Danyu’s face, which had been bright with a welcoming smile as she came toward me, gradually stiffened. I could tell it was because she had seen the anger flickering in my eyes, but I could not get my expression under control. It was unlike me, given how practiced I was at pretending to be at ease.

“Are you very angry? It wasn’t on purpose. Something came up suddenly.”

Danyu had drawn right up in front of me and asked with concern. She kept shifting her eyes back and forth, unable to settle, and looked like a small prey animal. Watching her like that, the anger that had been surging to the point of bursting subsided as though it had never been there. That was not particularly surprising. When it came to anything involving her, I was always like this.

“What is this?”

I noticed a scrape on Danyu’s hand as she fussed helplessly at her skirt. I reached out and pulled her arm closer, and dried bloodstains came into view.

“It’s nothing. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Danyu pulled back in a fluster, but I tightened my grip and caught her retreating wrist. I shifted my gaze to her face and found similar scrapes there too. The room was dim, and I had not noticed the injuries from a distance. I looked her over in alarm from head to toe, and that was when I spotted soot smudged across her clothes in several places. Scrapes and soot. The source was not difficult to trace.

“So you were caught up in the plaza explosion after all.”

“How did you……”

Danyu’s eyes went wide with surprise. Her reaction told me she had not wanted anyone to know she had been caught up in the accident. The sight of it made my chest surge again after I had barely managed to calm it, but Danyu simply gave an unconcerned shrug.

“It’s just a few scratches.”

That casual attitude finally pushed my voice up.

“Are you certain that’s all you’ve hurt? If you’re injured, you should be resting and getting treated, not coming here. You may feel fine now, but how would you know if something is wrong later. Did you stop at the hospital? No, of course you didn’t. That much is obvious from the fact that nothing has been treated.”

I fired the words out in a rush and grabbed her by the shoulders. I was checking her over carefully for any injuries the dim light might have hidden when a very small voice came from just below my chin.

“Astaire. You’re very close right now.”

The moment those words reached my ears, the distance between us hit me all at once. The soft body beneath my fingertips and the skin brushing against my neck felt startlingly real.

“Ah. Forgive me.”

I let go and stepped back. With that distance restored, the awkwardness we had briefly forgotten came flooding back between us. Danyu had her flushed face bowed low, and I stood there blankly watching her. I could not begin to think of what to say. I was perfectly capable of conversation under normal circumstances, so why was it always so hard to find words when I stood in front of Danyu?

“Come with me.”

I shook my head at my own uselessness and took Danyu by the wrist. I had been prepared to drag her along if she refused, but thankfully Danyu mumbled a little without ever actually pulling her hand free. Even so, the awkwardness between us remained, and as we passed through the dark corridor, left the practice building, and made our way to the quieter research building beyond, the two of us walked in complete silence without exchanging a single word.

“Where is this?”

It was only when we finally stopped in front of a small door at the end of the research building corridor that Danyu asked in a small voice. She looked around with eyes full of curiosity, and a smile came to me without my trying.

“My office.”

I pushed the door open and guided Danyu inside. Until the previous year I had shared an office with several other professors, but the accumulated years of service had earned me a private office starting this year. It was still a little disorganized as a result, but I thought it was presentable enough to receive a visitor. Danyu hesitated a moment, looked the room over, then stepped inside with a small murmured apology.

“It’s still not quite in order. I’ve only been using it for a few months.”

I added the explanation quickly, feeling oddly self-conscious, but Danyu was too absorbed in examining the office to pay much attention. She looked over the sheet music scattered here and there and ran her fingers over the pen sitting on the desk, and watching her, I felt something strange stir in me. Has it always felt this ticklish to let someone into my space? A few students had visited the office for consultations before, but I had never felt this way.

I scratched my head at the odd feeling and closed the door, and the sound of it closing made Danyu startle and her shoulders jump. I was so surprised by that that my own eyes went wide, and Danyu gave an embarrassed laugh and looked away. The moment our eyes missed each other, the familiar awkwardness returned.

“Sit on the sofa for now.”

I forced a cheerful smile to break the heavy mood and pointed to the sofa in the corner. I had put it there for the occasional visitor, but it had seen so few guests that it had mostly served as a place for me to rest. I watched Danyu settle herself neatly on the sofa and shift her eyes around awkwardly, then walked to the desk. Opening the bottom drawer, I found an ointment and bandages among the unsorted papers. It was already too late to go to the hospital, so I intended to at least treat the visible injuries.

“Make sure you go to the hospital when it’s light out. Right now you’re probably still shaken from the accident and not fully aware of where it hurts.”

I picked up the ointment and bandages and stood in front of Danyu, and she looked at my hands with a puzzled expression. Her eyes said she was wondering why I kept such things in a drawer.

“I cut my hands on sheet music sometimes. I keep them on hand for that.”

It was an embarrassingly childish reason. I laughed at myself as I squeezed out the ointment, and a faint laugh escaped Danyu as well.

“You? You don’t seem like someone who would be that careless.”

“What kind of person do I seem like to you, Miss Danyu?”

I asked that and reached toward the most visible scrape on her cheek, and Danyu slowly lowered her eyes. The lashes that veiled her gray irises trembled lightly in the breath I let out as I leaned in to apply the ointment.

“The kind of adult I used to imagine. Composed, and at ease. I always wanted to be like that. In the end I never could be.”

Composed and at ease. My hand paused on its own. I hoped Danyu had not felt that brief hesitation, and moved my hand again.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. When I want something, I have to run straight at it or I can’t settle. If there’s a path, I follow it, and if there isn’t, I make one. It’s a very childish way to be, I know. I run looking only ahead, fall down sometimes, lose my direction sometimes, but I can’t stop. It always feels like if I just reach a little further, I’ll be able to touch it.”

“Aren’t you afraid? You could run that hard toward something and still end up with nothing.”

What came out was a question that had been circling inside me the whole time I had been watching her. The source of the courage she carried. I had always wondered about it.

“You’re right. Honestly, there are more times when I don’t get what I want than when I do. But what can I do? If I hadn’t run like this, I might not have gotten even the few things I managed to hold onto. It’s a kind of gamble. I don’t know whether it’ll come to me or not, but I run anyway. Because I want to place my hope on even a few percent chance. Foolish, isn’t it?”

With that last question, Danyu’s downward gaze lifted to meet my eyes. Seeing those gray eyes smiling at me with an openness that had forgotten the tension of a moment ago, I felt something twist inside me despite myself. The eyes that had been full of longing whenever they looked at Sio Lieselotte turned this guileless when they looked at me, as though they had never been any other way.

“You have quite an interesting idea of what adults are like, Miss Danyu.”

What irritated me most was that I could not blame anyone for this twisted feeling. The one who had made her see me as a composed and unhurried adult, who had made her feel I was a dependable grown man, was none other than myself. How was I supposed to bring down the wall that had been built so solidly over all this time?

“Adults aren’t composed and at ease. They’re simply full of fear. They’ve tasted too much failure in the course of living, and they’re afraid to go through it again. On top of that, adults have far more at stake in any gamble than children do. The reputation and wealth accumulated over a lifetime, the position earned through years of effort, one wrong step and it all disappears in an instant. How many people would be willing to risk all of that for a few percent chance?”