Even people with eternal youth and immortality need money to live. Rather, I need it more because I canât have a steady job. Considering that, the man was a very useful wallet.
âI told you itâs Dante.â
Ah, yeah. Dante.
A month after I picked up what was lying in the woods and stayed with him, Dante was steadily recovering his body. Itâs not something to be said by a person whose wounds disappear from their body when they wake up from death, but his resilience was similar to that of a monster.
To think that he woke up within a week and lay down in bed for a few more days, and then he suddenly got up. I was also surprised at how long it takes for an ordinary person to recover. Anyway, I thought heâd lie down for a few more days.
He said his stomach was almost completely healed, but honestly, I canât believe it.
Did my treatment work that well?
Anyway, there were a few things I learned from being with Dante for a month.
The first is that heâs annoyingly handsome.
Did I say this before? Itâs important, so listen to it one more time. Dante is really handsome.
People who say theyâre good-looking are going to get their cheeks slapped lightly, and those who are slapped will look like theyâre going to get angry then back down when they see his face and admit it. I was surprised when I first saw it.
Iâve never seen purple eyes when I crossed dimensions, but I can assure you that if there were other purple eyes, they wouldnât be the same as Danteâs.
You will understand when I say that there is a Milky Way in his eyes. Even though my aesthetic standards are very high.
The purple-black hair is irritatingly fine, and sometimes makes me wonder, who blessed his hairă Ąalthough, obviously, there is no one who blesses oneâs hair. Also, how does he know that earrings suit him well?
In the meantime, whatâs absurd is that Dante doesnât really care about his face.
âIf you had said it was okay for you to go to the village, I wouldâve just let you go.â
âWhy?â
âSome of the villagers would have accepted you just by looking at your face. There are a few people who are crazy for a good-looking face.â
âMy face?â
Then he asked with a puzzled face.
âWhatâs wrong my face?â
ââŚ?â
I didnât expect a response that said, âThatâs right, my face is good-looking,â but I thought he would at least be embarrassed.
According to the story, he has been looking at other peopleâs reactions for a long time and thinks, âI think itâs just worth watching.â First of all, heâs not interested in his own face, so he has never thought deeply about it.
Does that make sense? There are people who will just look in the mirror all day if they live with such a face. Iâm afraid heâll go somewhere else and ask if heâs on the good-looking side.
If he asks such a naive question, there will be someone who will snatch him up and lock him up somewhereâŚ
After nagging him to live with some awareness that he was handsome, Dante seemed confused, but at least he roughly understood.
I was asked whether I also think his face is good-looking, although the reason for my nagging went away. Well, I guess it doesnât matter. I was proud because it seemed like I was teaching someone who didnât know anything about the world.
Admittedly, I see a lot of faces when meeting people. Itâs very likely that it was half the money and half the face that made Dante stay here.
The second is that his name is Dante.
The reason Iâm saying this again is because itâs strange that Dante told me about it first, not me asking him first. One day, with a sullen expression on his face, he suddenly asked if I didnât even ask his name.
Up until now, I had been calling Dante by âyouâ, âheyâ, something like that, and there was no problem with calling him that way. After all, it was just the two of us in this house, so we knew that whatever the name was, we were calling each other.
Most of all, heâs leaving soon, so do I have to know his name? I donât have to.
Thatâs why when I asked if I had to ask, he got pissed off and didnât talk for a day. I was taken aback by his sudden refusal to talk, but the next day, he confessed his name to me.
However, his last name wasnât disclosed. Seeing that he continued to frown and said, âI will only tell you my name,â it doesnât look like he doesnât have a surname, but since he didnât say it, I had no way of knowing.
The third is that heâs a magician.
This is a very surprising fact, as first, I have never seen a magician. Iâve only heard that magicians are very rare, and most of those rare magicians use magic that isnât much different from the ordinary ones.
Of course, as in world history, there are some geniuses in that field, but it is said that the more they are the less they appear in front of people. In the first place, everything I heard was just rumors, so it wasnât accurate.
Where I used to live, there was no magic, even though science had advanced. So, to me, magic was a field in question from the start, and I had never actually seen it, so I lived thinking that magic might not actually exist.
Then, suddenly, out of the blue, after spending a week or a few days in bed, he got up and repaired the house. The house that was destroyed by Dante and left alone by me because I was lazy. Very easily.
In general, when you think of fixing something, you usually think of a tool box, a wooden plank, or a ladder. But Dante didnât need them. He just took a book out of the bag that contained the gold coin pocket.
âYou were a magician?â
âYeah.â
He held a book in one hand and stretched his other hand toward the wall, and the book turned over on its own. I wondered if the wind was blowing somewhere, and a magic circle that was shining softly emerged.
Looking at it, I thought that I could see magic circles being engraved on my house after living for a while. After all, it is said that people continue to live and see.
In the meantime, heâs also handsome when he uses magic. A magician with a handsome face is at the level of a natural monument.
âAll fixed.â
âI didnât know you were a magician. I heard theyâre precious.â
ââŚAlthough weâre precious, itâs not like we donât exist at all.â
While saying that, Dante stroked his bangs. The purple eyes were covered by the eyelids a few times and then revealed again, and his eyes turned around.
He seems uncomfortable somewhere, for him to strangely look away.
ââŚDonât stare at me like that.â
âWhat? Ah, me?â
âWho else is here other than you.â
Who cares about what Iâm looking at? I thought about it as I looked at Dante blankly, until I realized that it might have been a burden for him to be watched while he was using his magic.
So he feels burdened about everythingâŚ
âAlright, then I wonât stare at you.â
As I answered that, I turned my gaze to the repaired wall and heard Dante sigh. He tells me not to look in his direction, yet he sighs when I gaze at the wall. I donât know what to do.
One last thing Iâve known after spending a month with Dante⌠Although he doesnât look like that, he feels embarrassed a lot.
Look at the one before. He told me not to look at him like that because I watched him with a bit of curiosity. I donât think heâs telling me not to watch him using magic from now on.
I donât know how to keep up with the rhythm as heâs usually normal and only shy in strange places.
There was a day when I completely confessed. About how I canât figure out the reason from where heâs being embarrassed, and that I didnât know he was feeling embarrassed a lot.
However, the reply was a question of when he was embarrassed.
âHey, if thatâs not being embarrassed, then what is that? While youâre being all obvious that itâs too burdensome for you even if I only look at you for a bit.â
âWhen did I everâŚNo, Iâve really never thought it was a burden, though.â
Then why was he like that until now? I remembered the situations in which Dante had avoided my eyes and ran away out of the blue, and I thought that maybe even such a situation was shameful and made ridiculous excuses.
But no matter what I thought, Dante continued to explain what I had misunderstood. Of course, the part that âI had misunderstoodâ here was only Danteâs claim.
âAre you surprised, or are you not surprised when someone does something that no one else has done?â
âUhâŚâ
I shouldnât say that in most cases one doesnât even realize that itâs âsomething people didnât doâ in the first place, should I?
âOf course, surprised.â
âYeah, itâs like that.â
Whatâs that? While I was about to threaten him to speak in an understandable way, Dante explained on his own.
âItâs not that I was embarrassed, but I was surprised because you pay attention to me after you usually didnât pay attention to me⌠I meant that.â
ââŚâ
What is he saying now?
I thought about what Dante had said once again, tilted my head to see if I understood it correctly, and then I looked at Dante again.
Meanwhile, Dante was grimacing as if he had thought about what he had said again. More specifically, he seemed to be trying to hide his embarrassment.
âYou said I usually didnât pay attention to you.â
ââŚYeah.â
âSo you said you wanted attention?â
âNo, I didnât mean that I wanted it. But what I mean is I was surprised every time I received it!â
âSo, you were surprised by the sudden attention? Isnât it shameful to care about whether you get any attention or not?â
âNot the attention itself, but âyourâ attention⌠Why am I explaining this?â
Thatâs what I want to ask.
Standing crooked with arms crossed, I kept looking at Dante, but he pretended not to notice my gaze until the end and turned away from me.
It sounds like heâs talking about something, but I canât ask more. Itâs not just attention, itâs âmyâ attention. What does that mean? Theyâre all the same attention, anyway, is there anything else?
It seemed like he knew something, but it felt like a subtle and mysterious feeling that I couldnât dig further into. During that silence, Dante turned his body to the side and struggled to hide his expression.
I watched Danteâs ears grow red, and spoke cautiously.
âIâm sorry⌠You look very embarrassed right now.â