Drawing a deep breath and then blowing it out using mouth was the first thing Pierrot did once he exited the cottage. He also spread his left arm to the side, embracing the sunlight, which had mellowed down compared to before. Energy surged and ran across his body. Then it enveloped his lower body until his toes and soles firmly supported his entire being to stand–unfazed, unbothered, and undisturbed even by gravity itself. Another breath was taken, and the energy moved up towards his stiff neck and shoulders. 

“Today’s weather is quite nice. Not too cold, not too hot, perfect for walking around, don’t you think?”

After saying that, Helena took the chance to glance towards her back, where Pierrot stood and let nature whisper sweet words into his ears. Before he knew it, his lips had already made a little movement. 

“....Maybe this isn’t that bad after all.”

“Hmm? Did you say something?”

His voice, however, upon reaching Helena’s words had evaporated into intangible noises.

“Ahh.” Realizing he was muttering to himself, Pierrot cleared his throat and replied. “I said that the weather is certainly nice.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, though the wording itself didn’t really match the words he had uttered. Helena seemed to realize that but pressed no further–or it might all just be an assumption in his head. Nevertheless, when she smiled at him, Pierrot felt a bit guilty. 

“It truly is,” Helena said, one second before adding her sentence with, “please tell me whenever you wish to return. I can’t possibly overexert a recovering person.”

“Don’t worry. I can go on for hours.”

“Is that so?”

Helena let out a giggle with her right hand covering her mouth, a sign of her being shy. “Well, let’s go then.”

Seeing that his attempt at humor succeeded, Pierrot clenched his imaginary right fist as a celebration.

Immediately after, they began their quick stride with Pierrot following from behind. He wore no footwear, allowing specks of dirt and swaying grasses to lick his feet every time he took a step forward. From time to time, he noticed smoothened stones lying along the track, and the urge to kick one of them–or all of them, actually–seduced him like the sweet temptation of beer.

The garden was still as beautiful as when he had first witnessed it. But right now, his gaze would always find its way back towards Helena. Her elegant posture and bewitching golden threads had mesmerized him more than a painting could. It felt as if the ground below and the blue sky above were a diorama merely for her to exist. 

Realizing that his eyes had stayed on Helena longer than he should have, Pierrot shook his head to the side. Then again, he needed a much stronger distraction, or else, similar to a magnet, the golden-haired girl would pull and attract his eyes until he could no longer look away. 

He had to look away before his mind wandered too far. 

Again, he darted his eyes from one spot to another. Only after a while did he stop, right when his eyes caught a shimmering tree with its radiant gold hue. It wasn’t exactly made of gold–even he could tell that looking from afar. 

“Something bothers you?” Noticing Pierrot’s strange line of sight, Helena asked. 

“Is that a–”

As he blinked, however, it didn’t glow anymore. Just a plain wood, standing tall and unnerved by the turbulence of wind surrounding it–its brownness overpowered the green leaves hanging above.

“Yes?” she asked again, now tilting her head to the side. 

“N-nothing. I’m just wondering what we’re doing now.”

He must’ve imagined something there. It was just, for some reason, he believed he’d seen something similar to that “tree.”

“I just thought a simple walk would be a pleasant change of pace,” she answered. “Moreover, it’s also good for digestion.”

Silence dawned on them once more. Questions still puzzled his mind, but addressing them now to Helena would be a different story. He couldn’t even put them into words without sounding like a breach of privacy. But if he stayed quiet, the conversation would bleed out and die soon with no chance to retaliate. 

I have to think of something, he thought. 

“Emm….” he mumbled for a second before continuing. “The weather is…, definitely very nice.” 

His second attempt at making small talk was much worse compared to the previous one. Even he admitted it himself, though doing so only hurt him emotionally. Once again, he tightened his imaginary right fist, not because of elation but shame. 

Like before, Helena looked at Pierrot and smiled. 

“It does.” 

“....It surely does.”

The conversation met yet another dead end. Pierrot still had several dialogue options stored inside his head. Most of them, however, were about the weather. There’s only so many times he could use the same tactic.  

“Sorry, but it’s boring having to talk with me, isn’t it?”

But when he decided to utter no more words, Helena broke the silence with her own question. Although she was still walking, her steps were shorter. Pierrot, still following from behind, bent his knees not as much as before to shorten his steps as well.

“As you may already know from before, I’m not really good at holding a conversation, so this situation troubles me a little,” Helena said, glancing at Pierrot a few times. “Ah, but it doesn’t mean I hate having you here! Please don’t misunderstand.”

Once again, Helena tried not to hurt his feelings. The more he spoke with her, the more he learnt small things about her. And at the end, knowing how awkward she was too, he felt like they weren’t so different after all.

“Yes, I know.” Pierrot showed her a reassuring smile. “Besides, that makes two of us then.”

He meant no harm by saying that, but Helena’s sudden reaction startled him in a way he hadn’t expected. 

“H-huh?” 

As if a lump of air had coagulated in a windpipe, Helena stopped her feet, now standing still amidst the hissing breeze and dancing flowers. Pierrot thought that something sinister had occurred, like Helena forgetting to put out the stove inside her cottage.

But what caught his eye was something different.

Helena’s cheeks were burning with a red glow. They radiated brilliantly, so even naked eyes could capture them.

Pierrot could almost feel the heat from where he stood, and as if it were infectious, his face began heating too. Not even the gentle and cold wind that accompanied them the entire time could cool them down.

“T-that’s…, I don’t know what to say but…, e-emm…, thank you.”

The wind went havoc, causing the golden strands on her head to whip around and slap against her face. She pulled her hair back to avoid it getting stuck in her ears and lips. Her lips began puckering again, meaning that she wasn’t finished yet with her words. 

“I-I also feel the same. This might be weird for me to say, b-but even though we just met, I don’t mind h-having you here.”

While saying that, Helena had difficulty looking at Pierrot straight into his eyes. It was much more awkward than before, and the young man noticed it, though he was clueless of what had caused this sudden shift. All he could do now was tracing back through their conversation again before forming another word. 

“As you may already know from before, I’m not really good at holding a conversation, so this situation troubles me a little.”

That was Helena’s sentence, one she had uttered with a solemn expression. Forwarding it a little, he replied: “Besides, that makes two of us then.”

By saying that, he tried to convey how incompetent he was socially. Nothing more, nothing less. What he didn’t know–or more accurately failed to consider–was the next set of words coming out of Helena’s mouth. 

“Ah, but it doesn’t mean I hate having you here! Please don’t misunderstand.”

And again, to reiterate, he responded with, “Besides, that makes two of us then.”

No matter how Pierrot spun it in his mind, Helena could have mistaken his answer as a response to her second sentence–a confession he hadn’t intended to make. He wasn’t being clear about it, so the blame wasn’t on her part either. In fact, no one was to blame here–just a plain misunderstanding caused by two socially inept individuals.

But to say it was a complete misunderstanding would be wrong as well. 

After all, a part inside him also believed the same, that a companion like Helena warmed his heart–be it her voice, smile, or actions. 

At this moment, he didn’t know how to answer that. Saying that he hadn’t meant his words in that way, of course, would be insensitive. At least he understood that. Besides, as his heart had established before, nothing about it was a lie either.