🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 21
“Ughhh.”
“A-are you okay…?”
“Hah… Hah.”
Breathing heavily, she instinctively grabbed Schuert’s wrist and leaned against him. Only after a long while, once she had calmed down a bit, did she speak to him.
“Phew… that was exhausting.”
For some reason, Schuert froze, stammering awkwardly.
“W-why… are you like this?”
When Elle asked, he opened his mouth slightly but his entire face was red. It was dim, so Elle couldn’t see clearly, but it was obvious enough.
“No, no, it’s nothing, but now your wrist…”
“Oh! Hah! Did I hold on too tightly?”
Startled, Elle pulled her hand back, then checked the spot she had been holding. Unlike Elle, Schuert’s skin was so pale it was almost translucent, now flushed with red.
“Oh no! It’s all red!”
“N-no, it doesn’t hurt.”
“Really? Then why…”
“Just startled, that’s all…”
“You mean you were surprised because I held your wrist?”
“……Y-yes.”
Elle, who could understand even the most clumsy expressions, tilted her head and smiled slightly, saying they should get used to physical contact gradually by doing it often.
Of course, Schuert panicked. He said there was no need to ever get used to that.
“Give me your hand.”
He extended his chin—hand outstretched.
“Ah!”
He was surprised at his own hand being offered. Elle smiled warmly.
“Oh my, you’re obedient, aren’t you, Schuert?”
“……”
“Shall we sit holding hands today?”
“……No.”
“If you don’t want to, you can pull away. I won’t hold it again.”
“……Never again?”
“Yes, never again!”
After saying that, Schuert didn’t make any move. It seemed he didn’t dislike holding hands after all, which was a relief.
That day, Elle had tried to speak as cheerfully as possible, thinking about Schuert’s melancholy when he had received bad news earlier.
After listening to her chatter for a while, Schuert asked,
“Um… could you tell me more of that old story from earlier…?”
“Huh?”
The old story? That seemed to have slipped out unintentionally.
“Ah…!”
It was the story Elle had told the sad, timid Schuert. Naturally, Schuert, who only met her at night, couldn’t have known about it. So asking like that startled both Elle and Schuert.
“……”
“……”
After a moment of silence, Schuert scrambled, mumbling a clumsy excuse that he had overheard it by chance while passing by.
Elle’s bedroom was on a high floor—how could he have overheard it? He couldn’t fly around like a monster either. It was a ridiculous story, but Elle quickly went along with it.
“I-I see.”
“Yes… that’s right.”
“……”
“……”
“Hahaha! How far did I go in the story again?!”
“The queen was possessed by an evil spirit.”
Schuert’s hurried reply suggested he was quite curious.
“Ah! So… the queen sent the hunter to…”
Elle thought to herself how careless people could be as she continued to tell the story in detail.
As Elle met Schuert more frequently, once, twice, and so on, she grew fond of him almost as much as she did the timid, soft-hearted man. He was still shy and found talking difficult, but he tried.
However, she had never seen him smile, which felt a little bitter. He couldn’t easily express emotions like liking, disliking, or happiness—it was as if he had forgotten how to smile.
Most of Schuert’s expressions were awkward or embarrassed. It didn’t seem like he didn’t feel emotions; he just couldn’t express them.
Elle thought that perhaps time would naturally resolve that issue.
“Schuert.”
“Y-yes…?”
Yet she felt a little disappointed.
“Please… say my name once.”
After all the conversations they had, he had never called her name.
“Uh….”
“Did you forget my name?”
“No, it’s not that, but….”
Elle had brought it up, thinking that if she didn’t prompt him, he might never say it in his lifetime.
To Elle, calling her name was trivial, but apparently not for Schuert.
“Later.”
“Why not?”
“…I just… have a feeling.”
“…?”
“A feeling that it might be irreversible….”
“What would be irreversible?”
“If I say your name…”
“……”
“I’ll… keep wanting to say it… over and over….”
“……”
Schuert, as always, struggled to speak and buried his head. Elle blinked in astonishment.
As she replayed his words in her mind, her face flushed red. She thought: wasn’t saying what he just said even harder than just calling my name?
Schuert, who said he was afraid of getting used to things, became more natural with Elle as well. Elle too gradually felt it was normal to meet him, and perhaps Schuert felt the same.
Although he still hadn’t said her name, he could speak more freely than before.
As they grew closer, Elle pondered a lot. Could she continue to hide that she knew Schuert’s secret? Ideally, she wanted him to reveal it first, but time passed, and he never approached her directly. Perhaps he was just being cautious.
Elle thought that even if he was slow, as long as he moved forward eventually, it was fine. It had only been a few days, after all.
However, she also realized that secrets and timing were separate matters.
“Schuert.”
“Yes?”
Today, Elle decided to tell everything.
“Actually… I am not Laela.”
“…Huh?”
“Well, this body is Laela, technically… but…”
“….”
“Schuert, do you believe in possession?”
Unsurprisingly, Schuert’s expression turned odd.
“I think I did that.”
“….”
“No, I did.”
“…Then, originally you…?”
“I don’t know who I was originally. Whether I lived or died. At first, I denied everything. That made every day depressing, and I wanted to die. But strangely enough, I got used to it. I grew to cherish Lariga, who came to serve me, and the soft-hearted one too. And now… Schuert, you too, I’ve grown to care about. Three precious people in total.”
Schuert said nothing. After all, even in a fantasy world like this, it was hard to believe. Still, knowing his personality, he wouldn’t call her crazy.
Silence fell. The only sound was insects chirping from the bushes. Schuert asked cautiously:
“…Then.”
“….”
“Would you go back?”
“…Huh?”
Elle had imagined Schuert’s reactions all day as she prepared to tell her secret. Would he deny it? Wave his hand? Run away? Pretend to trust while secretly doubting? That last thought upset her the most.
Yet in all her simulations, Schuert never asked that question.
“If I could go back, then….”
“…Ah.”
“…Would you?”
Could she go back? She had never seriously thought about it. After discovering this world was part of a novel, she had married Schuert immediately, which had led her to depression.
When she began to recover slightly after meeting the soft-hearted one, her mind had been too chaotic to think properly.
“Would it be too shameless to tell you not to go?”
“More importantly… do you trust me?”
“…You’re not telling me to trust you?”
“Yes, but….”
“It was amazing. Even though you are a monster, called a prince, you approached me without hesitation. Then I was scared. After being cursed, the first attention I received—your gentle care—was too overwhelming for me…”
It was the first time she heard Schuert’s inner thoughts.
“….”
“After holding your hand, I constantly dreamed of being abandoned.”
“No!”
Elle exclaimed, startled. Schuert spoke calmly:
“I’ll tell you I won’t abandon you.”
“…Of course!”
“So I trust you. I know best that lying to someone like me is meaningless.”
“Don’t demean yourself.”
“Ah… yes…”
Elle felt as if her secret was no longer a big deal. She had braced herself, but hearing it was unexpectedly relieving.
She had thought she would always be a stranger. Even though she now had people she cared about, she always felt uneasy.
“Schuert, thank you.”
Elle’s voice trembled, and Schuert quietly reached out to wipe her tears. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Elle.”
“…Huh?”
He called her name. Startled, Elle looked up sharply.
“What was your real name before coming here? Can I know…?”
“Irin.”
“….”
“My name was Song Irin. Song is the family name, Irin is my given name.”
“…Song, Irin….”
“Yes!”
Elle smiled brightly, rubbing her cheek against Schuert’s hand, still resting on her face.
After crying for a while, her heart felt much lighter.
“Irin…”
“Yes.”
“I… actually have something I haven’t told you either.”
Overcome with emotion, she didn’t ask Schuert his secret today. Just being understood was enough. She thought that would suffice for today, but Schuert spoke first.
“I see a lot of new sides of you today.”
“….”
“I… well, I… um…”
“Calm down, Schuert.”
Though Schuert had become somewhat easier to speak, he couldn’t bring himself to say it, and Elle hugged him, patting him gently.
“It’s okay, it’s okay…”
Though one cannot measure another’s suffering by time, Schuert had been isolated since childhood. The duration of his endurance was different. He had probably pondered his long-kept secrets alone.
Had Elle also endured her secret alone for as long as Schuert, she might not have spoken so easily now, regardless of whether it was heavy or light.
“Irin.”
“Yes.”
“…I…”
Schuert took a deep breath, as if resolved, and opened his mouth toward Elle.
