A Gentle Burden

That guess made Kitasan Black's breath catch sharply, and a wave of panic seized her.

She watched Satono Crown's reaction with increasing nervousness, trying to read the answer from her expression.

She saw Crown freeze for a moment. Then that cheerful, teasing smile returned to her face, followed by a snort of laughter she could not hold back, breaking the silence.

"Come on, Little Kita, stop making things up!"

Crown walked over in a few quick steps, her voice carrying the familiar intimacy of sharing a secret. "You've been like this since we were little. Whenever you think you've messed up, or have to take responsibility for something, you panic so badly you can't even finish a sentence."

She moved a little closer and went on, sounding amused as though scolding her. "Like that time you broke the trophy. Wasn't it the same then? We'd all broken it together, but you kept trying to secretly fix it yourself. And in the end, the teacher saw through it at a glance. That's why, for a lot of things, everyone has to handle them together."

"And that hiking trip, too. You carried such a huge backpack all by yourself. Whenever we asked, you said it was all your own stuff. But what happened?"

She smiled and shook her head. "There really were your own things inside, but you'd also secretly stuffed in Hikari-chan's water bottle because she thought it was too heavy, another classmate's lunchbox that they'd forgotten, and several extra sets of yukata you'd brought just in case."

"It's incredible that you could carry all that and still skip along the whole way without ever saying you were tired—until we took a break at the summit, and Hikari-chan noticed her water bottle was in your bag."

"But in the end, your