Rin Glacia.
The greatest genius of her generation, a swordsmanship prodigy blessed with overwhelming talent.
A girl who wielded the Winter Sword and, as befitted it, possessed exceedingly faint emotions.
She gave off the impression that if you pricked her fingertip, ice water would leak out instead of blood.
In the original work, she was called the Snow Queen.
‘Cold-Blooded.’
An emotionless doll.
Yet that very girl was crying.
“Huh...?”
Right in front of me, at that.
Clear droplets traced down her cheeks.
For a moment, I stopped breathing.
“Why is this happening? This...”
Rin stared down at her own hand as if she didn’t understand what was happening.
Drip, drip. Large teardrops fell.
Her blue eyes grew wet, tears gathering in them again and again.
The whole process of them flowing down her face resembled melting ice.
“This is strange. Why is this suddenly...”
This.
That was how Rin Glacia referred to tears.
It also meant tears were something unfamiliar to her.
“Sorry. They’re suddenly coming out.”
Wet tracks ran across her snow-white cheeks.
Rin didn’t wipe them away.
Perhaps because she wasn’t used to this situation, she looked dazed.
“...This is strange. The tears won’t stop.”
Was she turning over this unfamiliar sensation in her mind?
The girl only stood there blankly, blinking.
Ice water poured down.
Rin wasn’t the only one flustered by the situation.
Even for someone like me, who’d thoroughly played through the original, seeing her cry was unfamiliar.
‘She didn’t even shed a tear or groan while she was dying...’
Rin had remained expressionless through countless bad-ending routes.
There had only been one time she cried in the story.
During the campaign against the Glacia family.
When she executed her own blood relatives.
Her internal monologue briefly described tears running down her face.
‘So why now...?’
Had I stepped on some kind of land mine?
I carefully asked her.
“Are you all right?”
“...I don’t know.”
There was no sign of the tears stopping.
Rin tilted her head with a blank expression.
The mismatch between that face and all those tears was striking.
It was like looking at a mannequin carved from ice rather than a real person.
“Why am I like this?”
She muttered absentmindedly.
Rin let the tears flow.
Her response was indifferent, yet somehow fragile enough to shatter.
“Tears. They keep coming out. I want them to stop... My breathing is a little short, too...”
The doll didn’t even understand her own emotions.
Why she was crying, why one side of her heart ached.
“...Young Lady.”
She looked unbearably pitiful at that moment.
They said life was an equal exchange.
The girl had been given peerless talent, and in return, she’d received that much misfortune.
Born without understanding why, she had to pay the price for a blessing she’d never even wished for.
“First, take a breath.”
Rustle.
My hand moved before I knew it, settling atop her blue hair.
A chill seeped between my fingers through its silky softness.
I gently stroked the girl’s head.
Carefully, so I wouldn’t startle her.
-Big Brother Muro... That idiot keeps picking on me...
-It’s not like Mom and Dad are coming back anyway...
My previous life, at the orphanage.
It was a habit I’d developed while taking care of the younger children.
Whenever they bawled their eyes out, I’d stroke them like this and whisper that everything would be okay.
“It’s all right. Everything will be all right now.”
“...I feel strange. My stomach feels unsettled.”
Her voice held no rise or fall.
Still, her eyes seemed to tremble slightly.
“It’s... kind of amazing. Soft and fluffy.”
Rin didn’t resist.
Instead, as she received my touch, she obediently lowered her head.
It was as if she wanted me to keep going.
“Let’s stay like this for a moment, until your tears stop.”
“...Okay.”
And so,
I stroked the girl until the ice water stopped flowing.
* * *
A few hours later.
The day’s schedule had ended, and night was beginning to fall.
It was the time when students went to sleep one by one to prepare for tomorrow.
“...”
Rin lay on her dormitory bed.
The room was so quiet that not a single sign of life could be heard.
Even the minimal lighting was off.
The blue-haired girl was buried in that silence and darkness.
With her hands neatly folded, her blinking eyes stared only at the shadowed ceiling.
“...”
For some reason, Rin was dazed.
Not that it was unusual for her to look blank, but this time was a little different.
Unlike the way she usually looked vacant like a corpse, today she had been dwelling on something the entire time.
Her blue eyes were quiet.
Frozen over once again, they seemed to be reflecting on the time when they had briefly melted.
-Young Lady Glacia.
A boy’s voice.
More precisely, a particular set of words.
-So what if you’re not good at magic?
-I think you’re amazing. I respect you, too.
The whispers echoed beside her ears.
Amazing.
Thump.
Whenever she dwelled on those words, her heart pounded.
Her heart felt light, and her chest felt tight, like hot dough stuck in her throat.
“...Strange.”
After hearing those words, the girl had suddenly burst into tears.
How long had it been since she last cried like that?
It had been so long that she couldn’t even remember.
Rin lay still and touched the cheek where tear tracks had formed.
“Why did I cry?”
She couldn’t begin to guess the reason.
Maybe it was because, for the first time, she’d been praised by someone she acknowledged, someone whose acknowledgment she wanted.
Her heart throbbed as if it were alive.
-You’re unmatched, Young Lady.
-If I didn’t respect someone like that, who should I respect?
Memories replayed over and over.
Lips that said she was amazing, that she was worthy of respect.
Her insides churned.
-I’d stake my parents on it.
-Because it was sincere, without a shred of a lie.
-You’re far more exceptional than someone like me, Young Lady.
Yet it was different from the familiar pain in her chest.
Different from the throbbing she’d felt when her family neglected her.
It didn’t hurt. It felt light, swelling and wavering as though something was about to spill over.
The girl muttered without thinking.
“...It felt good.”
Rin quietly tried stroking her own head.
Just like the boy had done, she moved her hand gently at a steady rhythm.
“This isn’t it.”
But she couldn’t feel the same resonance as before.
Maybe the problem was who was doing it.
Unlike the boy’s hand, hers wasn’t warm or kind.
Rin fumbled at her own head for a long while, then finally withdrew her hand and curled up.
“If I ask him to do it again... will he?”
Her mind was already filled with that concern.
And so, among the blooming frost flowers, the night slowly passed.
* * *
The next morning.
After a long yawn, I sat in one corner of the classroom.
“Miss Caitlin.”
“What?”
“Why are you in Class E’s classroom?”
“You told me to come. You said we should study together since it’s self-study today.”
“Mm! I came as well, Sir Viktor! It’s good to see you too, Miss Alice!”
“I-I’m looking forward to studying together today, too...”
Our group was busy preparing for the written exams.
The written tests came a week before the practical ones.
The kids scratched away with their pens.
I rested my chin on my hand when something suddenly came to mind, and I spoke up.
“Come to think of it, Miss Caitlin.”
“What now?”
“Something occurred to me recently.”
“What is it this time?”
“The word orphan... doesn’t it sound a little like hate speech?”
“Here we go again. I told you I’d kill you if you distracted me with bullshit today.”
“I think we should use technical terms like ‘tag-swapped,’ ‘unclear country-of-origin labeling,’ or ‘involuntary lifelong one-person household’ instead of such hateful language. From now on, please call me a ‘semi-forced child head of household,’ not an ‘orphan bastard.’”
“I’ve never called you an orphan bastard in the first place.”
“Are you trying to deny my soul right now?”
“Please just shut up.”
Caitlin listened seriously to my proposal.
We continued our discussion on calling out hateful language, dismantling those labels, and developing proper linguistic awareness.
“Actually... ‘involuntary lifelong one-person household’ might suit me better than ‘semi-forced child head of household.’”
“What the fuck is the difference between those two?”
Just as our wholesome conversation was underway, I suddenly felt someone behind me.
When I turned around, a blue-haired girl stood there.
“Young Lady Glacia?”
“Ugh...”
Caitlin frowned in disgust.
Was it because we made such an unusual combination?
I could see the other students looking our way.
Ignoring all that, Rin only stared blankly up at me.
“Um.”
A white hand tightly gripped my sleeve.
The girl took one step closer, and the cool scent of winter brushed past my nose.
The distance between us narrowed.
Her characteristically vacant eyes looked especially clear today.
‘What’s this about?’
Why was she suddenly acting like this?
Was it because of what happened yesterday?
As I stood there confused, Rin parted her lips.
“I have a request.”
“Yes?”
“Could you stroke my head? Like yesterday.”
“...Pardon?”
The words fell like a bomb.
Question marks appeared over the heads of my group, as well as every Class E student nearby.
““...?””
“Y-Young Lady?”
The ice girl made her request in a polite voice.
Rin obediently lowered her head toward me.
“Please. Pet me.”
““...???””
Naturally, the quiet classroom was thrown into an uproar.
===
It’s Ranne and Caitlin.
I’ll post the other friends’ illustrations tomorrow.
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