TEASER CHAPTER 7 PART 28
Nozomu, who was absent
from school, invited Lisa and went out for a walk in Arcazam together.
They passed through
the civic district where the student dormitories were located and headed for
the central park in the middle of the city.
Sitting on a park
bench, Nozomu and Lisa gazed at the chalk-white school building of Solminati
Academy in silence.
For a while, silence
flowed between the two.
"Umm, I'm
sorry."
It was Nozomu who
opened his mouth first.
He glanced sideways to
check Lisa's shortened hair and looked down in regret.
Her hair, which was
cut to the shoulders, was now trimmed even shorter, making her look like a boy.
"I told you, no
need to apologize. I just wanted a change of pace. Well, Camilla surprised
me."
Contrary to Nozomu,
who had a painful expression on his face, Lisa had a clear expression, and she
waved her hand, saying not to worry about it.
"No, that one
too, but what I mean is that everything happened until now."
"That's not
something Nozomu should apologize for, isn't it? To begin with, it was my fault
because I couldn't believe you, Nozomu..."
This time, Lisa's
expression became clouded.
Even though she had
been fooled by Ken's plan, it was definitely her who had thrown abusive words
at Nozomu.
And her words were the
decisive factor in bringing down Nozomu's position at the school to the bottom
of the barrel.
"I should be the
one apologizing. I'm sorry I didn't believe in you, Nozomu..."
Turning towards Nozomu,
Lisa bowed her head deeply.
She herself didn't expect
to be forgiven. Even so, she felt that she had to apologize properly here.
"No, I should
have asked you as soon as those rumors came out. I should have confronted you,
as well as Ken. The only reason I didn't do it was because I myself ran away
from you and Ken."
Nozomu looked at her
as she bowed her head and slowly speak about his true feelings.
His words were colored
by regret.
Indeed, Nozomu was
rejected by Lisa. Furthermore, he had been deceived by Ken's trickery, and he
had also been impatient with his own ability, which was not growing at all at
the time.
However, the reason
the situation had become so complicated was also because Nozomu had a part in
it.
He couldn't bring
himself to face her. He was under the delusion that if he became stronger, he
would be able to help Lisa. That was Nozomu's sin.
"In the end, we
said we were doing it for each other, but we didn't even try to face each other.
We kept convincing ourselves about stories that were convenient for us and kept
turning our backs on each other because they weren't going the way we wanted
them to. That is why. I want to apologize."
Once again, Nozomu
turned to Lisa and bowed deeply.
Then, both of them
raised their heads at the same time, and both of them smiled.
"Pfft~! We're
doing something weird, aren't we?"
"Haha~! That's
for sure. A man and a woman are absent from school in the daytime and bow their
heads on a bench in the park. From the outside, people would be scratching
their heads and wondering what they're doing."
They smiled and
laughed at each other for a while.
They could feel the
stagnation that had settled in the depth of their heart for two years flowing
away. It was the first time in a really long time that they could smile from
the bottom of their heart.
They had a distorted
relationship, but they still leaned on each other as if they depended on each
other. The rusty cogs in their relationship were finally starting to turn.
"What are you
going to do now, Lisa?"
They laughed for a
while.
After a while, Nozomu
suddenly asked Lisa a question, and she looked up and stared off into the
distance.
She looked at the sky
and closed her eyes as if to look inside her own heart. Then, with a wry smile
on her face, she turned to Nozomu and slowly opened her mouth.
"I don't know.
I've always wanted to be an adventurer like my father, but I've come to think
that there's more to it than that, and I still want to learn a lot of things
here..."
"Hmm?"
When she cut her own
words without saying them to the end, Lisa quickly closed the distance between
her and Nozomu.
Her moist eyes stared
at him from a close distance.
Nozomu felt his heart
skip a beat at the expression on her face as if she were about to cry at any
moment.
"Hey, Nozomu...
If I decide to leave the academy, will you come with me?"
