The Third Life and Thereafter – 6
“… … M-my Lady!!”
Along with the loud echo of the door being thrown opened, I heard the scream of a man.
My eyes moved from the head of golden hair at the tip of my field of vision to the other corner of the room where a boy was standing. Now, what time is it? What was I doing? Why was Crow in that place? Due to the medicine my consciousness was cloudy and I couldn’t collect my thoughts. Crow sprawling on the bed together with me, when was it again? A few hours ago? A few days ago? Or was it several months before? How much time has passed since then?
“Aaah! Aaah! Oh God…! Oh God…!”
Suddenly a floating sensation at the bottom of my stomach made me feel uncomfortable. Understanding I was hold up in someone’s arms, I tried to move my legs to resist but I couldn’t. Because the bed sheets were wrapped around me. Maybe because the man who was lamenting over something was trembling and sobbing convulsively, his heartbeat that was echoing in my ears was particularly fast.
“For you to be in such a place…!! Let’s go home, my lady…!”
Being called my lady several times made me feel painfully nostalgic and I remembered that even I had a time where I was called like this. That this man’s voice sounded familiar, was probably not my imagination.
“A…l… ?”
“!”
When I muttered that name, the big arms that were supporting my body shook greatly.
“I’ve come, to pick you up, my lady… that I’m so late, I’m really, truly, sorry. I’m so sorry…!”
While looking at Al’s face who kept bitterly apologizing for his mistakes as he grinded his teeth in mortification, I thought of the months and years that have passed by. The Al who was a young that I remembered was no longer here. “Let’s go home, my lady…” hoarsely whispered Al in a soft voice to soothe me. As if going home was the natural thing to do.
Going home, go, home, ho-me? I bend my neck while mouthing that foreign vocabulary whose meaning I utterly couldn’t comprehend. For me there was no place I could return to. Where on earth does he intend to take me to? After all this time, where on earth? In that state that was like being restrained, I could only let my eyes wandered around the room and when they reached its corner, they captured the figure of Crow as he was concealing his breath.
“Cr (ow),”
I tried to called out his name but swallowed down my words. I don’t know his name yet. The boy has not said his name even once. When I blurred out air instead of words, Crow, aware of my unsaid call or nor, put a thin smile on his lips and said,
… Good for you, right?
It certainly sounded like a voice, but Al didn’t notice and was about to leave the room. No, that’s not it. It’s not that he didn’t notice, rather Al couldn’t see Crow’s figure at all.
“… A…l, wa…it, wait…”
“It’s alright. My lady, you have nothing to fear. Your room was left as it was. Everything stayed in the same place. You can go back to your previous life, as if nothing happened.”
“Wr…ong...”
That’s wrong, Al. That’s not what I’m trying to say. Wait, please. I want to talk to Crow. I can’t go anywhere, put me down, please, put me down.
Because of my illness every single of my organ was not fulfilling its function properly. I didn’t even have enough strength to vibrate my vocal cords. When I tried to raise my voice, my lungs felt like they were torn apart. And so, I couldn’t voice my feelings and transmit the words I wanted to say. They probably won’t reach Al who looked like he was murmuring to himself in indignation. All I could do was directing my sight toward the inside of the filthy little room that was getting farther and farther away, toward Crow who was looking at me from there. His pitch-dark, pitch-black eyes that looked like they were refusing to reflect even light were appealing for something. Seeing this expression, I gained conviction.
Determining my identity, locating Al, telling him my whereabouts, that was all Crow’s doing… …
“Wait, Al, that child, Cro(w)… is… he’s… that’s child too… him too…”
Take him along. As if to deny those words the door of the room was vigorously opened. I could only look over Al’s shoulder as Crow was left behind.
“Al… Al…”
“It’s alright my lady. Now, everything is going to be alright.”
Al who wasn’t aware of anything replied in a gentle tone. But not a single word that I wanted to say, not a single meaning I wanted to convey was transmit to him. I think he probably wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible. And he took the initiatives need to do so. Al, who loudly shut the door probably didn’t have any ill will, but for me that action was like venting your anger for losing the place you could go back to. Over that closed-door Crow is here. If he wanted to, it would be easy for Crow to leave this brothel. But he will not come out. I understood he will not come out and chase after me.
I saw his faintly quivering lips curved up in a little smile and said “Good for you.” That was surely his parting words. My arm that escaped from the restraints of the sheets reflexively stretched toward the door. My nails that Crow had trimmed short rubbed against the surface of the thin door. “…I never said, I wanted you to help me…” Even if I barely managed to utter those words, they’ll no longer reach Crow. The me in my previous life had certainly ask Crow to lend her his help. But, I, the present me, had never asked for help. Because it was fine to continue like this. It was fine to die like this with no one knowing about it. Cause, I believed that Crow would surely stay beside me until the very end.
As long as his figure was here, everything would have been fine.
… … And yet, why?
*
I felt around the gap between the fluffy sheets with my dried fingertips. Rolling my eyeballs that had almost become completely useless, I was expecting to find black hairs and wanted to remove them from the stainless clothes. His black hairs that didn’t possess any temperature felt pleasantly nice and cold, at some point I had started wanting to touch them because it made me feel comfortable. I wanted to ascertain that sensation again.
“Big sister…?”
Right beside me, catching her breath, my lovely little sister called out to me in an imploring tone. In my blurred field of vision was reflected the nostalgic colors of her white face and silver hairs. However, I couldn’t see clearly enough to read her expression. I could only guess she was surely making a worried one. I’m sorry, I’ve made you worry. That’s what I thought but I couldn’t put it into words. Only a long breath could leak through the gap of my dried lips. A considerate maid wiped up my lips with a moisturized cotton, but that action was meaningless. The inside of my mouth was hot like it was burning.
I already knew that my end was drawing near.
“…,”
“What? Big sister, what have you said?”
When Al took me from the brothel, I thought it was surely to take me back to the earl estate, but for some reason I was carried to the marquis’s mansion. There, Soleil and Silvia, together with their children, were waiting for my arrival.
The cave-like-brother where I had been was as remoted from the regions where the marquis’s and our earl’s houses were set up as heaven was remoted from earth. That place was a strange lawless area inside our country. In other words, it was a slum. It seemed that Al had been looking for me all those years, but he lamented over the fact that no matter where he went he couldn’t catch hold of my whereabouts. During the journey to return to the marquis’s mansion, he cried so many times, grieving and asking why he couldn’t find me sooner. Everything was brought on myself due to my egotistical motive, Al hadn’t commit the slightest wrongdoing, and yet when I convey this to him in broken and disconnected words, it seemed it didn’t bring him any consolation. Apologizing seemed to only depress him even further.
Although we arrived at the mansion after several weeks of travel spent in that mood, at that time, I was already on the verge of death. Immediately the private doctor of the marquis’s house came to examine me, but he diagnosticated that nothing could be done anymore. I felt that I heard his voice guessing I had a few days left at best.
“Big sister, can you hear me? I heard that, Soleil had something he wanted to talk to you about for a bit…”
I could no longer move the tip of my fingers, I could just shift my darkening sight and when I did so, I certainly felt that a person who appeared to be Soleil was looking over me. There were emotionless thin ice like eyes. Those eyes I felt in love with were beside me. But even when I tried to concentrate I couldn’t read his expression. I could no longer distinct anything with my weak eyes.
“… Iria, the whole time… I’ve hated you… …”
At the edge of my field of vision, stood two small shadows that should be their children. I wonder if they are worried for their parents. At the time I was brought to this mansion, the ones who showed the most discomfort where those two. Even though I can hardly see their expression, I understood this quite clearly. I had the feeling they harbored wariness toward the unknown person who suddenly appeared. I could comprehend why they wouldn’t accept a measly prostitute who, even as a form of flattery, couldn’t be called a noble female servant. Even if she was their mother’s blood related big sister. Besides Silvia, Soleil and also Al, no one could prove my identity. My appearance has probably totally changed. Yet, because Soleil and Silvia had received me as the person called Iria, they had to accept this fact. I guess the reason the earl house didn’t receive me, was surely because my parent’s anger hasn’t lessened. I probably had been stripped of my position of being an earl’s daughter when I run away.
“You were suddenly gone, and I thought you betrayed me. From our childhood you were at my side, because we had sworn to become a married couple eventually, when you abandoned your duty and run away, I was engulfed by hatred thinking your were a heartless woman.”
“Do you know how hurt I was when Silvia told me you probably had someone you loved…? While you had promised to become my spouse, you didn’t trust me enough to confide all that distress to me.”
That was right. I had disclosed such a thing to Silvia. That I had someone I loved. That for his sake, I could do everything. That person was Soleil though, but. … … Ah, I see. My escape led them to connect those thoughts like this.
“Because you were clever you probably noticed. That I didn’t love you. But, for that exact reason, I thought we could make things work well as husband and wife. With affection and friendship, I believed we could built a harmonious relation over time.”
Soleil’s words that were like a monologue resounded inside the quiet room.
“All those future prospects, everything, was crushed by your departure.”
The more I thought about it, the more I thought I hated you. So, even if I knew it was really difficult for you who was from a noble family to live in the streets, I deliberately left you alone. Soleil cut his words at this point.
I wonder if he wanted to say that I had reaped what I sowed.
I understood well what Soleil was trying to say. For him, his life was naturally his first and his last. He simply fell in love with Silvia, but he didn’t betray me. He didn’t love me, but at least, as my fiancé he tried to face me as sincerely as he could. That’s why he found the time to come and meet me. For that sake he often appeared when Silvia and I were studying. Actually, it may have been only to see Silvia, but still he didn’t do anything unfaithful. The one who betrayed was me, so the one who was hated was also me. No matter how many times Soleil betrays me in my accumulating lives, no matter how many times Silvia stoles the person I love, no matter how many times I end with a violent death, it is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the him of the current life. Because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know we can’t achieve the ideals he pictured in his mind. He doesn’t know that something like getting along well as a married couple, is impossible.
“Still now… I’m grateful to you. Because thanks to what you did I could build a family with Silvia……”
Soleil’s voice was getting farther and farther away. Unlike the other lives, this time is different, Soleil is beside me, my little sister is here too. It’s different from the time I died alone in despair while hearing the voice of a newborn, it’s different from the time I chose to die by my own hands with a rope. It was not a prison here, I didn’t suffer torture either. Overlooked by a stainless celling, gently wrapped in a brand-new bed, I wasn’t freezing to death.
But, I should have die at that time where those black eyes where gently watching over me. I didn’t want to die like this. In this place where everything is here, but there is nothing.
The hand that I hold was cold, it didn’t transmit any warmth to my lukewarm body, but I didn’t need anything else. In that room where there was nothing, but surely, everything was there.
Crow.
Crow.
Why, are you not here now… …
*
*
“… Iria-sama? What happened?”
I heard a soft and nice voice and turned around. Shaking her luxuriant blond hairs, Marianne frowned.
“… Ah, it’s those two again…”
When we went to the school cafeteria for lunch, that place was a bit noisy. Looking over the direction of the commotion, I saw my fiancé and my little sister who were walking close together. As I was absentmindedly following their figures with my eyes, I heard whispering voices saying the two of them suited each other. For Soleil-sama, rather than Iria-sama her little sister Silvia-sama was more suitable.
Marianne who had come together with me for lunch followed my line of sight and saw them.
“Irisa-sama, as expected, isn’t it going a bit too far?”
Implicitly, with a tinge of criticism she was asking me if Silvia’s conduct as a daughter of a noble was not good. She was indeed walking closely with a man who had a fiancé. Even if no one taught you, you should have known that such a behavior was not a praiseworthy thing. However.
“… My little sister has a weak body, and because of it she wasn’t taught much about social etiquette…”
It was my role to say that and back her up. Because I was her big sister.
“Iria-sama, as expected I’m getting tired of hearing that excuse. Besides, since you haven’t notice it, I’ll dare say this…”
“?”
“Your expression looks as if you’re about to cry you know.”
Marianne slender hand swept away my own hand which was tightly grasping a cup of tea on the table.
“Is it really alright to leave it as it is now?”
Don’t you love Soleil-sama?
I was hard pressed by her reply which was uttered softly wrapped in gentleness. The previous me certainly was in love with Soleil. And the me of the current life too, at the time she met Soleil, she fell in love with him. After that tea party, I couldn’t say that my love for him collapsed after watching Soleil and Silvia fell in love in front of my very eyes.
But.
But, something was not right.
Something, was different.
Nocta’s thoughts:
“… Iria, the whole time… I’ve hated you… …”
The first time I read the story, I found it difficult to not hate Soleil. It’s complex, because like Iria says, in this life he felt betrayed by her and it’s normal for him to hate her, but because we’ve seen all the other lives we know it’s him who betrays her again and again. It can’t be help, he doesn’t love her. But it can’t be help, I still hated him.
The author surely intended to make the readers feel negative emotions toward him. And then, she wrote the next arc.
The next arc is one of the things that made me want to read the raw and fight with Google Trad for them. Now that I’ve become better at Japanese, the story is more interesting to read and translate. Enjoy!