164 - Parting on Bad Terms
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and covered my nose and mouth with my hands. Possessed by the thought that I absolutely could not let water in, I tensed up and curled my body into a ball. I thought that maybe this way I would not be able to float, but then the opposite thought arose as well, that the human body should float anyway. Caught between conflicting thoughts and unable to move, I heard a dog barking and sensed something leaping into the water nearby. The water was churned up and bubbles from below brushed against my cheeks. Thanks to that, my sense of up and down returned.
...Oscar?
I felt fur around the nape of my neck. Hundreds of thin, short hairs tickled the back of my neck, but perhaps because I was underwater, it was not itchy enough to make me want to laugh. My clothes were tugged upward, and a powerful current surged right beside me. I could not see anything since my eyes were closed, but the Black Dog (Oscar) must have been biting my clothes and pulling, swimming alongside me.
...I am going to be saved.
A helping hand was already close by. The moment I felt a little relieved, the strength left my body. I could not let go of my hands covering my eyes, nose, and mouth, but my body, which had been curled up tight, stretched out. Thinking that since I knew which way was up, I might be able to touch bottom, my clothes tangled around my feet as I searched for the riverbed.
...Good thing I wore secondhand clothes. If I had been wearing my usual clothes, I would have drowned.
Today, to make it easier to move, I was wearing secondhand clothes with few decorations, but if I had been wearing the cloth and ornament-heavy clothes Leonardo had tailored, the fabric would have tangled around my limbs and made swimming impossible. If things went badly, the Black Dog might even get tangled in the cloth and drown.
...Good job, me.
I wanted to praise this morning's self for choosing secondhand clothes that were easy to move in instead of the clothes Kalisa had brought. Thanks to that, the risk of drowning had dropped considerably.
...Wha, ugh!?
A heavy thing plunged into the water right next to me with a loud splash, and my body shook violently. I could tell the Black Dog's fangs had let go of my clothes, but there was nothing I could do about it. As I waited obediently for the shaking to stop, arms slipped under my armpits, and the next moment, I was lifted up above the water.
"Pffwah!"
It was a rather ungraceful sound for a little girl, but that was the first noise that came out of my mouth. Coughing, I still managed to take in fresh air, and with my eyes still closed, I reached out seeking something to hold onto. When I wrapped my arms around something thick that my fingertips touched, an arm slid under my bottom.
...Ah, it is Leo.
I was certain of it from the thickness of the neck I had wrapped my arms around and the familiar gesture of seating me on his arm. The danger of drowning was already gone.
My wet bangs were plastered to my eyelids, keeping me from opening my eyes, when Leonardo wiped away the water streaming down my forehead and face. Finally able to open my eyes, I blinked and found Leonardo's face right there, just as I had expected.
"Are you all right, Tina?"
I met the gaze of Leonardo's black eyes as he peered at me worriedly, and all my pride was knocked right out of me. Lately, I had been conscious of having turned ten and had been trying to change my behavior, but all of that blew away somewhere. All that remained was the relief of being scooped out of the water and, belatedly, the terror of having been deliberately pulled into the water crashing over me.
"Teo, you idiot! Die, you bastard!"
I wailed and cursed the culprit in a crying voice I could not even believe was my own. I had not seen who grabbed my hand, but since the only ones in the water besides me, Leonardo, and the Black Dog were Teo, there was no one else it could be. As I kept sobbing and cursing Teo, Leonardo pinched my nose. I was so caught off guard that my tears involuntarily stopped.
"Hey, Tina. 'Die' is going too far."
Up to here was fine. Certainly, when I calmed down, I felt it was a bit too much. But what came after was the problem.
"Apologize to Teo."
Being told by Leonardo to apologize to Teo first rubbed me the wrong way. I did feel like I might have gone too far, but originally, it was Teo who was in the wrong for pushing me into the water. I felt I was also at fault, but the one who should apologize first was Teo.
"Leo, you idiot!"
I clawed at Leonardo's cheeks with both hands as hard as I could. Even with a surprise face attack, I honestly thought it was impressive that Leonardo did not drop me on reflex. But that still did not make his behavior forgivable, so I pulled my legs out from his arms and kicked his chest as hard as I could. The recoil sent me tumbling back into the water, but I did not care. I was so angry that thoughts about possible parasites or accidents near the water did not matter to me anymore. The Black Dog immediately swam over, so I grabbed onto his back. I guess this was what you would expect from a hero's dog, or maybe Oscar had been trained in water rescue. He swam across the river with me on his back without any trouble and reached the shore.
"I am going home!"
I declared that at the same moment Kalisa stopped packing up the picnic blankets. Kalisa threw the basket she had been packing the lunch into at Leonardo and followed me on the way back. Since her job as a nursemaid was to take care of me, when I announced I was going home alone, she abandoned even Leonardo, who was supposed to be her master, and came with me.
...Ugh, wet shoes feel disgusting.
With every step I took, my shoes made a disgusting squishing sound and a little water was squeezed out. Wet shoes and wet socks were the worst combination. The fabric was soft from moisture, but every time my foot touched the ground, water flowed between my toes, making me feel sick.
"Tina, wait!"
With the difference in leg length, it was easy for Leonardo to catch up to me. I threw him a glance and saw that Leonardo was firmly holding the basket Kalisa had thrown at him. It seemed he had properly cleaned up before chasing after me. I thought it was rational behavior, but that just made me more annoyed.
"...Tina, did you not say you would stop puffing out your cheeks since it is something babies do?"
Apparently, I had been puffing out my cheeks unconsciously again. I was annoyed at being called out by Leonardo and ended up being stubborn about it.
"I am doing it on purpose. I am doing it deliberately so even dense old Leo can understand, so it is fine."
Be grateful, I said, and puffed out my cheeks on purpose this time. I puffed them out to the limit where they could not puff any more, and when Leonardo's finger reached out, I bit it.
"Tina, let us properly make up with Teo."
"Leo always takes the side that is not mine."
If he claimed to be my big brother, then even when I was in the wrong, I wanted him to take my side. But what was the reality? I was not even in the wrong, yet Leonardo was taking the wrong side.
"I think this time, Tina went too far."
"It is not just this time that Leo has not taken my side, you know."
This had happened before. I endured and endured, and only when I reached my limit did I get angry, and only then did Leonardo realize it was the kind of thing that would make a girl angry. And he only knew it in theory, he did not truly understand it in any real sense. When I started getting angry, Leonardo would tell me to endure a little more, that I was going too far, that I was overreacting. He completely glossed over everything Teo had done that led up to my limit being reached. And his reason for glossing over it was that he had done the same things himself when he was young, so he understood how Teo felt. A reason that had absolutely nothing to do with me. He did not understand how I felt having my hair pulled or being dragged into the water, and apparently, he did not even think about it.
...This is that thing, is it not. It is like when a husband who has been asked for a divorce after a long marriage says, "My wife suddenly got angry."
In reality, the wife had not suddenly gotten angry. It was just that the accumulated weight of the husband's actions up to that point had finally exceeded her limit of tolerance. I see, when I thought about it, my current situation was really quite similar.
"Anyway, apologize to Teo and make up."
No matter what, Leonardo seemed to want Teo and me to make up. And he did not seem willing to listen to any of my arguments at all.
I stopped dead in my tracks and let out a big sigh. If I did not take a deep breath, I did not know what would happen to me from anger.
...Leo has not learned a thing.
Even when he brought that problem tutor (Kaya), I told him early on that something was wrong, but he did not take me seriously. And with this too, even though Teo was the one in the wrong first, he was trying to make me apologize.
...Actually, this is Leo's fault, is it not. The fact that it has gotten even more complicated.
I understood when it was pointed out to me. I thought I had gone too far, and I did feel some remorse about that. But that did not make it right for Leonardo to tell me to apologize first. The person who pushed me into the water, Teo, should apologize first. It was because Leonardo was butting in with unnecessary comments that the order got all mixed up and things got complicated.
"Fine. I am running away from home."
"Huh?"
Ignoring Leonardo, who was shocked and wondering how it had come to this, I spun around. He said with his mouth that we were family and I was his little sister, but he had no intention of listening to a word his family said, so I was done expecting anything from this self-proclaimed big brother.
"Because Leonardo-san has not been listening to anything I have said at all. It is always Teo, Teo, Teo, Teo. You are always taking some stranger's side."
Calling him by the nickname 'Leo' felt ridiculous, so I deliberately used 'Leonardo-san,' the oldest form of address I had for him.
It was meant to signal that he was not my brother, but this dense self-proclaimed big brother (Leonardo) probably would not get it anyway.
"Oh, is that not strange? If you can take a stranger's side, you should be able to take my side too, should you not?"
Just how harshly would I have to curse at him for it to get through? Just thinking about it was depressing. But if he would not listen even when I explained it with words, I had no choice but to choose harsh words that would force him to listen. So that they would stick in his ears properly.
"Tina, if you do not stop it right now, I will get angry!"
"I am the one who wants to lose it here!"
It seemed he had finally managed to take offense. Glared at by Leonardo's already fierce face, I was more than a little terrified, but I did not back down an inch and glared right back. I had my pride too. Leonardo was the one in the wrong, so I had no intention of backing down this time.
"...Let us go home once and calm down."
He finally seemed to understand that I was angrier than I had ever been before. But his understanding was far too late. As for me, I was so angry I was almost out of energy. I had less leeway than usual to be careful about my wording.
"Why do you not go home alone?"
I spat out, and without a word, Leonardo's hand reached out. I thought he was going to slap me, but he just slipped his hands under my armpits. Then he lifted me up easily and, instead of carrying me in his arms like usual, hoisted me over his shoulder like a piece of luggage.
"Kidnapper! Help! I am being kidnapped!"
"Do not say things that sound so bad!"
Against Leonardo's strong-arm tactics, I resisted with all my might. I shouted loudly to call for help from the people around us, and kept attacking Leonardo by pulling his hair and hitting the back of his head. I had managed to drive off a suspicious person using this method before, but of course there was not a single resident of the city who did not know Leonardo's face. Even if a little girl (me) was screaming about being kidnapped and asking for help, once they saw it was the master of Grenore Fortress, they judged that it was not actually a kidnapping and ignored me.
"Kalisa, please defeat this kidnapper!"
Leonardo, who was on the way back to the residence, turned and made perfect eye contact with Kalisa, who was standing behind him. Conveniently enough, since I was being carried like a sack over his shoulder, our lines of sight were at the same level.
"...Young lady should take a bath first and change clothes. You will catch a cold."
"That is a logical argument! I hate it, but it is the calmest and most logical argument there is!"
I was carried off while screaming about how there was no one on my side. Frustrated, I pulled out several of Leonardo's hairs.
I remember spewing curses about how I hoped he would go bald, but my memory cut off abruptly partway through. I was tired from crying, tired from struggling, tired from being angry. By the time we reached the residence, I was asleep, and Kalisa apparently took care of my bath without me even knowing. When I woke up in a dry bed, the sun had long since set and the room was pitch black, and I, exhausted from all the struggling, had run out of both physical and mental energy. Perhaps because of that, I came down with a high fever for the first time in a while and was bedridden for three days.
It was a full week after the fever broke before I was allowed to go outside again.
Ten days after the big fight with Leonardo, I ended up carrying an enormous regret. That if I had known I would feel this way, I should have properly made up with Teo even if the order was wrong. Teo had saddled me with a regret that would last a lifetime.
Finally, Tina snapped. It feels like it turned into a bigger fight than planned, but if Tina never really got angry, she and Leonardo would never understand each other. I am sure this was for the best.
Next time will be a side story. First, I would like either Alf or Hermine to drop a thunderbolt on the self-proclaimed big brother.
Typos and omissions will be fixed another day. I will be taking a break from updates on the 20th.
I have fixed the typos and errors I found.