LIGHT NOVEL
LIGHT NOVEL
— Tisli’s perspective —
After we left the armor at the government office, we decided to stroll around the city in search of a tool shop that handled camping gear.
And parking the Magic Vehicle beside a carriage hitching spot, I said to Alde,
“Now then, Alde. While we stroll the city, let’s have a contest.”
When I said that, Alde gave a blank look and said,
“A contest… of what?”
“Have you already forgotten?!”
Earlier, when I’d shown consideration to the official, Alde had teased me. Unless I get my payback, my temper will never settle!
And yet Alde has already forgotten it completely! Suspecting he might be amnesiac, I explained.
“Just because I didn’t swear the official to silence, you teased me, calling me ‘unexpectedly kind’ and ‘super kind’!”
“Ah… you’re still holding a grudge over that?”
“What do you mean, ‘that’?!”
“Teasing, or rather… well, I did put a bit of that nuance in, but basically I meant it as praise.”
“In that case, Alde, you’d do well to learn how to praise people!”
“All right, all right… but what kind of contest are we even having?”
Asked that by Alde, I thought for a moment.
“Hmm… let’s see. A contest that shows how much of a genius I am would be good, so how about a debate on magic theory—”
“No, no, hold on. That wouldn’t even be a contest. I’ve no way of knowing anything about magic theory.”
“Then I’ll make it a contest of your choosing. Whatever the contest, there’s no way I’d lose.”
“Even so…”
Alde, with a troubled face, scratched his cheek and walked the street groaning “Hmm…” for a while.
We were now walking the main street, and this city, developed as a hub of transport, had all sorts of people coming and going. Bustling merchants, parents with children, elderly couples, even young couples. Such varied traffic is proof of prosperity, you might say.
Alde, who’d been gazing at that scene, seemed to finally hit on the contest’s content.
“All right. Then let’s have a teasing contest.”
“A teasing contest?”
Not understanding what Alde meant, I tilted my head, and Alde continued his explanation.
“I mean, what you didn’t like was being teased, right?”
“That’s so, but…”
“Then for payback, you just tease me. And if I get embarrassed or frustrated, you win.”
“Hmm… I see.”
True, as a contest and as payback, it’s not bad.
And if Alde went red in the face or stamped his feet, that would be most gratifying.
“Understood. I accept that contest!”
“All right. Then for the time limit… let’s see… how about until we’ve bought all the camping gear?”
“Very well! I’ll have you whimpering this very instant!”
And so our contest began.
* * *
Though a strange contest called a teasing contest had begun… honestly, I was struggling to find an opening.
“Heh. You don’t even know this, Alde? This is called a tarp; it serves in place of a sunshade or rain cover. It can cover a wider area than a tent, so you can even cook beneath it.”
“Huh, I see. Didn’t know that.”
“Hmph, you really are ignorant, Alde.”
“Well, commoners mostly have no money, so they don’t buy tools like this.”
“Truly, the poor are pitiable.”
“Even so, everyone lives modestly and does their best.”
“How utterly wretched…………”
…………Somehow, with conversation in this direction, aren’t I just becoming an unpleasant person?
So I cleared my throat and tried to correct course.
“No… it’s not that commoners or the common folk are the problem—it’s that you, Alde, personally, are poor, ignorant, lacking in delicacy, and have a foolish face.”
“Yeah, that’s not teasing anymore, that’s just insults.”
“Mm… well, that may be so, but…”
True, the things Alde says that usually irk me aren’t like this. It’s not as if Alde is insulting me…
As I pondered, Alde said,
“As I thought, teasing’s beyond Tisli, isn’t it?”
“Th-there’s no such thing! Nothing is beyond a super-genius beauty like—”
“But still, Tisli’s a good sort at heart.”
“Wha…?!”
Told for the first time ever that I was a good sort at heart, I felt my cheeks grow hot in spite of myself.
Then Alde grinned.
“Teasing is done like just now.”
“Wha-wha…?!”
“Ah, but the good-sort-at-heart part is also my honest opinion, you know?”
In sheer surprise and frustration, as I was left unable to get out a second word, Alde said with a smug look,
“In other words. You don’t just hurl insults—you praise the other person, knock them down, then lift them up again; that’s what skilled teasing is.”
“In that case, the fact that you can do that naturally means your character is rotten!”
“Yeah, yeah. By the way, that line is also just an insult, you know?”
H-honestly, Alde…! In that case, there’s no way I can tease Alde, who has no good points to begin with!
So I said,
“Enough of this—tell me what would embarrass you!”
“No… that wouldn’t make it a contest, would it?”
“Just do it!”
“Haa, no help for it… then, something like that, maybe.”
And Alde pointed at a couple walking diagonally ahead of us.
“If you did what that girl over there is doing, Tisli, I might get embarrassed too.”
Told that, when I looked at the girl, still only about thirteen or fourteen…
She, right in the middle of the thoroughfare, had her arm linked with the boy’s, her head resting on his shoulder, clinging to him heedless of how hard it plainly made walking.
What’s more, that girl just touched her lips to the boy’s cheek, you know?!
“Th-there’s no way I could do that?!”
When I shouted in spite of myself, Alde nodded grandly.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it. Have someone flirt that blatantly at me and even I’d be embarrassed.”
“Mm…!”
True, if I’d be embarrassed, then Alde too would be quite embarrassed…
But even so, to commit such an utterly shameless act in public view… there’s no way I could…!
But if it’s to tease Alde…!!
And so, biting down hard on my back teeth, I reached out toward Alde’s arm! At that, Alde abruptly went wide-eyed!
“Eh?! Tisli, don’t tell me you—!”
“…………!”
And so I—
I—!
“…Hey, Tisli?”
“H-how’s that! Now you’re embarrassed too, aren’t you?!”
I had pinched the cuff of Alde’s sleeve.
But it was so embarrassing that both my eyes had snapped shut, too.
To me, my vision sealed off, Alde spoke.
“No, I’m not embarrassed in the slightest, though?”
“Why not?!”
When I opened my eyes in spite of myself, sure enough, Alde’s foolish face, far from flushing, had gone deadpan.
“You teased me again, didn’t you?!”
“No, that wasn’t my intent, but…”
Alde said with a troubled face.
“Told to be embarrassed when we’re not even holding hands…”
“Hold hands?! In public?!”
“Well, yeah? If you want to embarrass me, you’d have to at least do that… though whether holding hands would embarrass me is another matter.”
Told that, I stared hard at Alde’s palm.
In a place this crowded, when we’re not even parent and child, to hold hands…
It would be just like Alde and I are close, wouldn’t it?!
“Of course I can’t!”
“No, I’m not saying go so far as to force yourself to hold hands, but…”
“I’d sooner hold hands with a monkey than with Alde!”
“Oh, okay…”
“I could bear it better with Father!”
“Y-yeah…”
“Or with someone of my own sex—Rahful, say, is far more conceivable!”
“O-okay, I get it…”
“To begin with, for a man and woman to touch skin in broad daylight is what’s wrong! Those people walking ahead of me must possess no sense of shame what—oh? Alde?”
When I suddenly noticed, Alde was, for some reason, teary-eyed.
“What in the world’s the matt—ah! That line of mine just now was teasing, wasn’t it?! That’s why Alde—”
“That was a flawless, complete insult!!”
Alde managed the dexterous feat of retorting while laughing through teary eyes, but never mind that.
I’d managed to defeat Alde, after all.
“Well, under the circumstances, even if it’s an insult, I don’t mind.”
“That’s not the point of the contest?!”
“It’s fine. The point may differ, but I accomplished the goal.”
“I take it back! You really are rotten at the core!”
“Heh? Go on, howl your sour grapes all you like.”
As I thought, insults work better on Alde than teasing.
If Alde teases me from now on, I resolved, I’ll counterattack with abuse.
(And that’s that.)
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