Lonely Nights
Regardless of what companions you may have, a void in your heart incurs a deep loneliness. The loneliness of an unsatisfied void, a book left open, a feeling hanging on a cliff.
The princess of Aureum was never alone, but she was lonely. The capital was a cold place, filled with scheming politicians and social climbers. Ashiya knew her reincarnation came with a silver spoon. The King-Emperor of Aureum was powerful, and as his daughter, her new life ought to have been secured.
But (new)life for Ashiya Date was the exact opposite. There was no one she felt she could trust in the capital. The Aureum Royal Family were schemers by nature, her father the greatest schemer of all. Even before she got her memories back, Ashiya knew what it meant that her bodyguards were picked from the men who were loyal to him more than their own families. A gilded cage was still a cage.
The only person Ashiya knew wouldn’t backstab her was ranked among the highest of schemers. Ratari, princess of Nilibes, and her “soulmate”. A bond forced upon them by a rogue sorcerer, the highest level sorcery. Ashiya knew his intentions were good, but that doesn’t mean she had to like it. Ratari could never kill Ashiya, or betray her in a way that resulted in Ashiya’s death. But Ratari was still scheming, constantly. Ashiya knew because she was constantly scheming too.
As Ashiya climbed into her bed, she wondered if her…former friends had found themselves in this world. She wondered if they were schemers (well, wondered is overstating it. Keichi was certainly a schemer and Yu was too stupid to scheme his way out of a paper bag. Takeko…Ashiya refused to think about Takeko.) Were they surrounded by schemers like she was? Ashiya forced those thoughts into the ground. They weren’t of any concern to her. They hadn’t been friends for a long time.
Instead, Ashiya turned her thoughts back to Ratari. Ratari…whatever warm feelings that name brought were also crushed to the ground. Any weakness was a gap to be exploited, after all.
Yes, the nights of a schemer were lonely.
…
Keichi Idaten was left alone with his thoughts quite a bit. No sights to distract him thanks to his blindfold, and, as long as business wasn’t going on, the Hittaban Castle was pretty quiet. And sometimes, for Keichi Idaten, those nights were even quieter.
Even back on Earth, Keichi figured there’d be no glory in life for him. He would graduate, go to college, enter the workforce as a salaryman and then retire into the countryside namelessly and die known only to his family and coworkers. It wasn’t until Sharande pointed it out to him that he never included “friends” during that part whenever he told her about his assumed future.
Now that he thought about it, Keichi realized he never really had true friends after…the incident. Throughout all four years of high school he never went out with anyone, never went over to someone else’s house or to a park together or anything of the sort. His closest acquaintances were his study group or fellow student council members, but he never exchanged any emotion with them aside from acknowledgment.
Keichi thought he was damn pathetic when he thought of it like that.
But he never felt lonely back then -
No, Keichi thought, That’s not it.
It’s not that he didn’t feel lonely. It’s just that he was never able to notice it. What a damn fool he was. What kind of fool responds to the idiocy of an idiot by making an even worse decision. Those kinds of thoughts raced through Keichi’s mind a lot ever since meeting Sharande.
She wasn’t to blame for Keichi’s self-negativity, at least not her actions. No, it was just that the good she did only made Keichi realize how much of a fool he’d been. In spite of her loneliness, in spite of the danger, in spite of her importance…she allowed herself to be vulnerable to him. She was kind and allowed him to be kind to her. Keichi would never, ever forget the smile on Sharande’s face when he solved her final riddle, the crack in her voice.
But for all the good…it served to let Keichi see how much of a fool he had been all those years ago. And, without Sharande or Dandara or any of the friends he’d made in his time in the new world around…that foolishness weighed all the heavier on Keichi.
Yes, the nights of a fool were lonely.
…
A final roar of agony and a crash. That was how this fight ended, as had so many before it. Yu Suya allowed himself to catch his breath, looking down at the giant beast felled before him, ignoring the now routine feeling of his limbs screaming in agony for rest. The job wasn’t over yet.
It was a monster Yu hadn’t seen before. Some kinda giant monkey that could shoot lightning. While the lightning was a surprise, it was nothing he couldn’t handle, and, soon enough, it was dead like every other monster Yu set his sights on. Even if they didn’t know it yet, the people of the nearby village would be able to sleep peacefully tonight.
Yu, however, would not be making it back to that village tonight, with their beds and fires. Well, fire wasn’t a problem, but the grass and a bedroll certainly was no match for a bed. Yu finished dragging the monster’s corpse a decent ways away from the village, where no carrion hungry monster would be close enough to the village to start any trouble.
He knew how tomorrow would go. He would return to the village, trophy from the monster in hand, toss it to the village chief and say, “No need to thank me.” The village would all celebrate and Yu would find himself back on the road. Celebrations were always a blur. Congratulations and congratulations would be given, on rare occasions a couple of mother’s would offer their daughter’s hand in marriage (always declined), and Yu would be gone hours before the celebrations drew to a close.
That was the destiny of a hero. You never get to see the peace you fight for.
The hero’s share was dangerous battles, lonely roads, and quiet nights. Nights too quiet for their own good.
Quiet enough for the mind to turn to so many things. Yu could think of the people he met in the new world, his teacher and…that girl, so radiant Yu couldn’t think of an adjective to describe her, and his lips would curl into a smile at the thought, but Yu was never lucky enough to think of them the whole night. Some nights, he’d get to think of the people he saved. Towns raided by bandits, farmers terrorized by monsters. The praises they’d sing of him long after Yu left their lives. The happy lives they’d get to live thanks to him. Again, a smile to Yu’s face.
But that smile was always dampened by the inevitable knowledge that came with saving people. The people you couldn’t save. A livelihood destroyed, a life lost. No hero arrives before the problem starts. Never can a hero stop a problem before that problem’s already touched someone.
But a concerning amount, Yu Suya thought about those three people. The three people he betrayed so thoroughly, so crushingly. Goddamnit, how could he have been such an idiot. He was an idiot for not saying goodbye, he was an idiot for not realizing how much an idiot he was sooner, and he was the idiot who gathered them all for that reunion.
Yu Suya knew he’d wake up in the morning and he’d be right back to fighting bandits and hunting monsters. His eyes will have dried and no one he saves would be any the wiser. Heroes never cried after all.
Yes, the nights of heroes were lonely.
…
Takeko Pucelle hated being lonely. Which was strange, considering how much of a shut-in she was before being reincarnated as a princess. But Takeko couldn’t stand being lonely.
Mainly because she felt that she didn’t deserve the sad weight of loneliness. She deserved to feel lonely, alright, but she didn’t deserve to feel sad about it. That was her opinion.
Of course, she felt that way because she felt guilty, but she’d never acknowledge that she should feel guilty so that was just another reason to hate being lonely. But a void in one’s heart always leads to loneliness.
And it was always night when the loneliness came to Takeko. She knew she wasn’t truly alone. Hire was just around some corner, or, if not Hire, some other guardian, but it didn’t matter. There was no one to talk to, no one to make Takeko forget that void. And the loneliness. And the guilt.
Takeko Pucelle would never acknowledge how badly she fucked up. How could she? If she admitted that she was at fault…
The Princess of Orleagian couldn’t take that train of thought any further, rolling over onto her side harshly, pulling a pillow over her head. Loneliness couldn’t be acknowledged. Not here, not now. It was what she told herself every night, that she fucked up, but she was smarter now, she wouldn’t fuck up in the here and now like she did back then.
But every night, it didn’t work, and Takeko would drift off into sleep, heart heavy with that familiar, sad weight.
Yes, the nights of the guilty were lonely.