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"Congratulations."
Holding my glass, I smiled and offered the words. All around me, other voices rose at the exact same time, so many that it was hard to tell whose words belonged to whom.
"The bride looks so beautiful," someone said.
"She really does," another replied.
"She looks happy."
"Mm," I said, smiling along with them.
Applause broke out, and I clapped at the same pace.
"Thank you for inviting me. ...I wish you both every happiness."
None of the words I said aloud were wrong.
I was only careful not to let anyone notice the faint unrest still churning in my chest.
"Hey, Stego. Do you know why baumkuchen shows up so often as a wedding gift?"
As I cut it into slices, I spoke to Stay Gold seated on the sofa across from me. She lifted her gaze slightly.
"...Nope."
"You know how it's layered, like tree rings?"
I set a slice on a plate and passed it over. Stay Gold took it with an "Thanks."
"That's why, apparently. It means happiness piling up in layers, or lasting for a long time. It's supposed to be good luck."
"Huh. People sure slap convincing meanings onto things."
"True. But ceremonies are full of things like that, aren't they?"
Stay Gold looked at me blankly, then popped the piece into her mouth in one bite. "Mm. Good," she mumbled around it, chewing away, and I laughed a little as I sat down with my own plate. When I cut into it with my fork, little crumbs tumbled loose.
"'May your happiness stack up layer by layer.' ...It's simple, but lovely."
"Mm-hm. So what happened?"
I took a bite. The sweet smell still seemed faintly caught in my clothes. Her tone and expression were normal. There was no pressure in it, nothing forceful. Still, somehow, it carried the sense of: Come on. Spit it out and feel better already.
I nudged at the crumbs with my fork and sighed.
"Nothing. It's nothing."
"That's not a nothing face."
Sharp as ever.
"...Am I that obvious?"
"Very. When you're eating sweets, you usually look way happier than this."
That half-joking answer made me smile despite myself. The brown and yellow layers of the baumkuchen looked almost unnaturally clear. Should I talk to my trainee about something this personal, or shouldn't I? If I wanted to spare her unnecessary worry, the answer was obviously not. But Stay Gold was not the sort of girl who would let it go at that.
After a little hesitation, I gave up and opened my mouth.
"...Actually. There was a wedding yesterday. Someone I know."
"Someone you know?"
"Yeah. Just... another trainer. Or maybe more like a senior."
"'Just,' huh."
Objection.
She said it without missing a beat, and I laughed before I could stop myself. Was I really that easy to read?
"As expected of you."
I set down my fork and leaned back in the chair.
"...He was my first love."
First love.
The instant I said it aloud, it felt like a little of the tension drained from my shoulders.
"I already knew, back when we met, that he was seeing someone seriously. Like marriage-seriously. So I wasn't under any illusion that anything would happen. I never even thought about confessing and going down in flames or anything."
My voice was calmer than it had any right to be.
"Maybe it was admiration more than anything. He was kind, and good at his job. I was still a student and barely knew anything, and while he was teaching me all sorts of things, I realized... ah, I like him."
It was not that he was cool in some idol-like way. If anything, he was quiet. If I had to compare him to a flower, maybe a wild chrysanthemum. Though I suppose comparing a man to a flower is a little strange.
"Of course someone like that already had someone in his life. So I let it go properly. I never told him, or anyone else. And I doubt he ever noticed."
"Really?"
"Really. Even yesterday, I congratulated him normally. 'Congratulations. I wish you both happiness.' Just like that."
After saying it, I stabbed my fork into the baumkuchen left on the plate. The silver prongs sank quietly into its neat stacked layers.
I took a bite.
It was sweet.
It should have tasted sweet, and yet the flavor somehow felt blurred.
"...But, you know. I couldn't even finish it by myself. Maybe I'm getting old."
"Hey now. You're not that much older than me."
"Hehe. True. ...I was going to eat it after I got home yesterday, but the second I opened the box, I suddenly felt full."
The edges of my vision blurred ever so slightly. It was not worth crying over, and yet there it was.
"...It's just... even though it was supposed to be a story that ended properly, I got a little sad."
It was not that I had ever really wanted anything serious with him. I never wanted to drag anyone else down just to have him. I had only been cherishing a faint, delicate dream. It had only turned sad because the dream had finally ended. That was all.
Silence fell for a little while. I kept crumbling the layers of cake with the tip of my fork, clinging to them with embarrassing reluctance, when Stay Gold's voice dropped from across the room.
"...I didn't know there'd ever been someone you liked."
I looked up. Plate in hand, Stay Gold was watching me with a curious sort of amusement.
"I kind of thought you only ever looked at me."
The line sounded like a joke, and I ended up laughing.
"That was before I met you. I'm allowed a few bittersweet youth memories too, you know. Back then I wasn't living like I do now, spending every day thinking about my trainee—about you."
The moment I said it, I grimaced.
"...Sorry. That came out weird."
Flustered, I pulled my plate closer and gathered the crumbs together. The embarrassment and regret arrived late, now that I'd shown her all these pathetic sides of myself. I had never meant to say this much. I smiled bitterly at myself.
"I'd appreciate it if you forgot that."
"Hm? I won't."
"That's awful."
When I looked up again, Stay Gold was eating her baumkuchen with the same composed expression as ever.
"If anything, that was useful information."
"How on earth?"
At my exasperated reply, she set down her fork and looked straight at me. The very corner of her mouth tilted upward.
"Well... now I know you've got a hole."
"...Excuse me?"
I blinked, not understanding at first what she meant.
"You don't get it?"
Her tone stayed flat, but her gaze was direct.
"It means there's a perfect opening to slip into the hole in your heart."
"...Huh?"
An utterly ridiculous sound came out of me.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means exactly what I said."
She said it so easily that I frowned. It was not even that I didn't understand—it was that the conversation seemed to be heading somewhere I did not particularly want it to.
"...If that's a joke, stop. If you're trying to comfort me, that's in pretty poor taste—"
I had only just gotten the words out when Stay Gold stood up. She planted a hand on the table and, without the slightest hesitation, stepped around it toward me. The dishes rattled softly.
"Stego?"
I had no time to stop her. She closed the distance over the table and pressed me lightly back against the sofa. Her dusk-colored eyes pinned me in place, unreadable as ever. Just as I wondered what she meant to do, her fingertips touched my chin. With a small motion, she tipped it upward.
"...What are you doing?"
It was meant to be a protest, but my voice came out slightly hoarse. Stay Gold held my gaze as if she had no intention of letting me go and said, very slowly:
"Right now, you truly belong to no one."
Her fingertip traced the line beneath my chin. The touch was teasing, but also somehow as though she were confirming the shape of me.
"You're carrying just the slightest melancholy... and it makes you even prettier than usual."
My heart gave one huge thud.
"...Stay Gold—"
"I'm not sweet enough..."
Her voice fell near my ear, sounding lower than usual even though the cadence was the same.
"...to let an opening like that pass me by."
The whisper stole my breath.
I ought to have been able to flee; the distance was not impossible. And yet I could not move. Maybe because the sofa beneath me was too soft. Maybe I had already sunk.
Stay Gold came another few centimeters closer.
This was bad. For my heart, for propriety, for every possible regulation.
"S-stop! Things like this are—"
"Relax. I'm not going to do anything. Yet."
She cut in before I could finish, then laughed softly. It was the innocent laugh of a child who had found an entertaining toy. She gave a small shrug and dropped one final line:
"You just have to come to me hungry. Forget bland little cakes. I'll feed you until you're full enough to burst."