Aaron smiled at her, frowning as if his eyes were blinded by the light from the lantern. His face, which was a frown and a smile at the same time, was quite comical. But what was more surprising was his face, which had become clean.
'You shaved your beard?'
To be honest, Leila was surprised by Aaron's transformation, who looked five years younger than her first impression. From today on, if Penny asked if Aaron was handsome, she would have no choice but to nod without hesitation. She originally thought he was a decent man, but... Oh, maybe it's true that Dubliners are handsome.
“Why are you surprised?”
“I didn’t recognize you.”
“I trimmed my beard. I thought it was too messy.”
Aaron, who seemed embarrassed but tried to cover it up with a smile, stretched out his arm and tapped the seat next to him.
“I was just looking around because the constellation is best visible from here. Would you like to join me, Miss Leila?”
"Constellation?"
“Libra. Do you see it over there? Lie down and look.”
“Why are you looking at that?”
"Just?"
“If you have nothing to do, why don’t you find a job?”
Aaron, who had been blinking as if speechless at Leila's rather cynical response, burst into laughter.
“That’s direct. Yeah, that would be better.”
“Are you feeling bad?”
Aaron denied it softly.
“I don’t feel bad. To make an excuse, I was interested in astronomy when I was in the academy. My major was in a different field, but I still used to observe the sky as a hobby. Now it’s more like a habit.”
Leila stared at him with new eyes. As expected, he was an educated person. If he was able to enter the training center, he wasn't poor, but why was he in this state now? She suddenly wondered.
Aaron suggested again.
“Just lie down for a moment.”
“I just came to return the handkerchief and leave.”
"Wait for a sec."
It would be an illusion to feel like a numerical petition.
Some soldiers are so vicious that they have a bounty of 500 gold on them, but Aaron is more like a teacher who used to read books to the village children when he was young. Aaron whispered as she reluctantly put down the lantern.
“You can see better if you turn off the lights.”
"Nut."
“If anything like a snake comes out, I’ll catch it for you. Don’t worry.”
"I can catch snakes, too, right?" That answer was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't want to talk any longer, so she opened the lid and turned off the light.
The whole world is dark. The night sky is the brightest. Weing weing... The sound of the river flows beneath her feet, and the sound of insects chirping overhead. Countless stars that have opened their eyes in the sky shed moist light. It is a romantic night somehow. The man’s voice that rings comfortably in your ears is the most mysterious of all.
“Casnier is a really nice town.”
“What’s good about it? It’s all the same.”
Leila remembered that it had been a long time since she had looked up at the sky. She had not been able to lie down like this since her uncle died.
“That’s the Libra I was talking about. It’s easy to find in the fall. Can you see it? There are three brightest stars in a triangle shape, and one on each side below and to the left and right...”
Aaron pointed to a point in the sky with his finger. His voice strangely penetrated deep into her chest. Leila answered curtly.
“I don’t know why they call it Libra. No matter how I look at it, it looks like an unfinished house.”
Aaron just laughed pleasantly and asked back, "Really?" He may have been scolding her for being ignorant, but he didn't seem to care on the outside.
“And the Big Dipper is over there.”
“I know. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Then do you know that the Big Dipper moves?”
“This guy really thinks I’m stupid. The guiding star isn’t moving.”
“They move. Very slightly, very slowly. The difference is so small that to the human eye, they almost always appear to be in the same place.”
"Lie."
“It’s true.”
'Very, very little, little by little.' The voice that was emphasized was soft like a lullaby. For some reason, her heart pounded, and Leila answered as if in a trance, 'Oh, yes.' Then suddenly she laughed. What am I doing lying next to this Dubliner?
She turned her eyes away quietly.
A beautiful blonde appeared.
She looked up at the sky again.
She sees beautiful stars.
Leila can feel Aaron's breathing from less than a hand's length away. That hand's length is probably not as long as hers, but it's close. Her toes feel ticklish.
“Did you eat today?”
“I don’t starve like that every day.”
“You almost starved to death last time.”
“Life is surprisingly tough, so it’s okay if you can’t eat much...”
“Have you ever killed someone?”
Waengwaeng... The sound of crickets grew louder. Perhaps it was because other sounds had become relatively quieter. For example, voices or breathing. It wasn’t a question she blurted out. However, she thought it might have been rude to say it out loud.
'Did I ask for nothing?'
Leila waited quietly. After a while, she felt Aaron sit up and look at her. His eyes, as clear as diluted blue pigment, were still warm, but his lips were not smiling at all. Suddenly, his eyes were silent, and Leila unconsciously shook her shoulders slightly because his eyes were different from before.
“It’s cold because it’s near the water.”
Aaron picked up the tattered blanket he had placed under her back and draped it over her shoulders.
“Are you feeling bad?”
“Not at all, Miss.”
“I feel it, sir.”
“I'm not an old man. I'm only twenty-five.”
“I’m nineteen. The front seats are different. When I’m twenty-four, you’ll be thirty. When you first stopped shaving, I thought you were in your mid-thirties.”
“That’s too much.”
Leila consciously looked away from his lips, which were finally beginning to smile. She took out the bag of cookies she had taken from Penny from her pocket and held it out. It was so dark that Aaron stared at it for a long time, but soon began to laugh at the delicious smell of butter.
“I’m really not angry. I’m okay.”
“I just give it to you.”
“I feel like I’m being trained as food. I’ll eat well.”
The neatly aligned teeth are pretty. The smoothly raised corners of the mouth and the shape of the lips are pretty. Leila said, trying to suppress her fluttering chest.
“Do you know <Livestock Feed Farm>?”
“Is this a store downtown?”
“That girl is my friend. She made it. She’s good at baking cookies. They’re delicious. They’re sweet. But I’m good at baking bread. I’ll be better at baking cookies later.”
“Ah, this is something your friend made for you. Is it okay if you give it to me?”
“Actually, I didn’t give it to you, I extorted it.”
Aaron laughed with a bewildered expression at Leila's words.
“Extortion?”
Leila was trying to match the innocent look on her face with the word extortion, which gave her a violent impression. Leila simply told him that Penny had tried to commit a con that was obvious and that she would get her pocket money.
“You don’t seem angry even though she's trolling you like that.”
“What, everyone lives like that?”
“Is that so?”
“...Well, anyway, it’s mine now. So what does it matter who I give it to?”
Aaron laughed a lot. They say that no one who laughs a lot is a bad person, but is that guy a bad person? Why won't he answer? He's a soldier, so she wouldn't be surprised if he killed someone.
Aaron, lying face down with his back to the sky, cut his own arms and looked at Leila. Leila's cheeks flushed with a strange feeling of burning wherever his blue eyes touched. She had to struggle to keep her eyes on the sky as her olive eyes kept darting toward his face.
Leila said bluntly.
“You said you were looking at the sky, why aren’t you looking at it?”
Aaron smiled slowly, as if he were a little tired.
“...You can see the sky later, right?”
“Um. But, why are you looking at me?”
“Because I won’t be able to see you if you leave.”
The unexpected, blatant remark made her feel like a calf was jumping around inside her chest. Leila's lips pursed involuntarily.
A smile spread across Aaron's lips. Even in the dark shadows, his eyes were beautiful. In her eyes, Leila saw stars like the night sky. Could it be that the blue stars in the sky had fallen right in front of her nose?
“It’s nice to talk to people like this. Like I said last time, it’s been a really long time...”
Leila's breathing became shallow. The voice that came through as if talking to himself brought up a feeling that Leila had never experienced before. Finally, hiccup. Hiccup. The hiccup came.
Aaron's loud laughter mixed in with the squeaking of the grasshoppers. Puhaha. It was the first time Leila had heard such a burst of loud laughter. Aaron, who had been laughing for a long time with his head down, sat up completely and ruffled Leila's forehead and hair. His hands were large, warm, and hard. It reminded her of her uncle in that it was insincere, but it was also the first time she had ever felt such a touch in her life, in that it felt more affectionate and endearing.
“You’re cute, really.”
“I hear things like that, hiccup, not at my age, hiccup, but.”
“It has nothing to do with age. Even if you’re not Leila.”
'Leila.'
What is that name that is called every day? Just the familiarity of a single word made her heart burst, so Leila got up and ran with the unlit lantern. Aaron, who was looking at her in confusion, shouted behind Leila.
“Fall down!”
And then, as if by magic, Leila tripped on a rock and fell over.
“Fall down, hiccup, you cursed me!”
“No, no... I said that because I was worried you might fall.”
“Ugh! Hiccup!”
Leila covered her blushing face with both hands and shook her head. Embarrassing! Embarrassing!
“There are a lot of rocks, so it’s dangerous to run like that. Your pretty knees will bleed.”
Aaron shook his head, looking at her swollen knees. The hem of her skirt was already covered in mud and grass. Leila hiccupped, trying to prove that she wasn't embarrassed, saying, "It's okay, hiccup, I'm done!" but it was no use.
“Come here.”
Aaron finally wiped the slightly oozing wound with the silk handkerchief that Leila had brought back today. Leila slowly pulled down the hem of her skirt that had risen to her knees, and Aaron smiled inexplicably before speaking with a feigned seriousness.
“It got messy again.”
“...”
“Please wash it and return it.”
Leila was sad. She was embarrassed. This man was not in good mental health.
'What's with the Dublin beggar topic?'
An alarm bell rang in her brain telling her that she had to avoid it somehow. But, he was taking such good care of her wounds and saying such things so openly. What was more annoying was that she didn't actually hate him.
'You shaved your beard?'
To be honest, Leila was surprised by Aaron's transformation, who looked five years younger than her first impression. From today on, if Penny asked if Aaron was handsome, she would have no choice but to nod without hesitation. She originally thought he was a decent man, but... Oh, maybe it's true that Dubliners are handsome.
“Why are you surprised?”
“I didn’t recognize you.”
“I trimmed my beard. I thought it was too messy.”
Aaron, who seemed embarrassed but tried to cover it up with a smile, stretched out his arm and tapped the seat next to him.
“I was just looking around because the constellation is best visible from here. Would you like to join me, Miss Leila?”
"Constellation?"
“Libra. Do you see it over there? Lie down and look.”
“Why are you looking at that?”
"Just?"
“If you have nothing to do, why don’t you find a job?”
Aaron, who had been blinking as if speechless at Leila's rather cynical response, burst into laughter.
“That’s direct. Yeah, that would be better.”
“Are you feeling bad?”
Aaron denied it softly.
“I don’t feel bad. To make an excuse, I was interested in astronomy when I was in the academy. My major was in a different field, but I still used to observe the sky as a hobby. Now it’s more like a habit.”
Leila stared at him with new eyes. As expected, he was an educated person. If he was able to enter the training center, he wasn't poor, but why was he in this state now? She suddenly wondered.
Aaron suggested again.
“Just lie down for a moment.”
“I just came to return the handkerchief and leave.”
"Wait for a sec."
It would be an illusion to feel like a numerical petition.
Some soldiers are so vicious that they have a bounty of 500 gold on them, but Aaron is more like a teacher who used to read books to the village children when he was young. Aaron whispered as she reluctantly put down the lantern.
“You can see better if you turn off the lights.”
"Nut."
“If anything like a snake comes out, I’ll catch it for you. Don’t worry.”
"I can catch snakes, too, right?" That answer was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't want to talk any longer, so she opened the lid and turned off the light.
The whole world is dark. The night sky is the brightest. Weing weing... The sound of the river flows beneath her feet, and the sound of insects chirping overhead. Countless stars that have opened their eyes in the sky shed moist light. It is a romantic night somehow. The man’s voice that rings comfortably in your ears is the most mysterious of all.
“Casnier is a really nice town.”
“What’s good about it? It’s all the same.”
Leila remembered that it had been a long time since she had looked up at the sky. She had not been able to lie down like this since her uncle died.
“That’s the Libra I was talking about. It’s easy to find in the fall. Can you see it? There are three brightest stars in a triangle shape, and one on each side below and to the left and right...”
Aaron pointed to a point in the sky with his finger. His voice strangely penetrated deep into her chest. Leila answered curtly.
“I don’t know why they call it Libra. No matter how I look at it, it looks like an unfinished house.”
Aaron just laughed pleasantly and asked back, "Really?" He may have been scolding her for being ignorant, but he didn't seem to care on the outside.
“And the Big Dipper is over there.”
“I know. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Then do you know that the Big Dipper moves?”
“This guy really thinks I’m stupid. The guiding star isn’t moving.”
“They move. Very slightly, very slowly. The difference is so small that to the human eye, they almost always appear to be in the same place.”
"Lie."
“It’s true.”
'Very, very little, little by little.' The voice that was emphasized was soft like a lullaby. For some reason, her heart pounded, and Leila answered as if in a trance, 'Oh, yes.' Then suddenly she laughed. What am I doing lying next to this Dubliner?
She turned her eyes away quietly.
A beautiful blonde appeared.
She looked up at the sky again.
She sees beautiful stars.
Leila can feel Aaron's breathing from less than a hand's length away. That hand's length is probably not as long as hers, but it's close. Her toes feel ticklish.
“Did you eat today?”
“I don’t starve like that every day.”
“You almost starved to death last time.”
“Life is surprisingly tough, so it’s okay if you can’t eat much...”
“Have you ever killed someone?”
Waengwaeng... The sound of crickets grew louder. Perhaps it was because other sounds had become relatively quieter. For example, voices or breathing. It wasn’t a question she blurted out. However, she thought it might have been rude to say it out loud.
'Did I ask for nothing?'
Leila waited quietly. After a while, she felt Aaron sit up and look at her. His eyes, as clear as diluted blue pigment, were still warm, but his lips were not smiling at all. Suddenly, his eyes were silent, and Leila unconsciously shook her shoulders slightly because his eyes were different from before.
“It’s cold because it’s near the water.”
Aaron picked up the tattered blanket he had placed under her back and draped it over her shoulders.
“Are you feeling bad?”
“Not at all, Miss.”
“I feel it, sir.”
“I'm not an old man. I'm only twenty-five.”
“I’m nineteen. The front seats are different. When I’m twenty-four, you’ll be thirty. When you first stopped shaving, I thought you were in your mid-thirties.”
“That’s too much.”
Leila consciously looked away from his lips, which were finally beginning to smile. She took out the bag of cookies she had taken from Penny from her pocket and held it out. It was so dark that Aaron stared at it for a long time, but soon began to laugh at the delicious smell of butter.
“I’m really not angry. I’m okay.”
“I just give it to you.”
“I feel like I’m being trained as food. I’ll eat well.”
The neatly aligned teeth are pretty. The smoothly raised corners of the mouth and the shape of the lips are pretty. Leila said, trying to suppress her fluttering chest.
“Do you know <Livestock Feed Farm>?”
“Is this a store downtown?”
“That girl is my friend. She made it. She’s good at baking cookies. They’re delicious. They’re sweet. But I’m good at baking bread. I’ll be better at baking cookies later.”
“Ah, this is something your friend made for you. Is it okay if you give it to me?”
“Actually, I didn’t give it to you, I extorted it.”
Aaron laughed with a bewildered expression at Leila's words.
“Extortion?”
Leila was trying to match the innocent look on her face with the word extortion, which gave her a violent impression. Leila simply told him that Penny had tried to commit a con that was obvious and that she would get her pocket money.
“You don’t seem angry even though she's trolling you like that.”
“What, everyone lives like that?”
“Is that so?”
“...Well, anyway, it’s mine now. So what does it matter who I give it to?”
Aaron laughed a lot. They say that no one who laughs a lot is a bad person, but is that guy a bad person? Why won't he answer? He's a soldier, so she wouldn't be surprised if he killed someone.
Aaron, lying face down with his back to the sky, cut his own arms and looked at Leila. Leila's cheeks flushed with a strange feeling of burning wherever his blue eyes touched. She had to struggle to keep her eyes on the sky as her olive eyes kept darting toward his face.
Leila said bluntly.
“You said you were looking at the sky, why aren’t you looking at it?”
Aaron smiled slowly, as if he were a little tired.
“...You can see the sky later, right?”
“Um. But, why are you looking at me?”
“Because I won’t be able to see you if you leave.”
The unexpected, blatant remark made her feel like a calf was jumping around inside her chest. Leila's lips pursed involuntarily.
A smile spread across Aaron's lips. Even in the dark shadows, his eyes were beautiful. In her eyes, Leila saw stars like the night sky. Could it be that the blue stars in the sky had fallen right in front of her nose?
“It’s nice to talk to people like this. Like I said last time, it’s been a really long time...”
Leila's breathing became shallow. The voice that came through as if talking to himself brought up a feeling that Leila had never experienced before. Finally, hiccup. Hiccup. The hiccup came.
Aaron's loud laughter mixed in with the squeaking of the grasshoppers. Puhaha. It was the first time Leila had heard such a burst of loud laughter. Aaron, who had been laughing for a long time with his head down, sat up completely and ruffled Leila's forehead and hair. His hands were large, warm, and hard. It reminded her of her uncle in that it was insincere, but it was also the first time she had ever felt such a touch in her life, in that it felt more affectionate and endearing.
“You’re cute, really.”
“I hear things like that, hiccup, not at my age, hiccup, but.”
“It has nothing to do with age. Even if you’re not Leila.”
'Leila.'
What is that name that is called every day? Just the familiarity of a single word made her heart burst, so Leila got up and ran with the unlit lantern. Aaron, who was looking at her in confusion, shouted behind Leila.
“Fall down!”
And then, as if by magic, Leila tripped on a rock and fell over.
***
“Fall down, hiccup, you cursed me!”
“No, no... I said that because I was worried you might fall.”
“Ugh! Hiccup!”
Leila covered her blushing face with both hands and shook her head. Embarrassing! Embarrassing!
“There are a lot of rocks, so it’s dangerous to run like that. Your pretty knees will bleed.”
Aaron shook his head, looking at her swollen knees. The hem of her skirt was already covered in mud and grass. Leila hiccupped, trying to prove that she wasn't embarrassed, saying, "It's okay, hiccup, I'm done!" but it was no use.
“Come here.”
Aaron finally wiped the slightly oozing wound with the silk handkerchief that Leila had brought back today. Leila slowly pulled down the hem of her skirt that had risen to her knees, and Aaron smiled inexplicably before speaking with a feigned seriousness.
“It got messy again.”
“...”
“Please wash it and return it.”
Leila was sad. She was embarrassed. This man was not in good mental health.
'What's with the Dublin beggar topic?'
An alarm bell rang in her brain telling her that she had to avoid it somehow. But, he was taking such good care of her wounds and saying such things so openly. What was more annoying was that she didn't actually hate him.
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