Chapter 153 - Side Story "Lilac"
Chapter 153 - Side Story "Lilac"
It is hard to escape something completely.
Especially when you are trying to escape from someone you love, or someone you hate.
Giving up your wealth, giving up the place you live—those are not so difficult.
Money never mattered to me in the first place.
If money was what changed Mother, if money was what made her behave that way, I was perfectly willing to let it go.
I could have handed over every bit of my fortune and begged her to go back to the way she used to be.
A place never mattered to me either.
What meaning was there in a place where no one loved me, where there was no one I loved? That mansion was nothing but a cage that held me.
So I tried to give up.
I tried to let it all go.
But it didn't work.
I still don't really know why.
Was it because I took one pill less than I should have? Because the dose fell just short of being fatal?
Or was it because that person, the one who handed me the pills, showed me some half-hearted pity?
......In the end it did not matter either way.
I had already swallowed more than half the pills, and I knew the amount I had left could not kill me, no matter what I did.
Even if I chose to die inside the mansion, someone would find me and drag me back to life.
Even at school, among the people who had no interest in me, Mother's people might be watching.
If I tried to end my own life and failed, if the attempt left me unable to move my body—
Then it would truly be the end for me.
......I go back to my daily life.
A daily life where nothing ever changes.
Eat every day, wash, sleep, get up, eat again, wash, sleep, get up again—
It felt as though time had stopped.
Inside that unmoving time, I wanted to abandon everything.
*
......That person's face had a glow.
No, it had not been bright from the start.
At first she was simply someone like everyone else. One of the people who passed beside me without helping me or hindering me, just another face brushing past my life.
A person I had no reason to care about, no need to care about.
"Hi."
When she greeted me that way, I felt no particular interest either.
Everyone who had ever greeted me had eventually slipped away from my side.
The moment they learned about me, they distanced themselves.
"Hi."
But that person was strangely persistent.
Even when I did not return the greeting, she said good morning from the desk beside mine, day after day.
I ignored her.
"Hi."
I ignored her again.
"Hi."
Once more I ignored her.
Had she somehow not heard the stories about me?
Was she the type who didn't care about rumors?
Every time that oddly earnest person greeted me each morning, those thoughts flickered through my mind.
"Hi."
Then one day, I finally turned my head toward her.
......It was not that I wanted to say anything. I was simply curious about the face of someone who, unlike everyone else, did not ignore me.
I had always buried my head on the desk or stared out the window whenever she greeted me. But this time I turned toward that greeting and looked at So-ri.
And I saw it.
A face that was shining, dazzlingly bright.
The way my father's face had shone in my earliest memories.
And the way Mother's had.
*
......A person who left a mark on my life. A person who changed the course of my life.
Whenever I looked at someone and felt something, that person was usually that kind of person.
I don't know whether it is simply instinct or some other ability of mine, though I suppose both amount to the same thing.
In the end, the person with the brightly glowing face did change my life.
......It was ruin.
At least, in the eyes of those who knew me.
Yes, I think I understand why they judged it that way.
Because now I had nothing, even though I had once been the richest teenager in the world.
Actually, I was told I could receive some of it if I wanted. According to that bank clerk who brought me the pills, there was a substantial amount of hidden wealth under my name.
Even if Mother had abandoned me, even if I had been pushed out of the line of succession, even if I had erased my own whereabouts, it would not have been difficult for me to obtain enough money to live on.
Ruin.
The bond with my last remaining family was severed, my fiancé threw me away, and I was stripped of my right to inherit the world's largest company.
The person who had so persistently greeted me came to loathe me with a passion.
Yes, in the end there was nothing left for me.
And yet, it felt so utterly liberating.
"Hoo, young lady, you're heading out early today."
As I walked, a cultivator rattled up beside me.
The driver was an elderly grandmother. Her face was deeply lined and her neck bent forward like a turtle peeking out of its shell, but she was the person who drove that cultivator out to the paddies every single morning.
She said she had done that work her whole life—truly a person of astonishing diligence.
"Yes, if I go out early I can finish the work faster."
The orchard is not very big. In fact, compared with the orchards run to make a living, it is so small you could almost call it a kitchen garden.
Once I share a little with the neighbors and set aside what I need to eat, there is nothing left to sell.
But I liked that small orchard.
It was a place where I used my hands not to choke the life out of something, but to make something grow.
"A young person so hardworking."
"Everyone works hard these days."
"Hoo, they don't~ My grandson, for instance......"
My walking pace was nothing fast, but neither was the cultivator. On a real road several cars would have overtaken us by now.
I listened to the grandmother's grumbling and nodded along again and again until I reached the orchard.
*
I had become a little taller compared with back then.
My body must have grown somewhat. It was still not a height you would call tall, but if anything I was grateful—I wasn't in middle school anymore, and growing even during high school counted as good luck.
Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to reach most of the trees here, and I wouldn't have been able to build up stamina like this.
When I remember how I was the first time I arrived, I can only laugh.
I showed up to work in jeans, had no idea how to dig with a shovel, and spent the whole day just planting a single seedling.
Now I wear the loose work trousers people would tease as country clothes, and I put on the wide-brimmed hats the grandmothers wear.
With a towel around my neck and work gloves on my hands, I pick fruit as hard as I can.
No matter how much I cover my arms and apply sunscreen, there is no stopping my skin from darkening under the blazing sun.
But that was fine with me.
Because I no longer had to live in constant dread, no longer had to worry about anyone cursing me, no longer had any reason to scream until my throat tore or hurl things across the room.
......I truly did something unforgivable to that person.
Every time I met someone with a face that glowed, my life fell apart.
So this time too, I clung to her as if I were grasping at straws.
Though I am sure that from her point of view, it looked as if I loathed her with every fiber of my being.
Now there is no occasion for us to meet, and no reason for her to want to see me.
Still, I think of her with gratitude.
I never imagined things would turn out this well.
After all, it reached the point where even Mother gave up on me.
......Or perhaps you could say that, with this, Mother's goal was finally accomplished.
......Right up to the very, very end, that person's face was shining.
It was only after everything was finished that her face no longer looked dazzling.
If it had been me, I would have pushed until the other side was dead.
The reason she did not do that must be because she is that good of a person.
*
"......Hoo."
I had been picking fruit while letting my thoughts wander, and by the time the basket was full the sun was already sinking low.
"I'll stop here today."
No matter how I looked at them, the peaches I had picked had no commercial value.
The pruning had not been done properly, and even with my daily care there was a limit to what one person could manage alone.
Some had hung on the branch too long and turned too soft; others, hidden by leaves and other fruit, were still not ripe.
They were certainly not something that could be sold, but they were still good enough to eat.
"Heave-ho."
I lifted the basket packed with fruit. It was honestly too heavy to carry in one trip.
I would probably need to stop and rest a few times on the way.
Along the road, I would pick out the decent ones and hand a few to the neighbors.
*
......I came home that way.
There was a car parked out front.
A blue luxury car. The kind that looked as though it could fit maybe two people at most.
It was utterly out of place beside my old, crumbling house.
"......."
And leaning against that car was a woman.
Her clothes were just as out of keeping with the scenery—a thoroughly urban outfit.
A white blouse, and a blue miniskirt the same shade as the car.
The long legs beneath it were strangely lovely, considering the woman's age.
Even after all these years.
She looked as though she had come to visit someone she loved, as though she had dressed up on purpose for this meeting.
Thud.
I heard a sound. When I looked down, the basket was no longer in my hands. The strength must have drained from my fingers and made me drop it.
A single peach rolled across the ground and came to rest against the woman's dark-blue high heels.
"......."
The woman turned her head toward me.
I am sure her blue eyes were looking straight at me.
But I cannot be certain.
Because
her face was pouring out a radiant light—a brightness I had never once seen from her before.
"......I finally found you."
The woman spoke.
"Finally."
The woman who had been leaning against the car took a step toward me.
I have to run.
But where?
Maybe I could hide at the grandmother's house.
But she would just come straight after me—
the way she had hunted for me across the years.
While I stood there utterly paralyzed, the woman's hand reached out and touched my cheek.
"Ah......"
She gazed at my face and spoke.
"You're the same."
What was the same?
What was she talking about?
I was unmistakably the Sara she already knew.
"......At last. I've found you like this."
A soft laugh escaped her.
"———."
The woman's lips moved.
She called a name.
But it was not my name.
Ah. I see.
So that is what it was.
This person......
I had completely misunderstood her.
What this woman was after; it was never my money.
That is why, even after I abandoned everything—
she was unable to abandon this.
"Now I will never, ever let you go."
I think, perhaps, I was walking straight into her arms.
Her face drew slowly closer. The blinding light filled my entire field of vision.
But I cannot run.
Soon, I suppose, her face will become visible again.
And from then on, it will never shine again, not for all eternity.