Chapter 93:
“So it was my fault again.”
She had ruined the life of a mere extra.
She had become a sinner to so many people, without even realizing it.
A mere sixteen-year-old child.
“But the funny thing is, your situation is just a ‘trivial matter’ to me.”
“……”
“Just that kind of thing. Just a trivial matter.”
Just the plight of an extra.
“So I’m not going to apologize for something so trivial. And I won’t accept your apology either. Because things like this will keep happening.”
Because she would be destroyed by something far from trivial. Her smile was lifeless. She felt a pang of misery, confessing it all.
Silence fell between them. He was looking at something far away, not at the bare branches in front of him, not at Full Bloom below.
Sue hugged her knees tighter as the wind blew, and then she heard Noel’s clear voice calling her name.
“Sue Byron.”
“What?”
Sue answered, deliberately not looking at him.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you.”
“Right. And I don’t know you either.”
“……”
“I honestly don’t care what you do in the future, whether my situation is trivial to you or not.”
“……”
“But you saved me. You, who know nothing about me, saved me, who tried to kill you, knowing nothing about you.”
Sue sensed what he was about to say, his voice trembling but strong, confessing his true feelings.
“You asked me on that rainy day, what was I doing… You said I should do something before I die, that you thought I would do something.”
If Sue had become even more determined to cut ties with Noel after hearing his words, Noel was the opposite.
He had thought she was just Lopetrefer’s dog. A piece of trash who took her anger out on innocent children in the glass garden.
And she was, in fact, a piece of trash, Lopetrefer’s dog. She was arrogant and haughty, beyond redemption.
But Sue Byron was clearly resigned and defeated. Those red eyes, which always looked down on others, were constantly digging her own grave.
Just like Raines Noel.
“So from now on, I’m going to do what I want.”
And so, as a fellow piece of trash, he understood.
That it wasn’t so bad to have someone who pitied him.
“I’m sorry, Sue Byron. I tried to kill you.”
Noel looked at Sue, who was still avoiding his gaze. And he gave a pathetic answer to her grand question.
“……”
Sue finally turned to him, unable to ignore his words.
His blue eyes, filled with the light of the sea, met hers.
Noel closed his eyes slowly, his lips pressed together. She could sense the weight of his fear and guilt, even though she couldn’t truly comprehend it.
Just like Sue Byron.
The wind blew, and the branches swayed, making a mournful sound.
Sue stood up. She placed her hand on the flat rock, and a cold sensation pierced her body. She steadied herself on the rock, her hair whipping in the wind.
She looked at him.
And finally, their eyes were level.
“Noel.”
Sue’s voice, carried by the wind, reached him.
His blue eyes, which had always met hers directly, finally created a point of intersection between their parallel lines.
His eyes, sometimes the color of the sea, sometimes the color of the sky, were trembling, but he didn’t avert his gaze.
Sue couldn’t help but smile.
“If you did things you weren’t supposed to, if you tried to kill me… then stop acting like a criminal and take some responsibility.”
Right, if he had crossed the lines she had drawn, he had to pay the price.
She wanted him to.
Noel’s face darkened as she scolded him like a wicked villain. He nodded slowly, his lips trembling.
“Okay, I understand. What should I do?”
He looked like he was ready to die if she told him to.
He’s not seriously thinking that I’m going to ask him to kill himself, is he?
Sue thought for a moment, her lips pursed.
Well, it’s not death, but it might be worse.
“Let’s be friends.”
Sue shrugged casually.
Noel stared at her, dumbfounded, then slowly asked,
“That’s all?”
“What do you mean ‘that’s all’?! This is a huge deal! You tried to kill me, and I’m a very problematic person!”
Sue retorted, feeling absurd.
That’s all?
It had taken her so long to say those words.
And she was expecting a lot from Noel. She had brazenly placed a heavy burden on the boy who had created a crack in her walls.
“Haha… Ha…”
Noel started laughing, his stiff expression softening.
For some reason, it annoyed her.
Ah, this must be what ‘Sue’ felt.
That relaxed, smug look, as if he knew all the answers, even though he wasn’t diligent. ‘Sue’ had definitely hated that about Noel.
Noel finally relaxed and spoke,
“I don’t understand you.”
“Good to know. I was just thinking the same thing.”
Sue crossed her arms and nodded.
“Okay, then…”
He answered cheerfully. Sue blinked and instinctively took a step back.
Noel was smiling brightly. His eyes, which had been trembling, now shone with the confidence of a blue sea.
He extended his right hand, the one she hadn’t taken earlier.
“Sue Byron, I think we could be friends. What about you?”
His boyish, innocent smile shone upon her.
They had been running on parallel lines, and they had finally met at their point of intersection.
It was the winter she turned seventeen, the day Sue made her first real friend.
***
Sue had come outside the canal for the first time in a while. But it wasn’t for a leisurely visit like her summer trip.
She stood before a dense forest, her face tense.
“T-this is the Apricotty Forest, right?”
Ten massaged her forehead, feeling dizzy, as Sue awkwardly compared the small parchment in her hand to the entrance of the forest.
“Miss, please let me come with you.”
After the attempted murder of Lady Sue Byron, her personal maids, Ten and Nine, had almost been fired.
Sue had protected them, and they had been able to keep their jobs, but Ten was starting to wonder if that had been the right outcome.
“No, I have to go alone first. I’ll decide whether it’s safe or not, then I’ll let you know if you can come.”
Isn’t it usually the other way around?
Ten stared at her, dumbfounded, as Sue shook her head, holding out her hand.
She wanted to protest, but the thousands of words that had risen to her lips died before they could be uttered.
“It’s really big…”
Sue looked up at the Apricotty Forest, its massive trees casting long, ominous shadows.
The Apricotty Forest, where tree spirits were said to gather, was a forest of giant trees, two or three times larger than ordinary trees.
Sue gulped, feeling overwhelmed, and fidgeted with the parchment.
“I made it to the forest, but where is she? …She really didn’t give me much to go on.”
Sue had finally decided to take the bait from the strange fortune teller she had met at the National Founding Festival, ‘Jean Emilia’.
The chances of finding the original caster of the curse were slim, she couldn’t find a counter-curse with her own knowledge, and asking the priests for help would mean risking Enzhe finding out.
So she had no choice but to trust this.
She had thought that and crossed the canal, but now she was stuck at the entrance of the forest.
[The Apricotty Forest, east of the outer wall, outside the canal]
That was all that was written on the parchment ‘Jean Emilia’ had given her. Ten, standing awkwardly beside her motionless master, glanced at the parchment.
“Shouldn’t we go into the forest?”
“…I guess so, right?”
Sue knew that. She just didn’t have the courage.
She paced back and forth at the entrance of the forest, then finally smiled awkwardly and held out her hand to Ten.
“Let’s go, Ten.”
“…You should have said that sooner.”
Ten was still struggling to adapt to her master, who had undergone a drastic transformation in the past year.
She had been skeptical at first, but Sue Byron had definitely changed. She wouldn’t have saved her and Nine from being fired if she hadn’t.
Suddenly going to court to save Raines Noel was something the Sue she knew would never do.
One day, she had come home covered in mud, her mind almost breaking.
She had been skeptical when Sue had declared, with a determined look on her face, that she would break her curse, but it hadn’t been an empty promise.