Episode 111
Flour scattered like this is quite out of place. It’s neither the kitchen nor the storeroom, after all.
Moreover, the sound that erupted a while ago was strangely unsettling Lilian’s sharp senses, as if someone were poking at her before she could completely fall asleep.
Before clearing away this flour, she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to rest comfortably. Lilian got up from her seat and followed the trail of flour that stretched out.
‘It leads to the stairs.’
Lilian ascended the stairs. Passing through this staircase, at the end of the corridor, Agnes’s portrait appeared.
Lilian could boast that she knew the structure of this building better than anyone else.
However, strangely, when Lilian reached there, it wasn’t the building Agnes used to inhabit anymore. It wasn’t as chilly, dark, or even as old as it used to be.
There were spacious corridors where six children could easily run around and wooden floors that creaked despite being oiled.
The dim lighting made it difficult to move around the dark building at night without torches.
‘This place…’
Although she couldn’t remember it clearly, it was a place in her memory.
And not just glimpsed briefly but a place that was very familiar. Familiar enough to feel somewhat irritatingly familiar…
‘Where was it?’
As she tried to recall, a sharp pain struck her head.
Just as Lilian reflexively furrowed her brows to touch her head, a hand touched Lilian’s forehead faster than that.
“Hey, are you okay? Where does it hurt?”
A boy with red hair and a somewhat fierce expression.
Lilian didn’t know how to kindly ask for help from strangers, especially boys her age, but somehow she didn’t feel like asking this boy. Why was that? As she vaguely looked down at her hand, she noticed her fingers were shorter. Like those of a 10-year-old.
‘That’s odd.’
It felt like my hand was longer than this. Was that an illusion?
But I’m pretty sure I was 10 years old.
Come to think of it, it seemed like quite a while since I looked in the mirror. Unable to know what I looked like, Lilian suddenly asked.
“You know what?”
“Huh?”
“How old do I look?”
The boy’s eyes, which had rounded at the unexpected question, narrowed again. As if asking why she was asking that.
“Like a 10-year-old kid.”
“Is that so?”
Indeed, I was 10. As Lilian nodded, the boy bluntly added.
“You seem pretty calm. Do you know who I am?”
“Do I know you?”
“I don’t know.”
“But why ask?”
“Because I’m frustrated. Because I’m frustrated. I only have one close friend, and I just can’t stand by and watch them.”
TL/N: It said him so Im not sure if its Dylan or Lili hes talking about
Was the boy troubled by a friend problem? Lilian chuckled.
“Why are you frustrated? Just let it go. If they’re your friend, they’ll understand.”
“Do you think so? I know, but I can’t just let it go.”
“Why?”
Even with Lilian’s continued questioning, the boy didn’t get annoyed. Instead, he seemed to deeply ponder her counter-question.
After a moment of contemplation, the boy pulled something out of his pocket. It was a pendant threaded on a string. He put it around Lilian’s neck and said,
“Listen up. There’s someone I can’t forget no matter how much time passes. To that person, I know I’m not the most important. But I hope that person finds happiness.”
“More than your own happiness?”
“Yeah. Maybe I can find my own happiness then. I’m someone who knows satisfaction.”
The boy said it quite confidently, but Lilian’s reaction to his words was cold.
“You seem foolish.”
“Why?”
“You care more about that person than yourself. Why don’t you care more about yourself?”
“…That’s true.”
The boy chuckled slowly. It was a smile that seemed somewhat bitter.
“Why don’t you care about yourself?”
“…What?”
Something felt off. Did I mishear? It felt like my vision was wavering. How strange it was for the boy who looked about fifteen suddenly to appear as a much older young man.
Among other things, what was most peculiar was that his face didn’t seem unfamiliar.
“Perhaps because we were abandoned from the beginning, we become more fixated on what we haven’t had than what we do, Lilian.”
It seems we both only look at those we can’t hold onto.
“But isn’t it time we realized? You’re not ten years old, and Swan won’t come back. She never wished for your death.”
Lilian blinked her eyes slowly. Her hazy vision cleared, and she felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hands were longer. They were adult hands.
Lilian’s vague consciousnesses returned one by one. She could remember who she was, what she was doing, everything.
When she raised her gaze, Theo’s distorted face was there. Theo, who always seemed slightly more mature than herself, when had he ever twisted his face like this? He looked almost like he was holding back tears.
“Lilian, don’t you have anything to wish for now? Nothing you really want? Still, nothing means anything to you unless it’s Swan? I… I…!”
“…Theo.”
“I thought it was fortunate that you were alive. Because it was you who became the Lady, because you managed to deceive everyone safely, because we could be together like this, damn it!”
Lilian was at a loss for words at Theo’s raw sincerity. She didn’t expect Theo to have such thoughts.
But it wasn’t so disappointing. Even if she thought about Cedric and Swan, the people she had deceived…
“Let go of the past. This isn’t where you belong. Think about what Swan truly wanted from you.”
Theo’s words reminded Lilian of Agnes’s words.
— Still, I wish you could have seen the world at least once, dear.
— Now that I no longer have anything to suffer or enjoy… I just wish you could live in my place…
What Agnes wished for and what Swan wished for were ultimately the same.
It was life itself.
The greed that only those facing death could leave behind.
Asking to live somehow, to experience the changes in time that they could not, to experience things they would not.
Laughing sometimes, crying sometimes, just living like everyone else was enough.
Lilian wiped her tears with both hands. Ironically, although she felt like crying, tears didn’t come. By the time she lowered her hands, her face was back to normal, as usual.
“…I have to go, Theo.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I have to live. I won’t stay trapped here.”
In her resolute answer, color rose to Theo’s face. It seemed like that was what Theo wished for.
Theo took Lilian’s hand, and the two of them completely disappeared from the corridor.
And how much time passed. Light entered the dark corridor. Two people were coming up the stairs, talking. One of them was carrying something.
It was a newborn.
“Principal, this child seems to be in critical condition. It might be difficult to make it through the day.”
“That’s the child’s fate. Tsk, why send a child like this… Put the newborns in the room over there. If they survive until morning, administer the medicine.”
The principal, speaking indifferently, entered his room, and the teacher holding the child opened the door to the room where the newborns were gathered. She found an empty crib and laid the child down before closing the door again.
Thud.
With the sound of the door closing, something fell to the ground from one of the cribs.
It was a pendant engraved with a lily emblem.
