[Episode 78] - When Women Gather, They Always Talk About Love. (2)
Love?
Love...
Love...?
Titania kept tilting her head at the question of what love was. Countless words passed through her mind as she tried to explain that vague word, love, but none of them would quite come out of her mouth.
She did not know “exactly” what love was, but it was not as if she knew nothing at all. It was just a little difficult to say. Titania was at a loss, not knowing how she ought to define the word love.
For now, love was something she had learned about through the book she had just read, “The Witch Wants to Become the Marquis’s Wife.” In that romance novel, love appeared in “two” forms.
The sincere love between the marquis and the witch, and the twisted love of the familiar.
In her head, Titania knew that the love between the marquis and the witch was the right kind of love, but she also knew that the desperate feelings the familiar held as he obsessed over the witch and clung to her were also “love.”
Since she knew all of that was love, she did not know how to answer when asked what love was. To begin with, was love really a word that could be defined in a single sentence?
Surely, even if she asked adults the same question, she would not receive a proper answer. Even in books, love was explained in all sorts of ways. Was love not different depending on the person who felt it?
As she struggled and agonized over it, Viola, lying beside her, stared up at the ceiling and let out deep sigh after deep sigh. At the sigh that seemed heavy enough to make the earth sink, Titania turned her head and looked at Viola.
“Is it because of the marriage meeting?”
“Yeah...”
At the words marriage meeting, Viola furrowed her brow as if troubled.
In truth, rather than a proper marriage meeting, it was merely an event for the two sides to become acquainted, but since most people became “engaged” to the first person they met that way, Viola could not hide her complicated feelings.
Lying on the bed and kicking her feet, Viola puffed out her cheeks and grumbled.
“I don’t want to go to anything like a marriage meeting... but Mother says I absolutely have to... It’s not like I can choose in the first place, is it? Even if I say I don’t like that person, they won’t listen to me anyway...”
In fact, Viola’s marriage meeting was on the late side compared to others her age.
Usually, meeting a young nobleman and having a marriage meeting at around ten years old was ordinary, so even in children’s society, Viola and Titania were the only ones who had yet to attend one. Titania could not help it because of her position as a princess... but Viola’s situation was rather unusual.
That was why Viola truly disliked marriage meetings. Through romance novels, she had already learned about the “love” nobles could not have, and had even come to long for it. It had become something of Viola’s habit to say she wanted to experience a love as sweet and tender as in a novel, a love that could set even herself ablaze.
Viola whipped her head around to look at Titania and asked once more.
“So? What do you think love is?”
“U-um... I don’t know... To be honest, I’m not really sure. Why don’t you ask the girls who are already engaged? There was one who said she liked her fiancé, wasn’t there?”
“You know that girl is a special case, don’t you? Rather than a marriage meeting, she’s basically marrying her childhood friend. Didn’t she say she’d grown up together with the boy from the neighboring house since they were born? And on top of that, she even had a marriage meeting with him.”
Titania and Viola thought of that girl at the same time.
She was a new friend they had met in society the year before last, a slightly mature girl. A girl who had already gone through both a marriage meeting and an engagement, and now only needed to grow older and hold her coming-of-age ceremony before marrying right away. And her partner was a childhood friend she had been close to since she was little. She was a girl who received the envy of all the other young ladies.
“Haa... Why don’t I have a male childhood friend like she does? If I had a childhood friend like that, I would have looked forward to this marriage meeting quite a bit. The only childhood friend I’ve had since I was little is you.”
“M-me too, you know? There isn’t a single young nobleman around me either. I’ve never met any separately outside of society. So other than you, I don’t have anyone I can call a friend.”
“Reaaally?”
Titania and Viola met each other’s eyes, looked at one another, and smiled shyly. Then they began poking each other in the sides with their fingers, playing around. It was to hide the embarrassment that had begun to redden even their faces.
As they continued playing and poking each other in the sides, the room filled with the girls’ laughter. After playing so hard, the two girls, who had laughed so much that it became difficult even to breathe, collapsed on the bed, exhausted from laughing and panting softly.
After catching her breath for a moment like that, Viola lifted the book, grinned, and answered.
“I think love is ‘wanting to possess all of the other person’s body and heart.’ Like the ‘familiar’ in this book, who doesn’t know what to do because he wants to have the witch.”
“What? But you said you hated the familiar until just now.”
“When I said I hated the familiar, I meant I hated him because the witch and the marquis are in love, but he keeps interfering. The witch says she doesn’t like it, but he keeps clinging to her and tormenting her from the side. Anyone would hate that, wouldn’t they? What I sympathized with in the familiar was the ‘love’ he has for the witch.”
“Mm?”
When Titania tilted her head as if she did not understand, Viola continued explaining step by step. Her own definition of love.
“Think about it carefully, Titania. Imagine you love someone. But that person smiles at someone else besides you and tries to get close to them. How do you think you’d feel?”
“Even if you put it that way, I can’t really picture it...? I think I’d just accept it?”
“It doesn’t have to be someone you love. Isn’t there someone you’re really close to? Or someone as close to you as I am? A pet, then? Imagine your pet wagging its tail at someone other than you. But that person is someone you really hate. How about that? Can you picture it now?”
“Someone close...? A pet...?”
Titania closed her eyes and sank deep into thought, and in her mind, for a moment—
Though she truly did not know why, Titania thought of her “mother.” Because the only person closer to her than Viola was her mother.
She knew it was an extremely rude thought, but Titania began to imagine her mother in the role of the “pet” Viola had mentioned. She imagined her mother smiling brightly at someone else and wagging her tail.
At that imagining, Titania’s eyebrows twisted. Something unpleasant churned inside her, as if heating her body. She wanted to run to her mother at once and shout at her not to do that.
With her brows deeply furrowed, Titania answered.
“...? Somehow, I think I’d really hate it...”
“Right? Right? Don’t you want to keep that gaze always by your side, and have that person’s heart always turned toward you? Maybe the love the familiar feels for the witch in the book was something like that?”
Certainly, Titania could not deny Viola’s words.
When Viola called it the familiar’s love, Titania had wondered what on earth she meant, but when she imagined her mother smiling at someone other than her and loving them, her insides twisted, and she felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment.
As Titania pouted her lips at the unknown, simmering displeasure blooming within her, Viola looked at her, giggled, and continued speaking.
“Well, in books, they call this obsession or jealousy, but I don’t think love without obsession and jealousy exists. Isn’t it because you love someone that you get jealous and obsessed? The witch may not have been jealous, but isn’t she practically obsessed with the marquis too?”
“I see...”
Certainly, Titania had never had a way of thinking like Viola’s.
To Titania, the familiar in the book was simply a bad person who interfered with the love between the witch and the marquis, and what the familiar did for the witch was only love in words. She had never thought of love and obsession as one, the way Viola did.
After listening to Viola, she felt she could understand the familiar’s feelings a little. The familiar’s obsession with the witch and the bad things he did could not be forgiven, but still, she thought perhaps he had not been obsessed with the witch out of purely wicked intentions.
‘If I read that book again now, wouldn’t I feel something different?’
As Titania thought that and blankly stared at the book’s cover, Viola, lying beside her, poked Titania’s side with her elbow and smiled wickedly. At that truly wicked and irritating smile, Titania frowned and looked at Viola.
“So? So? Who did you think of earlier to make such a scary face?”
“What? Me?”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you make that kind of face. Even when someone in society made a mistake with you, you never made such a scary face. Who did you think of to make such a fierce expression? Hm? Hm? Can’t you tell only me?”
At the teasing tone, Titania’s face flushed red. How could she possibly say she had thought of her mother just then?
She shoved Viola’s shoulder as Viola drew right up beside her, grinning broadly, and Titania shouted.
“A pet! I imagined a pet!”
“Reaaally? You made such a scary face over just a pet? More importantly, you don’t even have a pet—”
“Eek! Stop teasing me!”
Wham!
Unable to bear her embarrassment any longer, Titania sprang up and pounced on Viola. She tickled and poked Viola’s sides mercilessly, not stopping until Viola begged her to spare her.
After Viola finally burst into tearful laughter and lay sprawled on the bed, giggling weakly, Titania at last let out a sigh of relief and took her hands away from Viola’s sides. Looking down at Viola lying there limp and powerless, Titania sat back down and began to think again.
She told herself that she had only thought of her mother this time because there had been no one else, and that the reason Ainsel had not come to mind was because she was a fairy. Thinking that, she let out another deep sigh.
‘To begin with, Mother would never smile at other people the way she smiles at me. Mother always looks only at me.’
With that, Titania flopped down onto the bed and began carefully rereading the book she had read earlier. All while wondering what her mother might be doing right about now.
And at exactly that moment, Vivian was—
“Today, we’re going to drink ourselves to death!”
“Your Majesty the Queen, you’re so wonderful!!!!”
—I’m going to the princess. That’s all right, isn’t it?
She was utterly drunk and out of her mind.