Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Just Leave Tonight
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Beth silently stared at the proffered hand.
Last time, he hadn't even been able to make out a single word of the letter properly.
If Dever failed to recognize it this time too, she wasn't sure she could bear the humiliation.
How much more are you going to hurt me?
Her resentful gaze turned toward the man.
Dever didn't avoid the steady look she fixed on him. His voice dropped even lower.
"I'll really recognize it this time, Beth."
He was an unpredictable man.
One moment telling her to die without regret, the next throwing himself into danger to save her. Endlessly frustrated and disappointed in her, yet here he was, soothing her with this purposeless tenderness.
Beth's fingertips lightly brushed Dever's hand.
She didn't even know what to say. But her hand moved faster than the whirlwind of thoughts swirling in her mind.
Maybe she just wanted confirmation. That this man would truly recognize her.
The woman's head bowed. Her downcast lashes, as if pondering something, were as dark as the sky outside the window. Dever missed none of it.
The lingering chill of the corridor, the few stray locks of hair, the ink stains on her pale hand from gripping the pen so much, even the scent of this woman wafting from her worn nurse's uniform.
"Good memory?"
Beth drew in a deep breath.
She didn't have the nerve to see his bewildered reaction, so she gazed out the open window instead. It was the one good thing about this outpost on the barren wasteland. At night, you could see stars spilling across the sky like they were about to pour down. It was a moment when she could cast aside her overflowing thoughts, if only briefly.
He'd told her to cover bad memories with good ones like it was that simple, but she knew how deceptive that was. Bad memories scarred like an ugly wound.
The injury might heal, the pain might fade, but the scar would spend a lifetime replaying that moment. The very instant the wound was made. That's why it was so horrific.
This man was the same, surely.
When he took his medicine, smoked his cigars, drank his liquor—had there ever been a moment of joy in any of it?
If she wrote that she'd hoped he'd feel even a fleeting pleasure when she slipped him the candy, would he believe it? She could hardly believe her own heart.
Beth, lost in her solitary thoughts, suddenly rummaged in her pocket again. She'd almost forgotten. This was the most important thing, after all.
This must be why he'd waited for her.
A paper envelope was placed atop Dever's still-open palm. Dever gazed quietly at Beth's face, which somehow looked triumphant.
"You see me as completely hooked on this stuff."
It was a self-deprecating mutter.
But it wasn't wrong. He knew exactly what would become of him without these few pills.
Beth gave Dever one last confirming glance. She'd done everything she could, so now it was time to part. Surely he wouldn't expect her to awkwardly shake hands or something.
Dever's hand clenched around the medicine packet. The flimsy paper crumpled easily in his grip.
"You..."
His voice came out like it was boiling over.
Why did she always wear that carefree expression? Like leaving him behind was a relief, even if just in her heart.
Dever took a step closer.
"Why just go tonight?"
At the sudden proximity, Beth stepped back. She had no idea what he was saying, but the strange tension between them told her this situation was dangerous.
Dever roughly shrugged off the shirt draped over him. His shadow, backlighted by the lamp, engulfed the small woman.
Seeing Beth shrink back in preemptive fear, Dever let out a short sigh.
"The wound on my back. How are you gonna apply it alone?"
The man, looking somewhat weary, sat on the edge of the bed. Through the gaps in the bandages, scars like a child had scribbled wildly across his skin peeked out.
'Why just go tonight.'
Tonight?
The only time she'd applied the ointment was last night.
For a moment, Beth's hand froze.
Had he not been asleep? No way he knew she'd touched his hair. Anxious questions flashed through her mind, but soon quieted. With his temper, no man like that would let her touch his head.
It must have just been meaningless words.
This time, a small sigh escaped Beth's lips. Why was she overanalyzing every word, every action from this man?
Lest her dizzying thoughts swell further, her hands busied themselves applying the medicine.
"Will this make it better?"
Dever tossed out an innocent question, pretending ignorance.
He already knew the answer. It would be etched there until the moment he died.
"Better?"
He turned to look at Beth.
The woman just twitched her lips, unable to speak. She'd think it absurd, no doubt. He stared at those quivering red lips.
She couldn't speak anyway.
The Beth he'd seen so far always moved her lips before her hands when she had something to say. If he kept watching, it felt like a voice might spill from them.
Is that why he couldn't stop looking?
"It might heal."
Dever was now convinced. He was exceptionally good at lying.
"Treat it every night."
Hadn't he said he vaguely knew this woman's weak spots? Retract that.
"It hurts."
A pitiful wolf cub of a guy. That's what someone had spat at him as a crying child long ago.
He planned to latch onto this woman's weak spot like biting a prey's throat. Acting like a fragile little beast was child's play.
I hate that relieved look on your face every time you slip away from me.
"Help me."
Even if he had to shed the pretense to hold on.
A faint blue light illuminated the faces of the sleeping soldiers. Dawn hadn't broken yet, but the hospital was gearing up for the day. The busy footsteps weaving between the slumbering patients, the appropriate clatter of medicine kits and supplies—it all conveyed the peace of an early morning.
In that quiet bustle, Aines was busy for entirely different reasons.
"What are you doing?"
"Eek!"
Aines, applying lipstick in the corner of the supply room, yelped with trembling hands. Beth and Dixie giggled at this girlish side of Aines, who was always more mature than them. Aines shot them a glare as she wiped off the lipstick that had gone way astray.
"Your fiancé's coming, so even the great Aines can't put down the mirror."
A tiny mirror was in Aines's hand. It was a far cry from her usual self.
"Not that. My complexion's dull, so I just did my lips. Just my lips."
"Sure, sure."
Dixie showed no intention of indulging the cute excuse. Beth enjoyed seeing her friend so excited after so long.
"Beth, want some too?"
Beth, who would normally wave it off, silently took the lipstick. Dixie's gaze at her grew meaningful.
"Must be nice having boyfriends and all."
"Huh? Boyfriends?"
Aines's rounded eyes turned to Beth. She got teasing about her fiancé, but 'everyone has a boyfriend'?
Beth lightly swatted Dixie's shoulder. It was teasing about that 'date' with Dever a few days ago. Date, my foot. Because of that ridiculous so-called date, the man had nearly lost his life.
Aines's sparkling eyes now turned to Dixie. Something fun had clearly happened. And Dixie, the 'battlefield radio,' knew all about it.
Dixie shrugged her shoulders.
"The 'everyone' I meant was my friends back in Wayne. They all have fiancés or boyfriends."
But Aines's suspicions didn't subside.
"Come on, something happened. Beth, spill."
Aines forced a pen into Beth's hand. As Beth tried to let go and Aines tried to make her hold it, the supply room door burst open.
"What are you all doing in here?"
The stern matron's arrival quelled the commotion. Aines reverted to her usual poised Lady Aines, and Beth did the same. Only Dixie shook her head at them.
"Dixie, something wrong?"
"No, ma'am. I'm just speechless at my colleagues' two-faced sides."
"Huh?"
The baffled matron scanned the three. Individually, they were all diligent and well-behaved young ladies. But together? Total chaos.
"Beth, I need to go to the market, so please prep the fourth-floor dressings and meds instead. Aines, go to my room and call the supply division. And Dixie!"
Dixie flinched at the matron's sharp call.
"Please, for today, no gossip from Wayne to the soldiers!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Colonel Gail's on the fourth floor."
Aines's face lit up at the matron's parting words, tossed like a gift.
Beth climbed the stairs alongside her friend's eager steps. The usually quiet fourth floor buzzed unusually. The raucous laughter of men from the isolation room cut off the instant Aines opened the door.
Her flushed, rosy cheeks turned a deep red from suppressed anger.
"What. Are you doing right now?"
Beth, following behind, wore the exact same expression as Aines.
On the side table—not what it was placed there for—two vodka bottles sat uncorked. The wide isolation room reeked of cigar smoke from three men puffing away.
And in the midst of it, Dever.
"Ah, sorry."
Arthur hurriedly opened a window.
Beth's gaze never left Dever. What made him so brazen? He even smirked, then demonstratively chugged straight from the bottle.
Looks like only Gail had been caught red-handed among the three.
"No, Aines, it's not—"
"It's fine, Colonel."
"No, the supply line was bombed—haven't touched liquor in three months."
"I'm sure."
"It's been so long since I saw the commander and the army chief..."
Gail glanced at Dever, as if expecting something. Did he really think his army commander would bail out his pathetic subordinate?
Beth's hand gripping the tray turned white. Without the others there, she'd hurl the bottles and cigars out the window like last night. Dever bit his lip seeing her restrain her temper because of the crowd.
If he stoked her anger more here, she'd come at night with that sulky face again.
"Let's go, Beth."
Aines quickly took Beth's hand. She couldn't bicker with her fiancé in front of a prince and a duke. Beth glared at Dever a moment longer before letting her friend pull her from the room.
Once the two furious women left, Arthur teased playfully.
"You're gonna be whipped once you're married."
Gail chuckled vacantly.
"I like Aines like that. Marriage'll show even more sides of her."
Dever set down his bottle. It had been a childish stunt to see what face Beth would make. For the mess he'd caused, the expression he got was pretty good.
"Yeah. Living together, you'll see a lot."
It was Dever's first words on marriage, after staying silent all this time.
"Might be fun."