MISS 08

That day, Azell ran away.

With a surprisingly frightening expression on his face, he turned his back and disappeared.

Just when I thought I was inevitably going back to prison, something unexpected happened. Through Seymour, I was guided somewhere else—not the dungeon.

It was the very room where I had first woken up after arriving here.

“You may stay here for the time being.”

After personally escorting me like a guest, Seymour simply vanished, and just like that I became a real guest of the mansion.

Well, at least I avoided going back to prison.

But there was still a problem.

Am I being neglected a bit too much?

Azell—that bastard—was avoiding me.

“At this rate, forget one month. It’ll take ten years.”

A sigh rose all the way up to my chin.

“Where are you going?”

The moment I opened the door and stepped out while sighing heavily, someone immediately spoke to me.

The person standing there with a sly smile was none other than Seymour.

This place should be full of people, so why does everyone move around like ghosts? Why is Seymour the only one I ever see?

There had to be plenty of followers serving Azell, not to mention the mansion’s staff, yet I had never seen anyone except Seymour.

Apparently, just like their master, they were all avoiding me.

“I’m looking for him.”

“Oh dear. Sounds like things will get noisy again.”

Of course, that didn’t mean I was planning to stay quiet.

For the sake of my future plans, we needed to get close first.

Azell usually shut himself away in the deepest parts of the mansion around this time.

Watching the blazing sun or walking along deserted forest paths had long since grown tiresome to him.

In fact, if one looked deeper, the entire world had become like sitting on a bed of needles to him.

This mansion had once been his refuge. Because of that, dozens of lifetimes had seeped into every corner his feet had touched.

Even reminiscing and reopening old wounds had become a luxury.

Such a life was enough to leave Azell completely drained.

But even so—

This kind of disturbance was not what he had wanted.

“So you were here after all.”

“…How did you find this place too?”

“Oh, I’ve got my ways.”

The woman grinned, making it even harder to guess her age.

Despite her mature appearance, her mischievous and innocent smile gave her a youthful charm.

The woman who had silently cried when she first saw Azell no longer shed tears.

Instead, she kept pestering him with an almost absurdly bright smile, as if she were delighted about something.

“So, what do you think?”

“About what?”

“The weather’s so nice. Want to go on a date with me?”

Just like that.

That damn “date.”

He almost let an un-noble remark slip out.

The woman was recklessly bold. Shameless, even. Despite being rejected every time, she kept persistently asking him out.

And she won’t even tell me anything.

Azell still didn’t know her name or her age.

Yet she sat beside him chattering away as if she were flirting with some naïve young man.

Of course, in reality I’m not some innocent youth… just an aged monster wearing fresh skin.

The familiar wave of self-loathing tightened around his chest.

Yet strangely, the woman didn’t even give Azell time to sink into that disgust.

“You’re ignoring me again? Fine, then at least give me a name today.”

She leaned closer, and the faint scent of her skin brushed his senses.

“I don’t like you calling me ‘hey, you’ every time. It feels too distant. Doesn’t it bother you too, Azell?”

“I have no reason to call you anything. You’re the one who came looking for me over pointless matters.”

If anyone else behaved like this, he would have already cut off their head.

The lukewarm warmth of another person was unbearable.

Yet the reason Azell avoided the woman wasn’t because it was unbearable.

It was because it was unsettling.

She acted as if she had no concept of personal boundaries.

Just like now.

“How is this pointless?! That’s so mean!”

“Back off! What are you doing?!”

“Why? I didn’t even touch you!”

The woman suddenly jumped into the seat beside him.

Then she held up her hands to show the distance between them—barely the width of a handspan—insisting that they were still far apart.

It was absurd.

It’d be better to just leave.

He tried to stand up, worried that staying longer would drag him further into her pace.

But someone grabbed the hem of his clothes.

“Let go of my sleeve.”

“Sorry. Don’t go.”

Just moments ago she had been raising her voice stubbornly, yet now her voice had softened.

“I’ll stay quiet. Just stay here.”

When Azell turned his head, their eyes met.

Her calm blue eyes looked straight at him without wavering.

For some reason, whenever he looked into those eyes, it became difficult for him to refuse her.

“You’re not going to lock me up again, right?”

“If you keep behaving like this, I might have to.”

“Oh. Then I really shouldn’t joke around anymore.”

“So you admit you’ve been joking all this time.”

When he finally sat down again, the woman quietly smiled.

It wasn’t a teasing smile.

The innocence from earlier had faded, replaced with something different.

“Even if you lock me up again, I don’t want the basement.”

The sincerity in her voice made Azell pause for a moment.

“You can see the outside scenery well from here.”

Maybe it was his imagination.

She had already turned her head toward the window.

“What do you think about when you sit here?”

It wasn’t an easy question to answer.

Once, Azell had sat here looking out through the wide window and thought about countless things.

Most of them were the precious things he had lost.

Things he no longer allowed himself to remember.

The time that had been stolen from him would never return.

So thinking about it was meaningless.

“Nothing. I’m just resting.”

The woman let out a small laugh, as if she had expected that answer.

Just as he was about to feel annoyed, her gentle voice continued.

“When I look at windows, I think of the past. Wide open views like this were something I could never dream of seeing, so it always fascinates me.”

Azell turned his head at the strange comment, but the woman was still staring outside.

“I used to see people’s feet passing by against a gray wall. More precisely… only their feet. There wasn’t trash everywhere or anything, but when I watched those hurried footsteps, for some reason I really wanted to see the sky.”

It was a strange thing to say.

A window where you can’t see the sky?

What kind of architect would build such a terrible house?

Unless… she had been imprisoned.

Wait.

…Imprisoned?

The thought appeared in his mind so suddenly that Azell’s lips parted.

“How is the woman?”

“The same as yesterday. She’s still pounding on the walls. They say she seemed quite anxious.”

The woman who had seemed particularly anxious while locked in the prison.

Her words about not wanting to be locked underground.

Could it be…

As that possibility crossed Azell’s mind—

“When I could actually see the sky, I didn’t think much of it. Funny how people’s hearts work like that.”

The woman continued speaking, unaware of what he was thinking.

What’s with that look?

I was trying to change the subject so I wouldn’t get thrown back into prison for joking too much, but Azell’s gaze suddenly felt intense.

Because of that, I had no choice but to pretend I didn’t notice.

“Back then, in that chicken-coop-like room, I used to think every day—if I could just get out of there, I’d do anything.”

Of course, this sudden oversharing also had a purpose.

After all, people usually get close by talking about random past stories like this.

Besides, looking out this wide window reminded me of the past.

That crappy semi-basement.

When I was in college, I actually lived in a semi-basement apartment.

There weren’t many housing options near campus.

Back then, watching people’s feet pass by outside the window had basically been part of daily life.

That was when I learned there were all kinds of crazy people in the world.

“So when I first got out of there, I was really happy. Like, ‘Ah, finally!’ That kind of feeling.”

Now that I thought about it, it was a memory.

But not one I’d ever want to relive.

Especially not in a basement prison.

When I finished reminiscing and turned my head, I immediately met Azell’s gaze.

He had been looking at me the entire time.

“…?”

But for some reason, the way he was staring at me was strangely fierce.

What the hell? What’s wrong with him?

Did he get that pissed just because I joked around earlier?