No Face Left to Show
Like a bucket of cold water dashed over him, Gennady’s insides went ice-cold.
“…….”
Because he felt Ashlyn’s gaze on him. Those cold blue eyes. A face blanched pure white, as if she might be sick any second; fists clenched so hard they shook. Far from sharing the pleasure he felt, she was revolted by it.
He had endured contemptuous looks more times than he could count, and had believed by now that they no longer touched him. Yet panic seized him all at once. Of course it did. Ashlyn was no ordinary human. She was the mate he had chosen for himself—an incomplete mate bound only by a half-formed thief’s imprint, a bond through which they could never truly empathize, never share feeling at all.
With that realization came a crushing wave of regret.
He wanted nothing more than to dump the canned goods from the sack onto the ground then and there and launch into a long-winded excuse that he didn’t even like this sort of thing.
But he didn’t. Instead he only gripped the sack tighter with stubborn, clinging hands.
Damn it…
Suddenly he remembered something someone had once said at the mercenary school.
“The most important thing is this. Never forget that they and we are different. Just because the other side forgets the line for a moment doesn’t mean a line once drawn disappears.”
Gennady stared with a rigid face at Ashlyn, who stood with her back to him.
I made a mistake.
Three days had passed since the trench raid. After successfully leading the operation, Ashlyn’s standing within the unit had risen noticeably. Superiors, comrades, subordinates—everyone’s attitude toward her had changed. People who once wouldn’t even half-listen to a word she said now nodded and chimed in whenever she spoke.
In werewolf terms, Ashlyn’s rank in the pack had gone up.
Frankly, Gennady couldn’t have cared less about that. What ate at him, what left him restless, was something else entirely.
It was the fact that he hadn’t managed to exchange so much as a proper word with Ashlyn.
“Second Lieutenant.”
“Ah, just a moment. I have some paperwork I need to handle.”
“…….”
“Second Lieutenant.”
“Oh, Dorset. Not enough barbed wire?”
“…….”
“Second Lieutenant.”
“Hey. Are you lot betting money on cards over there? Planning to blow your entire military pay?”
It wasn’t paranoia. It wasn’t a simple misreading of the situation. Ashlyn was avoiding him. The way she manufactured excuses the instant he tried to speak to her was unnatural to anyone watching.
It’s because of how I looked back then…
Gennady wet his dry lips with his tongue. Had seeing him then killed whatever goodwill she’d had? Or now that the mission was over, did she simply think she had no more business with a werewolf? Reasons he could invent were endless, but he didn’t particularly want to pin down the cause right now.
What mattered more was that time was running out. The days they could still spend together truly numbered only a few. At this rate… they might part without even talking properly, leaving only contempt behind. Something in Gennady’s chest constricted tight, and at the same time his mind—always so clear—tangled into an unmanageable snarl of threads.
What do I do? What should I do?
A destructive urge surged up—to seize the woman’s chin right then and force her to look at him. Or the opposite: to drop to his knees and beg, humiliatingly, for her to tell him what he’d done wrong.
But if “Gennady” might not, Sergeant Vilef was a well-trained dog. He was the member of the Fenrir Detachment best at communicating with humans. So he chose the more human option: conversation. Even if he was rejected, if he could exchange words with her just one more time…
Just once.
The sergeant quietly followed after the woman.
“Second Lieutenant.”
“Ah—you startled me.”
Ashlyn, who’d been inspecting the barbed wire mounted on the trench parapet, jumped at the sudden appearance of Sergeant Vilef behind her.
“Make some noise when you’re inside the trench. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“My apologies. I’m just used to walking this way.”
“…Right.”
Ashlyn asked as casually as she could manage.
“What is it?”
“Have I done something wrong?”
Ashlyn’s mouth fell open for a moment and wouldn’t close. She finally managed to reply.
“What—why all of a sudden?”
The sergeant spoke with an utterly even expression.
“It seems like you’re avoiding me.”
“What are you talking about? Why would I be afraid of you enough to avoid you? You must be imagining things.”
The man’s left eyebrow lifted a fraction.
“I’m not imagining it.”
“You are.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s not a lie either.”
Then the man simply stared at her in silence. On his hard face, the word LIAR seemed written in capital letters.
“Ha…”
What the hell is even the problem?
Heat rushed to her face, but Ashlyn had developed an immunity to situations like this by now. Arguing head-on with the man never led anywhere good.
“Fine. What is it you’re so desperate to say?”
“I simply… want to know why the Second Lieutenant is avoiding me.”
“…….”
Is that so? Then you tell me. This time it was Ashlyn’s turn to fall silent. The sergeant pressed on in a short-tempered tone.
“Have I done something wrong? If I have, I’ll correct it.”
“I already told you several times there’s nothing like that.”
Even with Ashlyn’s firm assurance, Sergeant Vilef showed no sign of accepting it. The mountain of a man stood planted in front of her, with no intention of moving. Ashlyn swallowed a long sigh inside. In the end, she was the one who waved the white flag.
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Then, tilting his head at a slight angle to match her, the man asked again.
“So I’m just unpleasant to be around, then?”
“That’s not it either!”
Ashlyn waved the arm that wasn’t holding the file folder left and right as she spoke.
“It’s just that I don’t have the face to look at you!”
At words he had never expected, Sergeant Vilef’s face took on a blank look she’d never seen on him before. At that expression, Ashlyn felt her earlobes burn.
“Face?”
“I mean I’m sorry…”
“Sorry for what, exactly?”
A reaction of genuine bewilderment. In the end Ashlyn had no choice but to confess.
“The last operation would have failed if it hadn’t been for you, Sergeant.”
“…….”
Sergeant Vilef said nothing. Neither affirming nor denying, he simply waited for Ashlyn to finish. She continued in fits and starts.
“I tried somehow to make sure your contributions would be recognized… But in the end I couldn’t get your name onto the awards list. I should have spoken more forcefully.”
Silence. Ashlyn worked her lips for a moment, then spoke low.
“I have no face to show you, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Vilef’s eyebrows moved a fraction upward.
“What does ‘face’ even mean, that you’ve been saying it this whole time?”
“It roughly means I’m sorry. Looking after your subordinates is also a superior’s job, but it seems the company commander and the battalion commander thought differently.”
The more she talked, the more it sounded like excuses.
They are excuses, though.
Ashlyn bit down hard on her lower lip. The suspicious undercurrents had been there from early on. But even so—she never expected Sergeant Vilef to be so thoroughly excluded from the distribution of merit. This was a situation even Ashlyn hadn’t anticipated.
Medals, reward leave—every list had Sergeant Vilef’s name missing and only his.
Facing an awkward Ashlyn, Sergeant Vilef exhaled a shallow sigh. He muttered so quietly she couldn’t hear.
“What… all over something that small.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing.”
At the man’s unconcerned reaction, Ashlyn’s face eased considerably. After gathering her breath for a moment, she dropped her voice as low as it would go.
“Actually, I just sent a letter to headquarters by post detailing your achievements.”
“……?”
“I don’t know how the battalion commander will react… But even so, letting it go like this didn’t seem right.”
“…What?”
“It seemed only fair that you receive the same medals and leave as the Fourth Platoon members. Honestly I’m not sure about the medals, but I think the leave can be arranged somehow.”
Of course this isn’t certain either, so don’t get your hopes up too much…
She hadn’t even finished speaking. In an instant Sergeant Vilef’s eyes sharpened. The shadows beneath them deepened a shade darker.
“Why did you do that.”
“Huh?”
“Cancel that letter at once.”
“I already sent it?”
“I’m fine. No. I don’t want it.”
“Why—you don’t want a medal and leave?”
Ashlyn’s face colored with bewilderment. And for good reason—she could understand not wanting a medal, but she couldn’t possibly grasp why anyone would refuse leave.
“I already have plenty of medals, and even if I sold them they wouldn’t fetch more than pocket change.”
Gennady raked his fingers through his forelock. The front hair he’d carefully slicked up with pomade scattered every which way over his thick eyebrows. He spoke in a distinctly weary tone.
“And leave—there’s nothing to do even if I go.”
“…….”
“Anyway, please cancel it. I absolutely don’t want it. I didn’t step up because I wanted that kind of thing.”
It was a reaction she had never anticipated at all. The straight line of Ashlyn’s mouth trembled faintly at the corners.
“…I didn’t realize you’d hate it this much. I fretted all by myself for nothing. Like an idiot.”
She tried to act as if it were nothing, but the bitter edge in her tone and expression was impossible to hide. Before the sergeant could add anything to that, Ashlyn whipped her head away and muttered as if to herself.
“Right. You didn’t even want it, and I went and put myself forward alone and ended up being rude. I’ll go send a letter to headquarters right now canceling the recommendation.”
To a werewolf, medals and leave don’t seem to mean much.
Maybe a cash bonus would have been better?
In the end I just stuck my neck out alone when the other party had no intention of accepting anything.
Unable to bear the awkwardness, Ashlyn was about to hurry and turn her back when—