Delusion (5)
Delusion (5)
"We didn't talk, though. Not really."
I kept my hand light on Serepina's shoulder and spoke quietly.
My voice was less strained than I expected.
"I wanted this too. The two of us, side by side like this... just talking. Saying all the little things.
Not always ending up at a café, grabbing coffee, picking at snacks, bickering a bit until it always turned into a fight.
I just wanted to be together like this."
Under my touch, I felt a faint tremor run through Serepina's shoulder.
She lifted her head and looked at me.
"Then... let's do that now.
We can just keep being together like this, starting now. That's all we have to do.
I wouldn't even have to write you letters every time I visited. We could pack sandwiches and go to the park—you wrote that the moon looks beautiful near there, right?"
Her voice came out thin and wavering, soaked through.
"Right now... you don't actually like me, do you? You just think I seem a little unstable, and you want to stay by my side. Isn't that it?"
Her eyes wavered.
Her expression was a mess of conflict.
"Because you're a nice person. To everyone."
"A nice person..."
Serepina murmured the words back to herself.
Then her head dipped slightly.
Her fingers fidgeted idly in her lap.
"That's... not entirely wrong. But there's no way I didn't like you from the start."
"No. People who actually like each other don't treat each other the way we do. You and me."
"We're... we're not like ordinary people.
Ever since we were kids, it's always been just the two of us.
Other people wouldn't understand.
No matter what the Heir Apparent says, what your father says, whatever anyone around us says."
"You never actually enjoyed being with me like this.
You showed up once a few days ago, and the rest of the time you kept avoiding me."
"That... that wasn't because I hated you. I was just... too confused...
My head was spinning."
"Yeah?"
"...Yeah."
"But we're about to break off the engagement, aren't we?"
"...Where did you—where did you hear that?"
The voice she forced out was barely audible.
I didn't bother hiding who told me.
"From your esteemed Heir Apparent."
At the mention of Levina, Serepina bit down harder on her lower lip.
Hard enough that I wondered if it might bleed.
"It... it might have reached the Heir Apparent, but still—I was trying to make it go away!
When my father told me you'd soon be expelled from the family... I acted on my own..."
She gasped the words out in a rush.
The sentences didn't connect properly.
"There's no way you could make it go away.
It's not something you or I get to decide.
It's between your esteemed Heir Apparent and Count Belluz."
At that, Serepina shook her head.
She looked desperate to deny it.
"I'll—I'll figure something out.
You don't have to help or anything.
You're about to be thrown out of the family anyway...!"
She cut herself off and clamped her mouth shut, like someone who'd just realized she'd made a mistake.
Her face went white.
"Yeah. I'm getting kicked out soon.
So there's no reason for you to keep spending time with me anymore, Serepina.
When was it? You told me once that if it weren't for the family, you wouldn't even be around someone like me."
"I said that in anger! I was just—I was just upset..."
"The things people say in anger are usually the truth."
I shrugged, the mockery plain in my voice.
Her face twisted.
"It's not about some damn family... that's not why I like you."
Serepina's breath came in ragged gasps.
Her voice cracked as it came out.
"Maybe enough time has passed that you're just... mistaken."
"Mistaken? How can all the time we've spent together be a mistake?"
"Who knows."
Her voice pitched slightly higher.
I watched her in silence.
"I get the feeling you'd just stand there and watch even while I died."
The blood fled from Serepina's face at those words.
She couldn't say anything.
She just stared at me, frozen.
"Why would I—why would you say I'd do that?
Now you're clouding everything with things that haven't even happened?"
"No reason. Just feels that way. Because that's how you've always been."
Somehow I felt something in me shrink, turn petty.
Because it felt like I was throwing her own words right back at her.
The thought that, after a decade together, we'd even come to mirror each other's cruelest words—the kind you say when you're disappointed, when you can't trust the other person—left me with a hollow sadness and nothing else.
Time solves a lot of problems. I didn't want to accept that there are some it doesn't solve at all.
"When have I ever? No—what, exactly?"
Serepina shot to her feet.
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
"When have I ever just stood there and watched?
When you were sick, when things were hard, I was always right beside you.
When that clearly insane Heir Apparent tormented you, when you were out pulling your delinquent shit!
Who was it who cleaned up every time you got drunk and trashed your room?
Even when you ran with those thugs and some girl had her arm linked through yours!"
Her voice climbed louder.
A few students passing through the corridor glanced our way.
The moment they met my eyes, they hurried off as if on cue and vanished around the far corner.
I stayed seated on the bench, looking up at her.
"Yeah. You were always beside me."
I said it flatly.
"But not once were you ever completely on my side.
When Levina tore me down in front of you, when other people pointed fingers—you just stood there and watched.
Without a word. Just beside me."
"That's—that's because the Heir Apparent was terrifying.
You were the same back then! What was a kid like you supposed to say against someone like her?"
Serepina's face was wretched.
Her cheeks were flushed an odd red.
Whether from dizziness or sheer fury, I couldn't tell.
Part of me even wondered if she was coming down with a fever.
"What did I do wrong?"
"You were always causing trouble.
The Forbidden Archive incident this time too, and all those fights you kept picking!
Do you have any idea how—how worried I was?
How do you think I felt watching you fall apart like that?"
"Serepina. You know the only thing I can say to you this time is sorry."
I looked up at her, my expression uneasy and somehow weary.
The same conversation. The same conclusion.
Sure, a lot had changed—but if only the process shifted a little and the outcome stayed identical, could you really call that a change at all?
"I don't know. I thought—I thought I was doing better, in my own way.
I stopped mixing with those lowlifes you hated. I actually attended my classes without skipping. My grades were decent."
"What good are decent grades? Does reading a few more books change who a person is?"
Disappointment seeped through Serepina's voice.
"Look at me. For all my overflowing talent in magic, for all my skill with mana, I can't even turn the heart of one boy standing in front of me.
So what does any of that—grades, books—even matter?"
I let out a hollow laugh.
"Then what exactly was I supposed to do?"
"If I knew that, I would've done something about it first."
Serepina's voice trembled.
I wanted to answer that, but my mouth wouldn't open easily.
How many times was I supposed to keep doing this every time I died?
I gazed at her with a tired expression.
Serepina looked back at me and clutched the neckline of her dress with her right hand, then grabbed her own wrist with her left as if trying to stop the shaking.
Just when I was about to feel outright disgust at the sense that the outcome was always the same—
Serepina slowly steadied her breathing.
Exhaling a breath that still trembled, she spoke in a low voice.
"If I'd known, I would have done something for sure, Ravin.
But I don't know anything. All of a sudden—all of a sudden my chest hurts so much.
It feels like you're about to disappear."
She stepped closer and gripped my hand tightly.
Her hand was cold.
"I would've helped you. If I'd known anything, I know—I know I would have. I truly have no idea what I'm supposed to do, Ravin."
She slowly stroked my fingers one by one.
Like someone praying.
"Don't smile at me like I'm a stranger.
Don't look at me with those eyes."
Her voice grew thick with tears.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help. I'm sorry I couldn't believe you."
Her words trailed off, and she began to cry.
"So don't look at me like that.
I don't want to see that expression."
She spoke through sobs.
"Tell me you love me. Tell me there's no one else.
Tell me you're happy that I'm by your side."
Soundless tears slid down her cheeks.
"I'll do anything. Just tell me—because it feels like you're going to die. Every single day.
It's like I said things to you I never actually said, and I keep having dreams where you die right in front of me.
So please, don't look at me like that. That was always—always your expression right before you died."
One thing was absolutely certain: the sight of Serepina kneeling before me on the floor beside the bench was not a pretty one.
I pulled her to her feet.
Then I patted her back gently, soothing her as best I could.
"So you love me. That's what you're saying."
Serepina didn't answer. She just sniffled and nodded.
She buried her face against my shoulder.
For the briefest moment, in my arms, she seemed to hesitate.
But soon, without looking to see what expression she was making, I answered briefly.
"...Yeah."
Maybe I'd wanted to hear it a little sooner.
Enough that I felt more troubled than happy.
She was acting right now like she could do anything as long as she was by my side, but would she still say it was okay if I really did something unforgivable?
If Serepina had been standing in front of me that time—when I shot Levina and killed the Duchess—would she really not have condemned me?
One thing that was certain: something always changed after I died.
But what changed, I could only dimly sense. Faintly, just faintly, it drew closer.
I still don't really know what I'm supposed to do.
I only decided I wouldn't stand frozen in place and just watch anymore, like the childhood friend beside me.