6
“I’m sorry, you came all the way to see us, and I don’t even have any refreshments ready. I’ll get some tea going right now.”
Saying that, Liara Thompson showed Garfiel and Mimi to a sofa and then started boiling some water and getting cups ready.
Watching her from behind as she made tea, Garfiel scratched his head.
“Ah, sorry for droppin’ by unannounced. I don’t want to be a bother…”
“It’s not a bother at all. You don’t need to look so anxious. Even just making time to see us is quite reassuring.”
“ ”
When Liara smiled and continued her preparations, Garfiel was at a loss for words.
She had so easily read the worries he was trying to keep hidden, and he couldn’t tell if it was just that he was that easy to read or because of something more special—like a connection between mother and son.
Either way, Mom isn’t trying to trick me. She was never that sort of spiteful. And even if she’s lost her memories, it doesn’t feel like that part has changed at all.
Which is all the more reason why he ended up questioning himself. What did he even come there to do?
“Hmm? Is it a bit more spacious here than before? It’s so neatly cleaned up.”
While Garfiel was questioning himself, Mimi, who had dragged him out there, was entirely laid-back and at ease. Looking around the interior, Garfiel cocked his head at Mimi’s murmur.
“Now that you mention it, it’s tidier than b’fore… No, there’s less stuff?”
“I’m impressed you noticed. It doesn’t even look that different from normal to me…”
Setting the tea in front of Garfiel and Mimi, Liara answered them calmly. But hearing that, the little girl fired back vehemently.
“That’s not true at all. It feels really strange to me. You’re the weird one, Mom!”
“You’re always saying that, Big Sis.”
“What did you say?!”
Hearing her little brother’s pointed comment, the older sister started chasing after him in a fury.
Watching the two of them, he pressed Liara about what they were talking about.
“What are those two shrimps talking about?”
“It’s nothing too special. It’s just that everyone in town needs to support each other… I’ve just been giving away some things, sharing a bit of what we had stored up, that sort of thing.”
“…And because of that, you lost a bunch of different things?”
“There were too many things in here to begin with. I’m a bit of a hoarder by nature, so honestly it has been helpful to clear things out.”
Liara stuck out her tongue playfully, but it wasn’t actually anything so simple as that.
It was true the city was in a state where everyone needed to help each other. But the Thompson house wasn’t exactly in a great place, either, with their main breadwinner missing. If anything, they should have been one of those receiving help.
“It’s not like you guys have that much to spare. I mean…”
“My husband…Galek will come back soon. I have faith. You don’t need to worry about us like that. We will be okay.”
Liara slowly shook her head when Garfiel tried to press her on it.
“I’ve thought this for a long time. The more I worried, the more happiness slipped through my fingers. Well, I say a long time, but it’s only been maybe ten years. I can’t remember before that… Ah, sorry, did I surprise you?”
“…I bet that always works, but sorry, I already heard from your husband.”
“Ah, is that so? …Mrgh, he would do that.”
Liara smiled, just a little bit disappointed.
It was apparently a staple for her to surprise people when she revealed that she had lost her memory, and if he had heard that without knowing already, it would definitely have been a catastrophe for him.
Of course it wasn’t that he didn’t feel any pain hearing it now. But he could bear it. And also, even though she had lost her memories, he was stunned at how unchanged his mom’s thinking was.
—“Things will be better tomorrow” had been the driving force behind almost everything his mom did.
“I was empty and had nothing, but Galek supported me these past ten years. He even gave me a cute little daughter and son… If after all that, I couldn’t at least have faith in him, then what would I do?”
“ ”
“If it didn’t bother him, he could have just come home like that.”
“No, I think that would be a bit much for everyone else…”
“Really? Honestly, he was pretty handsome like that in his own way if you ask me…”
Even after he was transformed, Liara still fully supported her husband. But the fact that she had accepted him all the same even though he had been changed that much had probably been a saving grace for Galek, who had been on the verge of losing himself.
—Like all the other victims of Lust’s terrors, Galek had accepted being frozen by Emilia in a state of suspended animation while waiting for a more permanent solution to come to light.
It was a decision that he had made together with Liara—it wasn’t something that others could intrude on.
“…You’re strong.”
“Yes, of course. I’m a mother of two, after all.”
Liara puffed out her chest in pride.
Though it’s not two, it’s four, but yeah, she is strong. Crazy strong. A different sort of strength than what drives a fist. The sort of strength that Subaru and Otto have.
And that was surely a strength that Garfiel couldn’t gain through training.
“Right, while I remember, there was actually something I wanted to ask you, Mr. Gorgeous Tiger.”
As Garfiel’s eyes lost focus, Liara suddenly hit her palm.
Seeing her casual attitude, Garfiel nodded.
“Yeah? Ask whatever you want. Though I doubt I know much to say…”
“No, it’s nothing too complicated. It’s just about you.”
“About me?”
“Yes— Why have you gone so far out of your way to take care of us? I couldn’t help but wonder a little bit.”
“ ”
He was rocked by a sudden, unexpected blow just when he had let his guard down.
Liara right in front of him, Mimi beside him, and the siblings a little bit to the side were all waiting for his response. And as they watched him, Garfiel’s mind raced.
—Why did I come here?
—Had he wanted to tell Liara about the past she had forgotten?
—Had he wanted to at least tell his two younger siblings that he was their brother?
—Or had he been planning to just leave quietly after sharing his condolences for Galek?
His resolve had been weak to begin with, and even that frayed as Garfiel’s fangs trembled weakly.
“I—I just can’t look away for some reason…since you’re kinda…not all there.”
“Well, that is quite harsh. There’s some truth to it, though, so I can’t really say much.”
“Not all there? As in what? Oh, hair? Mimi has that issue a little bit in fire season! But it’s fine by ice season! The more you know!”
Liara and Mimi each responded in their own ways to his faltering, clumsy response.
Partway through, a bald-faced sense of relief filled Garfiel’s heart. Knowing their two personalities, they wouldn’t push any deeper. He could escape the situation.
Right, I need to take more time, more time to think this problem through—
“—Ah.”
“Are you okay, Mr. Gorgeous Tiger?”
To his shock, when he exhaled, Liara had put her hand gently on his head.
Leaning forward, she was caressing his head. Her hand was gentle and kind, filled with parental love, as if he were her beloved child.
Why would she…?
“Why is it? Just now, you looked almost like a child who was about to cry to me.”
Answering the question in his eyes, Liara looked almost surprised at her own reaction, but her lips softened as she answered.
The Liara who couldn’t possibly remember and the memories that Garfiel had almost forgotten began to fuse together.
Liara’s—Lisha Tinzel’s—hand had soothed him like that before in the past.
The corporeal memories of that time were constricting Garfiel’s heart in the Thompson’s living room.
And before he even had the chance to try to resist, his feelings burst out.
“…Mom…”
“ ”
“Mom…Mom, Mom…!”
As he let her fingers run over his head, he called Liara Mom.
His eyes teared up, his voice trembled, and his small body shrank down farther as he weakly gasped for air.
He couldn’t endure every weakness. It was just natural.
No matter how strong someone acted, no matter how much they fought it, when faced with their mother, everyone was still a child.
No matter how tough they tried to act in front of their mom, it wasn’t anything more than a child’s stubbornness.
“I…I… Mom…”
There were mountains of things he wanted to say. As many things as there were stars in the sky.
The number of feelings that Garfiel had given up on, thinking that he couldn’t convey them, were still gleaming radiantly inside him, exploding in rapture at the long-awaited opportunity.
They wanted to be shouted out from within the safety, the comfort of his mother’s embrace.
“…Garfiel…”
Garfiel was in tears, averting his eyes, struggling to speak. Beside him, Mimi suddenly said his name. But he didn’t know who it was directed at.
But he felt the presence in front of him inhale when Mimi said it, and he felt the fingers touching his head pull back—
“—Garfiel, come here.”
Looking up, he saw Liara in front of him, spreading her arms, smiling.
When he saw that, when he heard her say his name, his head stopped. But even though his brain froze, his body, his soul understood what he needed to do.
“M-Mom… Mom…!”
Sobbing like the child he still was, Garfiel leaped into Liara’s, into Lisha’s arms, burying his head in her chest, clinging to her.
Her gentle, kind hands caressed Garfiel’s head as he cried.
“There we go… You’re a good boy, Garf. You were always doing your best.”
“—Yeah! I always went all out, always did my best! But I made so many mistakes, but—but even then, everyone…!”
They were not complete thoughts. Even as he shared his incoherent story, Garfiel clung to Lisha.
Garfiel’s fifteen years poured out of him.
Losing his mother, separated from his sister, his stubborn refusal to lose any more family, the ten years that had been shattered by Subaru and the rest—all the times that Garfiel had broken and grieved.
The love that he had lost, becoming frantic to never lose it again, everything he had trampled underfoot along the way.
And all of that was—
“…M-Mom…”
“It’s okay, Garf. Mom is here with you.”
Her kind words, her affection, the mother’s love that he had never been able to get no matter how much he wanted it, all of it consoled Garfiel.
He knew that he was loved by his family. He knew that his sister and his grandmother loved him. And he knew in a removed sort of way that his mother had loved him. But this was the first time he really experienced a mother’s love and the warmth that accompanied it.
He was sobbing. He didn’t yet know the name of the emotion that was making him do that.
He didn’t yet know the name of the feeling that everyone experienced as a child.
—But this burning-hot feeling is enough of an answer.
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