78. Women Always Talk About Love When They Gather (2)
78. Women Always Talk About Love When They Gather (2)
[Episode 78] - When girls get together, they always talk about love. (2)
Love?
Love...
Love...?
Titania tilted her head repeatedly at the question of what love was. Countless words crossed her mind to explain the ambiguous term 'love,' but it was hard to actually get them out.
She didn't 'exactly' know what love was, but it wasn't that she didn't know it at all. It was just a bit hard to put into words; Titania felt at a loss, not knowing how to define the word 'love.'
For starters, she could tell what love was through the book she had just read, 'The Witch Wants to Be the Marquis's Wife.' In this romance novel, love appeared in 'two' forms.
The true love between the Marquis and the Witch, and the twisted love of the Familiar.
Titania knew in her head that the love between the Marquis and the Witch was the 'right' kind of love, but she also knew that the desperate heart the Familiar held, obsessing and clinging to the Witch, was also 'love.'
Knowing that all of that was love, she didn't know how to answer the question of what love was. Was love even a word that could be defined in a single sentence to begin with?
Surely, if she asked adults the same thing, she wouldn't get a proper answer. After all, love was explained in all sorts of ways in books, too. Wasn't love different for everyone who felt it?
As she was agonizing over it, Viola, lying next to her, stared at the ceiling and let out deep sighs. At the sigh that sounded like it could collapse the earth, Titania turned her head to look at Viola.
"Is it because of the matchmaking meeting?"
"Yeah..."
Viola frowned as if feeling complicated at the mention of the matchmaking meeting.
In truth, it was less of a formal matchmaking meeting and more of an event to get to know each other, but since most people ended up 'engaged' to their first match, Viola couldn't hide her troubled heart.
Viola, lying on the bed and kicking her feet, puffed out her cheeks and grumbled.
"I don't want to go to a matchmaking meeting... but Mom says I absolutely have to... It's not like I can choose, anyway, right? Even if I say I hate the person, they won't even listen to me..."
Actually, Viola's matchmaking meeting was on the later side compared to her peers.
Since it was normal to meet a young nobleman and have a matchmaking meeting around the age of ten, Viola and Titania were the only ones in the children's social circle who hadn't had one yet. Titania couldn't help it due to her position as a princess, but... for Viola, it was a very unusual situation.
That's why Viola really didn't like the matchmaking meeting. She had already learned about 'love'—something nobles couldn't do—through romance novels, and she had even come to yearn for it. It was also a habit of Viola's to say she wanted a love that was sweet, poignant, and could even burn herself up, just like in the novels.
Viola, who turned her head sharply to look at Titania, asked once more.
"So? What do you think love is?"
"U-um... Well... To be honest, I don't really know. Why don't you ask the kids who are already engaged? There was that one girl who said she liked her fiancé, right?"
"You know that girl is in a special situation, right? It's more like marrying a childhood friend than a matchmaking meeting. Didn't you say she grew up with the kid from the neighboring family since birth? Plus, she even had a matchmaking meeting with him."
Titania and Viola thought of that girl at the same time.
A slightly mature girl who was a new friend they met in the social circle the year before last. A girl who had already had a matchmaking meeting and gotten engaged, so now she just had to grow up and hold her coming-of-age ceremony to get married immediately. And to top it off, the partner was a childhood friend she had been close with since she was little. She was a girl who received the envy of all the other young ladies.
"Haa... Why don't I have a male childhood friend like her? If it were that childhood friend, I might have been quite looking forward to this matchmaking meeting. The only childhood friend I've met since I was little is you."
"I-I'm the same! I don't have a single young nobleman around me either. I've never met any outside of the social circle. So, I don't have anyone else to call a friend besides you."
"Reaaally?"
Titania and Viola, making eye contact, looked at each other and giggled shyly. Then, they started playing around, poking each other's sides with their fingers. To hide the shyness that was making their faces heat up.
As they continued to play, poking at each other's sides, the room filled with the girls' laughter. After playing so hard, the two girls, who had bloomed with laughter until it was hard to even breathe, were exhausted from laughing and sprawled out on the bed, breathing shallowly.
As they caught their breath for a moment, Viola, who had picked up the book, grinned and answered.
"I think love is 'wanting to possess everything of the other person's body and heart.' Like the 'Familiar' in this book who doesn't know what to do because he wants to possess the Witch."
"Whaaat? You said you hated the Familiar until just a moment ago."
"I said I hated the Familiar because he kept interfering while the Witch was in love with the Marquis. Even though the Witch said she didn't like it, he kept clinging to her and bothering her, so wouldn't anyone hate that? What I empathized with regarding the Familiar is the 'love' the Familiar has for the Witch."
"Hmm?"
As Titania tilted her head as if she didn't understand, Viola continued her explanation step by step. Her definition of love.
"Think about it carefully, Titania. Imagine you love someone. But that person smiles at other people besides you and tries to get close to them. How do you think you'd feel?"
"Even if you say that, I don't get it...? Wouldn't I just think, 'Oh well'?"
"It doesn't have to be someone you love. Don't you have someone you're really close to? Or someone as close as me? A pet? Imagine your pet wagging its tail at someone other than you. But that person is someone you really hate. How is it? Do you get it?"
"Someone close...? A pet...?"
In the mind of Titania, who had closed her eyes and was lost in deep thought, suddenly—
For some reason she really didn't know, Titania thought of 'Mother.' Because the only person closer than Viola was Mother.
She knew it was a very rude thought, but Titania began to project Mother onto the 'pet' Viola mentioned. Imagining Mother smiling brightly at someone else and wagging her tail.
Upon imagining that, Titania's eyebrows twisted. Something unpleasant churned inside her, and it felt like it was heating up her body. She wanted to run to Mother right now and scream at her not to do that.
Titania, with her eyebrows furrowed deeply, answered.
"...? For some reason, I think I would really hate it..."
"Right? Right? You want to keep that gaze by your side always, and you want that person's heart to always be directed at you, don't you? Isn't that what the love the Familiar feels for the Witch in the book was like?"
Certainly, she couldn't deny Viola's words.
She had wondered what on earth it meant when they said it was the Familiar's love, but thinking about Mother smiling at someone other than her and giving them love made her stomach churn, and she felt like she might burst into tears at any moment.
As Titania pouted, feeling an unknown, unpleasant emotion rising sluggishly from within, Viola, watching her, giggled and continued.
"Well, the book calls this obsession or jealousy, but I don't think love without obsession and jealousy exists. You get jealous and obsessed because you love them, right? The Witch didn't feel jealousy, but it's no different from her being obsessed with the Marquis, right?"
"I see..."
Certainly, Titania hadn't had the same idea as Viola.
To Titania, the Familiar in the book was just a bad person interfering with the love between the Witch and the Marquis, and she thought what the Familiar did to the Witch was just love in words only. She had never thought of love and obsession as one thing like Viola did.
Hearing Viola's words, she felt like she understood the Familiar's heart a little bit. It was unforgivable that the Familiar did bad things because he was obsessed with the Witch, but she felt that he hadn't been obsessed with the Witch just out of bad intentions.
'If I read that book again now, wouldn't I have a different impression?'
As Titania was staring blankly at the cover of the book with such thoughts, Viola, lying next to her, poked Titania's side with her elbow and gave a sly smile. At the truly sly and annoying smile, Titania frowned and looked at Viola.
"So? So? Who were you thinking of earlier to make such a scary face?"
"Whaaat? Me?"
"I've never seen you make a face like that. You never even made such a scary face when someone made a mistake with you in the social circle. Who were you thinking of to make such a menacing face? Huh? Huh? Can't you tell just me?"
Titania's face flushed red at the teasing tone. How could she say she thought of Mother there?
Pushing the shoulder of Viola, who had come right up next to her and was grinning, Titania shouted.
"A pet! I imagined a pet!"
"Really~? You made such a scary face just because of a pet~? Besides, you don't even keep a pet-"
"Argh! Stop teasing me!"
Grab!
Unable to bear the embarrassment any longer, Titania jumped up and tackled Viola. She tickled and poked her sides mercilessly, not stopping until Viola begged for mercy.
When Viola, who had burst into tearful laughter, collapsed on the bed giggling, Titania finally let out a sigh of relief and took her hands off Viola's sides. Looking down at Viola, who was lying there limp and exhausted, Titania sat back in her place and started to worry again.
She just thought that she had thought of Mother this time because there was no one else, and that the reason Ainsel didn't come to mind was because she was a fairy, and thinking that, she let out another deep sigh.
'In the first place, there's no way Mother would smile at other people the way she treats me. Mother always only looks at me.'
Lying flat on the bed, Titania opened the book she had been reading earlier and began to read it thoroughly again. Thinking, 'What might Mother be doing right now?'
And exactly at that time, Vivian was—
"Today, I'm going to drink until I die!"
"Your Majesty the Queen, you're so cool!!!!"
-......I'm going to go to the Princess. I can go, right?
She was dead drunk and not in her right mind.