Chapter 89: Honesty
Kaye noticed my solemn mood.
Clang..
She dropped her spoon with a soft clatter and quickly changed the topic.
"Oh yeah, Kim is coming here tomorrow. She was absolutely furious about the school’s lack of security regarding outsider attacks."
The mention of her name snapped me right back to focus. I hastily put on a neutral face to hide the melancholy storm of emotions still stirring deep inside me.
"It was an attack from an Aberrant, Kaye. Who in their right mind would ever expect an attack from them?" I argued, trying to sound reasonable.
She pointed her fork squarely at my nose. "For the number one school in the entire world, Matt, that much should be an absolute given."
Nagi passed a plate of chicken karaage over to me and chimed in.
"Well, being number one is definitely subjective. If we’re talking about producing millennial genius weavers who can shake the world, then Excelia wins by a landslide. But if we’re talking about Loomguards—people who focus on the art of becoming one with their looms instead of just relying on magic—or Artificers who forge magical tools like our storage rings, then we’re not quite at the top yet."
"Yeah... I guess so."We finished the rest of the meal surprisingly peacefully.
Once the tables were cleared, Kaye volunteered to handle the dishes, giving me a chance to finally head toward my bed.
I was fully planning to hit the sack, change into my pajamas, and call it a night. But just as I turned, a firm grip caught the hem of my shirt from behind.
Expecting it to be Kaye starting another one of her usual nagging lectures, I spun around—only to find Nagi holding onto the fabric.
"What’s up?" I asked, blinking through my blurry vision.
She just smiled, completely ignoring my question as she walked toward the main door, dragging me along by my clothes.
"Sis! I’m borrowing Matt for a bit! We’ll be back before curfew!" she called out over her shoulder.
From the kitchen, Kaye’s voice echoed back over the sound of running water. "Oh, alright! Watch out for strangers!"
"Huh? What is even happening right now?" I stammered, trying to unbuckle myself free."
Obviously, you’re coming with me," Nagi replied cheerfully.
"Huh? Who exactly decided that?!"I stared at her, but my stomach dropped the moment I noticed her cheerful expression was slowly, surely morphing into something incredibly sinister.
Wait... no, no, no. Not this pattern again—
Before I could even finish the thought, a thick cluster of glowing threads shot out from her sleeve, wrapping tightly around my ankles.
"Hey, wait! No! Not again!" I yelled.
"No can do~."
With an effortless flick of her wrist, she hoisted me completely upside down into the air. In an instant, my entire worldview flipped, giving me the perspective of an average Australian resident.
I frantically tried to use my midsection to lift myself back up, but it was completely useless as another cluster of threads wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms flat against my sides and straightening me.
"Well, we’re off!" Nagi chirped, casually pulling the dorm door shut behind us.
The moment we stepped out of the building, a barrage of weird, judgmental stares from the other passing students hit us instantly.
Honestly, I couldn’t even blame them. Tied up from head to toe and dangling upside down, I looked exactly like an oversized caterpillar desperately trying to form into a pupa.
I kept wiggling around, trying to break free, but the violet strings were incredibly durable.
We actually went completely outside Excelia just like this. Weirdly enough, the guard at the gates didn’t pay any heed to our bizarre behavior.
It seems he’s seen so much weird shit going on in Excelia over the years that nothing could phase him anymore.
"Hey, at least tell me where we’re going this time around," I grumbled.
"Surely we’re not going to the library to study just because I got low grades last time, right?
"She looked up at me, pulling the threads to dangle me a bit closer to her face.
Suddenly, she reached up and pinched my lips, forcing my mouth open and closed like I was some kind of plush toy.
"We’re not doing that. Plus, for the approaching midterms and finals, the school focuses way more on practicals anyway."
"Then where are we go-g-gng?!" I stammered, the words sounding completely warped and muffled because she was still clutching my mouth and playing with it.
"It’s a place we’ve been to, don’t worry," Nagi said, finally letting go of my jaw.
"Also, you better keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, you’ll bite your tongue."
"Bite my wha—"
Before I could finish, my body was violently flung through the air. Nagi shot a fresh line of threads into the skyline, using her Loom to swing effortlessly between the structures.
"NAAAAGIIIIIIIIIIII!" I screamed, the wind tearing the air right out of my lungs.
"Hahaha! Brings back memories, right?" her laughter echoed above the rushing wind.
Squinting through the rushing blur, I caught the layout of the city below.
We were heading toward the market district. Recognizing the familiar shapes, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how amazing this place looked.
It was a stunning mesh of medieval architectural designs built with sleek, futuristic materials. Neon-infused runes along old stone arches, and floating carriages hovered over cobblestone streets.
I couldn’t see well right now, but the colors of light and shadow still looked pretty fucking cool.
After a while, her momentum slowed. She climbed to the top of a massive, towering structure—the central clock tower.
It was the exact same ledge we sat on during our first date... well, our first outing.
The cocoon of violet threads dissolved.
Nagi sat down on the edge, her legs dangling over the massive drop, and patted the empty space right next to her, indicating for me to join.
I slid onto the ledge beside her.
To break the ice, I dug into my storage ring, pulled out a couple of ice cream popsicles, and handed one to her."
We had ice cream when we went out before, too, right?" Nagi said softly, unwrapping the plastic cover and shoving the crumpled garbage back into her own storage.
"Yeah. It was a cup of ice cream back then, though, but this still brings back memories, right?"
"Un." She nodded, staring at me for a long moment before looking back down at the popsicle, her expression turning uncharacteristically solemn.
"Hey, Matt... you’re not going to disappear on me suddenly, are you?"
I was just about to bite a chunk off my ice cream, but her words made me close my mouth.
Given how she had dragged me all the way out here to a spot only the two of us knew, this was clearly serious.
Technically, I could lie. I could pull off a confident smirk and tell her I’ll be just fine. But considering I had barely escaped a single grunt Aberrant and had already lost most of my eyesight as a consequence, I wasn’t arrogant enough to promise survival just because I had knowledge of the future, especially since I couldn’t say it out aloud.
In a world that’s set up as bad end, there was only one honest answer.
I took a sharp bite of the popsicle and shrugged.
"Who knows?" Nagi flinched.
"Is that so....." she muttered.
Crack.
Without realizing it, her grip tightened so hard the wooden stick snapped clean in two. The block of ice cream slipped from the broken wood, falling a long, long way down toward the empty streets below.
She noticed it too late, staring blankly at her empty hand.
"Haha... sorry," she apologized quickly, looking up with a forced, strained smile.
I didn’t say a word.
I just reached back into my ring, pulled out a second, fresh ice cream, and held it out to her.
"You’re being mad weird right now. Are you alright?"
...
"Haha, sorry, I’m fine," she replied, her hand reaching out to take it.
Before her fingers could touch the wrapper, I snapped my hand back, pulling the ice cream out of her reach.
"Lies."
Nagi flinched a second time, her hand hanging awkwardly in the air.
"You see, Nagi, I might hide a lot of things from you, and I definitely joke around a lot. But I don’t lie when it comes to my feelings." I said softly, tearing open the wrapper for her myself.
I handed the unpacked ice cream back to her, looking directly into her blurry silhouette.
"Can you do the same for me?"
She stared at the offering for a moment before her fingers gently closed around the stick.
"Un."
She swept a few stray strands of hair behind her ear and took a quiet, delicate lick before finally biting off a piece.
Gulp...
Seriously, seeing her face from this close... I really couldn’t blame Fanna for falling head over heels for this girl. Even though Nagi was technically a guy undercover as a woman, her sheer beauty in this form was an absolute cheat code.
"After a while, we finished our ice cream in silence, just staring up at the starry sky and enjoying the cool breeze.
"You see, Matt... I mentioned my uncle before, right?"
"Yep," I replied, adjusting my position on the stone ledge.
"The guy who you said taught you how to fillet a fish."
"Un." She nodded, her gaze fixed on the horizon where the city lights.
"You remind me a lot of him."
"Huh? How so?" I asked, genuinely caught off guard.
"He was an incredibly kind person," she said softly.
"Someone who always prioritized the people he cared about far more than himself."
I let out a dry chuckle. "Sounds absolutely nothing like me."
"He also dodged every single question I asked him and he loved to change the topic the second things got serious." Nagi countered instantly, cutting her eyes toward me.
"Uh... guilty?" I said, rubbing the back of my neck with a sheepish grin.
"Haha, see? Exactly like him," she murmured, though the humor didn’t quite reach her eyes.
"Anyway, he was my entire family. He acted like a strict father, a caring mother, and a funny uncle all at once. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him. Like who my true parents were, or how he found me in the first place..."
"But as I said, he would just laugh it off and dodge it with a joke."She exhaled, fully reminiscing.
"At first, I was so pissed at him. But as I grew older, I let it go. After all, I was perfectly content with the life we had."
Nagi stood up from the ledge, brushing off her pants, and placed her hands behind her back.
"Then, one day, he came home from a guild mission," she continued, her voice trembling slightly.
"He was completely bloodied. He told me they had to return in four days to vanquish a Leviathan-class magical beast."
A heavy knot formed in my stomach.
A Leviathan-class. In this world, that was a death sentence for almost anyone, even Professor Heather, Zmey, and Medley combined, and the odds could be in either side I thought.
"The little me didn’t know any better," Nagi whispered.
"I only asked him if the magical beast’s meat tasted yummy. He just patted my head and said it probably did. Now that I look back on it... I should have realized his face was an open book. He knew he would die if he accepted that mission."
"And for the first time in my life, I heard him tell a real lie."She stopped, swallowing hard.
"He said, ’I’ll be back.’"
...
A single tear slid down her cheek, catching the faint starlight.
"He never came back."
She shifted, walking a few steps sideways to turn her face away from me, desperately trying to hide her agony."
I’m so sorry to hear that, Nagi..." I said.
She let out a small sniff.
"It’s fine." She quickly raised her sleeve, rubbing her eyes with the fabric of her shirt to wipe away her remaining tears.
"When I asked you earlier if you were going to disappear too..."
She turned back around, facing me fully.
The expression on her face was a smile that words couldn’t even begin to describe.
Vulnerable, relieved, and devastatingly beautiful all at once.
"I was fully expecting you to lie to me just like my uncle. I thought you’d give me a false sense of security just to keep me happy.
"Hah...I felt a sudden, violent thump in my chest.
My face grew incredibly hot, and I frantically scratched the back of my head to hide how flustered I was.
That was dangerous. If I didn’t have a death flag hanging over my head, I swear I would have proposed to this girl right then and there out of pure impulse, I thought.
After taking a moment to compose my wildly racing thoughts, I stood up from the ledge as well, patting the dust off my pajamas.
"Oh yeah, but how did you know I’d end up doing dangerous stuff like that in the future anyway?" I asked.
Nagi looked at me, the familiar mischievous glint slowly returning to her eyes.
"Didn’t I just tell you? You resemble my uncle.
"Tonight, when we were eating, I noticed that lingering despair in your face. I couldn’t help but get terrified that you’d end up exactly like him."
"Hah... I guess we truly are alike then, your uncle and I."
