Episode 5. Despair and Ecstasy
2023.08.05.
Lowell knew well that she had been without luck her entire life. They say there are places where black cats symbolize misfortune; from the moment she was born with black hair, Lowell could not escape her wretched fate. From receiving a terminal diagnosis at age ten, to her family’s ruin and her arrival here—she had never once been lucky.
‘…But.’
Please, she had hoped at least this would not be the case.
Why is fate so terribly cruel to me alone?
At this moment, she could read every emotion revealed on the Emperor’s face.
Anger, contempt, hatred, and longing. The Emperor spoke, his face twisted viciously.
“If you so wish to be a substitute for the dead, then so be it. Try living as one of the dead.”
Laughing mockingly as he said so, the Emperor slowly smoothed his expression. Immediately after, he seemed about to leave, but for some reason, he leaned his upper body forward, meeting Lowell’s gaze. For quite some time, he stared at her as if searching for something.
In that appearance, she saw herself from just moments before.
The sight of someone looking at a person who resembled the one they longed for, trying somehow to find a difference.
To a despairing degree, it was the same image as herself from just moments ago. At that fact, Lowell opened her mouth with the heart of one grasping at falling shards of glass.
“…If I am Your Majesty’s ‘Lowell.’”
In an instant, the Emperor’s gaze deepened. No—it grew heavier. As if he could crush and kill her at any moment.
But Lowell did not care. Even if the hands grasping the falling shards of glass were cut and bled profusely, she did not know how to let go. Even though it could never be a lifeline to save her, she could not release it out of a desperate feeling that she had to hold onto something, anything.
“Then, may I call you Peter?”
No answer came. Lowell hoped the Emperor would refuse. Please, don’t make me pronounce this name again in this manner.
But fortune was never on her side.
“…Say it.”
“Peter.”
The answer sprang forth as if she had been waiting. She saw the Emperor’s brows furrow slightly.
Of course. If he were the boy she had known, it could not be helped. The boy she had known was one who felt his heart flutter at merely having his name called by her. Even trivial things like making eye contact or brushing fingertips were joys he could not miss. Lowell knew Peter like that all too well.
Was this despair, or ecstasy? Before she knew it, her tongue pronounced the longed-for name again of its own accord.
“Peter.”
Facing his pale blue eyes, Lowell raised her hand. Fingertips that looked as fragile as glasswork approached his eyes. This was a gesture that young Lowell had often performed for young Peter. Brushing the corner of his eye with her thumb while meeting his gaze.
Then Peter’s heartbeat would quicken in an instant, and he would frown while his cheeks flushed red.
Just as the man before Lowell now.
Tap—Lowell’s fingertips touched soft skin. No, it was the moment she felt them touch.
A rough hand snatched Lowell’s hand, and her body was harshly pinned down onto the bed. It took but an instant for her slender nape to be caught in the Emperor’s grip.
“How dare you…”
There was no longer any trace of laughter on the Emperor’s face. His voice, flowing out savagely as if growling while scratching his throat, echoed in Lowell’s ear. Only then did Lowell realize what situation she was in. And the fact that the Emperor’s patience had completely run out.
A tension similar to when they had kissed moments ago climbed up her spine. Lowell’s breath was now completely in the Emperor’s grasp. In that sense, was not exchanging murderous intent also similar to a kiss? Especially in that they sought to steal each other’s breath. If so, were not long-standing affection and hatred also separated by nothing more than a sheet of paper?
Her crushed throat began to hurt. Having given up her vital point, if the Emperor lost even a little more patience here, Lowell’s neck would snap like a twig.
Would he really try to kill me this time?
In the moment she questioned this, Lowell felt something flowing down her temple.
It was physiological tears. Tears formed because her breath was caught, unrelated to Lowell’s will.
But, laughably, at that moment, the hand gripping her neck loosened helplessly. In a moment like a short sigh, the Emperor withdrew from Lowell. It was a movement that could truly be called a retreat.
Did that man even know what expression he wore right now?
If someone were to face a terrible nightmare in reality, they would wear exactly such a face.
Confusion, fear, and anxiety consumed the Emperor’s entire face. But that too lasted only a moment. Unfortunately, he was sane, and he could realize that being in reality was not a nightmare.
And so, where confusion receded, anger settled in.
“…Stop playing with my memory. It sickens me.”
Slam. Only when the sound of the door closing rang out did Lowell raise her upper body. The flowers that had adorned her head had been crushed during the brief time she lay down, and at Lowell’s movement, they fluttered down like a rain of petals.
“…Ha.”
But such things did not matter at all. Haha. Lowell laughed. It was a withered, twisted laugh.
Unable to deny anymore, with nowhere to retreat, like someone driven mad at the edge of a cliff, she laughed herself hoarse for a long while before stopping abruptly and muttering.
“Yes… It was you. Peter.”
My only lingering attachment. My reason to live.
She could no longer deny it. The Emperor was Peter.
Why hadn’t she realized sooner? The Emperor’s name was Peter Vonderlien Belfgar.
‘Was it because I was too focused on the imperial family name, Vonderlien?’
Or perhaps because the nickname Peter was so common. In fact, that was also why Lowell had been unable to find Peter all this time.
Only now did all the pieces fit together.
Why the Emperor had wanted a noble woman with black hair as his bride, and why she fit that condition so astonishingly perfectly.
The boy who had loved her more than anyone in the world ten years ago still could not forget her, even though she was said to be dead.
It was laughable.
For she had returned to kill him.
With the fluttering of her eyelids, a single tear flowed down Lowell’s cheek, and a brittle voice like crumbling dry flower petals flowed from her.
“Peter, you should have killed me just now.”
Until she entered the imperial palace, Lowell’s goal had been simple. To kill the Emperor. If she could only end that life, Lowell thought nothing else mattered.
But meeting Peter changed everything.
The moment she learned the Emperor was the boy in her memories, the affection and longing—or things worthy of being called tenderness—that she had built up alone for the past ten years collapsed in a heap and transformed into a sense of betrayal.
Nothing was as terrible as affection that had collapsed.
It was a type of emotion different from simple anger or vengefulness.
She no longer wished for the simple death of the Emperor.
‘You must despair.’
Lowell intended to break the Emperor.
Just as she herself, just as her life, had been miserably broken.
Lowell stroked her reddened, swollen throat and closed her eyes.
‘Peter.’
I’ll make you regret not snapping my neck when I offered it to you today.
* * *
“I like that your hair is black.”
In their childhood, Peter used to brush Lowell’s hair every day. Though it took considerable effort to brush until her hair shone, Peter stubbornly took time to brush Lowell’s long hair.
Perhaps because he thought he could monopolize Lowell during that time?
Of course, Lowell always snorted at such Peter.
“The miller’s second daughter has black hair too.”
“She has brown eyes. Yours are black.”
“Funny. Do you know how many maids with black eyes there are in our mansion?”
“Seven.”
This time, Lowell was a bit flustered too. Not having expected a prompt answer, she counted the maids one by one on her fingers.
“Anna, Sophia, Mary, Lou… It’s true? You counted them all?”
“How could I not know what I see?”
At his reaction, natural as could be without a hint of boasting, Lowell’s eyes narrowed.
“Then do you know how many maids have black eyes and black hair?”
“…I don’t care. I only need to know you.”
“Liar. You know.”
Peter was an unusually bright child. If he knew how many maids had black eyes, could he truly not know how many had black eyes and black hair? When Peter pretended not to know something he knew, it was only when he was mindful of Lowell.
Lowell knew this as well.
As the Lowell in the mirror pouted, Peter’s hand, which had been silently brushing, stopped.
“Lowell.”
Instead, he tilted his head and met eyes with the Lowell in the mirror.
“Do you hate that I like you?”
The question, devoid of laughter, was excessively serious to be called a child’s. But Lowell liked that seriousness. She liked his rigid propriety, which clearly could never tell a joke, and his sincerity, which did not try to hide his feelings.
Thus, Lowell played such mischievous pranks all to hear these words.
“As long as it’s you, I like everything, Lowell.”
Yes, exactly these words.
Having heard the words she wanted, Lowell quickly turned around and looked up at Peter. Her black eyes sparkling, Lowell asked.
“Peter, do you like me even if I’m a bad child?”
“I like you.”
“Even if I’m a sick child who might die soon?”
“I even like that you’re sick.”
“Then… do you like me even if I treat you badly?”
“Yes.”
Peter always nodded. In truth, Lowell was more often not a good child than when she was, and she frequently vented her irritability on Peter. Even so, Peter remained steadfast.
“As long as you don’t hate me, I like you no matter what you do.”