Crown of Thorns

I turned my eyes to the seat nestled in the dark. It was a place that had been prepared in advance. But the boy didn’t reveal his curiosity towards it as if he hadn’t yet found it lying on the floor. Just as I was opening his mouth, the boy asked the question first.

“Are you really trying to teach me something?”

I looked at the boy, wondering what he meant. Didn’t he come here because I offered to teach him? Didn’t he say he would be taught?

The boy hesitated for a moment and continued to speak, perhaps noticing my wonder.

“No, I… I thought you were just bored.”

“What?”

“I thought you wouldn’t teach me because there was nothing in it for you. I thought that you were just a little interested in the boy that appeared when you were bored and decided to tease and harass him a little to alleviate your boredom…”

I was speechless and slammed my mouth into a thin line. Surely there was logic behind the boy’s thinking. It was the reasonable line of thought when facing a witch. It was strange to do such useless things when you might be in danger. I was portrayed as an evil witch who feasted off people’s misery in the outside world after all.

When I understood the reasoning behind the boy’s words, another question arose this time. Doesn’t that mean he came here thinking I might hurt him?

“You came here thinking you might be hurt by me? Why?”

The boy kept his mouth shut as if it were difficult for him to say, and then he grudgingly continued.

“You were so different from the witch I imagined so I thought you might be honest.”

“Then what if I were really a bad witch?”

Throughout the conversation, it occurred to me that it wasn’t a story that a warrior and a witch can talk about. Isn’t it more like the image of a mother who teaches her child who acted unreasonably? The warrior is still very young, so I can’t help it. The innocent and honest boy makes me reveal my inner feelings. He’s a boy with a really strange ability.

The boy buried his head with his folded arms, perhaps in shame. He said, “I came here, but I don’t know what I was thinking when I did.” He must have been worried. No matter how strong he wanted to be and how much he wanted to be recognized by people, I was not an easy person to trust. Indeed, it would have been more painful and tormenting than it is now. He might have simply nodded his head, even to a demon rather than a witch, but he could never have simply went to look for them.

He looks up at me and opens his mouth, seemingly having organized his thoughts. Those red eyes are so clear and clean that I think I can trust whatever he says.

“Well, you don’t want to kill me, do you?”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“If you had intended to kill me, you would have done it at once.

I didn’t answer. The boy’s words continued.

“You want something from me, don’t you? I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what you can gain from helping me. you won’t tell me even if I ask. You’re helping me because it’s not a bad deal for you.”

Oh, was it? The boy seems to think he’s making a deal with me. I guess he thought I had something to gain from making him strong and saving the world. Yeah, I’d rather have him think so.

I nodded. But the boy hesitated as if he had something more to say. Soon his mouth opened and the boy’s next words embarrassed me beyond measure.

“And you’re not at all like what I’ve been hearing about you. You feel more comfortable than the people I live with. I think you’re nice. So I thought it would be okay to believe in you.”

“Different, you say?”

The boy nodded his head.

“You listen to me, you claim to be a warrior… Yet you don’t even regard me, a witch, with caution.”

The boy combed his hair and continued to talk.

“I’m strange, too, aren’t I? My eyes and hair.”

“No, they’re beautiful.”

The boy’s eyes flashed an unbelieving light at my words.

They’re weird? They are not. The boy’s hair and eyes are beautiful. They were more brilliant than any other color I had ever seen. He was blessed by the sun. It was strange that people thought him strange, not the other way around.

“They are like the white snow and the red sun.”

The boy looked down at the floor, avoiding my gaze, and rubbed his face with his hands. he rubbed it so hard that his cheeks were squashed around. His eyebrows were also heavily knotted together. I was wondering if he was crying, but he wasn’t. There was still no change in his expression, but only his red cheeks and ears were betraying his feelings of embarrassment. He didn’t seem to know how to respond to compliments.

I had to be cursed to see such beautiful colors, I felt pity for the people who could not see the beauty in them. Their ignorance of the sun and the sunshine that illuminated the world was pitiful. They were living like that, blindfolded in both their eyes and ears, not seeing only what they want to see all the time.

“But what is snow?”

The boy’s question took my eyes off his white hair. It was as white and clean as the boy’s hair. I had only seen it once before when I was very young, but I was fascinated by its mystery. It became strongly imprinted in my mind so as it would not to be forgotten forever.

“You’ve never seen it before I guess.”

The boy nodded his head.

“White, clean and cold. When it reaches body temperature, it melts away. Just like a fantasy. It covers the dirt of the world with its own body and becomes water that melts and awakens life.”

“There’s such a thing?”

The boy asked back in wonder. The two eyes first bore the light. The red jewels within the light were very fascinating. It made me want to have them. But they were like the sun that I couldn’t bear.

The boy with his emotions on his face was so cute that I answered without realizing it.

“I’ll show you later. Snow that looks just like your hair.”

The boy nodded his head in full display of his feelings of joy and I immediately regretted it. What courage did I have to make such a promise to go out of the tower to see snow? But as I looked at the hair of the boy, which was parting in front of his eyes, I also wanted to see the snow that existed only in my memory.

Yeah, I can just show him. It’s not difficult. I won’t ever miss it again, so it’s not a bad idea to go see it for the last time.

I dragged my hair away from my face with my thumb and index finger and stared at the boy struggling to take a good look. The red irises were trying to see the hair close by. His eyebrows were knit together, but his expression was bright.

I thought it might be fun to see snow with this boy.

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