Don’t Concern Yourself With That Book

“What are you making?”

“Are you getting bored?”

He glanced at me while speaking.

“You said you’d wait for me. But you look bored?”

“… I wasn’t doing it intentionally.”

“I know. I already told you to stop being stubborn and just say what’s on your mind.”

“I wanted to wait for you.”

When I lifted my head, an azure blue light shone over me. I had to quickly rub my eyes that had been blinded by the bright blue light. It was a full moon.

“Just a few days ago, you said you had a headache.”

“Ah. I did. I think I wrote it in a letter to you…”

“You did.”

“I see. So what are you making? Can’t you let the person who’s been waiting for you for two hours now know?”

I could feel him staring at me.

“… Since when have you been so curious about me?”

“Uhm. What are you on? I’ve always been curious about you, brother.”

“Me?”

His face that appeared in the reflection looked pale. He was staring at me as he gently placed the bottle he was holding down.

His sunken face softened and he smiled languidly.

“Alright. What do you want to play with?”

My heart fluttered before he reverted to his usual behaviour. Since when has he smiled so comfortably around me? He had already returned to his usual harsh expression but I had already seen it. My tactics were working little by little like ants gnawing at him. I was captivated by this unfamiliar side of his. As I continued to remain silent while wondering how to react, Amor spoke first.

“Even if we don’t play, it’s alright because I had something to speak to you about anyway.”

“… After two hours had passed?”

“You keep talking back today. Is anything the matter?”

I opened my closed eyes before replying him.

“Did you ask if anything was the matter? Has any day gone by when nothing was the matter?”

At my gaze, he tilted his head for a while before lowering his chin.

“Come over here.”

I sat on a seat beside his bed.

“I’ve been quite busy lately so I might have overlooked some things but there’s nothing for you to be upset about.”

“Who’s upset?”

My harsh voice filled him with laughter.

“It looks like you didn’t get hurt this time round.”

“If anyone hears you, they’d think I get hurt often.”

“Don’t you?’

He seemed to be laughing a lot more today and it didn’t look natural.

He chuckled.

I gazed at the bottles that the vines were clearing away.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while. Was it because of this? No, you must’ve gotten hurt.”

“You’re right. I was busy.”

“Did it hurt?”

He grimaced.

“Did you not hear me? I said I was busy.”

Did an uncomfortable expression just pass by his face? Amor tapped on his forehead.

“No matter how many letters you send, no means no.”

“What? Are you talking about my request for you to be my patronus?”

“That’s right.”

“But who’s the one being too much? When you didn’t even send a reply to my letters?”

“I’ll do something nice for you instead. Before that.

Amor looked down at me.

“You’ve been asking what I was doing for a while now. You seem to be asking when you already know the answer.”

No, I wasn’t asking because I knew… Under a lantern lit by divinity, he looked pale, thin and yet elegant.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking of but you’re probably right. This is a kind of poison that kills people.”

He explained to me firmly.

“I’ve been making this since forever. What do you think? Am I scary now?”

“Do you want me to be scared?”

“…..”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what answer my brother wants from me. Do you want me to blame you?”

Just then, Amor’s pupils shook.

“… Haha. Ha. Right… That’s the kind of person you are.”

“Brother?”

“Did you know? That’s why I gave you my blessing and, for the first time, tried praying. You gave me the motivation to enact my desires.”

“Your desires?”

His cold fingertips brushed against my cheeks.

“That’s right. My desires.”

As his hand swept down my cheek to my shoulder before grabbing my wrist and pulling me closer, I continued to stare at him from a distance.

“Ashley Rosé.”

“…..”

“Ashley.”

When they opened, his lovely green eyes were clear enough for me to see the moon floating within them. Knowing his eyes would shine a different colour at the use of his divinity, I thought the moon fitted them quite well. It felt like he was just staring blankly at me before I opened my eyes and he whispered.

“I’m going to make the best stage I possibly can for you.”

It was strange. The way he looked at me even though his expressions still looked as if it had been sharpened… It was unfamiliar. He was looking at me with a gentler gaze than he ever did before.

“I cannot leave this place.”

“…..”

“I cannot be your patronus.”

The resigned expression he held when he said that he could not leave this place was probably the same way he looked in the original novel. His resignation saddened me and I almost teared up. Not only was his personality not like what the novel had described it to be, the way he accepted his misfortunes were different as well. It felt light (1). If Rusbella had been his sole salvation in the novel, he currently had none.

“That’s why I’ll make the stage the most beautiful gift you’ll ever receive.”

Amor had a slight smile. I could feel his loneliness that reminded me of the autumn breeze. The people who trapped him here, the person who fed him poison and the person who forced him to make poison. Why was Amor the one suffering when nothing in his life had ever been his fault?

“Brother, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry… I am thankful but such a gift is too much for me.”

I didn’t want to say this.

“I have already decided on my patronus.”

I wanted to relax a little and talk about it like a joke. It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? I was actually being serious. Hahaha. Then, I would smile. But my ideal situation was only an ideal.

How could this happen? If both of us had a switch that gave us misfortune, then Castor was the one who flipped that switch.

“My patronus is our brother…. Castor.”

Fleon, Dane and even Rebecca. And the people from the Duchy of Aventa (2) whose names I did not know as well as the templars working so hard for me. It would only be cruel and unfair to them for Castor to be up on the stage with me.

How? Even if people asked why I took that route, I can only say that it was because there was no other way. My mind has now been too used to misfortune to resent anything so it can only rationally choose for the sake of my future.

“Don’t make that face. Brother, I…”

“For what reason?’

As always, I was choosing the path that would only lead to my sacrifice but unlike before, I no longer wanted to die. So, I was hoping he would understand where I was coming from.

“Why?”

I didn’t choose this path to die. I chose it to live.

“… I wanted to change.”

“What? Change what?”

“The future.”

To change the future predicted by the prophetic writings and for my beautiful lady-in-waiting.

“The future?”

“Yes. The future. The future of my lady-in-waiting who would end up as another victim of the Crown Prince. I want to change it.”

If I let Rebecca become the Crown Prince’s patronus, she may end up walking down the path of a misfortunate villainess like what happened in the <Light of Rubella>. That was something that couldn’t happen.

“And in turn, my future.”

In fairytales, the princess would wait persistently for help to arrive. For a prince on a white horse to appear. But I had no white horse and I was going to escape from this hell and get up myself.

The hell that only I knew.

The hell that only I experienced.

I got up from my seat and faced the wall.

“Brother. You may be shocked now but please hear me out.”

The wall with a large tapestry draped over it was the darkest area in the room. There stood a small locked cabinet. I held the lock gently.

“Before I told you everything. Do you remember? I said that there was something I had to tell you.”

Perhaps he wasn’t able to see the expression I had right now. I thought it’d be nice if that was the case.

“… I do.”

“You told me not to rush things and stopped me from saying anything.”

I had lost again and again and again endlessly. The people I had lost and the people I was seeing everyday were not the same.

I have lost my loved ones more than 40 times. And the fact that I thought I had lost Hannah again a little while ago made my heart sink.

The loved ones I lost in those timelines were gone forever.

“I can say it now.”

When I looked up at Amor from the wall, I could see the moon hanging in the piece of sky between Amor’s head and his shoulders. The pale blue light illuminated the ends of his sky-blue hair in parts.

“Actually, I…”

I stared at him calmly as I whispered.

“… have already died 40 times.”

My heart was not beating as fast as I thought it would. Amor was the most similar to me. Other than myself, he was the one who knew me the best. I had wanted to confess my situation to the person who was riding the same boat as me and facing the same harsh winds. Because I was the only one who knew his secret.

“Say it again.”

Still, I thought. Will I regret confessing this?

“The me you’re seeing before you is the revived Ashley.” (3)

He stiffened and remained motionless like a statue.

“Back when you commented on my dead eyes, I had already gone through death 40 times and survived.”

Tell me, Amor. Will I regret this confession?

“Though it’s possible that I had already died back then and all that’s left of me now is a shell. Since it’s painful, difficult and tormenting to think about, I guess I’m not one.”

I could never be certain if the ground I was going to step in was quicksand or a stone bridge that could firmly support me. Day by day, I would take these steps with both fear and anxiety.

Compared to those moments, I was surprisingly tranquil. I felt relieved as if I had unloaded a piece of baggage off me.

That was why I could smile in front of him.

“Now, I have no more secrets left to tell you, brother?”

It was faint but light. Even as my hair fluttered about, I continued smiling and the moon remained as blue as ever.

“You ran away from me.”

I smiled faintly before covering my face with my hands.

“It’s fine if you’re afraid of me.”

What do I look like right now?

“I too wonder if I can be considered human.”

When I removed my hands, the moon looked so small it looked as if I could pick it off the sky with two fingers.

“I mean, I get scared of myself sometimes…”

I must look like a monster.

T/N:

(1): An expression not commonly used in english but you know the taste of a ‘light’ or ‘clean’ soup? That’s basically what Ash thought his resignation felt like.

(2): She did not explicitly say it was the Duke of Aventa but from context!

(3): She specifically didn’t use regressed here.