Episode 58
Ezekiel. If one were to define him in a single word, what would it be?
To some, he would be Valdemaera’s son; to others, a hero. To some, he would be a comrade they trusted and followed more than their own lives; to others, a rival they wanted to destroy even by cowardly means. And…….
Rose let out a long breath.
To me, he was a sin.
The greatest wrong I had ever committed in my life.
Not for a single moment had she forgotten it.
The reason she had come to the mansion last winter was her resolve to atone for that sin. She had hoped that if she lived her whole life as his shadow, it might serve as even the slightest redemption.
But Ezekiel was not a man who would flounder forever in despair. He was a born soldier, one who somehow carved out a way through even the worst crises.
And so Dr. Briman eventually appeared, and as they suddenly began to consider “after the treatment,” Rose also began to devise measures for herself.
I won’t be able to stay in this mansion for long.
It was around then that she had begun, vaguely, to think of the future.
She had no intention of denying that it was cowardly. More than anyone, she herself condemned her actions. Even so, the scale of her heart had already tilted.
Because she could not possibly find the courage to face him when he learned that “that woman” and “Rose” were one and the same.
Because if even the time they had spent together in this mansion as “Rose” were denied, she felt as though her very existence would truly collapse from the roots.
Because she wanted to leave the good memories as they were, to let them naturally fade with time.
She had thought it was the best way, both for him and for herself.
But now she understood. Even that, in truth, had been a selfish wish.
Asking for forgiveness was the perpetrator’s duty. Forgiving was the victim’s right. And that, too, only when the victim wanted it, in the way the victim wanted.
Moreover, Ezekiel had clearly expressed the ending he desired all this time.
“I have to take revenge. On Akenaus and that woman who made me like this. I intend to repay them with everything I have, exactly as much as I suffered.”
“I’m going to return everything I suffered exactly as it was. I intend to make them taste that poison themselves, too. Only then will they realize who they tried to kill, and how.”
That woman.
That woman.
That woman.
He had no intention of forgiving “that woman.”
She knew how often he had repeated “that woman” as his thirst for vengeance burned. She knew the time of pain and fury he had been forced to endure because of “that woman.”
So if Ezekiel did not want it, Rose had to remain an eternal villain to him. She must not confuse him with some vague, ambiguous goodwill that was neither one thing nor the other.
The efforts she had made to nurse Ezekiel, to comfort his body and heart, and to restore his sight were merely the price she had imposed upon herself for her sin. They were not the price Ezekiel had wanted “that woman” to pay.
Now she understood that difference.
Sin was not something one could settle on one’s own.
She had realized that truth far too late. Foolishly.
She could not help but feel desolate. Though they had passed through all four seasons together, he did not know her real name. He did not know her real face, either.
It felt as if all of this had been a mirage.
All this time, she had dreamed a truly long dream. At times beautiful, at times sorrowful, at times a dream she had not wanted to wake from—but a dream was not reality. One day, it was bound to end.
Come to think of it, because of her guilt, she had never once been able to bring herself to say his name aloud. Even now was no different. At most, she could only call it carefully in her heart.
She bid him farewell.
Ezekiel.
“……Goodbye.”
Goodbye, Ezekiel.
And.
“Goodbye, Rose.”
Now it was truly time to part.
❖ ❖ ❖
That morning felt somehow foreign.
He could not even tell where things had gone wrong. Until the night before, every part of daily life had been ordinary. After hearing Polina’s diagnosis together that the bandages could finally be removed, Rose had offered her congratulations in a gentle voice; then, on the last night he would spend as a patient, she had lain beside him in the same bed before returning to the adjoining room just before sleep.
Ever since Ezekiel’s surgery, Rose had used a separate room. She said she was afraid she might accidentally touch his face the wrong way in her sleep and cause the wound to fester, so she wanted to return to the adjoining room. He had tried to keep her there, saying it did not matter even if it festered, that she had to stay with him. But then Rose had injured herself after hitting her leg badly somewhere, and in the end they had come to use separate rooms. When he put himself in her shoes, it would have been a serious matter if he embraced Rose in his sleep and happened to touch her injured leg. What was more, he was in no position to see for himself where on her leg she was hurt or how badly.
And what had they talked about before they parted?
That, too, had been no different from usual. Beside the woman he wanted to see first when he opened his eyes, he had only longed for her as he did any other day. It was contradictory, but to him, Rose was the closest woman and also the farthest. He had heard her, smelled her, touched her, and tasted her, but he had never seen her with his eyes, so it was only natural.
At the beginning and end of each day, Rose was always there. It was a routine that had continued unchanged ever since Rose entered the mansion and took charge of him exclusively.
But why on earth.
“Where is Rose?”
No matter how he searched the mansion, he could not sense any sign of Rose. This had never happened before. She was not the kind of woman who left him alone for long. It felt strangely ominous.
“Well, for now……. For now, Master, the doctors are waiting in the drawing room, so why not remove the bandages first?”
Mrs. Serva suggested this to Ezekiel, who had turned the mansion upside down searching for Rose. Only then did he become aware of the bandages wrapped around half his face. Since Rose, who had existed like his shadow, could not be felt anywhere, he had completely forgotten what day it was.
“Ah, right.”
Even the time it would take to go to the drawing room felt like a waste. With his own hand, he grasped the end of the tightly secured bandage and tore it off in one motion.
“Wait, you can’t just……. Hurry to the drawing room and bring the guests here!”
Startled, Mrs. Serva quickly called someone over and gave the order.
Originally, the bandage had been wrapped so that he could remove it one layer at a time and adapt little by little to the gradually brightening light. But unable to overcome his impatience, he had stripped it all away at once, and for an instant, white flooded his vision. A dizzying shock swept through his head like a wave.
Ezekiel closed his eyes and waited for the throbbing headache to disappear.
Someone who had hurried over lifted Ezekiel’s eyelids and looked inside.
“He’s all right. It’s because he suddenly entered a state of light adaptation after being unable to perceive sight for a long time. It isn’t a serious problem.”
The businesslike tone was familiar. Ezekiel’s eyes flew open. The silhouettes of the people surrounding him flickered across his retinas.
“Oh, my goodness, my goodness…….”
Their eyes met.
“Met.”
It had been a long time since he had felt this sensation, too. There was no way the other person had failed to feel what he had felt. A white-haired old woman leaning on a cane staggered as she rushed toward him.
“Master, can you see me?”
The old woman’s eyes were already red and wet with tears. Her voice was exactly as he remembered it, but her face had shriveled so much she seemed like an entirely different person.
A little surprised, Ezekiel looked down at her.
“Serva? You’ve aged a great deal since I last saw you.”
“I kept telling you, didn’t I? I’m an old woman with one foot in the grave now. You never believed a word I said all this time……. Besides, I’ve worried myself sick because of you, Master, so in these past few months I’ve grown dreadfully old.”
“What are you talking about, Serva? You’re still hale enough to live another fifty years.”
After comforting Serva appropriately, Ezekiel looked at the tall woman standing awkwardly with the bandages in her hands. The only young woman present here, most of her face was covered in severe burn scars. He immediately grasped her identity.
“Dr. Polina?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you must be Dr. Briman.”
“You recognize us at once.”
They were faces he had never seen before, but unexpectedly, all of them felt familiar. Ezekiel slowly looked around at them again. Mrs. Serva, Polina, Dr. Briman. They were all people who had worked to restore his sight.
And according to his memory, there should have been one more person here.
A woman with red hair and green eyes.
“But where is Rose?”
No one answered.
Even though this was a miraculous moment in which he had escaped that wretched blindness, not a single person was smiling brightly.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
With a cold expression, Ezekiel asked,
“Serva, where is Rose?”