"But I feel really safe, too... With you beside me, Gabrielina, I feel like I can do anything... Like I don't have to be afraid of any danger... Like I can just leave everything to you..."
"...Um, is... is that strange to say? We haven't even known each other that long..."
Gabrielina stared blankly at the girl before her. In the indistinct darkness, the girl's faint voice reached her in fits and starts, held back with all her might.
She spoke so carefully, as though afraid of waking some terrifying beast.
Or like a girl with something weighing on her heart, waking from a dream at midnight and hiding beneath the covers to murmur the words she had never dared to say.
"...Do you remember, Gabrielina? Those journeys I told you about... traveling between different worlds? I still think about them often..."
"Some worlds were wrapped in blue oceans, with fish-tailed inhabitants swimming through coral castles... Some were engulfed in endless war, with terrifying mechanical armies fighting against mech pilots... There were kingdoms ruled by dragons, too, but they could turn into humans. It was really amazing..."
"You can imagine what they looked like, can't you, Gabrielina? Those were such happy days."
Gabrielina said nothing. "..."
In silence, she glanced down at the wrist held gently in Lumine's hand, then looked back at the smiling face so close to hers. Her lips parted as she tried to say something, but the words seemed to catch in her throat. She couldn't get out a single one.
Her heart, which had beaten steadily even during the day's battles, now felt like a spring disturbed by a thrown stone. Loud, chaotic ripples spread through it, pounding against her chest like a drum.
If Lumine's racing heartbeat hadn't also been sounding constantly beside her ear, she doubted she could have hidden it.
But why?
Wasn't all this happening a little too fast? Could the system actually be some wizard hiding its true powers, one that had cast a spell on Lumine long ago to make her feel close to me against her will?
Or had I been tricked? Was there some hidden bonus tucked into those quest rewards... one that gave me an "irresistible to all women" constitution? Turned me into a walking dating-sim protagonist, with every girl required to throw herself into my arms??
No, that didn't add up either... Paimon didn't look at me half as passionately as she looked at a freshly grilled fish...
This was so strange. If I'd known this would happen, I should have pretended to be asleep from the start. In this position, I felt like I could kiss her lips just by leaning forward a little.
"But..."
Gabrielina frowned at that word.
She hated it. In most stories, once that word appeared, it pretty much meant the plot was about to head somewhere unpleasant.
"But after we came to Teyvat, everything changed. We weren't planning to stay here. My brother and I were getting ready to go to the next world... Gabrielina, do you believe in a sixth sense?"
"Of course," Gabrielina replied softly.
People always said girls had a sixth sense.
"Maybe it was some kind of connection only twins have, but my brother and I... we both had this awful... really awful feeling back then. We'd never felt anything like it, not even when we faced the most dangerous enemies before." Lumine's voice trembled slightly, and the color drained from her small face.
Gabrielina could distinctly feel the fingers around her wrist tightening without pause.
They gripped her with such force, like a drowning person spotting a plank floating on the water and desperately trying to seize it. As though, without her, Lumine would drown in the darkness filling the room.
"Later, I understood... It was the pain of being separated from family."
"I... I really don't know what to do... Gabrielina, my brother and I... we've never been apart for that long..." the girl said between broken sobs.
"How much time has passed since then? I don't know... I don't know what happened to my brother afterward... I don't know how he's doing... I don't even..."
Know whether he was still alive?
Gabrielina desperately wanted to tell the girl, who looked so helpless and fragile now, that her big brother was very much alive and doing damn well. He had a whole horde of formidable villains under him, and one stomp of his foot could make all of Teyvat tremble. He was practically a mafia boss.
Unfortunately, she didn't dare.
Like so many transmigrators before her, she felt that she had only just arrived and knew nothing, and she didn't have a Fate Gu in her pocket, either. Challenging the "plot" itself outright wasn't a wise choice.
Keeping quiet was, really, the obvious choice.
Yet, at that thought, she looked back at the girl's face, her heart aching.
...Honestly, she had never imagined Lumine could look like this.
The girl pressed her lips tightly together. Tears welled in her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall. All she could do was bury her face deep in the crook of her arm, her shoulders shaking nonstop.
Listening to the girl's stifled sobs, Gabrielina suddenly felt a terrible tightness in her own chest.
Though she knew perfectly well that she had done nothing wrong, she still felt as though she had let Lumine down.
"Um, Lumine... I..."
"Ga... Gabri... mm... I'm fine... I'm fine..." Lumine replied, her voice thick and nasal. Yet even as she spoke, she buried her face deeper.
How was any of this fine...?
"I... I just can't quite control it... Before Paimon... when I'd just woken up... I was so scared. I didn't know anyone... and I... I didn't know where I was... I... sob..."
Suddenly, Gabrielina felt the pressure on her wrist weaken. The fingers that had unknowingly pressed red marks into her skin gradually loosened as well.
The girl hurriedly wiped her wet cheeks, her eyes darting away as she tried to escape the Angel's gaze.
"S-sorry... I shouldn't have said all that... I'm sor-Eek!!"
Before she could finish, her words turned into a short shriek.
As Lumine's eyes widened slightly in surprise, Gabrielina suddenly reached out and swept an arm around her shoulders.
The next moment, Lumine fell into that warm, soft embrace, with its faint, pleasant scent. The arm behind her carried a strength that would brook no refusal, firmly confining her within Gabrielina's space.
"Don't say any more."
Gabrielina hugged Lumine tightly, gently patting her back again and again.
"You have nothing to apologize for, Lumine." Gabrielina made her voice soft and slow as she comforted the girl in her arms. "I'm really glad you could tell me all this. Don't apologize for it... okay?"
"Glad... b-but I..."
"Because you said it yourself. I'm strong! I'm stronger than you. I'm stronger than all of them!"
Gabrielina rested her forehead lightly against the top of Lumine's head. "If even I can't make you feel safe, if you still have to pretend to be strong around me... wouldn't that make me a terrible friend?"
"So please, put your trust in me... okay?"
"I..."
After a moment of silence, the tense body in her arms finally began to relax, surrendering to the warmth.
That nervously clenched fist slowly loosened and gently took her open hand.
"...Okay."
The reply reached her ear, barely louder than a mosquito's hum. A little of the nasal stuffiness remained, but at last, her voice no longer trembled.
"Thank you... Gabrielina..."
Breathing in the Angel's pleasant scent, Lumine nuzzled the crook of her neck a couple of times.
Gabrielina said nothing more, and naturally, neither did Lumine. Perhaps simply sharing these worries with her in the still of the night had already exhausted all her courage.
Gradually, Lumine's breathing grew steady.
She fell quietly asleep in Gabrielina's arms.
Before you continue