Yuria Taylor-2
"I heard you were attending the festival, so I supposed you might come in late. But isn't this a little much, even for you?"
She likely knew it herself—how ridiculous this whole situation was, her picking a fight over nothing more than my late arrival. I was hardly a child; what harm could possibly come of coming home in the small hours?
There was no need to puzzle over Yuria's intentions. She simply didn't like me. The moment our eyes met, I grated on her nerves. And if not that, then she meant to nitpick until she had something to hold over me.
I knew such assumptions were hardly ordinary, but my sister Yuria had always been exactly this way. Arrogant and imperious—and so she disdained anyone who couldn't keep pace with her standards. Naturally, she'd have nothing kind to say about a brother who had never once found favor in her eyes since childhood.
There was a time I'd tried flattering her, scraping by however I could. Not a trace of that spirit remained in me now. If she was going to hate me, it was far better to take that hatred whole. Dying a hundred times had taught me one thing above all: Yuria and I were beings that could never, ever mix.
"Is that so."
"Not 'is that so.' I'm asking whether you have a single shred of responsibility. Or do you not know that Father is overseeing the Full Moon Festival today? If Father is busy, then you and I ought to step up and—"
"I'm afraid I don't follow. Step up to do what, exactly? Did you not strip me of every authority I might have exercised?"
By the Young Matriarch. Herself. At those words, delivered low and even, Yuria's eyes narrowed to slits.
Though I remembered the occasion perfectly, she clearly didn't—telling, perhaps, of just how little the matter had weighed on her. It was Yuria who had taken from me the authority I could wield as a member of House Taylor. That was why even the lowliest servants of this ducal residence looked down their noses at me. Had I forgotten, simply because I'd never once made an issue of it?
When I stared back with a blank face, Yuria clicked her tongue and answered.
"Don't tell me you actually believe you're no longer a Taylor just because your authority was taken away. And besides, that revocation was largely your own fault, wasn't it?"
My fault, was it. Come to think of it, back then, too, my authority had vanished on the pretext of my coming home late. And what would she pin on me this time? I had no great desire to find out. Listening any further would only cost me peace of mind I couldn't afford to spare; far better to offer a single apology and take my leave.
"I see. Then the fault is mine."
"...What?"
"I am apologizing for returning late. My sincerest apologies for causing you needless concern. I will take care to come home earlier from now on."
"I never worried about you. Not once."
Not that it was any of my business. I knew full well she wouldn't spare me a thought; all I wanted now was to go to my room and rest. Saving Arwen, and minding Adele in the process, had left me worn out in body and mind alike. If my feelings were prodded the wrong way, my sharpest edges might well slip loose.
So I bowed my head, apologized with all the courtesy I could summon, and turned to go. There was no need for a long exchange with Yuria. Crossing paths with her today had been a genuine surprise—but that was all it was.
That was what I was thinking.
"How admirable. Just as I'd expect of the son our mother so adored."
...Had I not heard those very words, I would have walked straight back to my room. Mother. The moment that name, of all names, reached my ear, my steps came to a dead halt.
"Coddled and cherished from birth, and still you haven't learned your place. Just like her, minding nothing but her own affairs without a shred of care for this family. They do say love makes people alike, don't they?"
"Young Matriarch."
I had always striven to make my judgments coldly. Just this once, I could not. I knew Yuria understood precisely what the word Mother meant to me. And she was speaking it anyway, knowing full well it was the softest spot beneath my armor.
Heat surged in an instant, and my teeth ground together at the sound of it. I knew it was a ploy to anger me. If I showed no reaction, it would end with her merely deeming me pathetic. I knew those words had been born of a desire to provoke. And still, there were lines a person had to hold. No matter the hatred, no matter the loathing—there were names that must never pass one's lips.
"You've always been like this. The moment anything turned against you, even slightly, you ran. That's why you're running now, too. Am I wrong?"
Yuria had disliked our mother from long ago. She called her too light, too cheerful—a poor fit for the gravity House Taylor carried. Even though Mother had given her life, to Yuria the family had always mattered more than blood. Perhaps that was why she hated me as well—because I took after Mother. If that were truly the reason, it would be the most childish thing imaginable.
When I turned my head, Yuria met me with a flicker of surprise on her face. I couldn't see my own expression just then, but I was certain it cut a rather amusing figure. It was, after all, likely the first time in this cycle that I had ever shown her a face full of fury.
The corner of my mouth, already lifted in a bitter curve, twisted further. Had there been a mirror nearby, I doubted my eyes would be anything but bloodshot. The heat blooming in my chest had filled my skull to the brim. If I opened my mouth, something filthy was bound to spill out. That much, and only that much, I swallowed down—lashing out here would mean walking straight into her provocation.
Something Father once said drifted back to me. A noble, he said, must grow more courteous the angrier he becomes.
"Does saying such things soothe you?"
"...What did you say?"
"I asked whether slandering your own mother and belittling your own brother eases your heart in any way."
"Robert Tay—"
"If that is what the Young Matriarch desires, then I suppose I am obliged to grant it."
I could feel the corridor's air turning colder by the second. It was as if the space itself were warning me: one wrong step, and frozen thorns would pierce us both until blood flowed. But that was fine. Of all things in this world, shedding blood was the one I was most confident in—more than anyone alive.
"...I never gave you leave to keep talking."
Yuria answered in a voice gone low and sunken. Eyes frozen stiff, like ice a breath away from shattering, skewered me where I stood. Those were the eyes I had once feared above all else. In the old days, nothing terrified me more than her fixing me with that gaze—cursing me, condemning me for defaming House Taylor. Now it meant nothing at all. She was, in the end, nothing more than a woman. All she held was the title of Young Matriarch, and the name of Taylor was no longer anything precious to me.
So I did not look away. Instead, holding those eyes, I opened my mouth with a jeer.
"Did you, now? I hadn't the faintest idea."
"I hadn't realized you'd grown this insolent. Was the punishment last time not enough? It seems a passing glance from Father has gone to your head. The one who answers for this ducal residence now is me."
"I'm well aware. Why else would I be minding my manners so carefully?"
Even as Yuria's hand closed around the sword at her hip, I still did not drop my gaze. The scene was all too familiar. No—it was a scene I had lived through any number of times before. Back when I was still foolish enough not to relinquish the name of Taylor, Yuria had looked at me with those very same eyes.
—You are a disgrace to House Taylor, Robert Taylor.
I had knelt and begged, weeping in disgrace. Begged for my life, prattling about the bond between brother and sister in a shameless bid to survive. If I lived, surely there would be some chance to mend things between us. We could grow close again, the way we'd been in a childhood I could scarcely remember. That was the belief I tried to live by.
—...Confine Robert Taylor to the underground cell. Until that habit of his is cured, he is to have neither food nor water.
And what became of that? I survived, only to be shut in that freezing room, dying without ever seeing another person's face. Even as the meals never came, even to the very end, I refused to give up on living. I chewed rats that slipped through the cracks, wet my mouth with the blood of vermin, and endured however I could. And still I died—as though my fate had been sealed the moment I knelt before Yuria. So I died like that, and went on to live the next cycle.
What had I done so terribly wrong? If begging to live was my sin, then that was the cruelest joke of all.
My brow warped at the memories flashing past, and Yuria shot me an incredulous glare. She didn't like the situation itself—me, of all people, daring to say anything to her at all. To her, I had always been beneath her: a coward who hadn't even dared to meet her eyes.
"By the authority vested in me as Young Matriarch, I have the right to personally dispose of anyone who sows discord. You're well aware of that, aren't you?"
"And is what I am doing now truly 'discord'?"
"You said with your own mouth that every scrap of your authority was stripped away—and yet, in that state, you still defy me. If that isn't sowing discord, what would you call it? I am being serious right now, Robert Taylor."
Blade drawn—the sword bestowed upon her appointment as Young Matriarch—she strode toward me with heavy steps. Had she expected me to cower at the sight? At my perfect indifference, the hand gripping her sword trembled. Yuria let out a small sigh, her contorted eyes fixed on me.
Ignoring whatever emotion lay pooled in those eyes, I simply waited to hear what she would say. What would this foolish woman spew out next? Every word that spilled from her tongue was her own karma—karma that would one day return to her as blade and poison.
After a long stretch of silence, Yuria's lips quivered as she looked at me.
"You... seem to hate House Taylor. From the time you were a child, you never once showed this family the slightest affection."
"Is that your assessment."
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. At the sight of me smirking, Yuria scrunched her brow in displeasure. But how could I not laugh? I did not hate House Taylor. Had I truly despised this family, I would never have endured cycle after cycle of regression. I had merely resigned myself. Knowing my own efforts could change nothing, I had folded away my hopes and wished for nothing more than death. So I laughed—because her question was absurd, and because the delusion I had lived inside was funnier still.
"So that is what you believed, then. You truly thought I hated House Taylor?"
I stepped forward, closing the distance, and stood before Yuria. She was a woman far shorter than I, and this was the first time I had ever looked down at her like this. When I had knelt and gazed up at her, she had seemed so towering. Now, struck by how small and shabby she truly was, a smile rose to my face unbidden.
"...You are mistaken, Young Matriarch."
"What are you saying?"
"I do not hate the house of Taylor. However."
I let the words hang for a breath, then looked at Yuria once more. I never imagined I would speak this aloud. Words I had always thought, yet never once managed to say—because speaking them would have twisted the wish I held, and I hadn't trusted myself to bear what followed. But there was nothing left to hold me back now, was there? With Theresia struck from the board, nothing remained in this world that could frighten me.
To Yuria, who stared at me blankly, I continued, slow and unhurried. My voice was so quiet, so level, it might have come from a doll.
"It is only you that I hate."
This was my scream. The cry I had wanted to let out a hundred times over the course of my lives, yet never could—buried instead in the depths of my chest. And what answer would she give this silent scream?
The eyes that had always been frozen cold were no longer there. There was only a woman staring at me with a rigid face, wearing nothing but a hollow, witless expression. From her slightly parted lips came no sound at all.
I watched her for a moment longer. Then I turned my back and began to walk.
"I'll take my leave, Young Matriarch."
Not a shred of me wished to carry on the bond between brother and sister. Whatever she thought of it—even if these words changed her heart—it meant nothing to me. As spilled water can never be gathered up again, so it was with the two of us.
Even as I walked on with Yuria at my back, a voice went on ringing in my ears. A voice that some past self of mine had ignored. A voice I had refused to acknowledge for the longest time, chained by a fool's attachment.
...I hated Yuria.
And now that I had only just realized it, I couldn't help feeling like a fool for taking so long to see it.