Greeting

Miryeong looked at Bido, then slowly opened her mouth.

“Bido. Today, go around on your own for a bit.”

“…Pardon? On my own?”

When Bido asked back, looking puzzled,

Raen, who was beside her, immediately cut in.

“Why Bido alone? I’m going to stay with Bido too.”

Miryeong gave a small laugh.

“Raen. You help me here today.”

Then she looked at Bido again.

“This city is where you grew up, isn’t it?

“You’ve only just come back, and you still haven’t even properly greeted everyone, have you?”

Bido let out a small “Ah…” and looked at Miryeong.

Miryeong continued.

“You probably couldn’t say anything properly when you left the first time, either. This time, go and do that.”

She did not wait any longer.

“Now, Raen. Hurry over.”

Without even waiting for Bido’s answer,

Miryeong took Raen’s hand as she looked back at Bido and walked deeper into the protected area.

Left alone, Bido stared after them for a long while.

‘Greetings…’

Bido left the protected area and walked slowly.

This vicinity was still unfamiliar to her as well.

But after passing through a few alleys, familiar streets and corners gradually began to appear.

Faces she had grown accustomed to seeing as she came and went entered her view one by one.

Then someone cleaning in front of a shop stopped in his tracks.

“Uh… aren’t you Bido?”

Bido immediately bowed at the waist.

“Ah… hello, Mister Bel.”

Bel brushed the dust from his clothes and looked at Bido.

“Haven’t seen you for a while. Have you been well?”

Bido hesitated for a moment, then spoke carefully.

“Ah… I had somewhere I had to go in a hurry.”

Then she added with a small smile,

“This time, I think I’ll be gone even longer.”

Bel smiled faintly.

“Is that so. Take care of yourself while you’re gone. Wait just a moment.”

He propped the broom to one side and went into the shop.

A little while later, he came back out holding something wrapped in cloth.

“Here.”

Bido received it with both hands.

As soon as it touched her hands, a warm heat and a savory aroma reached her.

“I baked it this morning. You liked this bread, didn’t you?”

Bido lowered her head.

“Thank you, Mister Bel…”

Bel smiled and waved his hand dismissively.

“Anyway, go and come back in good health, Bido.”

“See you again.”

After saying that, he went back into the shop.

Bido quietly felt the lingering warmth in her hands.

Bido began walking again.

Several familiar faces recognized her and briefly asked after her.

Each time, Bido returned their greetings softly.

When she reached the main road, two guards checked Bido’s identity plaque and the lead seal on the sword slung across her back.

It had once been a road she could simply pass through,

but now it had become a road where even her name, status, and sword had to be checked.

The warmth of the bread Bel had given her still remained in her hands,

and the familiar voices of people were still scattered along the street.

At that moment,

“Bido!”

A familiar voice came from behind her.

When Bido turned around, Noel was running toward her, panting for breath.

“Hah, hah… You weren’t home, so… I was looking around nearby, and then I saw you…”

Bido looked at him, a little surprised.

“Ah… Noel. Were you looking for me?”

Noel’s face instantly turned red.

He looked away for a moment and cleared his throat for no reason.

“N-no… not exactly.”

Then he hurriedly continued.

“Um, do you want to go ‘there’?”

“There?”

Noel nodded.

“Yeah. You know, the place we always used to go.”

Bido’s eyes widened slightly.

“Ah…”

Her expression softened a little, as if she had remembered.

“Ah, there.”

Then she smiled very faintly.

“All right. I was told to go around on my own today anyway.”

At that, Noel let out a short breath, as if relieved for no reason.

Bido naturally moved to walk beside him,

and the two began walking side by side in a familiar direction.

Noel walked ahead into the alley.

It was a familiar path where, once upon a time, the two of them had run, each insisting they would get there first.

Walking it side by side again after so long felt welcome, yet a little awkward.

Noel was the first to speak.

“Mister Bel hasn’t changed.”

He looked down at the cloth-wrapped bread in Bido’s hands.

A little warmth still remained.

Bido smiled gently.

“Yeah. He gave me this as soon as he saw me.”

Noel gave a small sidelong smile too.

“You liked that bread, didn’t you? Even back then, whenever a fresh batch came out, you’d wait and buy some.”

Bido smiled wider.

“There was one time you bought it all before I could.”

Noel looked wronged.

“No, that wasn’t me buying it. Mister just threw in extra for me.”

“Liar.”

“I’m telling you, it’s true.”

The voice saying that sounded much like it had in the past.

Bido found that a little strange.

Until only a few days ago, she had been in the forest, gripping a sword, standing amid blood and screams.

Yet now she was walking the same path with Noel, like when they were children.

After passing a few more alleys, the road gradually led upward.

An old stone staircase appeared,

and an old, narrow resting place that led along the inside of the city wall came into view.

But to Bido and Noel, it had been a familiar place since childhood.

“It’s still the same.”

Noel said as he climbed the stairs first.

Bido slowly looked around.

The worn stone steps, the faint scratch marks left on the wall,

even the low stone railing that remained unchanged after several years.

This place truly had hardly changed at all.

“It really is.”

Bido answered very softly.

The two went to the spot where they always used to sit and sat down side by side.

Below, the rooftops of Arku overlapped little by little,

and from far away, the sounds of people closing up the market and coming and going drifted faintly up on the wind.

After sitting without saying anything for a while, Noel spoke.

“You were completely gone for a while.”

Bido looked down at the bread in her hands.

“…I was.”

Noel did not press further.

Instead, he muttered, needlessly pushing the dust on the steps with the tip of his foot.

“Everyone talked about you more than you’d think. Wondering where you’d gone, if you’d been hurt.”

Bido looked at Noel, a little surprised.

“About me?”

“Yeah. You’re more famous than you think.”

When Noel said it teasingly, Bido laughed softly.

“Oh, come on. What are you talking about?”

“It’s true. Mister Bel asked, and the old lady who lives at the end of that alley asked too. And I…”

Noel stopped there and cleared his throat for no reason.

“Ahem… anyway, that’s how it was.”

Instead of answering, Bido lowered her head a little.

While she had been gone,

the fact that someone had asked after her somehow lingered deep in her chest.

A little later, Bido carefully unwrapped the bread from the cloth.

Much of the warmth had faded, but a savory scent still spread from within.

“Let’s eat it together.”

Noel’s eyes widened slightly.

“Me too?”

“Yeah. I can’t finish it alone.”

Noel pretended to decline once more for no reason, then soon accepted a piece.

After taking a bite, Noel quietly exclaimed in admiration.

“Wow… it’s really been a long time.”

Bido also tore off a little piece of bread and put it in her mouth.

It was a taste she had liked since childhood.

It was nothing special, yet strangely, it made her think of this city.

As Noel chewed the bread, he asked,

“So… what was it like outside?”

Bido’s hand paused for a moment.

It was not something she was incapable of answering.

But for a moment, she was at a loss as to where and how to begin.

“It was… wider than I thought.”

In the end, that was what Bido said.

Noel burst out laughing.

“Well, that’s obvious.”

Bido laughed a little too.

“No, that’s not what I mean… There was so much more out there than what I knew.”

This time, Noel did not laugh and listened quietly.

Bido turned her gaze into the distance.

“At first, I was just scared, and everything was chaotic.”

“I kept walking, kept running away… and I saw people get hurt.”

Bido paused to steady her breath.

“But there were a lot of things I’d never seen before.”

“Things like the moon hanging over the forest at night, or the sound of the wind passing through the trees.”

“And… people are all different. There are frightening people, and there are good people.”

Noel nodded very slowly.

“You really went far away and came back.”

Those words did not mean that he understood everything Bido had gone through.

They were closer to meaning that, even knowing he could not understand,

he would listen to as much as he could hear from her here and now.

Seeing Noel like that, Bido felt her heart loosen a little for no reason.

“Yeah. Very far.”

The two tore off pieces of bread and ate as they talked for a while longer.

About who had found these stairs first when they were children,

about the time Noel had slipped on the stone steps and scraped his knee,

about the time Bido had secretly taken a piece of cold bread without Mister Bel knowing and gotten caught and scolded.

As their conversation continued, the awkwardness between them gradually faded.

Noel ate the last piece of bread and brushed the crumbs from his palm.

“Want to play a round for the first time in ages?”

Bido blinked.

“Of what?”

Noel picked up a few small pebbles that had fallen below the steps.

Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he jerked his chin toward a low gap in the inner wall of the city wall.

“Hitting that.”

Only then did Bido laugh, as if she had remembered.

“Ah… that.”

“Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget.”

Noel flicked a pebble from his fingertips.

The stone grazed the wall and bounced down.

“You missed.”

Bido said softly.

“Shut up.”

Noel laughed and picked out another stone.

Bido also picked up a smooth stone that had fallen nearby.

As she gauged its weight in her hand,

she recalled the memory of fiddling with stones in the same place with the same feeling long ago.

She lightly steadied her breath, then moved her wrist.

Tap.

The stone struck the gap in the wall precisely and bounced away.

Noel’s eyes widened.

“Hey.”

Bido herself looked a little surprised.

“…Huh?”

Noel let out a hollow laugh.

“Were you always that good?”

Bido looked down for a moment at the hand holding the stone.

In the past, she had only managed to hit it once or twice by luck,

but the sensation of that throw just now had been far too natural.

Strength had flowed into it too easily, and the target had appeared too clearly.

After that brief silence, Noel smiled first and said,

“Forget it. This is cheating. Again.”

At those words, Bido laughed as if a little relieved.

“How is that cheating?”

“I don’t know. Do it again.”

Noel laughed and picked up another stone.

The two threw stones again.

They laughed as they made meaningless wagers over who could hit it more times,

and who could get closer to the gap in the wall.

Sometimes a stone that missed rolled down the steps,

and when Noel grumbled and went to pick it up, Bido quietly laughed.

For a while, it truly felt like the old days.

Time passed little by little like that.

At some point, the sounds of the streets below had begun to quiet down.

The edge of the wind had grown even cooler,

and the light shining through the gaps in the city wall was slowly slanting away.

Noel caught his breath and flopped down on the stone steps.

“I lost.”

Bido sat down beside him again.

She set down the last pebble remaining in her hand,

lifted her head, and looked at the fading sunlight.

A red glow was gradually settling along the edge of the sky.

Though she had spent the entire day walking among familiar faces and familiar streets,

as the sun began to sink, the fact that this day was truly coming to an end felt suddenly, unmistakably clear.

Noel was silently looking in the same direction.

For a brief moment,

a silence that was not long settled between them.

Bido looked at the slanting sky,

then opened her mouth very softly.

“Noel.”

“Yeah?”

“The morning after tomorrow… I have to leave again.”

Noel’s gaze immediately returned to Bido.

The trace of laughter that had remained until moments ago vanished in an instant.

“What?”

His short question held surprise,

and the unease that spread even before it.

“Why? Where to?”

Bido could not answer right away.

Facing Noel’s eyes, she merely parted her lips, then slowly lowered her gaze.

“That’s…”

The words she could not answer with caught in her throat first.

Noel asked again.

“For how long?”

This time too, Bido could not answer immediately.

“I’m not… sure.”

Once those words fell, for a moment only the wind passed between them.

Noel toyed with the small pebble in his hand as if rolling it once,

then threw it weakly forward.

The stone bounced several times down the steps and rolled away.

Without looking in that direction, Noel said in a low voice,

“Make sure you come back.”

Bido slowly lifted her head.

Noel was still looking forward.

But there was nothing joking in his voice.

“I mean it.”

Bido swallowed a small breath.

“Yeah.”

Noel closed his lips for a moment, then continued with difficulty.

“When you come back… then…”

Noel’s words trailed off.

Bido blinked.

“Yeah?”

Noel hastily shook his head.

The tips of his ears had turned a little red.

“N-no. Just… make sure you come back.”

He cleared his throat for no reason,

then added in a smaller voice,

“I will be… and so will everyone else. We’ll be waiting for you.”

For a while, Bido could not say anything.

From below, the sounds of the city preparing for evening rose faintly,

and before her eyes, the sun was slowly sinking beyond the city wall.

Bido quietly listened to all those sounds, then answered very softly.

“Yeah. I promise.”

Only then did Noel turn to look at Bido.

And without a word, he gave a very small nod.

The sun had almost set.