Why Are We Like This (2)
It was awkward. Awkward and uncomfortable. Facing Theodora, Maxim thought exactly that. They had stood like this several times before, yet Maxim never once welcomed the situation. The emotions he could not help but harbor toward her felt unbearably painful and stifling.
Affection? Don’t make him laugh. Darker and stickier than any shadow in the world, a churning vortex of guilt and love twisted together—Maxim had no name for it.
How much does she know?
He let out a deep, inward sigh. Was she blaming herself for everything that had happened to him lately, for every fracture in their relationship? Did she truly believe the current nightmare—being toyed with by Count Benning—was all because he had poured that potion?
The lantern light spilled across Theodora’s face. Since the first dispatch to No Man’s Land had ended, they had not once looked each other in the eye. The hatred that once burned in her gaze was gone. Maxim studied her eyes. The storm clouds heavy with both melancholy and loathing had vanished. Only turbid ash remained, the kind left after a forest fire, drifting through hollow sockets. The sort of ash that would scatter at the slightest breeze.
That sight dragged his guilt back up and shoved it in front of his nose. Well? Isn’t this what you wanted to see? The face twisted by guilt, responsibility, love-hate, and unforgivable self-loathing for past mistakes—wasn’t this exactly what he had longed to witness?
Maybe. Maxim cut off the voice ringing inside his skull. Even so, he did not want to see Theodora like this right now. But there’s nothing you can do about it. He knew that. Which was why he could not speak with her now.
Maxim resumed walking, intending to pass her without a word.
Theodora looked at his face. Pale. Drained. The light brown hair slowly losing its color, the golden eyes growing dull—everything about him seemed lifeless. Even now, Maxim was dying by inches. No, he was preparing to race toward an end worse than death.
Theodora was not ready to face him, to speak. Or rather, just as Christine Watson had once told her, she had no right. No right to warn him to be careful, no right to say she was sorry just to ease her own heart. She believed any such words would only be a way to shrug off the weight crushing her shoulders.
Because if she apologized, Maxim would probably tell her everything was fine. So Theodora had forced herself to ignore that gaze.
She stared at his halted steps with clouded eyes. She had meant to let him walk on. Just let him go, Theodora.
But against her own wishes, her hand moved on its own, catching the hem of his coat as he brushed past.
If not now—if she did not seize this cowardly, accidental moment—she feared she would never speak to him again.
“...?”
The faint tug must have only conveyed that she had grabbed him, yet Maxim’s steps stopped at once. Their shadows danced across the walls in time with the swaying lantern.
Theodora could not lift her head to meet his eyes. Instead her gaze fell on the left sleeve she had seized. Of all things. The blue ring gleaming on his ring finger made her hand tremble.
Their eyes met.
Theodora did not release his sleeve. Maxim did not shake off the hand clutching it.
“Um… Maxim…”
Her words were uncertain. She had never been someone who always knew what to say. Her lips moved in useless, empty twitches.
Maxim pulled his arm back. Her fingers lost strength and let go of his sleeve.
Theodora thought he would simply keep walking. She watched his back recede. He lengthened his stride, trying to put distance between them. One step. Another. Theodora grew farther away.
Those lost, childlike eyes and the pale hand that had fluttered helplessly after he pulled away lingered in his vision. In the end, Maxim could not take more than a few paces before stopping.
He knew she was still watching him.
“…I don’t know when we’ll have time to talk like this again.”
Theodora finally spoke. Maxim remained silent, keeping his distance as he listened. She drew closer while she talked.
“Yes. We don’t know when the monsters will swarm again to tear down the walls. So, just for a moment like this…”
Her voice suddenly cut off. The sound of short, ragged breaths escaped her lips. The lantern in her hand drew nearer, slowly. A single tear slid down her cheek.
Maxim said nothing.
Theodora stepped all the way up to his feet, then bit her lip hard, as if trying to hold back a sob.
“Maxim… I…”
The words she tried to say seemed to catch in her throat, blocked, refusing to become sound.
“I… I found out.”
Theodora forced the words out with visible effort. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at him.
“Everything. Why you had to leave me… what my family did to you, and…”
Before Maxim could stop her, the dam burst. The words poured out like floodwater.
“What I did to you… what I did to you during the final exam three years ago, and what you had to endure because of it…”
Theodora no longer tried to hide her tears. She wept openly, sobbing.
“I found out… only now, I finally found out.”
It was too late. Everything had become irreversible. The curse she had planted in his body would continue to destroy him until only the empty shell called Maxim Apparte remained.
“I couldn’t even say I was sorry.”
She had been afraid. After this confession, what would Maxim say? Or would he simply turn away with cold eyes and leave without a word? Theodora was terrified of facing that ending.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears streamed without restraint. Had she really believed an apology would ease her heart? It had been nothing but her own delusion. Every time she admitted her wrongdoing, Maxim’s gaze felt like a knife twisting in her chest.
“I blamed you for everything when I knew nothing.”
She laid out her sins one by one.
“…I just pushed all the blame onto you…”
For ruining your life. For giving you scars that could never be erased.
The lantern slipped from Theodora’s hand. Glass shattered with a high, clear crash.
“I’m so sorry…”
Her voice shrank into a single sob. She clutched at his collar as if begging for forgiveness, kneeling before him.
She did not expect forgiveness. She almost wished he would condemn her instead. She wanted him to return the same hatred she had once shown him.
“Maxim, I’m sorry…”
It was a cowardly apology, hidden in darkness where he could not see her expression. Self-disgust began to rise inside her. Her legs gave out. Theodora collapsed to her knees.
Maxim looked at her. At his ex-girlfriend, trembling, clutching his coat, crying endlessly.
What was he supposed to say? He had never resented her, never hated her. Therefore he could not lightly offer words like I forgive you or I accept your apology.
“I…” Maxim said. “I never hated you.”
He simply stated the truth, calmly.
Theodora shook her head violently, pretending she had not heard.
“No, Maxim. You should have hated me. No—you should have despised me enough to want to kill me.”
She spoke as if that was how it should have been. Maxim answered her with composure instead.
“You don’t need my forgiveness for atonement, Theodora.”
He picked up the shattered lantern from the floor. Then he looked at Theodora, still sitting there. She kept her head down, turning away every time he tried to meet her eyes. Maxim gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
She flinched, then slowly lifted her face. They were close. So close that her tear-streaked, ruined face—marred by regret and sorrow—was right in front of him.
“I forgave you from the very beginning. I never once thought any of it was your fault.”
Theodora’s expression crumbled. That answer was the one she had least wanted to hear, and at the same time the one she had wanted most. The fact that he did not hate her, that his resentment and loathing had never turned toward her, lifted her heart. Then the realization that only she had carried hatred and resentment dragged her back into the abyss.
“Why…” Her voice cracked. “Why are you like this? I… I did something unforgivable. I brought you too much despair.”
His answer to her apology was more than she could bear.
“…That’s not it, Theodora. What I gained by being with you was far greater than what I lost when you left.”
Maxim looked straight into her eyes as he spoke.
“You were that precious to me. So precious that a single mistake could never turn into hatred.”
Theodora stared at him, unable to understand. “I… I thought you were precious too. The only person who taught me what it meant to have a human heart… who showed me how to like someone, how to love someone.”
What Theodora hated now was not Maxim for ending their relationship, but herself for twisting that love into something bitter.
“I’m sorry, Maxim. It seems I never deserved to receive your love.”
Maxim lifted her chin with his hand. The winter training grounds where snow had fallen came to mind. The winter they had said goodbye. Theodora crying, her voice trembling, her shoulders shaking with sobs. It’s all right. I still remember.
Before he lost even that memory, he could at least wipe away the tears he had not been able to dry back then. The knowledge brought him quiet relief.
His thumb gently brushed the tears from her cheek. Theodora’s eyes widened in surprise at his touch.
“…I wanted to protect you.”
His voice was careful.
“And I also hoped you would never learn the truth.”
Maxim stood up. “It was my selfishness.”
His words sounded self-mocking. Even as he rose and began to walk away, Theodora remained seated on the ground, touching the tear-stained cheek he had wiped.
“Maxim.”
Still on the floor, she called his name one last time.
“…Could you sit out this battle?”
With his back to her, Maxim answered bitterly.
“I’m sorry, Theodora.”
Even so, the ending waiting for him would not change. The curse had already progressed beyond any hope of stopping. That much he swallowed and did not say aloud.
The wilderness night was bright. When the black clouds that had covered the moon parted, only the pale moon remained, shining alone. Its light was so brilliant it swallowed the countless stars embroidered across the sky.
Behemoth held its head high toward the heavens with noble grace. The time had come. The time for revenge against the arrogant god who had imprisoned him in this barren land and against the humans who served that god.
He had gathered the monsters again to conserve strength for the final assault, and also as a small mercy toward the weak humans who must be trembling in terror of him.
Behemoth brought a heavy foreleg down upon the wasteland ground. The entire No Man’s Land seemed to hold its breath, tensing at the uneasy tremor.
Behemoth drew in a great breath, as if to swallow all the air of No Man’s Land.
Witness. Worship.
He was an existence that rightfully occupied that position, a being worthy of reverence.
When dawn came, when the morning light drove out darkness and claimed the sky, Behemoth’s eyes were fixed on the cliff at the edge of the world. He would tear down the humans’ fortress and remind them once more who the true master of this land was.