[Chapter 134] — Dependence (3)
“How is it? I can drink now too, you know?”
With a radiant smile, Titania gulped down the wine in her mouth, then opened it to show her tongue. Vivian frowned and glared at Titania as if to say, How can you joke around at a time like this?
“...Do you really think I’ll accept your feelings just because you do this?”
Vivian growled as she wiped the corner of her mouth with the sleeve of her negligee, soaked from the wine that had spilled down it. Watching her, Titania gave a faint chuckle and kicked one of the liquor bottles rolling across the floor.
“...Alcohol is a kind of refuge.”
“...What?”
“I heard from the Minister of Foreign Affairs that adults drink to forget bad things, to escape from reality, and to run away from various unpleasant emotions—depression, loneliness, anxiety, fear, and so on.”
At the sudden turn in the conversation, Vivian knitted her brows. She could not understand what Titania was trying to say. Titania looked at the liquor bottles strewn across the floor and let out another soft laugh.
“Was it so painful staying here that you had to drown yourself in alcohol?”
Titania raised her head and cast Vivian a sidelong glance. Just as Vivian tried to avoid her gaze, Titania approached and lifted Vivian’s chin with one hand, as if telling her not to look away.
“...Let go of me.”
“How have you been all this time? Well, I suppose it’s obvious even without asking. You drank all day, fell asleep drunk, and simply passed the time like that. To forget this situation.”
“...Are you making fun of me right now?”
“Of course not. I just thought that perhaps you finally understood, to some extent, the pain I felt... But I suppose it’s still not enough? I should have come even later.”
“What...?”
With a small laugh, Titania brushed one of Vivian’s cheeks with the hand that had been holding her chin. At Titania’s final words, Vivian felt as though her mind had stopped working.
Then... the reason Titania had come so late was...
“Didn’t you tell me you were busy...? That was why it was difficult for you to see me...”
“...I wasn’t particularly busy, though? Did I really say that?”
At Titania’s giggle, Vivian ground her teeth.
Her jaw bulged from the force with which she clenched it, trying to suppress her anger. This had happened before. Titania had clearly begged her to wait ‘just a little longer,’ saying that she was too busy to even have time to think.
This time was exactly the same as last time. She had said she could not come because she was busy, and that she would come a little earlier the next time. Yet she had intentionally come late, showing her face only after a week had passed. This time, too, it had been a ‘lie.’
Vivian had believed that if she waited, Titania would come to release her from these shackles. Titania had asked her to give her time to think, and Vivian had believed that if she gave her that time, Titania would realize that the feelings she held for her adoptive mother were merely a misunderstanding. But...
“You lied to me again...!”
Just as Vivian was about to unleash her anger—
“You were the one who lied to me first, Mother. Surely you aren’t going to say you’ve forgotten?”
Vivian could not say a word in response to Titania.
“You ‘promised’ that you would stay with me for the rest of my life, and then you tossed me nothing but a flimsy scrap of paper before disappearing without a word. Ah, that’s right. The reason you left me was because of that ‘promise,’ wasn’t it?”
Titania giggled as she looked at Vivian. Was this what people called turning the tables? Would the day ever come when her mother understood who had lied first, and how that lie had caused Titania to fall apart?
Titania merely wanted Vivian to know.
How much she had suffered while her mother was gone. How much pain her mother’s lies had caused her. How painful it was to be betrayed countless times by the person she had trusted all her life.
That was why she had put shackles on her.
She had filled them with the desire to tell her mother not to run away from her side, and the wish that her mother would feel even a fraction of the pain she had felt after being deceived by her. She had punished her by making her believe an insubstantial ‘lie’ and wait endlessly in faith.
Left alone by the ‘lie’ that Titania needed time to think, her mother must have continued to believe and wait. She must have been convinced that the shackles around her ankles would soon be unlocked. Foolishly, innocently.
Her mother must have waited in anxious anticipation, believing the ‘lie’ that Titania would come back sooner next time. The empty liquor bottles strewn across the floor proved it. She must have felt uneasy as she believed that flimsy lie.
Even while growing anxious over those lies, the only thing her mother could do was wait in the empty room, unable to speak with anyone, trusting in nothing but the hollow ‘lies.’
What if Titania had lied?
Why was she taking so long to come?
Could it be that she had no intention of unlocking the shackles?
Was Vivian going to have to live here for the rest of her life?
Anxiety and unease. And then, upon seeing the face of the person who had made the promise, the relief of thinking, It wasn’t a lie after all. She was only a little late.
Those were the emotions reflected on her mother’s face when they met after four days.
Titania felt quite pleased as she watched that expression on Vivian’s face. Her mother, who had become so anxious after only four days, was both adorable and hateful. Titania had suffered like that for years.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Did you really believe that I wouldn’t lie to you? After you told me such a lie?”
Giggling, Titania looked down at Vivian and let out a mocking laugh. What a foolish mother. A mother who was nothing if not innocent. The expression on her face, as if she had never imagined being deceived by her daughter, was truly ridiculous.
“You really are innocent, Mother. Or perhaps you simply don’t feel any guilt toward me—I’m not sure which. Do I still look like the innocent ‘little child’ I was back then in your eyes?”
At that moment, large tears gathered in the corners of Vivian’s eyes. Her expression was that of a child on the verge of bursting into tears. Her shoulders trembled violently, as if she were forcing herself not to cry.
But no matter how much Vivian cried, Titania had no intention of stopping. She had cried every night for years. She had cried every day as she longed for her mother and suffered because of her lies.
“After you abandoned me and left, while you were living happily with someone else, every day was hell for me. In that hell, I waited for you to come back, crying out your name. But you...”
You forgot all about someone like me and lived a truly happy life.
Titania muttered those words with a hollow laugh, then smiled bitterly. She reached out and wiped the tears gathered in the corners of Vivian’s eyes with her finger.
“I—I only wanted you to become independent...”
“Wasn’t this what you meant by ‘independence’? Being betrayed by someone you trusted, being left alone, and suffering—isn’t that the ‘independence’ you were talking about?”
“N-no... I wanted you to...”
“...You say it wasn’t, but that is the pain I felt.”
Titania reflected on the reason Vivian had left her side. She was all grown up now, so she had to leave her mother’s side and become independent. A grown bird had to leave its nest. Her mother had believed that without a doubt.
But what her mother had done was shove a fledgling out of its nest without taking responsibility. Without even asking the fledgling’s opinion, she had pushed it outside while it could not yet even flap its wings properly.
The fledgling that fell from the nest plummeted toward the ground. At the base of the tree, it cried out for its mother and begged for help. But the mother bird left the fledgling behind and flew far away.
“Do you understand now? You simply abandoned me and left.”
“Ah...”
Drip, drip. Tears streamed down Vivian’s cheeks. Thick drops flowed ceaselessly along her face. Titania merely looked down at her.
The tears crossing Vivian’s cheeks and soaking her face dampened Titania’s hand as it caressed her cheek. Each time the hot tears touched her skin, Titania could only smile bitterly.
“Do you still think you have to leave my side?”
Vivian said nothing.
She did not even nod. As if she still did not know, she merely stood there blankly, silently shedding tears. Titania found it a little irritating that her mother still could not give her an immediate answer after all this.
Titania took a small key from her pocket and placed it in Vivian’s hand. Vivian knew what the key was for without Titania having to tell her.
“If you still think you have to leave my side, then leave this place by tomorrow.”
“......”
“If you leave, I’ll cry every day, of course. I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling even more pain than you have felt over this past month. But if you think you can accept that, you may leave my side.”
Titania smiled sweetly as she placed the key in Vivian’s hand. She folded Vivian’s fingers around it herself, forcing her to make her own choice. Then Titania took one step back and left the room.
Coldly, without saying a word or looking back.
When the door closed, Vivian stared blankly down at the small key in her hand. Though it offered her the freedom to leave this place at once by unlocking the shackles, she could not move her feet.
“......”
Vivian thought back over the past month.
The time she had spent trapped alone in this vast room, anxious that Titania might not keep her promise, restless as she wondered when she would be able to leave. It had been only a month, but that month had felt like a year.
It had been a month in which she had lived at the mercy of every word Titania spoke. To Vivian, it had been only a month, but Titania called it a lifetime. She said she had lived with these feelings throughout the years Vivian had been gone.
Moreover, Titania said that if Vivian left, she would go on living with those feelings for the rest of her life. Saying so, Titania had placed the key in her hand—the key that could free her and allow her to leave this place at once.
“......”
Vivian bent down and inserted the key into the lock attached to the shackle. With a crisp click, the lock opened, and the shackles that had bound her for a month came free far too easily.
It felt strange that there was no longer a clinking sound beneath her feet whenever she walked. People really were creatures of adaptation, Vivian thought bitterly as she took a few steps in place.
Vivian raised her head and looked toward the firmly closed door. A few more steps, and she could open that door and go outside. She could leave this place and go out.
*
Click.
The sound of the door opening rang out, and Titania entered the room where Vivian had been confined. The first thing she saw upon entering was the shackles neatly arranged beneath the bed.
The shackles that no longer bound her mother’s ankles waited beneath the bed for their turn to come again someday. Titania turned her head and surveyed the room. It was cleaner than it had been yesterday.
The liquor bottles that had been rolling around no longer dirtied the room, and perhaps because it had been aired out, the stale smell of alcohol was gone as well. Seeing the state of the room, Titania smiled sweetly and approached the bed.
“Why are you still here?”
On the bed, her mother sat demurely in her negligee, reading a novel. Vivian merely glanced at Titania from the corners of her eyes, then let out a small sigh and closed the book.
“......Who knows? Why do you think I stayed?”
Vivian gave a faint laugh and looked up at Titania. Titania, too, smiled down at Vivian. As they continued to smile at each other, the room gradually began to fill with the sound of their laughter.
When the laughter died down, Vivian sighed, rose from the bed, and approached Titania. Coming right up to her, Vivian lifted her hand and stroked the head of her daughter, who was taller than she was.
Titania still disliked the way Vivian treated her like a ‘little child.’ Frowning slightly in annoyance, Titania gently brushed away the hand resting on her head.
“Honestly, I don’t know what romantic feelings you hold for me... But for now, I think staying by your side is the right choice.”
“...You only realized that now?”
“Yes. What a fool I was.”
Vivian let out a quiet chuckle, then lifted her head for a moment to look at Titania’s face. With a sorrowful expression, she stroked Titania’s cheek. Was it because she had spent all this time trying only to push her away?
It felt like it had been a long time since she had looked so closely at Titania’s face.
“...You cut your hair.”
“...It’s been quite a while.”
“I knew, but I don’t think I ever said anything.”
The hand that had traced down Titania’s cheek moved to her hair, which fell all the way to her shoulders. Seeing the hairstyle, with half as much hair as before, Vivian smiled and gently stroked Titania’s head.
“It suits you.”
“Do you know that I cut my hair because of you, Mother?”
“...I had a feeling that was the case.”
And so, Titania and Vivian exchanged small, trivial stories with each other. They spoke of how Titania had lived all this time without her mother, and how Vivian had spent her days in the cabin.
Their conversation blossomed, filling the room. They brought out all the stories they had been unable to share until now. As though closing the distance that had grown during all the time they had kept each other at arm’s length, they continued sharing their stories.
As they talked for a while, Vivian placed her hand over the back of Titania’s and met her gaze. The mood grew a little more serious, and Titania quietly returned Vivian’s gaze as she listened.
“...From now on, I promise I’ll always stay by your side. Unless you push me away first, I won’t leave you.”
“......”
Vivian smiled brightly and held out her pinky to Titania. When Titania did not offer hers, as though she found it difficult to believe her, Vivian forcibly took Titania’s hand and linked their pinkies together.
Titania looked at their forcibly entwined fingers and let out a small laugh.
“Ha... Considering all the promises you’ve broken to me, a thousand needles probably wouldn’t be enough... Since things have come to this, shall I bring some needles? I am rather curious how many you’d be able to swallow, Mother.”
“T-This time, I really mean it. I really will keep it...”
At Vivian’s flustered appearance, Titania chuckled softly and looked down at their linked pinkies. Her mother’s pinky, demurely hooked around her own.
As though urging her to make the promise, their entwined hands bobbed up and down. Watching them, Titania let out a hollow laugh. If she was deceived yet again this time, she really had no idea what she would do with her mother.
“...I’ll believe you one last time.”
At Titania’s answer—“I believe you”—a radiant smile bloomed across Vivian’s face. Now that it seemed they had reconciled, Vivian squeezed their linked pinkies tightly and looked at Titania.
Vivian wore an expression that seemed to be asking for something. She raised only her eyes slightly and pleaded with Titania, almost as if she were trying to act cute. At that attitude, Titania gave a small laugh and looked at Vivian.
“Th-Then, now that we’ve made up... may I leave this place?”
“.....”
A brief silence passed. At Titania’s stare, which seemed to say, Surely you don’t intend to keep me locked up here, do you?—Vivian let out a groan. Then, as though she had finished thinking, Titania opened her mouth—
“...I’ll allow you to go as far as the garden.”
“What...?”
She still had no intention of letting Vivian go.
*The next chapter is a mildly bleak IF story continuing from Chapter 133.*
If mild bleakness is difficult for you, please check before clicking on the next chapter!
As always, thank you sincerely for reading today!