GDTEA Chapter 94

He Would Hate It

Ah.

Aah-.

Aah, ah-aah-ah-!!

Even the sound echoing in the narrow cave was calm.

Sharti made a sour face and once again put strength into her throat and made a sound. A sound quite similar to her original voice, which had now faded, came out.

She hesitantly rubbed her throat.

‘What happened here?’

Sharti couldn’t hide her confusion at the situation where her bizarre frog-like croaking had suddenly changed to a normal voice.

As far as she could remember, there had been no change in her voice until yesterday morning, until the rainstorm started.

‘When I relaxed my voice to calm Ren down……. Was it from then?’

Only the sound of the rain pouring down fiercely came to mind occasionally, but she couldn’t remember exactly what voice she had used or when her voice started sounding different.

Even after falling asleep and waking up, all her attention had been focused on Ren, so she had been insensitive to her own changes.

“Sha-.”

“Hm?”

Sharti, who had been lost in thought, looked up in surprise.

Ren had brought over the clothes bag and held it out to her.

“I understand you’re surprised that your voice changed, but changing clothes comes first.”

“Uh, um…….”

“I’ll go outside to change.”

Ren took out the casual clothes he had obtained from the Krofl Mercenary Group.

“Um, Ren-.”

Ren, who had been about to go outside the cave, turned around and looked at Sharti.

Unlike her, who was belatedly recognizing her unfamiliar voice and feeling flustered, Ren’s reaction was indifferent.

Even if not congratulations, she had expected him to at least comfort her, saying it was fortunate that the terrible voice was gone.

“My voice, and my face too……. Why didn’t you acknowledge it? I didn’t even know.”

Ren gazed at Sharti silently.

Sunlight that had come in from outside slid along the lines of his face. His face, which had been dark, gradually brightened.

“I didn’t bother to mention it because I thought you’d be awkward like now.”

“Hm?”

“You were speaking, making expressions, and acting naturally well, so I thought there was no need to make you conscious of it. I also knew you’d be flustered like now.”

“Your voice suddenly changed, but you didn’t think it was strange at all?”

When Sharti asked while reading his expression, Ren chuckled.

“Childishly enough, I liked that in that moment at least, your attention was focused entirely on me.”

“Uh, um……?”

“That moment when I monopolized you, enough to instantly forget this unpleasant sensation of not properly remembering yesterday’s events, was precious to me.”

Ren finished what he had to say and went outside the cave.

Sharti, left alone, used the clothes bag as a support and struggled to get up. She pulled the clothes bag into both arms and buried her face in it.

‘Ren is unexpectedly good at saying embarrassing things.’

Ren’s expression, his low voice that rang out affectionately, kept tickling her cheeks and ears.

If it was a voice that suited a face she liked, didn’t that mean it was all good?

Now heat rose to her face at any time. But that was only for a moment, as Sharti propped her chin and let out a deep sigh.

‘Compared to Ren, my confession…….’

It had been impulsive and monotonous. She had just blurted out whatever words came to mind without order. There was even a possibility that it hadn’t been properly heard over the sound of the rain.

While she had succeeded in calming Ren down, the confession that should have been delivered with sincerity was no different from a failure.

‘Moreover…….’

Sharti looked down at her disheveled, puffed-up hair.

Her wheat-colored curly hair had become disheveled from muddy water and rain, a complete mess. She couldn’t even compare to Ren.

‘It’s rather fortunate that Ren doesn’t remember the confession.’

To think that instead of dressing up prettily, she had confessed out of the blue looking like such a beggar.

Sharti kept banging her head against the clothes bag. Her neck muscles screamed.

“Ugh…….”

Sharti made a tearful face.

At this rate, her first confession would be stored in her head as the worst humiliation for a long time to come.

‘That can’t happen!’

Sensing danger, Sharti endured the screams her muscles were making and properly got up.

She opened her eyes wide and rummaged through the clothes in the bag.

After changing into the cleanest top and long skirt possible, Sharti diligently wrapped bandages around her thin legs.

It was to cover the disgustingly long scars.

As she tied the bandage strings tightly, Sharti made a determined decision.

“Let’s be like Ren.”

Just as Ren did, she needed to practice not being embarrassed and honestly revealing her feelings as they were. And she had to think about special treatment that could be felt subtly, like the smile Ren showed only to her.

Sharti took out the silver ring, stared at it silently, then put it back in her pocket.

‘When I’m alone with Ren, it would be better to take off the ring.’

Fully revealing her bare face that she had always been so eager to hide showed her trust in him. Since she rarely took her hood off even in front of Vireta’s family for fear it would become a habit, it could be considered special treatment.

Most of all, her face had a good effect on Ren.

‘He said he liked my f-face.’

The fact that Ren would stiffen or make a blank expression whenever he looked at her face might be because he liked it and was staring at it in a daze. Whatever the reason, wasn’t it fortunate that it made Ren forget his negative and dark mood, even if only for a moment?

‘This kind of confidence…… I should be allowed to have.’

The danger and anxiety of revealing her bare face still followed her, but if it was limited to Ren, there was nothing she couldn’t muster the courage for.

Sharti recalled Ren reaching out to her even while suffering from madness.

“…….”

She saw herself from five years ago, trapped in the fire, overlapping with Ren, who was crying out with his whole body to be saved. His appearance of losing his mind and breaking down to the point of self-harm reminded her of herself suffering after surviving the fire five years ago.

The memory of a certain day that she wanted to forget but couldn’t must have festered and burst as a wound.

It must still be locking him in darkness, painfully stabbing and scratching him, destroying his mind.

Could the compassion she felt watching Ren have stemmed from a sense of kinship toward him?

[I hope they’re someone lacking in many things.]

[Someone who doesn’t make me feel shabby about myself, I hope they’re that kind of person.]

Sharti slowly leaned her body and lay down on the blanket.

She gazed blankly at the sunlight outside the cave and soothed her aching heart.

‘Did my heart go out to Ren because he was broken like me?’

That’s a bit sad.

‘Ren would hate it if he knew.’

That because Ren was broken like me, I felt relieved in that moment…….

Rejoicing rather than being sad about another person’s pain. If he knew this bad and selfish inner heart, whatever feelings he had would all disappear.

‘……Now is not the time for this. Pull yourself together.’

Right now, even the luxury of being consumed by melancholy was an indulgence.

Sharti rubbed her face against the fluffy blanket.

“There’s a valley somewhere around here.”

Having roughly gauged her current location, Sharti recalled the map she had memorized.

Strangely, Ren, who had gone out to change clothes, was taking a long time, but she didn’t think deeply about it.

Everyone has their trivial personal matters after all.

At the same time, Ren was banging his head against a tree over a not-so-trivial personal matter.

“When Sha is showing me her face……!”

Ren chewed on the resentment bursting out of him.

****

[Do you remember?]

The beginning of his memory was his vision becoming dizzy from the smell of blood piercing his nose.

Though it was faint, he even remembered frantically rubbing various parts of his body and repeatedly brushing it off to erase the disgusting smell.

Ren couldn’t open his mouth.

The memory of losing his reason and going mad to the point of hurting himself was more shocking than unfamiliar.

He was more angry than ashamed about showing Sharti symptoms that were clearly a mental illness.

Ren was most furious looking at the bandages wrapped around the back of his hand.

‘To think I put Sha in danger.’

Though he didn’t remember attacking Sharti, just seeing Sharti’s wrecked state was enough to guess.

Heat rose to Ren’s head with the impulse to immediately punch himself in the face.

But since Sharti was holding that hand, he could only stay still, unable to shake it off.

‘Rain? Is it because of the rain? What did the rain even do……. What a pathetically useless body.’

Isn’t a mental patient who goes mad just because it rained the worst?

Ren couldn’t muster the courage to mention last night with his own mouth. He didn’t want to acknowledge himself, who had only caused a lot of trouble and was even dangerous.

[Ah, it’s already morning. You said you’d wake me, but did you stand watch alone at night?]

So he avoided it.

Though the hastily made choice was cowardly and selfish behavior, Ren had no composure when it came to Sharti.

But the moment her crimson eyes showed disappointment, Ren was startled with fear.

At the same time, one hazy memory came to mind.

[-I like you, Ren.]

Bang bang bang-! Ren banged his head hard.

It wasn’t to forget. It was to recall the words and situation that would follow.

All his stupid head remembered was those words, that she liked him.

“Damn it, I should have borrowed a magical tool that restores memories from that mage……!”

He should have at least rented the magical tool that restores forgotten memories, which he had asked Shukadi about.

Sharti’s confession was the most important moment and the most desperate memory of any memory so far.

Ren squatted down helplessly just like that.

“……I’m going crazy, really.”

His heart pounded with frustrating anger.

If it were up to him, he wanted to shamelessly beg Sharti to tell him just one more time.

But Ren gritted his teeth while holding his head.

“Not only did I make Sha confess first, but I can’t even remember that confession properly…….”

It was an utterly desperate situation.

But the twisted hope within that despair tormented Ren even more.

“I’m even feeling relieved that Sha won’t abandon me first because I have a mental illness…….”

The mental illness he suffered from, the madness, was a flaw and weakness, but from another perspective, it was also a powerful weakness that could definitely draw out compassion from Sharti.

“……Damn it-.”

He was disgusted with himself for having such thoughts.

To think he was trying to receive sympathy by showing weakness rather than building favor with good qualities.

Ren, who had stood up abruptly, undressed irritably.

He calmed down as the cold air wrapped around the heat that had boiled up from frustration toward himself.

“There are only secrets I need to confess to Sha piling up.”

Ren looked at his left hand. Ren’s expression was complicated as he looked at the same silver ring as Sharti’s.

He still hadn’t confessed to Sharti that he was wearing the same magical tool.

After missing the opportunity to tell her, he had only been maintaining an ambiguous attitude.

“But at least there’s no need to hide this anymore.”

Since Sharti was taking off the silver ring herself and showing her bare face, he felt less worried.

Even if he confessed that wearing matching silver rings allows them to recognize only each other’s faces, Sharti wouldn’t hide her face anymore.

“Not today, at least…….”

He couldn’t waste the entire day as an idiot who broke the mana stone, hid the silver ring’s secret, and couldn’t even remember the confession.

Beyond apologetic, he was in a state of guilt where he couldn’t even properly look Sharti in the eyes.

“I need to start a fire first.”

Ren picked up branches scattered around.

If he started a fire and put stones in it to heat them up, wouldn’t they substitute for the mana stone?

Recalling Sharti’s pale cheeks, Ren immediately began looking for a place to start a fire while avoiding Sharti’s eyes.

He was used to making up points this way.