Does Spring Come Even for a Dying Esper

“How am I supposed to sleep here?”

“I just told you. Now that the guiding is over, what you need is to recover your strength. And why can’t you sleep? We have everything here.”

Flap. Lucas took the lid from Iberis’s hand and this time pulled out a blanket, wrapping it around his body. He was already aware that Iberis suffered from cold even under normal circumstances.

“You can sleep like this. Just being in contact with a compatible guide naturally continues the guiding process, so this might be even better for you.”

“Like this? Ah?”

Iberis, suddenly realizing he was still sitting on Lucas’s lap, tried to move away in embarrassment. However, strong arms wrapped in the blanket held him firmly in place.

“What are you doing?”

“You can’t lie down comfortably here anyway. Stop being stubborn and lean on me.”

Lucas pulled Iberis close to his chest and closed the car door. He planned to let him rest in the car for at least an hour until they returned to the base after the cleanup.

“No, I…”

“Close your eyes quickly. I’d appreciate it if you respected your attending physician’s judgment.”

Having verbally subdued Iberis, Lucas raised his hand to cover his eyes. As his vision darkened, he felt the body in his arms flinch. Soon, a resigned sigh escaped from the small lips visible beneath the large hand.

“Haa… alright.”

Once again, Lucas was the victor. Iberis surrendered himself to Lucas with a ‘whatever’ attitude. Perhaps because no one had pushed him like this in the past few years, he found it strangely difficult to strongly resist Lucas.

Maybe it was because he was drained. Iberis slowly closed and opened his eyes, feeling the warmth transmitted from the palm covering his eyes. Didn’t they say that the body becomes weak right after guiding? His whole body felt languid.

“Hmm.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the now docile Iberis. As he had thought yesterday, Iberis was surprisingly gentle for a soldier who had been through thick and thin.

Weak to assertiveness, perhaps? In a good sense, one could say he had an innately kind and gentle nature. In a negative sense, one could say he was awkward in relationships with others and easily swayed. If he really disliked it, he could have refused even by pulling rank, but he couldn’t firmly stop Lucas who was treading a fine line.

“…You know, in the past.”

“Hm?”

Lucas, who had been organizing his thoughts about Iberis’s personality, was pulled from his reverie by the faint voice that reached his ears. He could see chapped lips moving beneath his palm.

“When I was young, I lived with my mother… Even before my awakening, I suffered from having a lower body temperature than others.”

The voice was dreamy, as if drunk on sleep, and the mumbling was close to talking to himself. Lucas could have ignored it, but he calmly responded. Iberis bringing up his own story first was a sign that his guard towards Lucas had lowered to some extent.

“I’ve read papers suggesting that highly capable Espers can show symptoms similar to aftereffects even before awakening. It seems you were such a case.”

“I guess so… I think I heard something similar at the hospital. Anyway, my mother was a D-class guide… When I was in her arms, I felt less cold. Like now.”

Iberis, intoxicated by sleepiness, continued slowly. Perhaps because he had dreamed of his childhood today, being like this with Lucas kept bringing up nostalgic faces and old memories.

“I didn’t think about it then… but could that have been guiding too?”

“It’s hard for me to give a definitive answer since I didn’t witness it myself, but there’s a high possibility your guess is correct.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it’s unusual that you had such experiences before awakening… but there’s still so much we don’t know about our abilities. When parents and children, or siblings, are Espers and guides, they usually have good compatibility and high matching rates. It seems like unconscious guiding might have occurred. I also, in the past…”

Lucas, who had almost unthinkingly started talking about his own family, stopped himself with an ‘oops’. He looked down at the drowsy Iberis with a slightly confused expression. Perhaps because Iberis was vulnerably nestled against him in a sickly state, Lucas had unknowingly let his guard down.

“I see.”

Fortunately, Iberis didn’t find it strange that Lucas suddenly closed his mouth. More accurately, he didn’t have the mental capacity to care about such things. Having resolved a long-standing curiosity, he closed his eyes with a more relaxed expression. His eyelids were too heavy.

“Sleepy…”

Had someone’s warmth ever felt this good? Iberis thought hazily as he burrowed into Lucas’s embrace like a baby bird seeking its mother’s warmth. The regular heartbeat, thump-thump, gradually pulled his consciousness deeper. He fell into a deep sleep, the deepest in a very long time, using the sound of the heartbeat as a lullaby.

* * *

“…!”

When Iberis regained consciousness, he was on a bed in the infirmary. His eyes flew open, and he stared blankly at the unfamiliar ceiling. Then, hearing a voice from beside him, he quickly turned his head.

“Are you awake?”

“…Captain?”

Discovering Lucas sitting in a chair, Iberis sat up. In that moment, his drowsiness completely vanished.

“How, where is this…”

“It’s the infirmary.”

Lucas stood up from his seat, answering curtly. He was now wearing his uniform instead of the combat gear Iberis had seen before falling asleep.

“We’re back at the base?”

“When?” Iberis muttered with a bewildered expression. Espers generally have keen senses. The fact that he had not only returned to the base but had been sleeping deeply enough to be placed on the infirmary bed without noticing was disconcerting.

“I thought you might need an examination, so I brought you here instead of to your quarters. You were sleeping so deeply, I didn’t want to wake you.”

Lucas sat on the edge of the bed and raised his hand to cup Iberis’s pale cheek. He then examined his complexion with serious eyes.

Flinch.

Iberis shuddered at the warmth touching his cold skin, then hesitated as he saw the golden eyes drawing closer. He felt his hair standing on end as Lucas’s gaze touched his eyes, cheeks, lips, and neck.

“Um, how did the cleanup go…”

“Lieutenant Cali wrapped it up well. Major Jonas’s N-1 unit also succeeded in closing the rift.”

“I see.”

Come to think of it, Iberis thought he might have heard Brenda’s voice while half-asleep. Ahem, Iberis cleared his throat softly before expressing his gratitude to Lucas.

“Good work. And thank you.”

“I was just doing my job.”

Lucas replied as if it were nothing, moving his hand up to cover Iberis’s round forehead. Indeed, his body temperature had dropped even more than before. Lucas furrowed his brow at the skin that had become noticeably colder, enough to tell without a thermometer.

“Captain?”

Iberis cautiously called out to Lucas as his expression darkened. Then he paused, realizing he was still wearing Lucas’s doctor’s gown.

“Why am I wearing this…”

“Ah, when we put you on the bed, you said you were cold and didn’t want to take it off, so we left it on.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry…”

So this was the source of the strange discomfort he felt when he woke up and saw Lucas. Feeling embarrassed, Iberis quickly took off the doctor’s gown and handed it to Lucas.

“You can keep wearing it if you like.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve had a nap, now it’s time to work.”

“Before you go to work, let’s talk for a moment.”

“What now…”

Iberis looked at Lucas with a tense expression as he requested a conversation. Although they had only spent two days together, Lucas was by no means an easy person to deal with. Yesterday, this morning, and even during the mission, Iberis had been constantly restrained by him.

“When I received my assignment, I investigated you while preparing to come here.”

“Huh?”

“I needed to know what kind of person the Esper and patient I would be in charge of was. I hope you won’t take offense. There was no other intention; it was just to establish a treatment plan.”

“No, um, it’s okay. I checked your personnel records too.”

Iberis wasn’t particularly offended as he had expected this to some extent. Moreover, Lucas’s actions were related to his job. It wasn’t illegal to investigate the Esper and patient he would be in charge of, and there was no reason to get angry.

Above all, Iberis had also had Brenda investigate Lucas, so they were even. Even now, he still suspected that Winfried, who had sent Lucas, might have other motives.

“Thank you for understanding. Anyway, after analyzing your combat footage and reports from the military, I came to one conclusion.”

“Which is?”

“That you’ve been pushing yourself incredibly hard until now. You’ve been severely overworking yourself. As if you’re desperate to die.”

“Uh…”

Momentarily speechless at the scathing assessment, Iberis closed his mouth. Lucas’s final words struck him like a dagger to the heart. After a silence like someone hit in a vital spot, he protested with a chilled voice.

“…Isn’t that going too far? Saying I’m desperate to die.”