PBGS 44

Ananta, staring at the sea chart spread on the study table, frowned and sank into his chair. His finger lingered on a route he had plotted long ago, but he couldn’t focus at all.

The breeze coming through the window was cooling.

The sun had already sunk below the horizon, and all that came through the curtains was a darkness turning bluish.

“Ananta.”

The voice of the woman that would not leave his head.

“I’m not going anywhere….”

Short breaths back and forth, a voice laced with a soothing laugh. The feel of long, soft fingers brushing through his hair.

Last night’s memory gleamed and hurt at the same time.

If he boarded the ship like this, he would think of her without end.

Especially in the places they had used together.

This greed, this longing, was sometimes the most painful thing for Ananta.

It wasn’t only that he lacked a good reason to hold her. He knew better than anyone that the time had come to let her go.

—Kill the half-mermaid.

The closer he grew to Rinka, the more the curse that filled his thoughts strengthened.

That voice sounded low but clear.

As if a creature rising from a deep abyss of the sea had breathed into his ear, it came alive and attempted to take control of him.

What he had expected to be a curse that would never find a mermaid and would torment him like an illusion was gaining strength with the presence of Rinka Meribel.

Every day.

Whether morning or night, whenever he saw Rinka or thought of her, nightmares would come.

Ananta pressed his forehead. His skin was damp with the cold sweat gathered at his fingertips.

“I wish I’d never known.”

He would never be able to forget the day she revealed that she was a mermaid.

That day, Ananta had only wanted to run.

Even as the voice and the pain from the curse grew daily, he tried to look away.

Because Rinka had spoken the word “mermaid” with her own mouth, Ananta had become someone who could never stay by her side.

And yet… because he wanted her, he still tried to keep her near.

Every time he faced Rinka looking up at him with that innocent face, a chill ran down his spine.

He was afraid that one day, because of the “curse,” he might suddenly put her in danger.

The thought that Rinka could be harmed without knowing anything made him want to leave the mansion right away.

Why did the curse choose Rinka?

Why did it choose the person he had wanted to seize, the person he wanted to keep by his side…?

“…Hah.”

No — first of all.

He had to start by questioning where his feelings for Rinka came from.

Could he really say that he wanted Rinka Meribel not because she was a mermaid?

Ananta sank back into his chair as if leaning against it. He unconsciously clenched the hand wrapped around the cold armrest.

He had long since begun to doubt himself.

From the day he first met her in the warehouse.

From that moment, Ananta had felt something strange in Rinka.

That look in her eyes.

A desire for life so intense and vivid — fear mixed with a reckless will to try anything — that no one on the ghost ship had.

A feeling both unfamiliar and familiar, something he wanted to reject yet felt compelled to keep near; a confusing sensation.

He wasn’t even sure anymore whether that feeling came from the curse or from himself.

Was it truly his, or… an illusion planted by the curse?

“If….”

If this feeling was due to the monster’s curse, then in the end I will hurt Rinka.

That was the essence of the curse.

Kill the half-mermaid who betrayed him.

“Father….”

“Listen. Even if I die, that curse will not disappear; you too will end up like this.”

“You knew it would come to this and yet — why, why did you….”

“Still, I wanted her. Your mother. I didn’t know I would drive her to death.”

Ananta covered his face with his cold hands.

The “mistakes” his father and the generations above him had repeated.

This wasn’t simple fear. It was despair born of not being able to trust himself.

A self-loathing that came from knowing he could never honestly confess his heart or say he wanted her.

“I don’t want to let go.”

He was even afraid that the desire to hold her might be coming from the curse.

Ananta knew there was only one choice he could make.

To protect her, he had to let her go.

The farther away she was, the safer Rinka would be.

But his heart betrayed every resolve every single day.

A single word from her, a glance, the warmth at her fingertips — each one stimulated him. Rather than flee, his desire to keep her near grew as if he would consume her.

Rinka Meribel’s presence became larger even when she was not before his eyes.

—Kill her. The half-mermaid.

No, he could not do that.

—You must kill her. The traitor who betrayed me, betrayed “us,” and fled forever from the sea!

He could not.

Ananta slowly rose and opened the window. Cold air from the deep dark outside came in and wrapped around him.

The sea wind would be this cold as well.

A dark, endless abyss ready to swallow everything…

If that’s what Rinka Meribel wanted, Ananta had to help her run as far from the sea as possible.

When he thought that way, he was almost glad that it was time to return to the sea.

Because the sea was familiar to him.

On the sea there was nothing stronger than his power and nothing he could not protect.

If only Rinka could burrow deep into the land.

‘It would be a relief.’

Rinka had said she would not return to the sea. She hadn’t explained much, but it was probably because of the “monster.”

If the owner of Lavanto had known, he would have told Rinka as well.

On land, quietly and ordinarily.

If she could live as she wished, without any threat.

If no one knew that Rinka was a mermaid, if she lived among people who thought mermaids belonged only in fairy tales…

The curse and the monster would not find her.

He, too, would be unable to hold her.

“That’s enough.”

Ananta laughed bitterly and slowly raised his head to look at the moon.

After a few more rises of that moon, it would be farewell — so just until then.

Until then, wouldn’t it be all right to stay by Rinka’s side?

He thought he could enjoy feelings like this until the promised day.

Two months.

For that time, he could be not the cursed captain of the ghost ship, but Duke Belzert — her fiancé — and do anything for her.

The confessions he could not voice, the desire and pain that assaulted him every time he touched her — she must not know.

These feelings would simply die away on the sea while he kept them buried.

And Ananta soon found himself regretting that he had tried to keep her by his side thinking it would only be for two months.