2001 The Children of Bottle

by Ryohgo Narita

  “…Huh?” The boy was confused. He’d thought Elmer had seen through to his true nature, and had said what he’d said to reproach him. “Didn’t you notice I was acting?”

  “No, erm…huh? All I noticed was the fake smile and your—huh? What? That was acting?”

  “Apparently I was the fool here, then…”

  Seeing Czes slump tiredly, Elmer finally got a handle on the situation.

  “Oh, ohhh! I see, I see, of course; I get it. Okay. I’ve got this. I see. Come to think of it, of course you’re right. You’re already about three hundred or so. I should have thought it was weird that you were still acting like a kid. Right. Sorry, though. I didn’t notice a thing.”

  At Elmer’s thoughtlessness, Czes sighed up at the starry sky. Quietly, as the moonlight illuminated his white breath, the immortal with the body of a little boy began to speak.

  “It’s strange, but Maiza hasn’t said anything these past seventy years. Sylvie and Nile don’t seem to care, either.”

  His eyes, still those of a child, seemed to hold some unease.

  “What I want to ask is… What do you think of us?”

  “Companions.”

  There wasn’t the slightest fraction of a pause. Elmer spoke firmly, with no hesitation or bewilderment, the moment Czes finished his sentence.

  As Czes’s eyes went round at his response, Elmer suddenly changed his mind and began muttering, groping around for the answer.

  “Nononono, wait, wait, wait, wait, it sounds kinda immature to say companions there, and actually, it sounds like a fib coming from me. With you, Czes, friends might be okay, but you’re really grown-up now, and after all, you are three hundred… In that case, tea-drinking buddy could work. No, wait, compatriots, comrades…fellows would be all right, too. The gang… Or I could go Latin-style and use amigo…a duo…a battery…teammates…et cetera, et cetera.”

  He’s actually saying “et cetera” out loud…

  Naturally, Czes’s internal comeback didn’t reach Elmer, and after a bit more muttering, the man clapped his hands and said:

  “Let’s look to Asia this time and go with villains of the same stripe—”

  “No thanks. What’s that sketchy conclusion supposed to be?”

  As if getting his revenge for a short while before, Czes responded before Elmer had even finished speaking.

  “It’s something Denkurou said to me a while back. ‘You and Huey are no doubt villains of the same stripe,’ he said.”

  “You know he can’t have meant anything good by it… Agh, I was a fool for even trying to ask you about it seriously.”

  “Quit talking like Maiza, all right? Act a little more like a kid.”

  At Elmer’s insensitive comment, Czes irritably spat, “Knock it off. I told you. Inside, I’m not a little brat.”

  “I see. Come to think of it, you’re right. But, you know, it’s honestly creepy when you talk that way. You’re an eternal child, in a so-called Neverland, so you’d do better to smile like a kid. When other people see kids smiling like they mean it, it makes them happy, too… Although I guess I can’t speak for people who hate kids, keh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

  “So you’d ignore my own circumstances, then?”

  “Not at all! On the contrary, this is for your sake! When you look grown-up, it’s embarrassing and tough to smile right out in the open like a child, but you can totally do it. You see? That’s an amazing privilege all by itself. On top of that, you can get into movies for cheap, get candy on Halloween, and all sorts of other great benefits. Plus, you can also act mature when it’s convenient for you—and only then—the way you are now… Besides… Listen, Czes. I said so before, but if you smile, you’ll make all the people around you feel positively euphoric. Then they’ll smile. That’ll make you smile more, too. See? That’s all you need to do, and you’ll be surrounded by happiness! Dammit, I’m so jealous!”

  Czes couldn’t understand what he was saying. He quirked an eyebrow and gazed back at Elmer.

  “…What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t understand you at all. I’ve thought so for ages now, but I can’t see why you’re so hung up on smiles. The idea of smiles bringing happiness is abysmally simplistic.”

  “What are you saying?! Smiles are the highest of all human emotions! Don’t you know the Eastern proverb ‘Good fortune and happiness visit the homes of those who smile’?!”

  “Proverbs are just proverbs. And what’s this business about emotions being ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ in the first place? What’s your standard?”

  “My personal preference.”

  Elmer answered immediately, and the boy sighed, thoroughly disgusted.

  “Agh, how did someone as illogical as you end up an alchemist?”

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! As if guys who tried to make gold out of base metals would be logical!”

  “Aaaaaaaah, you can’t say that, you’re practically denying your own existence…”

  Czes held his head, and Elmer sat down right where he was, cackling.

  “To begin with, thinking of copper and iron as ‘base metals’ is pretty arrogant, isn’t it? How could you possibly take metals that have been heated, stretched, and processed every which way, metals that have let us do absolutely anything we want to them without a single complaint, and call them ‘base’?”

  Then Elmer rose to his feet and began to spin, as if to provoke Czes. It was obvious at a glance that there was no meaning to the action, but the man himself seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it.

  “Starting around the fifteenth century, alchemists were roughly split into two camps. One was dedicated to research, and it would become the basis for science. The others were mystics who attempted to adhere to the ideals of alchemy. I guess we’d be the second type. If not, I doubt we would’ve agreed when Maiza suggested summoning a demon. Well, Huey and Szilard could’ve been both types. In other words, we’re immortal through the power of a demon, and it’s too late for us to try to bring logical thought into the picture at this point. It’s fine, just live true to your feelings—which is to say, go on and smile, Czes.”

  “What I truly feel at the moment is that I’m about to explode with irritation because of you, you know.”

  When Czes looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, Elmer immediately stopped spinning and, in contrast to the boy, opened his eyes until they were wide and round.

  “Huh? Why?! Getting upset under a beautiful night sky like this isn’t good for you. You won’t get to live a long life, you know? …Okay, understood, roger that, stop. Stop looking like you’re watching a dog spin around in circles trying to sniff itself. I get it, I’ll listen seriously. I just got a little carried away out here under the stars.”

  “You’ve always been less than serious, Elmer… That’s not the only reason I’m upset. What I wanted to ask about, and what’s irritating me, is that boundless thoughtlessness of yours.”

  “Heh-heh. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I’m not complimenting you! I am in no way complimenting you! You always immediately try to throw people off like that… But answer this one thing seriously.”

  Overawed by the intensity of the boy’s eyes, Elmer gave a troubled smile, then sat down where he was.

  “What I want you to tell me is… Why didn’t you ask who ate Szilard?”

  “……”

  Faster than Elmer could speak, the immortal who looked like a boy rapidly fired more questions at him.

  “Why were you able to accept us at face value like that? We might have come here to attack you, you know! Besides, even when I touched your face—when I put my right hand on your head! You didn’t even try to get away from it! You didn’t look scared, or even suspicious! Why, why do you feel so little danger?! Do you think you’ll never be eaten or something? Do you think we haven’t changed a bit in all this time?!”

  Czes’s tone grew more and more forceful. Elmer simply continued to meet his questions with silence.

  Then, a
fter Czes had finished and taken a few breaths, Elmer looked straight into the boy’s eyes and spoke quietly, with a shamefaced half smile.

  “I forgot.”

  “…Huh?”

  “Well, no, right, I see; that was the rule, come to think of it. If old Szilard is dead, then that was what happened. I completely forgot.”

  “Answer me seriously!”

  Without thinking, Czes yelled at him, but Elmer’s smile didn’t falter.

  “No, this isn’t a joke, nothing like it. I actually did forget. I’m not lying.”

  On hearing that, Czes was well and truly dumbfounded. Elmer had always been a guy who lied and cracked pointless jokes, but when he said he wasn’t lying, he really and truly wasn’t.

  If his nature hadn’t changed one bit… Then Elmer really had forgotten the rule about devouring each other. Czes couldn’t believe that. He was even deluded into thinking that his life up until now had been denied.

  “…You’re lying.”

  “No, it’s true.”

  “You’re lying! You…you were scared of being eaten, and that’s why you kept running, right? That’s why you’re living quietly in this remote place, isn’t it?!”

  He shouted as if desperately trying to cling to something. Even as he listened, Elmer shook his head mercilessly.

  “I wasn’t wandering around the world to get away from Szilard and the other guys. Besides, even if I hadn’t forgotten that rule, I would have accepted you four the same way.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “I told you, it’s not a lie. And anyway, I know you four aren’t the type. Even if one of you did eat Szilard, I won’t reject you.”

  “How am I supposed to believe something like that—?!”

  Just as Czes stood, attempting to glare down at Elmer… Elmer grabbed Czes’s thin right wrist firmly, then set the boy’s palm flat against his own head. In that position, if Czes thought I want to eat even slightly, Elmer’s body and memories would instantly be absorbed into his right hand.

  However, Czes was the one who was terrified. He tore away the hands gripping his own and yanked his sweaty palm from Elmer’s head in a panic.

  Czes’s pulse was beating double time, and his breathing had roughened in the blink of an eye. Elmer smiled soothingly at him, his eyes gentle.

  “Believe me now?”

  His expression didn’t hold a trace of unease or resolve. On seeing it, Czes stood stock-still for a little while, looking dazed. As he gradually calmed down, he ground his teeth and muttered as if cursing him. That said, since his voice had never changed, only about half the resentment he actually wanted to convey came through.

  “…Why…? Why are you able to do that?”

  Elmer was still sitting down, and Czes asked his question insistently with a mixture of frustration and sadness.

  “Why can you do things like that…? Not just you, Elmer. Maiza, and Begg, and Sylvie… When we first met again, they accepted me with absolutely no question. Things got a little interesting with Nile, but now he’s let his guard down around me, too. And not only me. They’ve all let their guard down around each other. They all believe we’ll never eat each other!” Czes yelled.

  He looked down and quietly shook his head. Then, weakly and with some resignation, he continued.

  “People change. I’m well aware of that. I know human nature is evil, too! …Well, that was what I thought, but at some point, I started to doubt it. Several decades ago, I went to New York on my own. I meant to reunite with Maiza, and to eat him. But I encountered different immortals on the way, and not only there. After I arrived in New York, there was a bunch of immortals besides our companions from the ship! Can you believe it? Still, by then, that didn’t matter. What truly scared me…was the fact that they were all incredibly good people!”

  There are other immortals besides us.

  This was a startling revelation for Elmer as well, but he decided not to pursue that particular issue. It was possible that Czes hadn’t gotten his own feelings under control yet; he didn’t seem to have noticed that he’d just revealed an important fact.

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not the slightest bit good! …Remember what I said? I know better than anyone that human nature is brimming with evil.”

  Czes hesitated a little over the words that came next, but soon, as if he’d made up his mind, he spoke.

  “…I ate Fermet.”

  Fermet. At that name, Elmer fell silent for a while. He hadn’t spoken with him much, but if his memory served him right, the man had been Czes’s guardian, one of the fellow alchemists who’d journeyed with them on the ship.

  “Fermet inflicted pain and suffering on me in all sorts of ways, calling them ‘experiments.’ Still, I trusted him. But the pain he caused me just kept growing worse!”

  The sudden confession left Elmer silent. Czes had been like a little brother or a son to the Fermet he remembered, and he hadn’t thought of him as the sort of man who could do that.

  “Don’t you understand? The man I’d believed in all that time, the man I’d trusted even when he treated me that way… One day, out of the blue, he tried to kill me! I fought desperately, and the next thing I knew, I’d put my right hand on Fermet’s head, and— Do you know the hell that came after that? Do you have any idea how it feels to know that the person I trusted had been full of warped malice, and how much it hurts to live carrying all of that inside me?! …It made me hate the world. I decided to assume that everything, both the world and myself, was just evil incarnate. But if so…if so, why were they all good people?! It…it felt like I was the one vile person in the whole world—and you, and Maiza, and Isaac and Miria and Firo and Ennis, why are you so…all of you, all of you…all of you…”

  He didn’t seem able to get any more words out. He lowered his head completely and fell silent.

  Elmer stayed quiet for a little while, too, but then he looked up at the stars and murmured:

  “I’m jealous.”

  At that, Czes slowly raised his head.

  “Yeah, jealous. Listen, Czes. Whether human nature is evil or good, just think of it like this: There are about six billion people on the planet, and of those, ninety-nine point nine percent are bad. However, ever since you boarded that train, you kept right on meeting that remaining point one percent of the good people! Those are insane odds! It’s such a huge win, it’s like if the same lottery number came up twice in a row, and you’d bought both those tickets yourself! An asteroid’s going to hit the Earth and chimpanzees will write the works of Shakespeare, y’know?”

  As Elmer fired his lighthearted comments like a machine gun, Czes began to feel like an idiot for having spoken seriously. It hurt even worse because he knew that Elmer actually meant what he said, and that it wasn’t just empty consolation.

  “…I’m jealous of your optimism, Elmer.”

  “Optimism? I’m just stating the facts. While I’m at it, you’re a pretty good guy yourself, Czes, so relax and just live.”

  “Don’t try to comfort me. I’m frustrated, that’s all. Nobody else has changed one bit, but I got nastier and nastier… Just me. I’m the only one who changed. I can’t stand it.”

  As if to say he had nothing more to discuss, Czes began to walk toward the ladderlike handholds he’d used to climb up. Elmer spoke to his back, mystified.

  “You’re a strange one. If you’re going to get all worked up over not being good—why not just be good?”

  “Don’t act like it’s easy.”

  “You didn’t change. You just grew, Czes. You learned how to see what’s good and bad about the world. You should be happy about that. If you still say you changed, then—just change back. Water might freeze, but it’ll melt again someday. People can change, too.”

  Then, scratching his head awkwardly, Elmer smiled.

  “If you want to melt again, just let yourself feel the warmth of your environment. Even if you don’t lean on the kindness of t
he people around you, you should probably at least accept it.”

  “I’m impressed you can say things like that without blushing… What’s in it for you if I change?”

  “I already told you: Smiling like a kid suits you better. It isn’t just you. Most of the people in the world are designed to look good with a smile. Anyway, if it’ll make you smile, I’ll do anything to help. Oh, but if you could manage it, steer clear of telling me to kill people or die myself.”

  At those words, Czes stopped, then turned around. His face was expressionless.

  “In that case, if I told you to jump down from here, would you do it? You won’t die, you know.”

  “……”

  “Don’t say you’ll ‘do anything’ so easily—”

  Czes didn’t finish his sentence.

  “Okay, roger that. Hiyaaah!”

  “Huh?”

  With an incredibly goofy-sounding yell, Elmer’s body left Czes’s field of vision.

  Splorch.

  Just as Czes understood what had happened, a dull sound echoed up from the ground.

  Then—right after that, he heard cries from Maiza and the others.

  “Elmer?! Elmer, stay with me!”

  “What? What’s he doing falling to his death here?!”

  “Hmm. Excellent. Let us bind him before he revives.”

  With the voices below in his ears, Czes quietly looked up at the starry sky.

  Wearing a strange, unreadable expression in the moonlight, the boy murmured:

  “I’m sorry, Elmer… Thanks for the thought, but I can’t smile at all…”

  CHAPTER 3

  JOY ANGER SORROW FUN

  Sylvie Lumiere

  The next day Christmas Eve

  There was a long table in the old castle’s great dining hall. The five immortals had assembled in this room, the most spacious one in the castle. There was no food on the table, only five cups filled with water. Although there was nothing to eat, the surroundings were studded with Christmas decorations, and flames flickered beautifully over the candlesticks on the table.

  “Meeeeerry Chrissssstmas!”