The Snowman In The Back Alley

“Zeroad, Kairas, make sure you don’t behave rudely toward the other nobles. Nova, all you need to do is greet them. Don’t do anything else.”

Father had never expected anything from me.

“Lucky you, Nova. You get to take it easy. In exchange, spar with me when we get back. I’ve been wanting something to vent my frustration on.”

My eldest brother hated me for being weak.

“…………”

My second brother did not even bother speaking to someone as worthless as me.

I had been born into a prestigious noble family, yet possessed no talent whatsoever.

Being around my family made that painfully clear to me.

Even now, we had come to the royal capital, but unlike my brothers, who were expected to accomplish great things by Father and the other adults, no one expected anything from me at all. Being in that place was unbearably painful.

So I ran away.

Just like when I shut myself away in my room at the estate.

Just like when I claimed I was going into town for a change of pace, I fled.

It was the season when snow had begun to fall lightly. The royal capital at night was chilly enough to make both my body and my heart tremble.

I had run as though escaping from my family, but soon realized there was no need and slowed down.

After all, there was no way any of my family would come after me.

I had not expected them to, but seeing that expectation become reality still hurt.

With my spirits sinking, I stepped into a back alley.

I could not tell whether the things belonged to one of the shops, but various objects had been carelessly piled around.

And there, a little snowman was trembling, looking as though it might collapse at any moment.

The snowman that greeted me almost immediately after I wandered into the deserted backstreet was leaning against a wall, its face buried as though it were crying.

“What are you doing in a place like this?”

Maybe it was because there was no one here except me and the snowman, but the moment I saw it, I found myself speaking to it.

The snowman twitched in response to my voice, then slowly raised its head.

Along with the snow clinging to its hood, strands of black hair reminiscent of the night sky slipped down.

A girl around my age had been crying, her eyes swollen.

She looked up at me through tear-filled eyes.

Her gray eyes gleamed beautifully amid the falling snow.

“………………”

I sensed something unusual about the snowman—about the girl—and sat down beside her without even asking permission.

I had nowhere else to go, and there was no family coming to look for me.

So I supposed this place suited me just fine.

Even after I sat beside her, she said nothing, just like the silent snowman she resembled.

“You don’t want to go home?”

“…………”

She gave a single small nod.

“I don’t want to go home either. Everyone says I’m a failure.”

“…A failure?”

The first time I heard her voice, it sounded as delicate as the chime of a bell.

“Yeah… My family’s pretty strict. But I can’t do anything properly, so everyone’s given up on me.”

“…Me too… I’m the same.”

When I turned my head, she was looking at me.

Her gray eyes stared directly into mine, and I could see my own reflection within them.

A miserable boy who did not want to go home was reflected in the eyes of a girl wearing the same expression.

“I can’t control my mana at all… Either I can’t use it whatsoever, or if I do manage to use it, it goes out of control. So my family told me not to do anything anymore…”

“I see… So that’s what happened.”

I thought we were the same.

I was the only one in my family completely unable to use Haki, the power unique to our bloodline, and had been judged to have no future. She had been abandoned by her family because she could not control her mana.

“We really are… the same.”

“…Yeah… we are.”

I had thought I carried a pain that no one else could ever understand, so meeting someone suffering in the same way made me happy.

She must have felt the same, because she answered me with a smile.

It was weak and awkward, but it was still a smile.

I began telling the snowman—not the snowman anymore, but the girl toward whom I was beginning to feel a sense of kinship—about myself, little by little.

For this moment, I wanted her, and only her, to hear everything.

“Why is it like this? I try so hard, but I still can’t do anything. I keep thinking, ‘Someday I’ll be able to!’ but nothing ever works… and yet my brothers can do it so easily…”

“Yeah… My older sisters can do anything, and even my little sister can do it, but I’m the only one… I really tried, you know? Again and again, I practiced desperately so it wouldn’t go out of control… I woke up earlier than anyone and went to bed later than anyone… but even then…”

As a child, I had no idea what I was supposed to do for the dejected girl, so I could not do anything at all.

“Ugh… ah…”

Suddenly, she wrapped her right hand around her left fist and groaned in pain, as though desperately trying to suppress something.

But whatever it was seemed difficult to contain, and her face twisted in agony.

When I leaned closer to look, I saw that even her forehead was covered in sweat.

“H-Hey… are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine… This… always happens…”

I realized this must have been the mana running wild that she had spoken about, but at the time, I had no idea what I could possibly do.

Even so, I could not simply sit there and watch, so I moved in front of her and took her hand between both of mine.

I had no plan.

I simply acted on impulse and shouted the first words that crossed my mind.

Words my kind mother, who had already passed away, had said to me only a handful of times long ago.

“Stop that!”

Looking back, I really had been a child.

I did nothing to the mana raging inside her. All I could do was scold it with words.

There was no reason speaking to mana like that should have accomplished anything.

And yet, a miracle happened that day. The pain slowly faded from her expression.

The cold sweat on her forehead disappeared, and the eyelids she had squeezed tightly shut slowly opened.

For the first time, we looked directly into each other’s eyes from so close.

Those gray eyes, which had earlier reflected a pathetic boy who could neither earn anyone’s approval nor find anyone who understood him, now seemed to shine before me.

—Beautiful.

I still remembered thinking that very clearly.

The startled expression on her face remained vividly etched in my memory as well.

“Th-Thank you…”

“Are you really okay? Does anything still hurt?”

“Y-Yeah, I’m really okay… It’s like it never happened.”

I released the girl’s hands after she said that with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and a little embarrassment, then breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed we had at least avoided the worst possible outcome.

“I see. Then I’m glad. I guess it wasn’t too bad of an episode.”

“Y-Yeah… I guess…”

I smiled as I said it, but the girl still looked unconvinced. Just as I was about to ask her why—

“Nova-sama!”

The call announcing that my time was up reached my ears.

“Crap! It’s Tanya! Sorry, I’ve gotta go!”

If she caught me, she would drag me back to my family.

I hated that thought. I wanted to stay away just a little longer, so I hurriedly stood up.

I think part of me also feared that staying there would cause trouble for the girl.

But as I was about to run off, she grabbed my hand tightly.

“Wait!”

The force of her grip nearly dislocated my arm, and I turned around with a strangled “Gweh!”

I had been about to complain, but the moment I saw her looking up at me, the words died in my throat.

“Your name… is Nova?”

“Y-Yeah… That’s right. What about you?”

“I’m Shia.”

“I see… I’m glad we managed to stop your mana from going out of control somehow. Anyway, I’m in a hurry! Sorry!”

“Ah!”

The instant her grip loosened, I pulled my arm free and started running deeper into the back alley.

By then, escaping from Tanya was the only thing on my mind.

“Nova-kun! Thank you!”

The girl stood up and called out her thanks.

I did not really understand what she was thanking me so earnestly for, but I turned around.

“Yeah! See you again!”

I said that and waved.

Even though we had only met by chance in a city I happened to be visiting, with no guarantee there would ever be a next time.

Even now, I remember his back as he ran away like a startled rabbit.

I can still recall every detail vividly.

In the snow-covered royal capital, I watched a boy named Nova disappear into the distance.

After he was gone, I stared at my palm and noticed that something had changed.

No, at the time I did not understand that it was truly a change. It was simply a strange feeling.

“Nova…kun…”

Over the years that followed, until I became an adult, I gradually came to understand what had happened to me that day, and my feelings of love for him only continued to grow stronger.

But everything began at that moment.

From that day onward, his existence was carved into the heart that had once held no one.

So deeply, so overwhelmingly, that there was scarcely room for anything else.