Chapter 351
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
He never answered the question. Whether he loved me or not, there was no reply to it anywhere in his letter.
All he asked of me was this:
Forget.
‘How could I possibly forget you?’
He knew I couldn’t. He knew that better than anyone, yet he still told me to forget.
Cruel. Heartless.
[May the road you walk from here on bloom with nothing but luck and happiness.
Killian Ackroyd]
The words he left me sounded gentle, no different from his usual tone, and yet his attitude was cold.
As if he had become someone else entirely. As if the Killian Ackroyd who had loved me enough to try to drag me into hell had already died.
‘This isn’t like Killian.’
It was so hard to believe that, at first, I even suspected the Marquis had forced him to write it.
‘If it had been coerced, he wouldn’t have dared criticize that fraud, or tell me to leave him.’
No matter how much I wanted to deny it, this letter was Killian’s own.
Then was it true? That he had grown tired of living, that he had decided to die, that he was telling me to go on alone?
The strength drained from my fingers.
Freed from my grasp, the letter slipped from my hand and fell soundlessly to the floor.
“There’s no longing left in his words. He sounds relieved. As if his heart has really left me… I must have exhausted him. Loving me became too painful for him. And yet why does he throw away his own life when he throws me away? Why…?”
Tsk. Seated in the armchair beside me, Lady Ackroyd clicked her tongue and picked up the fallen letter.
“I told you, he’s refusing to read your letters because he knows his resolve would waver. You really don’t listen, do you? You’re exactly like Killian.”
“I suppose we are alike. They say spouses start to resemble each other.”
She sighed, eyes still on the page, then suddenly frowned.
She took out her reading glasses. When that didn’t seem enough, she walked to the window and held the letter up to the sunlight.
“I could—”
I tried to stand, meaning to offer to read it aloud. But before I could, she spoke a single word.
“Memories.“
“…What?”
“And forget. Leave our memories with me.“
So she could read it. I sank back down, correcting her reflexively.
“It says memories, not reminiscences.”
“Do you think I’m illiterate?”
“But you read it wrong—”
“Killian wrote one word and erased it.”
“…What?”
“He wrote reminiscences, and then crossed it out. Didn’t you know?”
I rushed to the window and stared at the letter in her hand. Inside the dark blot I had assumed was spilled ink, a word faintly showed through.
Reminiscences.
Not memories. Reminiscences.
Memories belong to the mind. They can be good or bad, cherished or despised, anything can be a memory.
But reminiscences belong to the heart.
We don’t attach ugly words to reminiscences. They are always beautiful, precious, and aching, because they never return.
They carry a longing that memories do not. A tenderness. A wish to go back.
Killian had written our reminiscences. Which meant, he still loved me. And he erased it.
He was trying to hide his love.
“Then… if Killian still loves me, why is he pretending he doesn’t and choosing to die?”
Even now, knowing that I love him too.
Lady Ackroyd watched me cry with an expression of disbelief.
“Do you truly not understand?”
“…Understand what?”
“The reason Killian is choosing to die under disgrace. If he simply wanted to die, he could sign the prosecutor’s statement and be done with it. And yet he refuses to sign, while remaining silent. Why do you think that is?”
“…Is there a reason I’m supposed to know?”
I should have been the one shocked. But she stared at me as if I were the unbelievable one, then answered as though it were obvious.
“A lady’s honor.”
“…A lady’s honor?”
The words made no sense to me at first. I repeated them stupidly.
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