Chapter 6

Hazel also turned her gaze to the window on her side. Without a hat to hide her face now, it seemed better at least to show the driver her profile.

At a speed incomparable to riding in a carriage, rows of roadside trees and brightly lit apartment houses swept past. The taxi, passing brightly lit buildings and the riverside, stopped in front of a stylish building.

“We’re here, Sir.”

“Thank you.”

Kyle finished paying and got out. Hazel hesitated, then got out after him.

The house she had naturally assumed would be a detached home was in fact a four-story apartment building.

Kyle, taking out a key and opening the shared entrance, signaled with his eyes for her to come in. Hazel silently followed him inside. The fact that the two of them were not the only people in this building gave her a small sense of relief.

His home was on the second floor. Out of the dangling ring of keys, Kyle easily found the key to his apartment. Hazel was watching the doorknob turn with a click when she suddenly came to her senses.

“……And your mother?”

“She passed away.”

“……Ah.”

She had not known. To the woman standing there at a loss for words, Kyle answered as if it were nothing.

“You don’t have to make that face. It’s already been years.”

“I’m sorry. If I had known, I would have at least gotten in touch……”

“I didn’t tell you because I figured you’d do that. Sit comfortably. Want some tea?”

He creaked as he walked over to some chair at random, then stopped with a squeak.

Something is strange.

Unable to hide her flustered expression, Hazel mumbled,

“Kyle, I said I would treat you.”

“If people hear that I made an old friend I reunited with, now that she’s become a lady, pay for me, they’ll say I’m no gentleman. Make yourself comfortable.”

“You even paid for the taxi……”

“You can pay for the taxi back. There, problem solved.”

Something was going strangely, and very strangely at that!

It was bad enough that she had followed him here in the middle of the night, but now she was just sitting there being no help at all. She was inconvenience itself. And she tended to be absolutely terrible at enduring the fact that she herself had become dead weight.

Sitting there in deep discomfort, Hazel finally could not bear the burden and stood up. Kyle turned around with the kettle in his hand. Hazel was standing stiffly at attention with one arm stretched out at an odd angle.

“I told you to sit.”

“I can’t. I feel too uneasy. I’ll at least stand.”

“……Do what you want. If you insist, then look around the place or something. Though there isn’t much to see.”

Then, little by little, the shadow moved away. Staring at the kettle, Kyle laughed to himself.

Even if she wandered like that, she would never dare open any of the doors. Hazel Bennett was the sort of person who was scrupulously polite and kept her distance.

As expected, it had not even been a full minute before footsteps came close again. Staring at the kettle, which still had a long way to go before the water boiled, Kyle asked,

“You’ve already finished looking around?”

“Yeah. Do you live alone?”

“If you mean this apartment, yes.”

“……”

“I have a secretary, a driver, and Madame Marsha, who takes care of the cleaning. They all live in the same building.”

“Ah.”

Alice’s house was always bustling with servants. Unlike Hazel’s prejudice, that the rich were naturally all like that, Kyle’s house was strangely devoid of people.

As if reading her mind, Kyle answered,

“I prefer being alone. If it’s just little things, I can do them myself. The elders all nag me endlessly, saying it’s because I haven’t married.”

“The elders?”

“Upper-class ladies and their husbands who love meddling in other people’s business, or matchmakers. That’s why I like Earl Nett. He is astonishingly uninterested in me.”

As he answered her, Kyle lifted the kettle lid and checked the state of the tea water. Judging by the amount of steam rising, it seemed to have just started boiling.

Hazel sat awkwardly on the sofa and curled her hands into fists. Kyle’s house was full of expensive things like a gramophone, a telephone, and a clock. She was careful because she feared that if she moved carelessly, she might accidentally break something.

Just then Kyle held out a tray.

“Here. Be careful, it’s hot.”

“Thank you.”

He did not sit down right away. After making sure Hazel had taken the teacup, he disappeared in the direction that seemed to be the kitchen.

Kyle came back with a clinking sound. Hazel recognized the bottle in his hand.

“That, is that liquor?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve become old enough to drink……”

“Exactly what year is your memory stuck in?”

His tone was one of bafflement. She realized her mistake.

Though she herself was two years younger than Kyle, she too had started drinking last year. She had simply been flustered because it was her first time seeing Kyle drink.

“Sorry.”

Apparently today was her day for apologizing……. Above the top of her lowered head came a lazy voice.

“Want some? Shall I give you some?”

“……No, tea is enough for me.”

“Good choice.”

Leaving behind that cryptic remark, Kyle went on to pour and drink at least two more glasses.

Hazel sipped at the now-cooling black tea and tried not to become conscious of the fact that she was in the house of a man living alone in the middle of the night.

But her eyes kept drifting toward the seat across from her. The open window and Kyle Strauss enjoying liquor suited each other absurdly well. Even the watch on his wrist seemed like part of him.

Loosening his tie, Kyle asked,

“Is everyone doing well?”

“Thanks to you. Father is healthy, and Brother is doing well too. More recently, I even got a nephew. He’s a boy.”

“He must be cute. Sally will make a good mother. As for Colin making a good father, well…… I doubt he’ll be able to come home often.”

“Exactly. Even when we tell him to leave the military, he doesn’t listen.”

Hazel gave a bitter smile. This whole situation felt like a dream. Reuniting with a friend from home she had thought she would never see again, coming to his house, sitting alone with him drinking tea and liquor, talking naturally about their families.

Quietly, Hazel asked,

“Have you ever run into Brother at the base?”

In truth, there was something else Hazel wanted to ask.

How was the life of the real ‘you.’

Not the meaningless printed words that explained his enlistment in a single line, announced his return in another, and in a somewhat longer paragraph scorned the source of the money he had earned during his military service, but what Kyle Strauss’s past five years had truly been like.

When had he cried, and when had he laughed, who had remembered his birthday, and how many friends had he made. Did he still have the habit of throwing plane tree fruit, and did he still like climbing trees.

But what actually came out of her mouth was only something meaningless.

“Brother is on Kartnia Island right now. I knew you had been there before too.”

“When I was in Kartnia, Colin wasn’t there. It’s not a place you stay long. It’s terrifyingly hot. Tell Colin to get out of there quickly.”

“……”

“So you even know that I was in Kartnia. You must have read the papers diligently.”

“Caught me.”

Hazel forced a smile. Once again she truly felt what kind of relationship had existed between them. A person who had only learned of the other’s whereabouts through the newspaper, and a person who was not even surprised that the other had received news of him through the newspaper.

On the other hand, Kyle did not ask where she had lived. It had to be one of two things. Either he was genuinely not curious about Hazel at all, or he was certain without even asking that she was still living in the old house in Sainsbury.

At the same time that she thought how completely opposite their lives had been, she praised herself for not asking how he had been. The things Hazel was curious about would, with high probability, have been trivial and insignificant to Kyle one after another. Her innocent questions would have meant nothing more and nothing less than how comfortably Hazel herself had lived all this time.

Just then Kyle changed the subject.

“How is Bukata, is it fun?”

“It’s a little noisy, but it’s fun.”

“What do you usually do to pass the time?”

“I go out sightseeing with Alice. Tomorrow, I heard there’s some kind of party.”

As she answered him, Hazel set down her watch beside the teacup. Kyle, who had been pouring himself a fresh glass, looked up.

Hazel smiled and patted down her skirt.

“Thank you for the tea. I should get going now. Could you tell me where I should go to catch a taxi?”

“If you go out the way we came in and walk five minutes to the left, you’ll reach a main road.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

He did not say he would take her. So she thought that was a relief.

* * *

It was Christmas Eve five years ago.

Mr. Bennett, looking up at the ceiling, wore a warm smile. After losing his wife, he had been depressed for a while, but only after his son married had he regained his spirits. The son and daughter-in-law who had refused the suggestion to live independently and settled under the same roof with him were a new source of vitality for him.

More than anything, he had benefited greatly from the pretty young lady his son had brought home.

Spotting his father looking up at the ceiling with a chipped coffee cup in hand, Colin grinned. He too had just dressed up to go out with Sally.