A Reason to Live
"You're lying to me right now. You're hiding something important, and I can tell."
"From now on, I want you to treat Selene as that kind of person. Don't cage her—just be someone who quietly holds her up from behind."
Delphine's face twisted for an instant.
"There's a reason Mother is acting that way."
"…A reason?"
"You're lying to me right now. You're hiding something important, and I can tell."
By the original plan, Selene should have breathed her last in my hands, vanishing from this world entirely.
Surviving?
That was never part of our plan to begin with.
Because she survived, cracks had begun to show everywhere. That she would start to suspect—under these circumstances, it was only the natural next step.
"Aren't you all treating Selene as nothing but this invincible being? She's human, in the end. She can be worn down, wounded—she could crumble overnight, just like anyone else."
Delphine shook her head at once, like someone who had just heard the most absurd thing in the world, her eyes edged with outright contempt.
"No. Mother is the strongest person in this world. She is absolutely not the kind of person who loses heart and collapses that easily."
It sounded like a stubborn argument driven purely by emotion. And yet I couldn't refute it.
Selene favored her greatsword in everyday life, and no one had ever stood against her.
Add to that her mind-manipulation through song, and whenever anyone asked who was the strongest in this world, her name was always the first on their lips.
"Try to imagine someone genuinely trying to harm Mother. If that had happened, she'd have been sharpening her blade right away, hunting the culprit down. Fine—let's say, for argument's sake, she never even saw the attacker's face. Then tell me why. Why on earth is she showing no movement at all?"
I gave her the answer I had already rehearsed in my mouth a dozen times over.
"She took too heavy a shock. Not even knowing who did it—she knows that talking about vengeance now would only make her more frantic, more wounded. That's why she can't bring herself to say a word."
That was just the kind of person she was. She read other people's hearts before her own, thoughtful to the point of excess.
"That doesn't make sense. We're the ones stepping forward, promising to find the culprit to the very end—how could she see that as a burden? She can't possibly not know how much she means to us."
Selene was like a star to everyone here—the one they all looked up to.
Delphine called her Mother, but everyone around her used to say, half in jest and wholly in earnest, that she was "a mother to us all."
I was no different.
"All we need is the culprit. Once we find the bastard who tried to snuff out her life, everything will go back to the way it was."
My breath caught in my throat.
You have no idea, do you—that the culprit you're searching for so desperately is standing right in front of you.
"But there's something really strange, you see. It doesn't feel like Mother's spirit has been broken. I can feel it."
"…What do you mean?"
"At some point, Mother seemed to lose her reason to live. That's why she's gone so limp like this…"
A reason to live.
It was such a strange way to put it.
Selene's one and only goal was to return to her original world.
And to make that dream come true, she had to lose her life. It was a requirement.
Could walking toward one's own death really be called a reason to live? In the end, I never found the answer.
"…Honestly, I'd almost rather something else happen—something terrible. If only something would break out that has nothing to do with our family."
The moment I heard it, cold ran down my spine.
"Because then Mother would have a reason to live like before again. The strength to move."
Only a daughter of Selene's could have spoken those words.
"Don't say things like that so easily."
There was not a trace of strength in the voice I barely managed to squeeze out.
"I think you see Mother as someone far too soft and fragile. That's not who she is. The moment she has a reason to live again, she has the strength to leap right back up and start running forward—any time, no matter what."
"Yes. Selene will get back up again. Don't worry."
"Not now, though."
Delphine made no further attempt to persuade me. She turned her head toward where Selene stood.
"I'll be going now. I can't keep Mother waiting."
I couldn't stop her.
Delphine walked over and took Selene's arm again, and Selene gave a small nod.
I stayed where I stood until the sound of their footsteps faded to the end of the corridor and the silence settled in.
Delphine believed that finding the culprit alone would mend everything.
She would never know that the culprit was me.
I clenched my fingers into a fist. My nails bit into the flesh of my palm, and even as the pain spread, I couldn't bring myself to open my hand.
I had failed to protect the ending Selene dreamed of.
If everything had finished according to plan, she would already have returned to the world that was her home, resting at ease.
Those left behind could have resented an enemy from outside, comforted one another through their grief, and struggled to live on.
But she came back alive, and perhaps because of that, she was growing weaker by degrees—as if her life were quietly burning down.
Deep down, I know.
She is not someone who dies easily. Strangle her, wound her—she does not disappear.
Maybe that's why, every time she looks at me, she seems to smile so warmly.
'It's not your fault.'
'I'm so sorry for putting a burden far too heavy on you.'
'Everything was my own choice.'
Though in truth, not a word of it ever left her lips.
"Selene…"
When I finally uncurled my fist, four nail marks were pressed deep into my palm.
I will find a way.
If the throat is her weak point, then we must find another method. We must.
I walked down the corridor holding Delphine's hand.
"Did you have a good talk with the Doctor?"
Delphine looked up at me for a moment.
"Nothing much came up. He just asked me to take good care of you, Mom. That was all."
"Really, that's all?"
"Yes. Really."
As if that could be true. I had begged the Doctor, earnestly, to finish me off instead.
There was no way such a conversation had passed between them and nothing else.
I wanted to talk with him again, but every time I tried to make the chance, Delphine would squeeze my hand first and pull me along.
Even now, the Doctor must be blaming himself, suffering for it.
He was always that kind of gentle soul, thinking of others before himself.
Wanting to tell him there was no need, I did my best to meet him with a smile whenever our paths crossed.
I truly hoped the Doctor would find happiness. Not simply because he was the central figure of this story.
When I had begged him, desperately, to kill me, he tried with all his might to honor that wish—and ever since he failed to see it through, he has been tormenting himself, blaming no one but his own hands.
When not a single part of it was his fault.
Silence followed us the whole way back to the room.
The moment I stepped inside, Delphine came in after me and shut the door, turning the lock.
We were alone, the two of us.
Delphine turned slowly to face me.
"Let's bathe together, Mother."
The offer no longer felt strange at all.
Since crossing the threshold of death and barely making it back, my daughter had asked to wash together like this every single day.
At first I refused flatly. It seemed unseemly, spending that kind of time with a fully grown daughter.
But with her asking over and over, somewhere along the way I had grown used to it.
It seems a person adapts to anything, given enough time.
"…All right."
I nodded, carefully.
I began with the outer garment.
When the last button came loose, the dress slipped softly down and pooled at my feet. I stood there in nothing but my underclothes.
The fine fabric spread across the floor looked for all the world like a light dusting of fresh snow.
Delphine tossed her own clothes aside as well—peeling her shirt up over her head, then nudging her trousers off with her foot and sweeping them to one side.
I turned my eyes away. Delphine did not. I could feel it with my whole body, that persistent gaze traveling over my skin.
We stepped into the bathroom together, and the humid warmth wrapped around us first.
"This is a bit…"
The instant I managed to force out an awkward word, Delphine cupped my chin and tilted it up slightly.
Her fingers skimmed along the line of my throat, examining the marks left there.
She was checking how far the bruises, once dark and swollen, had finally faded.
I reached out to turn on the water, but Delphine caught my wrist and stopped it, turning the tap herself. It meant she would do it for me. Steam billowed out with the rush of hot water.
"…Delphine."
"Stay still, please."
Her gaze lingered long above my collarbone.
"No trace left at all now. What a relief."
"It is."
"It's really remarkable. You were hurt so terribly."
"You can stop inspecting me now."
I lowered my voice and told her to quit it. Delphine hesitated—but she did not pull back.
She traced the place where a pulse should beat, laid her palm over it with exquisite care, and stayed there for a long while, as if counting each beat as it throbbed against her hand.
Little by little she closed the distance, until our breath mingled. The heat and the steam filled every corner of the bathroom, and the space felt so tightly packed that I wondered—had it always been this small?
"You're warm."
"That's because I'm alive."