“W-Well…”
Just as Hilde was about to continue with some excuse, Friede interrupted her by plopping down on the empty space of the sofa – that is, near Hilde’s legs.
And she asked again.
“Is that all?”
A question that was almost like an interrogation, asked again from a distance close enough to smell each other’s body scent if they inhaled.
“For me, it’s a bit different.”
No, it wasn’t a question.
Rather than asking about Hilde’s true feelings, Friede was subtly… but much more directly than before, mentioning her own feelings.
‘What, what is different…?’
Hilde barely swallowed those words. She couldn’t handle whatever answer might come.
“Party member, comrade, friend… Yes, friend is good too, but… it’s certainly good, but… I, I want to become even closer than that.”
Of course, even if she swallowed her words, it didn’t stop Friede’s speech once it had started.
“…Do you dislike it, Hilde? Do you hate… such things?”
An all too blatant expression of intent.
The fact that she still thought she hadn’t confessed her love even after saying this proved that Friede was already drunk.
Whether she was drunk on alcohol or on the heat in her own chest, no one could know.
“Uh… well, Friede. I mean…”
Hilde tried hard to squeeze out some excuse while stammering and averting her gaze. It was an emergency situation.
A situation where one wrong word could cause the party to explode, or conversely, force her to respond to Friede’s feelings.
Either outcome was undesirable for Hilde.
Losing a skilled person close to her own level, who was also completely trustworthy and easy to get along with… no, had been easy to get along with, over such an issue.
Or becoming the lover of a girl who, while twenty years old, looked about four years younger on the outside, someone she had never even thought of ‘in that way’.
Especially the latter was something Hilde’s conscience absolutely could not allow.
A man disguised as a woman toying with the heart of a girl who looked like a minor and making her his lover.
According to the ethics of her original world, shouldn’t that result in handcuffs on the wrists and an ankle monitor?
Though one might think she had already come too far to follow the ethics of her original world after killing over two hundred people…
‘That, and this, are different…!’
At least for Hilde, responding to Friede’s feelings was a problem serious enough to be on a different level from that.
Therefore.
“So… you see, Friede. Um… I’m happy about your feelings, but I can’t accept them.”
Hilde decided to reject Friede’s statement that was practically a confession, but to offer an excuse that would make her understand and take a step back.
The so-called ‘I’m flattered but let’s stay friends’ strategy.
Thinking that if she rejected too bluntly, Friede might leave the party heartbroken, she tried to persuade her to continue their friendship relationship as it was, if not as lovers.
“…Why?”
Friede asked back with a slightly darkened face. Bringing her head a bit closer to Hilde.
With heightened tension, Hilde’s mind spun at an unprecedented speed, instantly scouring old memories to come up with an excuse.
The lines that people in such situations used for gentle rejection in the media she had seen.
“Well… I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you this, but… actually, there’s someone I have feelings for.”
Hilde squeezed her eyes shut against the rising tension and a very small pang of conscience as she uttered what she thought was the best first line.
There’s someone I have feelings for so I can’t accept your confession, so let’s stay friends.
In the writings and comics she had read, this was the most typical and effective rejection line. That’s why Hilde thought this was the best excuse.
…Objectively speaking, it could be considered the worst statement, but.
It was a response typical of someone who had learned about romance from writing.
* * *
“…What?”
Friede’s pupils shrank to dots for a moment.
Hilde had her eyes tightly shut, so she didn’t even realize that the smile had completely disappeared from Friede’s face.
Should we call this fortunate?
Or unfortunate?
If she had faced that expression, she would have realized she had stepped on not just a mine, but an extra-large one, but because she didn’t see it, she was able to continue her words.
“…Could it be Amy you’re talking about? Surely not Kikel.”
“No, it’s not Amy… it’s from before. You see, I’m actually from another country, not this one? It was from then…”
From another country. From before.
Friede’s mind, which had been in extreme shock at the words that Hilde had someone she loved, regained clear reason for a moment at those words.
If it was about her hometown, it would ultimately mean the time of the hero’s party.
‘Who could it be?’
Then who could that person be?
Imelia, who was the party’s priest?
Irina, who was the elf archer?
‘Surely, surely not Gunther? Right, it can’t be. She said she didn’t like men.’
Imelia and Irina, which of the two could it be? Surely not Gunther. Friede swallowed hard. Her fingertips trembled with anxiety.
“Was it… perhaps a man…?”
“…It was a man. I do prefer women… but when you really like someone, it doesn’t matter which.”
‘She said it was a man…?!’
Friede pondered who Hilde might be talking about, breaking out in a cold sweat. Before she could open her mouth again, Hilde went ahead and gave her the answer.
“Um, he was a comrade in the same party before… not just a comrade, but how should I put it. A disciple? It was kind of like a teacher-disciple relationship. He didn’t know any swordsmanship and fought dangerously, so I taught him the basics of swordsmanship.”
“…Huh?”
Friede let out a single groan with her mouth wide open and a dumbfounded expression.
A comrade in the same party and a teacher-disciple relationship.
A swordsman who learned the basics of swordsmanship from her.
How could she not realize who that referred to?
‘…Me?’
That’s right.
The person that Brunhilde, lying next to her right now, revealed as someone she had feelings for was none other than Friede herself from the hero’s party days.
At that time, she had a male body instead of a female one, and accordingly used the name Friet instead of Sigfriede or Friede, but.
‘No, uh, wait, me? Me? She has feelings for me? Really…? No, there wasn’t, there wasn’t any sign of that…? There wasn’t, right?’
It was a bewildering, no, shocking statement. To the extent that even the thought of ‘Isn’t this mutual love?’ didn’t cross her mind.
Of course, Hilde, who had no idea about Friede’s true identity, continued her excuses without imagining how her words might sound to the other person.
“I thought if we kept getting along well, our feelings might connect someday… but it didn’t work out. There were too many realistic problems. A lot of people interfered too. So… in the end, we had to part ways.”
Hilde continued her blatant lies, acting with a voice tinged with sorrow as if confessing a heartbreaking story.
‘Hmm. Sad thoughts, sad thoughts…’
She tried to hold onto the emotion by recalling the saddest thoughts possible in her mind, slightly distorting Brunhilde’s settings from the novel to transform it into a tale of tragic love.
“…You said you parted ways. Then isn’t it over?”
Friede asked quietly. It was a question blurted out from the urge to know Hilde’s true feelings.
“Well… we didn’t part on good terms. I was worried about what would happen after I left, so I deliberately said harsh things hoping he would fall out of love with me… it was just, well, sad. Everything.”
For Friede, this was a perfect 100-point answer.
“So… I’m sorry. I don’t have room in my heart right now to let someone else in. It was really tough back then…”
…For Hilde to avoid this situation, she should have given a 0-point answer instead.
“Ah…”
Friede let out a quiet moan with a face that had turned bright red, as if she was even moved by those words.
Hilde was so immersed in her own act that she didn’t even realize this.
“So, so… let’s just forget about today and continue being comrades. Like before.”
“…Please.”
Therefore, Hilde, still with her eyes closed and head bowed with a pitiful expression, expressed to Friede that for these reasons, it would be difficult to accept her confession.
‘…Good, this should be enough to persuade Friede, right? It was a perfect answer even if I say so myself.’
And then she felt pleased inside.
…In fact, it wasn’t something to be pleased about.
She had confessed that she actually liked Friet in order to reject Friede’s confession. Come to think of it, there couldn’t be a greater irony than this.
However, Hilde still didn’t realize anything.
What she had just said.
How those words must have sounded to the girl in front of her.
Well, if she had the wits to realize that, she probably wouldn’t have ended up in this situation in the first place.
“…Yes. Then I guess it can’t be helped.”
Therefore, Hilde inwardly sighed in relief as she saw Friede nod in agreement while slightly turning her head.
Feeling relieved that her hastily made-up excuse seemed to have worked well.
“Yeah, I’m really sorry, Friede.”
“…It’s okay.”
Without even imagining the enormous joy evident on Friede’s face as she turned her head away.