I deliberately chose a table tucked away in the corner of the bar.
The reason was obvious: what we were going to talk about wasn’t something everyone should hear openly.
Of course, even in a bar like this, even when people were drinking, it wasn’t as if everyone would focus on the conversation happening at one table, but still, we needed to be a little careful.
“Mm… I really don’t know much about wine, so I don’t know what to order.”
“Just order a decent white wine.”
“Should I?”
“Yeah.”
Since I didn’t know much about this side of things anyway, I decided to simply follow Saran’s advice.
To be honest, after wandering around all day, fatigue was starting to build up, and we were only going to drink lightly, so anything reasonably decent would be enough.
“Ms. Saran, how was today?”
“It was fun.”
“Hehe, then I’m glad. Since I personally planned the whole schedule however I wanted, I would’ve felt really sorry if you’d been uncomfortable. Hearing that you had fun makes me a little happy.”
“…Yeah.”
I felt I could say the first step toward solving Saran’s worries had been a success in its own way.
Though it was just my own assessment.
At the very least, compared to the day I first met her, her expression looked much brighter, and Saran herself said she’d enjoyed today, didn’t she?
That should be enough.
The next step would be getting Saran to talk about the things that had been hard for her while working.
From what I could tell, the fatigue and sense of isolation she felt seemed like things that could be resolved through that sort of method.
Of course, it was still true that continued treatment would be necessary.
A person’s heart wasn’t something that could be fixed just like that after spending a little time like this for one day.
“Wow, the smell of the cheese. Isn’t it really nice? You should try smelling it too, Ms. Saran.”
“Yeah, it’s nice.”
The sight of her flicking out her snake’s tongue to smell it.
That really felt fascinating, and honestly, I was starting to get… a little curious.
That snake tongue—what would it feel like?
I even found myself wanting to touch it once, but that felt far too rude.
While watching her, I tried smelling the wine.
Mm, nice.
I liked that I seemed to have brought Saran to a much better place than expected.
“Can you drink well?”
“Mm… I’m not that good at it. About one bottle of soju? If I drink more, it depends on my condition, but… more than one bottle would probably be really hard.”
“I see.”
In both my previous life and this one, my alcohol tolerance was pretty similar.
It was definitely hard to confidently say I could drink well.
Of course, wine had a relatively low alcohol content, so maybe I could drink more than one bottle without much trouble?
“……”
“Whyyy?”
As I poured wine into my glass and tried to smell it more properly, Saran was staring at me intensely, so I tilted my head and asked.
“Nothing.”
“Huh.”
What was that?
As expected… even though we’d spent quite a bit of time together today, she was truly a difficult person to read.
Of course, with her looks being what they were, I could only think she was just cool.
“Shall we drink?”
“Ah, shall we? Even if it’s wine, it’s pretty expensive. It would be a shame to just keep smelling it.”
“Yeah.”
Anyway… we clinked our glasses lightly and began drinking the wine.
I didn’t know much about wine, but at the very least, it had a nice aroma and taste that told me it wasn’t a bad wine.
It didn’t feel harsh at all while I held it in my mouth or as it went down my throat.
It was the kind of taste people often called lightweights would probably love.
In other words, a taste I would like.
“It’s really delicious. Isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“When I bought wine at a convenience store and drank it before, it was really bitter, but this doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s actually sweet, so I like it.”
“I think so too. Eating cheese with wine is also pretty… yeah, it goes well together.”
Was it because Saran liked the wine too?
She was smiling as she held her glass.
In many ways, it was a nice sight to see.
After that, while enjoying the alcohol and snacks, we began talking about the things that had happened throughout the day.
Things that happened while shopping, the restaurant where we had lunch, and since we had visited several places afterward as well, there was quite a lot to talk about.
On top of that, even the passage before entering the wine bar we were in had quite a few exhibits, so it was only natural.
“…Just like you said.”
“Yes.”
“Spending time like this feels nice. Usually, I always spent time alone at home, but just going around outside like this seems to have made me feel a little better.”
“Hehe, that’s really good to hear.”
At the end of that conversation, I even got to hear that answer directly from her.
In my own way… I was someone who worked at the Hero Association with the mindset of an office worker.
Even so, every time I heard words like that, I felt a slight… sense of accomplishment, a bit of joy, and it made me think that choosing this job had been a good thing.
Even though I somehow ended up choosing the Welfare Bureau.
Still, I’d been working as part of the Welfare Bureau for over a year now, so in the end, wasn’t it a good thing?
“After I started working as a hero, I never once spent time with someone like this.”
“…Since your debut?”
“Yeah.”
“…That’s six years. Of course it must have been hard.”
“I think so.”
“You’re amazing…”
“…Am I?”
“Yes, I really think you’re amazing.”
I said that sincerely.
I said it because the person named Saran truly was more amazing than I had expected, and that was why those words came out.
“In your case, Ms. Saran, your work is quite special. You probably couldn’t easily talk about it to anyone, and that must have made you feel incredibly stifled. If I couldn’t talk to anyone about my work for six years like you, Ms. Saran… I’m sure I would’ve gone crazy and quit.”
“Is that so…”
“Yes, it is.”
“I never thought of it that way. It was just work. Not being allowed to speak about it publicly was also part of the work. That’s all it was.”
“But that doesn’t mean your efforts and the time you spent struggling were nothing, does it?”
“…That’s true.”
It wasn’t simply because Saran disliked interacting with others that things had turned out this way.
Among heroes, she had happened to take on special work, work that absolutely could not be revealed to the public, and she couldn’t talk about it to anyone.
That was how the severing of her interactions had begun, growing worse and worse until it locked Saran away in a space and time of her own.
That was why I praised her sincerely.
Perhaps she liked my praise and comfort.
Saran’s eyes curved gently.
“…Actually. Before I contacted the team leader at the Welfare Bureau, I thought about it a lot.”
“What did you think about?”
“I happened to hear that there was a hypnotist in the Welfare Bureau. So I kept wondering if they might solve my problem through hypnosis.”
“Ah…”
…That was really unfair.
Of course, it wasn’t something I couldn’t understand, but honestly, it felt unfair.
It was true that I had hypnosis abilities, but their level was lower than one might think, and from the beginning, rather than helping heroes simply through hypnosis, I mostly just introduced programs and recommended methods to solve problems through counseling.
Cases where I actually used hypnosis to solve a problem, like with Bathory, were extremely rare.
Even so, for some reason, I was gradually developing an image as someone who solved things with hypnosis.
Of course, that also meant I had been helpful, but it was true that the rumors were getting distorted in many ways, so it was hard to answer.
“I had quite a few doubts, but I didn’t expect you to solve it in this kind of way instead.”
“Haha, I’m glad.”
“Yeah.”
“Hypnosis as an ability has many good points in various ways, but it really isn’t a fundamental solution. A person’s heart is sturdier than you’d think for it to be completely changed by an ability alone, you know?”
I simply sipped my wine as I told her that.
Talking about Saran’s situation would be a little awkward from her perspective, but as long as I wasn’t revealing the personal secrets of individual heroes, there was no problem at all, right?
I was just office worker number one, working as a counselor.
“…That’s why I’m saying this. Going forward, can we meet like this regularly and spend time together?”
“Of course. That was the whole point of today being the first step. Of course… it might be a little difficult to plan as many things as we did today every single time we meet. I’m an office worker too, after all, and there are times when I have to deal with other heroes besides you, Ms. Saran.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. As long as we can meet once a week.”
“Hehe, then shall we do that?”
Because I’d had a bit to drink, my body seemed to be getting hotter and hotter, so I neatly tied my platinum-blond hair back as I answered.
Once a week.
There would be no problem borrowing a day on the weekend to spend time with her.
Or even meeting lightly for dinner after work on a weekday would probably be a great help to her.
In the end, it had turned into something like extended work hours—weekends and overtime rather than regular duties… but still, being able to help someone who needed help was a good thing.
In Saran’s case, receiving that kind of help from someone other than me would be, well, a little difficult.
“Ah. By the way, about what you told me when we first met.”
“Yeah?”
“Your tongue. Could you stick it out properly, just once, and show me? Hehe, I’ve been really curious ever since we first met.”
“……”
“Ah, maybe you can’t…?”
The atmosphere was pretty good, and in any case, I had ended up helping her.
So I tried bringing it up once.
As we had gone around together today, my curiosity had truly kept building, and the truth was, rather than just seeing it properly, I actually wanted to… touch her tongue directly and feel its warmth.
But that would be too perverted.
Mm-hmm. You could say this was the result of me restraining myself in my own way.
“…Fine. I’ll show you. Though I don’t know why you’re so curious about this…”
“Gasp.”
The result was a complete success, a total victory.
Saran, with a slightly, very slightly exasperated expression and a shy reaction, drank a glass of wine and rinsed her mouth.
“Sss…”
With a distinctive snake-like sound, a pretty pink tongue emerged.
A snake’s tongue, clearly split at the end.
At the same time, it was obviously thinner than an ordinary tongue, and that was so incredibly fascinating that my gaze couldn’t help but focus completely on Saran’s tongue.
Until Saran said my stare was weird and pulled her tongue back in.
…But honestly, with her tongue being like that, the fact that her pronunciation sounded normal was really… fascinating.
No.
To be precise, rather than her pronunciation, it made me wonder if the airy, almost hollow feeling in her voice might be influenced by it, which only made it feel even more fascinating.
“…You seemed a little perverted.”
“Eh, why…?!”
…I hadn’t even touched it to my heart’s content like I had with Bathory.
I felt extremely wronged.