The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 12

The First (12)

Estelle told me not to come starting tomorrow, but I still made my way there.

But except for the shaggy-haired priest who was cleaning, there was no one else in that small church.

It was as if I had woken up from a short dream.

After opening my eyes in this world, the time I spent with Estelle might have been the most comfortable. Without feeling chased, without wanting anything from each other, we just had to spend time together idly.

Wednesday, and then Thursday.

The two days were neither long nor short. I spent most of my time in my room.

Seraphina still came every morning. Although she seemed a little surprised that I was in the room, she didn't ask anything.

She tidied the room in silence, and I watched her in silence. Our silence was now so familiar that it felt like noise instead.

Lately, the time she spent just staring blankly at me had increased. She would mumble with her mouth as if wanting to say something, then close it, and then stare blankly at me again, shaking her head...She saw the peach placed on the table. It was the peach Estelle had given me, not a single bite taken out of it yet.

Her gaze lingered on it for a moment, but she still said nothing. She merely wiped the table once more with a dry cloth.

After Seraphina left, silence, as always, descended upon the room. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes.

My mind was empty.

And then it was Friday.

I had to go meet Levina. Estelle's words about having something to return echoed in my ears.

The afternoon sunlight was warm, but it lacked strength.

I walked down the familiar hallway towards the student council office. The hallway was steeped in the languor of Friday afternoon.

I hesitated for a moment at the door. Should I knock, or just go back?

I didn't want to see her face.

But I eventually raised my hand and knocked on the door.

Knock, knock.

A low voice came from inside.

"Come in."

It was Levina's voice. I grabbed the doorknob and went inside.

One wall of the room was filled with bookshelves, and on the other side, a large conference table was placed. The air was cool, and there was the smell of old paper and a faint scent of ink.

Levina was sitting at a large desk in the center of the room. She was reviewing documents, so her head was bowed. Even though she knew I had entered, she didn't raise her head for a while.

It was always like this. She would call me, then pretend not to care, and if I said anything, she would inevitably act condescending and authoritative.

I stood quietly by the door until she raised her head. The ticking sound of the grandfather clock on the wall seemed unusually loud.

Finally, she raised her head. Our eyes met.

Her eyes were cold, but they were subtly trembling with unease. Her lips were tightly sealed, and her jawline was tense. She was trying hard to act calm, but I could tell she was nervous.

It might be natural, considering our last sibling interaction was me getting on top of her and choking her. Faint handprints and light, widely spread blue bruises remained on Levina's neck.

"Sit."

She gestured with her chin towards the chair in front of the desk. I walked over in silence and sat down in the chair. The leather chair creaked.

We fell silent once more. Levina fiddled with the documents on the desk, and I watched her fingers. She wasn't looking at or organizing the documents; her fingers were simply wandering, scratching at the area around the desk.

"I heard you had something to return."

I broke the silence first. Her fingers paused for a moment.

"Yes."

"Was it too disgusting to keep, perhaps?"

"Even when you speak, you always spout such vulgar words."

"Those are the words you always used to say to me."

"...You?"

"I've been disowned from the family, so isn't that a fitting way to address you? Or should I call you Lady Levina?"

"Not all procedures are complete yet."

"Yes, the broken engagement is also a decided matter, but we haven't actually broken off the engagement yet, have we?"

Levina's lips trembled. She took a deep breath. It sounded as if she was trying hard to suppress her emotions.

"...You're still so ill-mannered."

"Well, it seems you're expecting too much from an outsider."

I leaned back in the chair.

From a certain point, our conversations were always like this. We would retort to each other, be sarcastic, and dig into old wounds.

And in the end, it always concluded with my esteemed elder sister, the one who would someday become the family head, pressing me down and looking down on me from above, but now I am merely Lavin. And for me, who is not 'Lavin', the name Edelgard was not something to be so obsessed with.

She seemed to chew on my words for a moment. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. Instead, she opened a desk drawer, took out a heavy object, and placed it on the desk.

It was Mother's revolver. The afternoon sunlight shone on its black metal surface, giving it a faint sheen.

"Yes. I called you to return it. Take it."

"How kind."

I stood up from the chair and reached out for the revolver. The cold metallic feel was transmitted to my palm. It was a familiar yet strange weight.

"I was holding onto it temporarily because I was worried you might do something foolish again."

Without replying, I picked up the revolver that was on the desk.

"Whether I live or die, it's none of your business. Since when did you care about me so much?"

"Lavin."

"What."

"Why can you only ever think that way? Twisting everything, and taking every kindness as malice."

Her voice was low and subdued.

"Kindness?"

I murmured softly. The word felt foreign on my tongue.

"I didn't know 'kindness' was a word used in such situations, but it seems our blood truly is different. This vulgar and stupid bastard simply can't understand."

Her face turned pale.

"If you're going to call yourself an outsider, at least show some basic manners, Lavin."

"Well, I've never learned them, you see. The manners I know are telling a child whose mother has died that she's just a dead prostitute..."

Levina cut me off. It seems she didn't want to hear the words she herself had spoken coming from someone else's mouth.

"I, for your sake...!"

"How is that for my sake!?"

"For days, you were doing nothing, just holed up in your room, so to forcibly drag you out..." Levina continued speaking, then perhaps finding her own words idiotic, she trailed off.

"What's the point of talking about old times now? I've been kicked out anyway. It was my fault for clinging on desperately."

"That's something you brought upon yourself. Always causing trouble, tarnishing the family's honor..."

"Honor."

I let out a hollow laugh.

"That damn honor. The one you always had on your lips. That great Edelgard honor, which is defiled just by my existence as a bastard, is that what you mean?"

"Watch your words."

"What did I do?"

Levina couldn't answer. She just glared at me with a stiff face.

"Duke Edelgard, who started treating me as if I didn't exist once I became an eyesore to him, and messed around with his lower half once too often – since when was that my fault? I guess I should have tried to crawl out of his balls somehow."

It was always like that. Every time we met in the wide, cold hallways of the mansion, she would scan me with eyes that looked at a bug.

At meal times, she ignored my existence, and if any family member showed me even a little attention, that day, without fail, she would come to my room and heap all sorts of insults upon me.

'A half-breed with dirty blood.'

'A vulgar thing, just like your mother.'

'Just by your presence here, the air in this house becomes foul.'

And from a certain day, Levina started spouting accusations mixed with lies about me. Saying I dug up the garden, tormented the servants, and that everything I did outside was nothing but trashy behavior.

I tried to say it wasn't true, but they would believe the words of the legitimate daughter, born of a talented and excellent wife, who would listen to a bastard like me?

Because I was a person who should be grateful just to eat and sleep in the same mansion. 'Lavin' had received such treatment, and had accepted it as natural, even smiling foolishly, like an idiot.

"You always... me. No, why me? I, huff."

It was something that 'Lavin' had suffered, not me. Yet, somehow, that boundary had become blurry.

"Why are you acting like this now? Do you think I'm going to die or something? Living in the same mansion as you, isn't it a miracle I'm still alive? If it were me, I would have long since..."

Levina's eyes trembled violently. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out. Only her dry lips moved.

"Or do I look pitiful to you now?"

"I don't know." Her voice, in its brief reply, was faintly trembling.

"If we're done here, I'll go. Sorry for holding up a busy person and wasting your time."

"Wait."

Levina called out to me.

I slowly turned around. Levina stood up from her seat, stood beside the desk, and was staring straight at me. The corners of her eyes were red.

"Do you have anything else to say?"

"......."

Although she murmured something from behind, I didn't even pretend to hear, grabbed the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped out into the hallway.

Then I quietly closed the student council office door. Her voice completely disappeared beyond the door.

The hallway was still quiet. As if nothing had happened, I slowly walked away.

I must have been expecting something. After I died, Levina seemed to have changed somehow, so without realizing it, I expected something, I don't know what, to get better. Perhaps there was a compensation complex, thinking that since I had even died, something would surely change.

Anyway, I returned to my room. Thanks to Seraphina having cleaned it in the morning, the room was still clean.

And on the table, a small piece of stationery was placed. It seemed Seraphina had written it.

Since it contained details about the broken engagement, I crumpled it up and threw it away.

It's always the same. Her coming every morning must be to mock me.

Even while acting as if we would somehow get back together, it's still a broken engagement in the end, isn't it? No matter what she said clinging to my side, or how she treated me, nothing ever changed.

Just like how nothing ever changed no matter what I did up until now.

Who would have known that feeling helplessness could be such a blow to one's self-esteem?

Once I die, something will happen, I guess. Whether I return, or if this death is unexpectedly a rather good ending and I wake up back where I belong.

I took out the noose I had crumpled into the closet, and firmly secured it to the ceiling.

Then I sat on the sofa, staring blankly at the noose, and smoked a cigarette. Until the room was thick with smoke.

There were no bullets. But no other good methods came to mind either. When I felt sufficiently dizzy, I got up from my seat, brought a chair, took a deep breath, and climbed onto it.

And then, into the noose that might be my last, I put my neck.