Chapter 286 : An Old Story
Chapter 286: An Old Story
“Hehe... Ehehe... Chairman~♡.”
“You'd better stop drinking now.”
“Huh~? I can still drink moooore~ Doesn't this mean Chairman lost~? You're admitting defeat, riiight~?”
“Please get a hold of yourself....”
To cut to the conclusion, Aaron won the drinking contest.
Airi, completely drunk, clung to him with a bright red face and a foolish grin.
Aaron awkwardly tried to push her away, but dealing with a drunk person was naturally no easy task.
No amount of persuasion worked, leaving him thoroughly troubled.
“Come to your senses and sit back in your seat.”
“Uwaaaah... You're so meaaaan.... Then I'll compromise. How about just a hug~?”
“How is that a compromise...?”
“Then I'll back down one more step! How about an embrace?”
“Isn't that the same thing...?”
“Oh, come on! Aren't you being way too greedy!? A contract only works if both sides make concessions! No kiss, no hug, no embrace! Then how much am I supposed to lose here!?”
“What in the world are you even talking about...?”
Reasoning with her was impossible.
Airi kept throwing out incomprehensible logic while constantly clinging to him.
Of course, Aaron could have simply forced her away or tied her up with the Cloud Spider's threads, but...
[Chairman Aaron Stingray restrains an intoxicated student after drinking alone with her at a bar....]
...the resulting picture would be extremely problematic, so he decided to avoid using force as much as possible.
Besides, if he seriously started using his strength, the drunken Airi would probably go berserk and genuinely come at him with everything she had.
In the end, Aaron gave up on making her return to her own seat and instead compromised by offering her one of his arms.
At first, Airi puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.
But before long, she happily wrapped herself around Aaron's right arm.
Holding it tightly as though it were a giant teddy bear (and with surprisingly strong grip), Airi asked,
“By the waaay... Hoooow much did we driiink~?”
“About four bottles of whiskey.”
“Mmm. Is that a loooot~?”
“Quite a lot.”
Airi had emptied two bottles by herself after removing all her modules.
That alone was remarkable.
Moreover, it was alcohol specially made for Adaptees, mixed with drugs that slowed the activity of the nanomachines inside the body.
Despite that, she'd still managed to finish two whole bottles.
Taking into account how recklessly she'd been drinking today, it was clear Airi naturally had an impressive tolerance for alcohol.
Though...
It still couldn't compare to Aaron.
“You don't look drunk at aaaall, Chairman.”
“I suppose not.”
Back then, if he intentionally lowered the performance of his modules and nanomachines before drinking this much, he would at least become pleasantly intoxicated.
But after receiving Omega's cells...
He felt absolutely nothing.
Even after disabling nearly all of his modules, including the Poison Immunity Module, this was the result.
It seemed he'd become physically incapable of getting drunk.
'One of life's pleasures has disappeared.'
Well, perhaps Miyu could fix that problem later somehow.
Thinking that, Aaron quietly took the whiskey bottle from Airi as she tried to refill her glass.
“That's enough. You'll suffer tomorrow.”
“The contest isn't over yeeeet!”
“Accept it. You lost.”
“You don't lose until you saaay you've looost!”
“You're seriously going to hurt yourself.”
“Oooh. Are you worried about me~?”
Airi smiled brightly before rubbing her cheek affectionately against his arm like a cat.
She no longer cared that her makeup was smearing.
What amazed him even more was that her skin looked almost exactly the same with or without the makeup.
Honestly...
He wondered whether putting it on had any point at all.
“Ehehe...♡”
Watching Airi happily cling to his shoulder...
She looked exactly like an overly affectionate puppy.
Specifically...
A pure white husky that had been lovingly groomed.
If someone attached a pair of twitching ears and an uncontrollably wagging tail to her right now, it wouldn't feel out of place in the slightest.
It wasn't even a joke.
She was so adorable that he almost wanted to take her home and raise her.
But Aaron knew how to exercise self-control.
After making absolutely certain she couldn't drink any more whiskey by emptying the remaining bottle himself, he spoke.
“Let's go. I'll take you back.”
“Aaaaah~ I said we're not dooone yet~”
“If you keep this up, I'll carry you out by force.”
“No! Nooooo!”
As Aaron stood up, Airi desperately clung to him, throwing all of her weight onto his arm to stop him.
But all she accomplished was dangling helplessly from his arm.
Finally resorting to desperation, she lightly bit his arm.
However—
“Waaaah... Why is your skin so haaard...?”
There was no way mere teeth could pierce skin capable of stopping even high-grade steel blades.
“You'll only hurt yourself. Come on, wake up.”
“Hmph! Then why won't you tell meee...!”
As Aaron tucked Airi under one arm and tried to carry her away, she flailed with all her strength.
Unable to escape, she finally went limp and muttered resentfully.
“Why won't you tell me...?”
“...Let's go home.”
“What... are you hiding...?”
Aaron's footsteps stopped for just a moment as he carried Airi.
But only for a moment.
Suppressing his emotions, he answered,
“From birth itself, I was classified as Stingray Group confidential—”
“Liar.”
Airi's words cut straight through his explanation.
“I know that's a lie.”
“......”
“I'm probably not the only one.”
“Miyu... the others too...”
“Everyone who's gotten close to you since you came back...”
“They've all realized you're hiding something.”
“They just can't bring themselves to ask.”
“......”
“I'll say it again.”
“I want to know.”
“What you're hiding...”
“What that fear... and hesitation... I always feel whenever you deal with me and everyone else... actually is.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“So you're dodging it again?”
Airi pressed him once more.
“Do you really distrust me that much?”
“Do you think I'd run around telling everyone your secrets?”
“Or do you think knowing them wouldn't help at all?”
“Am I really...”
At that moment...
Her voice trembled.
“Am I... really that useless to you...?”
“I....”
“That's so unfair.”
Just as Aaron was about to say something...
Airi murmured those words...
Then went completely limp.
Aaron lifted her slightly to check.
Realizing she'd simply fallen asleep from the alcohol, he quietly sighed in relief.
“Ha....”
He carried Airi in his arms and headed toward the exit.
Yet...
Just before reaching the entrance, he stopped.
Then silently turned around and returned to their table.
There hadn't been enough alcohol.
Today of all days...
He resented the fact that this body could no longer become intoxicated.
He carefully seated the sleeping Airi beside him, letting her lean against his shoulder.
Then he ordered the strongest liquor the bar carried from the bartender and quietly sipped it alone.
After several glasses...
He glanced sideways at Airi's sleeping face.
Perhaps because the alcohol had restored color to her cheeks...
She somehow looked even prettier than usual.
Aaron gently stroked her hair once.
Then quietly murmured,
“Fine.”
“You win.”
Words he could only say because he knew she couldn't hear them.
Accepting his defeat...
Aaron finally began speaking.
Perhaps...
Deep down...
He'd wanted to tell someone all along.
“I'll tell you an old story.”
Airi had a dream.
It was a dream about a boy.
A dream about a world she'd never seen before.
On one side of the scenery stretched a vast sea, with tiny boats tied to a coastal pier and expansive salt fields.
Turning around revealed small vegetable gardens, neglected roads, and houses topped with old slate roofs.
A tiny village.
A village with fewer than fifty residents.
A place where everyone knew how many spoons each household owned.
Even the village policeman and schoolteacher treated the residents like lifelong brothers and sisters.
An extremely old-fashioned rural village.
The boy...
Was a slave there.
From the moment he was born...
The boy had been forced to recognize the difference between his own status and that of the villagers.
While the other children ate steaming bowls of white rice and grew up surrounded by their parents' love...
He weeded fields under the village chief's orders.
Worked the paddies.
And occasionally lived through beatings from whips and clubs.
Why am I different from them?
He'd questioned his circumstances several times.
But after being beaten with clubs often enough...
He eventually adapted simply to survive.
His mother, who'd died early, had been a servant of the village chief's household.
He himself had been born as a farmhand.
Working for the master who fed him...
Was simply natural.
Every day, the boy worked.
Before sunrise, he prepared meals for the chief's household.
During the farming season, he tended the fields.
Sometimes he even helped with work at other homes.
After laboring until his arms and legs trembled...
He returned to the storage shed in the corner of the courtyard.
Once the boy obediently entered...
The master locked the heavy iron door securely.
Afterward...
A tray filled with leftovers from the household's dinner was pushed beneath the door.
Relying on a single incandescent light bulb...
The boy finished his meal.
Cleaned everything up.
Then lay down upon a thin straw mat to sleep.
If he needed the toilet during the night...
He endured it for as long as possible.
Only when he truly couldn't hold it anymore would he use the chamber pot he'd placed in the corner.
But doing so meant sleeping beside the foul smell all night.
So whenever possible...
He chose to endure it.
Every morning, he woke up and worked.
Every night, he was locked inside the shed to sleep.
Then one day—
“Hey.”
“Whose child are you?”
One autumn day...
While carrying bundles of freshly harvested straw...
An unfamiliar adult spoke to him.
The woman introduced herself as the new teacher recently assigned to the island village.
A few days earlier, the boy had overheard adults talking about a change in government and a new Minister of Education.
But to someone who'd learned nothing beyond the arithmetic necessary for work...
Such conversations were far too complicated.
In any case...
The teacher seemed curious after seeing a child she'd never encountered at school working outside.
So the boy simply answered that he worked for the village chief's household.
...
That day...
He was beaten nearly to death.
“You stupid little bastard! What did I tell you to do if a stranger showed up!? Huh!? Didn't I tell you to pretend you couldn't understand what they were saying!?”
“I'm... sorry...! Urgh! I'm sorry!!”
“Fuck! I'll rip that mouth apart today and turn you into a real mute!”
“Aaagh! I'm sorry! I'm sor... AAAAAAH!!”
That day...
The boy lost nearly half his face.
One eye became unusable.
One ear permanently lost its hearing.
The beating had been so severe that he burned with a high fever afterward.
The village chief apparently realized he'd gone too far, since he allowed the boy to rest without working for about a week.
But more than guilt...
He probably just didn't want the newly arrived teacher seeing the boy again.
Later...
After the week had passed...
The boy returned to work, his face wrapped in bandages.
He encountered the teacher once more.
Unlike the first day...
She deliberately looked away and pretended not to know him.
Apparently she'd spent the past week thoroughly learning the village's rules.
...
The boy didn't think much of it.
He knew nothing of the outside world.
He knew nothing about the teacher herself.
So there was no way he could understand why she'd done something like that in the first place.
Creak... Creak...
That night...
The rusted iron door slowly opened.
Someone quietly entered the boy's storage shed.
The boy immediately panicked.
Thinking the master had gotten drunk again and come to beat him...
He hurried into the corner.
But surprisingly...
The intruder was someone entirely unexpected.
“S-Sorry for startling you.”
“We've met before, remember?”
“Do you remember me?”
It was the female teacher.