Chapter 17: You Will Never Be Forgiven
Translator: MadHatter Editor: MadHatter
I walked alone through the familiar corridors and opened the well-used doors by myself.
Outside, I was a solitary Goddess, unfettered by anything. From here on, I will be a woman alone. No one will be permitted to enter this place except me.
Years. Decades. How much time has passed since then? It seemed like it happened so fast, yet it has also been a very long road.
The world outside was still a little bit chaotic and hectic. The fact that my children has grown up and can be trusted to handle things has made it tough to decide whether to be happy or merely anxious about it.
How can I even loosely trust a monster of his blood and mine, even if I have taken care to educate him and he should have no attachment to his father?
If there were to be a serious confrontation, I would have to be prepared for a certain amount of harm. Oh, the complications that follow one after another.
Our children has grown up, and you have grown old, Milord. You no longer leap on me at the first encounter as you used to do in the past. I was glad to know that I no longer have to break your arm to punish you for being a pain in the neck, but I was a little worried that you tend to lie on the bed without being chained up. After all, being bedridden hastened one’s death.
“You still won’t give up, Milord?”
His body trembled as I walked over to his bed, sat down, peered into his face, and spoke to him.
The body that I have trained every day and every night to understand, even you the weak-minded Milord, recognized me as its master. The shell that engulfed you belonged only to me, no matter how much your mind and soul may dispute or scream within it.
Where do you feel it and where do you not like it? Where to bite and how to make you squeal, where to scratch and how hard to make you cry.
I had more knowledge than you do. Being your caregiver, it was only right that I should be aware.
“We even have a child together, but Milord, you still do not love me. I truly detest you. But I cannot help loving your obstinacy.”
He was straining to ignore me, but as I lightly provoked him, his eyes lighted up and he looked up at me with a dark gaze.
“You love me―you love me? I don’t acknowledge it. I won’t acknowledge that this is love.”
That alone sent a shiver through my body. My entire body felt a delightful thrill, from head to toe.
Oh, only you can bring me so much satisfaction.
The words you roared were not as forceful as they used to be. Instead, I can sense a kind of resentment that I could not feel in the past.
I was joyful. It was an indication that this person had finally come to respond to me a little.
“One day I’m going to leave here. I will leave this―”
“Will you be loved by someone who is not me?”
With a slight threat in my tone of voice, Milord shuddered. Strangely enough, on the other hand, the eyes that glared at me intensified.
“Right. Like you said, I used to want anyone to love me. Anyone who would accept me, take me in, and listen to me.”
Not in the past, but probably even now.
Your world was that small country of convergence. You wanted to be in the position you wanted in that country. That was your wish. It was a foolish ambition that you still cannot give up.
Elias, you have my sincere sympathies. Would you ever depart from this space? If it ever occurs, I will snap your neck and strangle you to death. Nobody will offer it to you, and the place you wanted to go to in the first place has already perished from this world.
Ultimately, I never told this person about the fate of the thieving cat. Nor did Milord speak of his own hometown. From time to time, he would look at me with eyes that seemed to be pleading for something, but then he would clam up with a frightened look on his face.
Perhaps he had guessed this already. That I was an incredibly jealous woman.
If Milord won’t ask, I won’t speak of it either. With a mentality that only centered on foolish stuff, you have either lost interest in her or have come up with something that would significantly upset me, but either way was fine.
Milord, you were a noble prisoner in a cage. Sleeping and waking, you dreamed of the outside of the cage. That dream was what kept this man alive. He will eventually go back there and live in that ideal world. It was obvious that this thought alone has deepened his resentment toward me.
You have grown thin and emaciated, Milord. You were awe-inspiringly beautiful, nevertheless, you who cling to yourself, shrouded in lies and illusion.
“This cage represents your world, and I will fulfill anything that you wish to achieve within it. I’ll take care of everything, including your unsightly portions. You don’t have to deceive yourself in any manner like the outside world. I am the only one who can understand you.”
I spoke softly to Milord as if I was weaving a friendly conversation.
In a corner of my mind, I was gently dwelling on the fact that the outside world has long since vanished.
“Do not be absurd. I belong to myself, not to you, and I don’t intend to be yours. I will not approve of it. This is not who I am!”
Milord answered. I felt a dim flame somewhere in a part of his body.
“No. You should admit it already and be at ease. This is who you are.”
You obstinate child, all these years and you still won’t acknowledge that you are mine.
Go ahead and fall, Elias. Why have you remained so distant from me when you ought to already be mine? Was it regret? Should I play my last trump card?
Shall I sever it? The last thread that supported you?
“You’re wrong. I would have been something more brilliant. If only you had not existed, I could have been that―”
Milord, your piercing gaze cut right through to me.
The devil’s words that were ready to escape my throat then slithered back into my gut, curling up once more and leaving me panting for air.
“So now I can tell you this. It is true that I am greedy, I desire everything, but you are the only person in my world that I do not need. Nothing about you is acceptable to me. I will deny all of you.”
“Are you seeking vengeance on me for depriving you of your world?”
It was meaningless.
For I loved you all with this flame of life burning. An all-consuming inferno that condemned everyone and everything, even myself.
There was only one way to extinguish it. You must kill yourself.
Yet you cannot even conceive of such a thing. You couldn’t possibly do it because you loved yourself more than anyone else, could you?
“I am. I will keep on living, and no matter who else acknowledges you or praises you, I will keep on denying you eternally. I shall outlive you and eventually depart from this place. You may believe you have everything in the world the way you want it, but I am the only one who does not agree with your ideas – the world you are in is wrong. Everything in this cage is wrong.”
If that were the case, Elias, you would be mistaken, too.
At that time, in that place, outside and inside the cage.
Falsifying memories and forgetting the unfavorable parts will not change the facts.
I chose you and you chose me.
We were one together from the very beginning.
Swallowing the words delicately, I removed myself from you and spoke.
“Certainly. The fact remains that you have become the unique one among the many others. Things have come a long way from the past. I suppose you could say that all the tormenting has been worth it. From now on, I will continue to serve you wholeheartedly as your cage even if my greatest desire is not fulfilled for the rest of my life. This is the way I love you.”
Milord, my foolish Lord.
You should hold more suspicion of me. There were many things I withheld from you since I was fully aware of your character.
Even though you insisted you didn’t love me and didn’t believe in me, you had such intense eyes when you gazed at me that I was compelled to spoil you, even at this age.
The secret will remain locked up in a box, forever hidden.
Your ideals will remain beautiful. You will continue to reject me. And that was fine. So be it.
Perhaps it was precisely because you never look back that I was so in love with you.
Rising from the bed, I retrieved the fruit and a small knife from the basket I brought and peeled it for you to eat. Milord, you were staring at me. Somehow I felt inexplicably happy, causing me to hum spontaneously.
“Kitty. What is it about me that makes you so obsessed with me?”
The unexpected words from you, Milord, made me feel, even if only for a moment as if I had stopped breathing.
Did you notice that, Milord? Was it intentional? Was it unconscious?
―When was the last time you said “I”[i] in front of me?
However, I did not show any such sign, but promptly made adjustments to my response, as usual.
“Naturally, I love everything about you, Milord.”
The cage, the ruler, must not be swayed by showing any weakness in front of the prisoner in the cage.
Otherwise, I will be underestimated and he will escape. I, more than anyone else, must not bow down to Milord. For I loved you.
I covertly brushed away the tears that had been gathering at the rims of my own eyelids as Milord snickered and shut his eyes.
Elias. If I could only have this one moment, this one moment where I am speaking to you, then everything I have done would be meaningful, rewarding, and worthwhile. Alone in a cage, just the two of us. This moment brought me so much happiness. Even if this was something unforgivable to you.
It didn’t matter if it was unforgivable to you. Rather, please don’t forgive me. It was the unforgiveness that made me your one and only special person.
Milord, my God, my life. Until death, even after death, you shall be mine, and I shall be yours.
Should there be a reincarnation, I will surely come for you, no matter where you are or what you look like, or how you live.
You will be my master and I will be your slave. We were two as one. Neither of us can exist without the other.
“I am your cage. I am a pathetic failure who can only exist as your cage.”
I wondered if you heard my tiny little whisper, if you let it slip through your ears, or if you didn’t catch it.
In any case, if you laugh, I must laugh too.
With a vague smile that I did not know whether it was a lie or not, I will continue to live for you to the fullest now and always.
That was my devotion to you to the utmost of my efforts.
T/N:
[i] Elias used ぼく as a pronoun here instead of his usual 私, a general pronoun. It’s “me” in the previous words. Both I and me are the same words in Japanese
Oh, ended bois