Hainer had never once given thought to the situation ‘after she left him.’ He had consciously avoided even imagining it.
For Hainer, who always read the future and prepared against it, it was an unprecedented thing. Only she had always been different. Before her, he had always been immature and foolish.
A colleague had once said something. ‘Love makes me a better person.’ Hainer had thought those words were wrong.
Because she had always made him into a lesser man.
“I heard Anette wants a divorce as well.”
At those words, a murky light flickered in Hainer’s eyes.
“I will help Anette with her divorce trial. You drove your wife to attempt suicide, so there is sufficient grounds for fault. After that, even if she seeks asylum in Franche, you cannot exercise your rights over her.”
“…It won’t go your way.”
“Why? Are you going to wield the Supreme Commander’s power? To do the very thing you despised so much?”
Ansaga snorted as if the notion was absurd. He seemed to think that Hainer Valdemar—renowned for his righteousness and integrity—would never do such a thing for the sake of a mere woman.
But Ansaga was missing the point entirely. The very fact that Hainer had participated in the revolution was because of Anette alone.
She had been his cause.
She had also been his result.
“…Who knows.”
Hainer muttered an ambiguous answer and let out a dry, rough laugh.
“Just try doing such a thing. I’ll make you an international laughingstock for your abuse of power. It seems you’ve forgotten—I came here as an ambassador of Franche.”
It was a shabby, worthless threat, but Hainer did not react in particular. Ansaga, who had been glaring at Hainer with huffing breaths, turned halfway and said,
“At any rate, the negotiations have broken down. See you in court.”
“If you go to Franche.”
At that parched voice, Ansaga came to a dead halt.
“Are you planning to marry Anette?”
“That’s none of your damn business.”
“Do you still love her?”
Ansaga furrowed his brow, seemingly trying to gauge whether Hainer was asking in earnest.
The clouds blocking the sun scattered, and the sky brightened all at once. Sunlight poured into the reception room. Hainer’s face, his back to the window, was shrouded in shadow and barely visible.
After thinking for a long while, Ansaga asked again, as if he simply could not arrive at an answer.
“…What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“Why would you be curious about such a thing?”
“If she goes to Franche with you…”
Even though Anette was barren, incapable of producing an heir.
“I wondered if she would be happier.”
The edge of his voice was rough, as if scraped with sandpaper. Ansaga could not understand why on earth he would ask such a question.
A brief silence passed. Thin, wide clouds drifted by slowly. The light that had filled the room withdrew slightly.
Only then could Ansaga make out his opponent’s face. His eyes widened slightly. *Ah.* A small groan escaped from between his lips.
Without realizing it, Ansaga gave an honest answer.
“…At least she won’t be so wretched that she wants to die.”
***
“Your Excellency, Supreme Commander.”
Major Yugen, holding a thick file, knocked on the open door. Hainer, who had been packing necessary luggage, looked toward the door. The Major bowed deeply.
“I apologize. I know you are on leave, but there are documents requiring urgent approval, so I had no choice but to visit.”
Hainer nodded his head, signaling him to enter. Major Yugen entered with what seemed like excessive formality and held out the documents.
Hainer read the documents while standing beside the desk, asked the Major a few questions, and then signed. Major Yugen expressed his gratitude and bowed his head once more.
Hainer looked at him for a moment and spoke bluntly,
“There is no need to go that far, Major. This is simply your proper duty.”
“Even so, I am sorry to disturb you while you are on leave. You look tired…”
Hainer listened to the Major’s words with slightly furrowed eyes, then belatedly realized and ran a hand down over his eye area. His eye sockets were deeply sunken, having grown gaunt.
Currently, his countenance was like a ghost’s. Hainer knew this himself. Lately, he had been barely surviving on the minimum amount of sleep and meals.
Looking at his superior, whose appearance was beyond words, Major Yugen sighed in frustration.
“Because of his wife—what is all this?”
*Because of.* That word grated on him terribly. Perhaps taking Hainer’s silence as affirmation, Major Yugen began to speak more passionately.
“Some journalists are even subtly publishing speculative articles suggesting that Your Excellency drove your wife to suicide. Though of course, there is no one who sympathizes with them.”
“…”
“Anyway, it’s nothing but a show to get attention. I don’t know why people are making such a fuss…”
The usual Hainer would not have bothered to stop Yugen, a man who despised nobility to the bone, from speaking. Even if he didn’t add his own words, he would have silently agreed.
But the current him could not let it pass as usual.
“Major Yugen.”
Hainer quietly cut off the Major’s words. At the inexplicable weight in that flat voice, Major Yugen flinched without knowing why.
“That woman… she truly tried to die.”
As he spoke those words, Hainer realized anew. It wasn’t a show. It wasn’t simple self-harm. He tried voicing that fact aloud once again.
“Anette truly tried to die.”
The words returned to him like a hammer. For some reason, his throat constricted terribly.
Suddenly, Hainer realized he had been pressing the pen nib against the paper the entire time. He lifted it too late; the ink had already spread black like mold.
***
After her suicide attempt, Hainer had never once thought to look back at the traces Anette had left behind.
It was partly because he had not wanted to enter the room where Anette had attempted suicide, and partly because he had not wanted to acknowledge that she had made preparations ‘to truly die.’
With his mind half-gone, Hainer walked to her room. Currently, Anette had been moved to a separate building where the entry of outsiders was restricted.
When he opened the door, the warm, familiar scent unique to her room flowed out. Wherever Anette stayed for a long time, there was always this fragrance.
Not the smell of blood, sweat, iron, or decay, but a soft, refreshing scent.
Hainer hesitated for a long while, unable to step inside, then moved his feet haltingly. As if asking when such a terrible thing had happened, the room was exactly as it always had been.
Even the bed where she had lain covered in blood had its sheets and blankets neatly changed. Hainer swept his hand over the bed once. The surface of the blanket was cold, devoid of warmth.
Like an anxious dog, Hainer paced around the room. He unnecessarily flipped through books on the bookshelf, checked if the chair creaked, and examined the cosmetics on the dressing table one by one.
He opened the drawers under the desk, but there was nothing particularly special inside. When he opened the last drawer, a rustling sound came from within.
It was coming from a small cloth pouch tied with a string. Hainer took it out.
When he opened the pouch, something blue sparkled inside.
*A jewel…?*
The moment he thought so, seashells came into view. Hainer narrowed his brow and shook them out into his palm.
They were cracked seashells, turban shells, and pieces of glass worn smooth on the surface. Worthless things—not even worth a single coin, let alone jewels.
Hainer knew these things.
They were what she had picked up on Glenford beach.
*Surely… I threw these in the hotel trash can.*
That was the only time Anette had gone to the sea in the last three years. When they moved to the official residence after the revolution, he had personally inspected Anette’s luggage, but these had not been there at the time.
Therefore, these were definitely the things he had thrown in the trash can.
*Why on earth?*
Just as when he had first discovered these things in the pocket of her cardigan, he felt displeased.
Why would she keep such utterly useless things? Even going so far as to fish them back out of the trash can.
Hainer held them in his palm for a moment, then put them back in the pouch. He placed it back where it had been and closed the drawer.
The figure of a woman walking toward the horizon rose in his mind like a heat shimmer. A figure so small and precarious before the vast sea.
“Well. I suppose that person… wouldn’t care at all even if I died.”
A voice scattered desolately inside the rattling train.
Hainer squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and sprang up from where he sat. And he began searching the rest of her room.
As soon as he opened the wardrobe, a safe stuck out awkwardly from below. It looked as though it had been pulled out from inside.
Hainer knelt down on one knee to check it. The safe door was not locked. He pulled it open.
Inside the safe were a file holder and a jewelry box. Hainer took out the file holder and flipped through it. It was the general accounting of donations and sponsorships for the civic organization she had taken charge of after their marriage.
After the revolution, Anette’s name had been officially removed from this work. Even Hainer had not known that she had continued to handle it.
The ledgers were transparent and meticulous, with handover documents for her successor neatly organized.
He read them over and over for a long time, having forgotten how to breathe. He could not understand at all. Why had she continued to do work that no one recognized?
And why had she kept such utterly useless beach trash—why had she continued to treasure them?