Chapter 246
"…Ines?"
The voice asking that from in front sounded uncertain, as if the very idea made no sense. Ines thought the way his back stiffened with tension was a little cute. Was he that startled? Understandable—it was a big present he hadn't expected…
She had no trouble declaring herself, to Cárcel Escalante, as that "big present." Propping her chin on his solid back, she looked up at his stiff nape.
Right. He must be rather overwhelmed.
Thinking so, she found it strange how just looking at the back of his head put her at ease. If his sudden appearance at the Mendoza soirée had barely let her breathe, then here, holding her in the very heart of Calstera, he finally made her feel she had returned to Calstera.
As if she hadn't heard the surf until she embraced him, the sound of waves beneath the cliffs suddenly rushed to her ears. Her whole body was unusually sensitive. She felt ridiculous… yet she couldn't deny it.
Only then did Ines realize that ever since coming here she had been awake only grudgingly—just keeping herself upright, wishing only that the person she was waiting for would appear on the road. Praying as if resenting God… Morning after morning she would open her eyes and pray, then shove food into her mouth just so she wouldn't starve, and answer people because she had no choice—days that felt like dozens of days.
To think she was only waking up now. She quietly pressed her forehead to his back. From his morning coat drifted a faint smell of wind and dust—the scent of the long road and toil he had come by.
Cárcel clasped her hands tight over his abdomen.
"…How are you even here right now? I was about to finish a few things and head to Mendoza…"
"You're always swamped with the military's business, and I've only just become free in Mendoza."
"…"
"So the one who's free came to see you, Cárcel."
She felt him hold his breath for a long time and then release it in one deep exhale. Cárcel's hands holding hers were trembling bit by bit.
The thought—does he like me so much he can't even bring himself to turn, his hands trembling from being overwhelmed?—spilled out as a lump of conceited sighing.
When in truth she was the one who had stood here waiting for him for days on end.
I dreamed a damnably long dream of you not coming. A tediously long, filthy unbreaking nightmare… She swallowed the words she couldn't bring herself to babble. The end of a nightmare is always bad, but Cárcel Escalante had come back here.
So it was all right. It hadn't been a nightmare to begin with.
Ines patiently waited while he kissed her hands for a very long time. It was a devout, persistent kiss, as if hoping that the mere touch of lips to skin would leave a mark.
And at the end of the kiss a short prayer remained. Each time Cárcel recited a prayer with his lips still on her skin, his breath and the soundless prayer between those moving lips seeped into her.
Ines waited only for the prayer to end; when the shape of his mouth reached the prayer's closing, she turned him around on impulse.
To say she turned him was one thing; in truth it was closer to stepping around to stand before him—but Ines was too absorbed in looking at him to care.
Cárcel, strangely, wore a baffled expression—though just a moment ago he had held someone's hands as if they were the world's treasure and chanted a prayer…
"…Why is that face of yours like that?"
Ines, disappointed without meaning to be, asked bluntly. Then, catching on something higher up in her gaze, she knit her brows.
"Ines."
He seemed about to say something, but as if not hearing him, Ines hurriedly reached out and swept back the hair covering Cárcel's forehead. The bandage that had shown in glimpses between the strands was laid bare.
Ines's face went chalk white in an instant.
"…What is this."
"Ines."
"Why is your head hurt?"
"It's nothing."
"How did this happen. Why…"
"By accident."
"What kind of mistake—and how—would you have to make to get hurt like this? That makes no sense. You would never…"
"Ines. It isn't that bad a wound."
"Who did this?"
"It's fine."
"I'm asking who did this!"
As Cárcel pulled her into his arms, her rage-laced scream was trapped wholly in his chest. If he had only answered who, she looked ready to grab a gun and run to kill them on the spot—but inside the strength of his arms she could do no more than stamp her angry feet.
Then he held her even deeper, and even stamping became impossible; at some point she was standing only on her toes—drawn in to Cárcel with not the slightest gap between them.
"Ines. I'm fine."
"…"
"Truly, I'm fine."
If he were truly fine, there would be no need to say he was fine several times. Doesn't he know that? Ines thought crookedly.
Yet strangely, bound up in his arms and listening to that gentle, soothing voice, the extremity of her mood eased a little.
With her face buried in his chest, Ines muttered,
"…I get it, so let go."
"Just a little."
"I get it, so let go first and talk. Let me see the wound…"
"Just a little more."
What he wanted was never just a little, so in the end she remained stiflingly held for quite a while.
She had thought, as usual, that pesky lips would land from her crown to her ear to all over her face, as if he couldn't stand how lovable she was—but Cárcel only held her still, as if it didn't feel real.
Only hugging her tight, burying his face over her hair, drawing deep breaths in and out…
His arms around her were even desperate; there was no resisting that.
"…I should have washed first."
"Why."
"I came running a long way and I'm dirty… what if I dirty you too."
"Then we can just wash together."
At Ines's offhand remark, she felt the body holding her go rigid at once. By now she had passed the realm of anxiety and anger and could assess his reactions very coolly.
Yes, this is strange. Something's off…
The moment he awkwardly set her down, Ines seized his jaw. As their eyes met, his blue eyes subtly slid past her gaze.
She could understand his dislike of showing a wound. Thinking of that last dawn in Mendoza, when even in the dim light Cárcel had desperately tried to distract her to hide a gunshot wound…
Yes. He had that hopelessly stubborn nature, as if showing a wound would be a catastrophe.
There must still be a few scars left on that boy's body…
Recalling Isabella's words, Ines gazed at him as he avoided her eyes.
Perhaps it was a habit from childhood? The habit of trying in any way not to show his mother he had been abused… Even the supposition made somewhere in her chest ache.
Otherwise he would hardly refuse the chance to bathe with her. They had almost never only bathed, purely, in the tub.
Come to think of it, even in Mendoza, with the bath right there, he'd talked nonsense about not being able to wash and thus not being able to mingle bodies… all to keep the gunshot from being noticed.
Considering how, once prodded, he had behaved as if to devour her, this too should have been one of Cárcel Escalante's meaningless resistances. Such restraint could simply be broken.
But even recalling the Mendoza case, something still didn't sit right. At the very least, he had never excused himself so awkwardly.
Ines asked with a somewhat chilly smile.
"Besides the gunshot to your side, is there something else you're hiding?"
"…So in the end your Balan tattled."
Cárcel broke the silence and pronounced it at once, as if he had finally located someone more blameworthy than himself.
But since it would trouble her if he stopped trusting Raul, Ines shook her head and vouched for Raul's credit.
"Rest easy. Raul is still your loyal little rat."
Still gripping his jaw, turning his face here and there to inspect him sternly, Ines continued in a casual tone.
"I saw in Mendoza and knew at once. You were flailing like someone who'd swallowed something wrong, so out of pity I let it slide once."
"…"
"So, Raul Balan knew everything and I didn't—is that it?"
A thin embarrassment spread over Cárcel's face that had seemed to be dodging her.
"You're both utterly outrageous."
"Sorry. A gunshot wound… it's not as serious as you say. It only grazed me."
"If it hadn't grazed you, it would have pierced through. Where did you get that done to you?"
"In the military. It was an accident."
Ines watched Cárcel's unconcerned face circle around the answer she plainly knew. Seeing how smoothly he let this pass, hiding the injury wasn't the only problem.
"I want to see the wound. I should have Captain Maso called."
"The treatment is already all done."
"…Just how hideous is the wound that you're like this?"
"After we wash first."
"Fine. First, let's go wash together."
As expected, she would have to strip him first and see the whole of it.