Episode 116
Hearing an apology makes me feel as though I’m allowed to resent him. Perhaps what I need is someone who can take this burden from my heart, someone I can resent to my heart’s content.
But looking back, one of the root causes that brought about all of this was me. When thoughts that chased one another in circles arrived at that conclusion, in the end self-loathing only swelled larger. I was devoured by a beast of my own making.
The sincerity with which I told him there was no need when he said he wanted to atone, the meaning behind telling him not to apologize, the confession that everything I had lost had happened because I had never deserved to have it in the first place—in truth, none of it was comfort meant for him.
It was mockery I had poured upon myself.
Because even if this heart with nowhere to go turned toward this man, I had to rein myself in and tell myself I had no right to resent him.
― I don’t understand. Why did you forgive me? How could you forgive me?
― When you hated me so much.
― When you wanted revenge so badly.
“If I didn’t, you would disappear from the world…….”
After staring for a while at the question she had thrown at him, Ejekail opened his mouth. His voice was unbearably heavy, as though he were bearing every emotion that existed in the world all at once.
“I was more afraid of that, Lizan. I had already lived in a world where you existed, so I couldn’t bring myself to live again in a world where you were gone.”
He had simply chosen the easier path because he wanted to live with Lizan, because his love was greater than his hatred. It was simple.
“Lizan, even now, when you fall asleep, the first thing I do is check the sound of your breathing. To see whether you’re really breathing safely, whether you’re having some terrible dream. When you’re out of my sight, I feel so anxious I think I’ll go mad. Even when you’re with people I can trust. The truth is, I don’t want to give you any space. I want to keep watching over you.”
That feeling still remained unchanged within Ejekail. That was why he could neither understand nor agree with Lizan’s claim that the people they had loved no longer remained in this world.
“So how could I send you away? Where could I possibly send you?”
His voice was low and still, which only made it sound all the more desolate.
Lizan shook her head, brushing away the echo that lingered by her ear.
― I can’t live here with my head held high.
He was a magnanimous man who had forgiven the woman who blinded him and accepted her with an open heart, but the more he did so, the more she had to become a woman whose life had changed by living off the generosity and tolerance of the man who had covered up her crime in this mansion.
All the more whenever he stood against his father’s opposition, somehow carved time out of what little he had, personally cared for her, and poured all his effort into a single person.
No one asked for her opinion.
They told her she should be happy, since she had been pardoned for a crime that had even earned her a death sentence. They said she could consider it compensation, now that she could live the rest of her life in splendor. They told her to enjoy happiness, since the most admired man in Astrie loved her. As though this indescribable feeling were something she ought to willingly endure.
But if she had spent all that time in the camp bearing the price of her sins, and now had to go on living here while bearing something yet again, then how was this mansion any different from the camp?
She was too tired for that.
― I’m so tired.
Lizan silently moved her lips, repeating the words, then noticed Ejekail’s gaze following the motion of her mouth. Though long, complicated sentences were difficult, he could read short ones by watching her lips.
Even if you save me, forgive me, take responsibility for me, love me, and say you’ll do everything for me—no matter how humiliating and miserable it is, do I not have the right to say I don’t want it? Because I’m not flawless?
Lizan looked down at the sentences she had written, then buried her face in one hand.
Thinking this way makes me feel like I’m truly a bad person…….
At last, she understood why she had to part from this man.
There was a reason she had to run away from this place.
Because in this place, every hour, every moment, she was forced to look at the lowest depths of herself. Because she was forced to sink into raw shame so unbearable it hurt, and Ejekail was the existence that kept provoking it, making him impossible to endure.
I want to protect myself.
I keep losing “me.”
If she stayed in this mansion, if she stayed with this man, she could not remain wholly herself.
― Please let me protect my dignity.
She needed a right.
The right to part for the sake of her dignity.
The right to part with dignity.
❖ ❖ ❖
― It isn’t for your sake, Major. It’s for mine.
If Lizan had made him the subject of their parting, Ejekail would have refused at once. A parting could never be a choice made for his sake.
But Lizan had confessed, with painful honesty, that it was a choice for herself. She gave him no chance to deny it.
He wanted to keep her by his side and make it up to her over the course of a lifetime. He wanted to let her live happily. If only because of the regret and guilt of not recognizing the person he loved and almost killing her with his own hands, Lizan was someone he absolutely had to take responsibility for.
But if Lizan felt shame and misery beside him, what was he supposed to do? If his very existence was hurting her, then what on earth was he supposed to…….
I don’t understand. Why did you forgive me? How could you forgive me?
That was a cry only someone who had walked the path of atonement one step ahead of him could make.
Lizan, who had cared for him with all her might, to the point that “desperately” was the only word for it, had chosen in the final moment to be quietly taken away.
Because it had been an atonement she carried out on her own without gaining his consent, because she had first respected his will to seize his enemy and repay them in exactly the same measure.
In the midst of that, fearing he would be thrown into turmoil if “Rose’s” identity were revealed, she kept silent about who she was until the very end. Even while suffering every hardship in the camp, she did not put “Rose” forward.
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine. Ejekail asked himself.
Lizan, under the excuse that it was for your sake, have I been making choices for myself all along?
Do I make you feel ashamed? Miserable?
Am I hurting you?
No answer came back.
❖ ❖ ❖
I’m going back to school.
It had been three days.
After a long, arduous silence, Ejekail silently looked down at the notice she had handed him.
“School? In Cielsa?”
Though he knew the only school Lizan had attended was Milena Girls’ School in the north, he asked again for no reason. It was because he wanted to see any reaction from her, no matter what it was.
Ever since her request to let her protect her dignity, Lizan had maintained a fixed distance from him. With Polina and Anna both gone, the Valdemaera mansion had fallen silent in an instant. Even so, Lizan continued her daily life on her own. On the surface, she even appeared utterly calm. She did not seem particularly lonely, either.
And so, without realizing it, Ejekail had allowed himself a small hope.
Could they perhaps go on living like this?
Though they were somewhat awkward and out of step now, if they continued this reprieve one day at a time, wouldn’t time gradually solve it?
But it seemed that calm had only been the stillness before the storm.
Ejekail looked back and forth between the message and Lizan’s face.
“It’s fine if you want to study. Is there a particular field you want to learn more about? I’ll bring in a good teacher.”
Though he knew that was not what she meant, he tried denying it once.
“……Cielsa is too cold and harsh. Life there is inconvenient, and it’s even closer to the border than Derosa. And you’re still ill. That school isn’t an appropriate choice.”
You know I’m not ill. I’m all better.
Lizan wrote her calm reply, then added one more line.
Or do you want me to stay ill, Major?
There was no way he did. Ejekail was about to answer no, of course not, but then he faltered.
Whenever he had to leave, he always called a servant and asked them to watch over Lizan. If she tried to go somewhere, he instructed them not to stop her, but to make sure they followed her closely.
He himself was the one treating Lizan as someone ill, as someone isolated.
In Derosa, Lizan had naturally mingled with the other servants. He had even complained before that he did not have enough time with her because Anna and the others kept calling her away.
Looking back, the one who had lived isolated in the north was him. Aside from Lizan and Madam Serva, he had not allowed anyone else to approach. And he, in those days, had been a patient whose temper had turned nasty after losing his sight.
Now, Lizan did not need treatment from a doctor. The pain caused by poisoning had vanished as well, and the doctor had diagnosed that she should rebuild her weakened stamina through appropriate exercise. To begin with, if there had been anything more a doctor’s hands could heal, Polina would not have left.
The only remaining symptom now, and the mutism that Ejekail kept dragging out as an excuse to hold on to Lizan, was in truth something even the doctors did not know the cause or solution to. They could only guess that since her voice had been lost suddenly, it might return just as suddenly—or else it might be a symptom she would have to carry for the rest of her life.
So he knew he lacked a pretext to persuade Lizan.
School.
Yes, if that was what she insisted on wanting, he could send her. He could also wait until Lizan finished as much of her studies as she wished and returned.
But did it have to be Milena Girls’ School?
That place was a cold and barren land still lingering in winter, even now when spring had come striding into Cleris. That school had even once been surrounded by Davis’s enemies.
Could it not be another school instead? He was just about to suggest again that she transfer to a school closer, safer, and better equipped than Milena Girls’ School.
Then the traces of Lizan’s deliberation, written down on the page, caught his gaze.
A place where it would not be strange for me to be myself.
A place so remote it is far from the rumors of the world.
A place where I will not be lonely, with teachers and younger schoolmates who know me.
A place that would see Lizan simply as Lizan. A place that would remember her as the older schoolmate with whom they had spent their school days, as a classmate. A place where memories built up over many years dwelled.
She had found a place like that.
“……Will you come back?”
Ejekail asked.