Chapter 180
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
Swallowed by the old fear, the melody my fingers played began to change.
I played the only piece I could perform perfectly without sheet music. It was a song that only my hands remembered, though I didn’t know it.
When I finished, the prime minister’s expression softened, and he asked me:
“This is a piece I’ve never heard before. Whose composition is it?”
I stopped playing and replied:
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know either.”
“Ah… yes, it was the couple mentioned in the gazette.”
“Yes…”
I hesitated, unsure if I should continue playing, but thankfully, the prime minister gestured for me to stop.
“As much as it’s enjoyable, a woman is still a woman.”
The prime minister dismissed me, saying that women tend to distract men with their presence and chatter about confidential matters, so I shouldn’t be kept in the office.
“I’m sorry. It was an honor to meet you, Your Excellency.”
I hastily placed the violin down and rushed out, finally able to breathe properly. But as soon as I exited the prime minister’s office, I ran into another person who was watching me with a piercing gaze, and my breath caught again.
I hoped that the major hadn’t changed his mind as I passed by him. Thankfully, he didn’t stop me, only repeating his tiresome words.
“Think carefully. And just wave your hand for the goodbye.”
Those disgusting words. Without answering, I passed by and finally reached the door to the hall.
“Ah, wait a moment.”
The major called out to me. What was it now? I looked back, and he was staring at me with narrowed eyes.
“What is it?”
“The piece you played, what was it?”
I answered his trivial question, feeling relief, by responding with another question.
“Do you think I’d remember that?”
“It sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.”
I wanted to say that if he knew it, he should remember on his own, but instead, I left the door open and walked out, and the major mumbled to himself.
“Hm… I’ve definitely heard it before… where was it?”
The major, who had pushed me to the edge and was now idly questioning a trivial curiosity behind me, made me sick to my core.
I didn’t return to school. After all, the man would be home soon. Thinking about the conversation we would have and the decision I had made, the school wasn’t the right place in the first place.
I entered our bedroom, closed the door, and sat alone in the quiet room. Slowly, I took off my cardigan. As I undid the buttons of my blouse, I mulled over my decision, and the words the major had spoken earlier replayed in my mind.
“Think carefully.”
It was as if he had seen right through my decision and was scolding me.
Yes, reporting him is the right thing to do.
It’s true that it’s my only way to survive.
But the major had missed the critical point.
Do I want to live without him? The answer is “No.”
‘If life forces me to let go of him, then I’ll choose to let go of life.’
The version of myself from last spring, who had once considered leaving him if Johann had another woman, if he didn’t want me, was now nowhere to be found.
Every evening, the wildflowers he handed me, the gentle kisses, the sweet whispers, and the passionate gestures had made me helplessly addicted. Even after realizing that all of it might have been a deception, I still clung to the faint hope that it might not be, and I couldn’t let him go.
And even after learning that his deceit wasn’t limited to just that, I still couldn’t let go of the nameless man.
Even if he didn’t love me.
I opened the collar of my blouse and took the small revolver that was hidden deep in the hollow of my chest.
When he returns, I’ll threaten him with this gun and make him tell the truth. And if he’s only used me, if every moment of love was a lie, then I’ll kill him. Then, I will lose everything I have and die.
Though he approached me with the intent of using me, married me without love, regretted it, and if now he truly loves me, and only me, I can’t forgive him, but I can endure it.
If that’s the case, I’ll leave the decision to him.
To either fight to survive, only to die by someone else’s hand, or lie side by side in our last home and end my life.
‘Do you still love Dana?’
When I ask him this, my choice will depend on his answer, but our fate will not change.
In the end, for both of us, death will be the only option.
From the beginning, as the major said, I never intended to sell the man to save my own life. The time I bought wasn’t because I couldn’t make a decision, but because I needed time to die with him.
The revolver was hot from my body heat, but the touch of the metal was still cold. So, as I looked down at the gun, which was becoming increasingly blurry, I told myself it was the trembling of my hands and not a lie.
The sound of horse hooves grew louder outside the window.
The man’s back.
I placed the revolver on the table and opened my blouse. Soon, the back door opened, and I heard the principal greeting my husband, but no matter how long I waited, I couldn’t hear his footsteps coming up the stairs to the second floor.
“Where is Johann?”
I rushed down the stairs to ask the principal, and when he saw me, his eyes widened.
“Mrs. Renner, were you at home? Oh, I didn’t know. I told the teacher you went to the bunker…”
“Then, does that mean Johann went to the bunker?”
He shouldn’t go to the bunker.
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