn’t you? It took me a full two minutes and thirty-six seconds of conversation to set things right with the city police. A tremendous loss of energy.”
“We weren’t playing at heroism. We were merely true to ourselves.”
“You’re free to express yourselves, but…to tangle with the aristocrats, of all people.” Dalton sounded put out, but there was no particularly intense anger or impatience in his expression. He was just relating the unadorned facts.
Zank raised his voice slightly. “Yes, about that! If they are aristocrats, their actions were even less forgivable! The role of the nobility is to have noble souls and lead with virtue, is it not? That lot wasn’t qualified to stand above others, nor did they have the strength to look down on them. The only one who might have was the one who showed up last, that Aile fellow.”
In response to Zank’s diatribe, Dalton frowned and thought.
“Aile? Hmm… I don’t know him. And here I thought I knew most of the people with connections to the aristocrats. Have more new people come to town?”
As the old man muttered to himself, this time Denkurou spoke up.
“Still, this city seems rather peculiar.”
“Does it?”
“Compared with the other countries of Europe, and even to Spain’s other territories, I believe there are more nobles here.”
“Ah, yes. This place is a bit special.” Dalton’s chair creaked again as he leaned into it. “It’s a sort of summer resort for the aristocrats… That said, most of the nobles who end up here weren’t able to land important positions in the home country and have nothing but their rank.”
“Hmm…”
“And in this town, the people have more power than a poor excuse for a noble.”
“…?”
Dalton’s odd statement tugged at something in Denkurou’s mind, but he didn’t pursue the issue. Instead, he broached the subject they’d come to discuss.
“Well, let us leave the topic for another time. Something brought the two of us to this town…,” he said, then withdrew a parcel from his coat.
What emerged from the wrappings were a hair ornament that shone like gold—and a smaller paper parcel.
“Oho…”
“You seem to recognize these.”
“I’d received a letter about them already, but…”
Dalton seemed more interested in the small parcel than the ornament. He opened it carefully with his left hand, revealing a pure-white powder.
“Our master discovered it on the coast, so it did not spread.”
Dalton looked at the powder with deep disgust, silent for a little while. Then he sighed. “It’s similar to opium,” he muttered, “but from what I hear, its effects are far stronger.”
“Both that counterfeit gold and the drug are thought to have been imported from this town,” Denkurou explained with a serious expression.
“Nile was so furious that he seemed liable to put the city to the torch. That is why we did not bring him on this journey,” Zank added, shaking his head and laughing. “But if this spreads across the world, it will ruin the reputations of all alchemists. Our master would like us all to do our utmost to prevent that from occurring. We understand that you have your own circumstances, Dalton—but we request you do not give this individual free rein for too long.”
“Yes… I know. It’s a problem for us as well.”
Zank’s words could have been taken as a threat, but Dalton wasn’t the least bit flustered. He just glared wearily at the powder and the hair ornament.
His wooden prosthetic hand creaked audibly as he abruptly raised his head and smiled a bit masochistically. “After all,” he muttered, “if we let them throw their weight around much more than this, the situation may turn into something neither I nor Lord Esperanza can cope with.”
Hearing that, Denkurou exhaled with a bit of relief and took several letters from his coat.
“I’ve recorded these messages from my master. Zank and I came to survey the general state of the town, then report it to our master, and so…we will be leaving port before the day is out.”
“Busy fellows, aren’t you?” Chuckling, Dalton cracked his neck, then directed a question at Zank, who was leaning back in his chair in apparent boredom.
“…You spent a single day in this town. Just for reference, what were your impressions of it?”
Zank looked up at the ceiling for a while in thought, then responded decisively.
“Although I could not point to any specific examples, I can tell you one thing!”
“Oh?”
“This place is…strange, in a variety of ways.
“As if the whole city is crawling with vipers.”
“A drug…?” Huey murmured to himself.
He stood flat against the wall by the window, frowning.
After he’d delivered the two men to their destination, intellectual curiosity about their conversation with Dalton had welled up inside him, and he’d immediately decided to eavesdrop.
However, aside from sarcasm, they’d said only the bare minimum of what needed to be said—and the boy’s ears had caught wind of a peculiar fact as he listened to their conversation through the wall.
“What’s this about?” Huey muttered aloud without meaning to, and—
“I’m betting it’s one of those secret societies.”
—a clear answer returned from right beside him.
“?!”
He whipped his head around to look and saw the same smile he’d seen a short while earlier.
Of course, last time it had been upside down.
“Hiya.”
“You…”
Before Huey had noticed, Elmer had come to stand beside him and pressed his ear to the wall with considerably less discretion than Huey.
Forgetting that he’d abandoned him a few moments earlier, Huey blinked in astonishment and hissed, “What about the lecture? Why are you here?!”
“Well, it looked like she wasn’t going to remember me anyway, and since the window was locked, I had to get down, and when I finally, finally managed to climb down, I saw you taking these people I recognized somewhere, so I followed you, and then you started eavesdropping, and I thought maybe they were talking about something juicy.”
“…”
Ignoring the silent Huey, Elmer matter-of-factly explained and peeked stealthily into the room through the window. “This is pretty exciting, though, huh?! It sounds like that powder’s a drug, so what do you suppose the gold thingy is?”
“…I don’t know.”
“Okay, let’s ask.”
“Huh?”
No sooner had Elmer spoken than he reached for the reference room door. “’Scuse u—”
“…!”
Huey slapped his hand over Elmer’s mouth and held back the rest of him, then dragged him to the corner of the corridor.
What am I doing?
Clicking his tongue at himself in disgust, Huey hid around the corner with Elmer just as Dalton stuck his head out of the room.
“Hmm. I thought I heard a voice…”
Dalton looked around for a little while. Perplexed, he finally retreated back inside and shut the door.
Watching this from the shadows of the corridor, Huey exhaled in relief, then shot a glare at the boy next to him. “…Are you an idiot?!”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. If it was such a big deal that they’d kill us for hearing it, they wouldn’t be talking at a time and place where people could overhear them in the first place. And as long as you’re alive, you can get through just about anything.”
“Don’t split hairs!”
“Well, you did lock me out back there. Just think of it as a little bit of revenge,” Elmer replied nonchalantly, then snickered. “Anyway, I’m curious, aren’t you? I wanna know about that weird drug and the gold.”
“…”
“My guess is there’s some big organization involved. I hear it takes a lot of people to make that kind of drug. Still, I dunno… I can’t decide whether it’ll make people happy or unhappy in the end. What do you think?”
“…Why are we suddenly talking about happiness?”
In that era, very few countries had laws that regulated opium and similar substances at all. Back then, as in the time of the Opium Wars some time later, drugs were treated as a product. However, there was no guarantee that this would hold true for newly created drugs.
“Still, from what those visitors were saying, it sounded like it’d be bad if it got too popular, didn’t it? …So I don’t think it would hurt to just learn a little more about it.”
“Do it yourself. I don’t want you getting me involved.”
Forcing himself to calm down, Huey thought about the other boy.
Seriously, what is he?
Every time he opened his mouth, he threw Huey off balance. It probably would be best to just brush him off, then keep his distance.
Having made that decision, Huey put on his usual smile and smoothly chose the proper words to say. “Anyway, I apologize for locking you out earlier. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Yeah, likewise. Well, I’d love it if you’d smile for me someday, once you trust me.”
“…?”
For a moment, he didn’t understand what the other boy was saying. Speaking over the silence, Elmer calmly pointed out the truth.
“You’re faking that one, aren’t you?”
“ !”
Huey’s hand froze before he could finish reaching out for a handshake. He stared at Elmer’s face, eyes wide.
Oh. Oh… I see.
As he looked at the other boy, who was smiling in his usual way, Huey realized what it was about him that irritated him so much.
His smile…
Memories from the day of that unforgettable, damnable witch hunt rose in his mind.
It’s exactly like Mother’s…and the villagers’…
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