The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 3

The First (3)

"You know why I brought up breaking off the engagement."

Seraphina's voice was low and subdued. It was a sound closer to weariness than anger.

Her voice seeped heavily into the damp air of the room. We already knew the answer to that question.

"I do know."

I replied curtly. I felt her shoulders twitch subtly.

"If you talk like that..."

Seraphina looked at me as if asking if I had no intention of talking.

Indeed, that was the case. After all, this conversation was merely a repetition of what had happened just a few days ago.

"I genuinely don't know.""Do you remember your promise to at least not cause trouble and get along with people while at the academy?"

"I do. And I believe I've kept it quite faithfully."

Seraphina let out a hollow laugh at my answer. The sound of her laughter was far from pleasant.

"That not a single good word about your behavior comes from anyone around you, I've come to accept that now. What can be done about your reputation being like that? But Lavin, someone died! Everyone says so. Those madmen, the devil worshipers, were all caught, but only you, only you, the high-and-mighty Edelgard, face no punishment!"

"Everyone? Who? Who exactly is saying that?"

Seraphina couldn't answer my question. Because even for her, "everyone" was merely a fragment of an unsubstantiated rumor.

Who exactly was that anonymous crowd called 'everyone'? Where did they live, and what did their faces look like?

I had never met them even once.

Perhaps I saw them every day. But the fact that I had never truly met them, considering they were strangers I hadn't exchanged a single word with, didn't change much.

"......."

"Seraphina, you have no intention of believing anything I say, do you? Not from the start."

At those words, the corners of Seraphina's eyes, which had been fixed on me, reddened. The calm voice she had struggled to maintain began to tremble uncontrollably.

"Because you've always, always been like that! Always spouting glib lies just to get by in the moment! This time it's probably the same! I don't want to hear it, you probably want me to foolishly believe your words and fall for it again, don't you!"

Her body trembled subtly.

"If I just let it slide this time, saying 'it's fine,' 'it's nothing,' or 'you just had bad luck,' you'll go around doing the same crazy things again! And then you'll come to me, apologize, and say you'll never do it again! Then you'll throw some suitable gift at me, one you probably got from who-knows-where, treating me like some easy woman who'll cheer up instantly! How many years, just how many damn years do you think we've been repeating this tiresome and disgusting charade!?"

"At least it hasn't been like that lately."

An intense weariness washed over me. I pressed my palms firmly against my eyes, then slumped back onto the creaking sofa.

And then, for the first time when I was alone with Seraphina, I put a cigarette in my mouth and searched for a matchbox.

It was an act 'Lavin' would never commit, though I myself was indifferent to such proprieties. Because he had always wanted to appear perfect, at least in front of her.

It's through such trivial actions that I often distinguish between myself and Lavin.

Because all I want is to go back. Because I only ever look forward to the reward of returning to where I belong.

The 'click' of striking a match to light it cut through her agitated voice.

"Yes, it hasn't been like that lately. What a grand development. Why didn't you keep it up, then? Why are things in such a mess again?!"

She picked up the sooty letter I had written, which had fallen to the floor, and threw it at my face. The piece of paper fluttered weakly, grazed my cheek, and fell to the floor.

It didn't hurt, but somehow it felt as if a blade had grazed me.

"This measly letter! What's supposed to change just because you suddenly started writing and sending these every day for the past three years? Recently, just for a very brief, fleeting moment, I actually thought you might have changed a little! But you're still the same, nothing, not a single thing has changed!"

Her voice finally erupted into a wail. The sound echoed emptily, bouncing off the walls of the barren room.

"What did you expect to change?"

I asked, looking down at the ashen letter.

"To live like a human being! At least, to return to the child I knew!"

"The Lavin you knew?"

I let out a bitter laugh. Lavin and I might actually be the same person.

Our habits, thoughts, memories, even the person who craves emotions and love are the same, so it's stranger to consider us different people. Only the lingering feeling of wanting to return, deep in my heart, separates 'Lavin' and me.

That's why I still don't want to think of us as the same person.

"Who is that? The seven-year-old child who climbed a tree with you, then got scared and couldn't come down alone, so he whined while clinging to your skirt? Or the ten-year-old fool who, upon hearing you liked lilacs, searched the family garden only to be scolded half to death by his parents? Is that the Lavin you knew?"

Someone passing by outside the window might have paused and looked in this direction. Or, they might have simply ignored it and walked past. Either way, it didn't matter.

"He's been gone a long time."

Sometimes I self-deprecatingly joke that I stole his body. In truth, rather than stealing a body, I might have simply picked up a corpse that was already dead.

Lavin was not in his right mind. To the extent that he made my perfectly normal mind so strange.

Seraphina looked around the room. Her gaze swept over the dusty furniture, the liquor bottles rolling on the floor, and the mountain of cigarette butts piled in the ashtray. Into her gaze, which had been filled with scorn and anger, a cold resignation began to well up.

"How did we end up like this?" she mumbled to herself.

She mumbled as if talking to herself.

"Well. Maybe it was always like this from the start."

I replied indifferently.

"You were just trying hard to ignore it."

"Ignore?"

She scoffed.

"You, are you truly unfazed? By us breaking off the engagement? By our relationship, which has continued for over ten years, ending like this?"

"Because you never listen to a single word I say. Seraphina, I feel miserable in front of you."

She opened her mouth as if to get angry, but instead of rage, a pained whimper escaped.

"Because in front of you, I always have to be a liar, a disgusting worm, Edelgard's scoundrel. You don't believe me, do you? 'Everyone says so,' 'people say,' 'some nameless idiots say this and that.' You yourself treat me that way. You've already concluded that no matter what I do, I'll still be trash in the end."

She struggled to suppress her emotions.

"Yes, that's right! I don't believe you! How can I? What have you ever shown me! Always causing trouble, lying, running away! That's all you've ever shown me, so what am I supposed to believe in?!"

But emotions, no matter how hard they're suppressed, always tend to burst out.

"My life entangled with you, every moment of it, is disgusting, Lavin. Do you understand that fact? You just end up living like a worm by yourself, but I don't. I have to wear the horrible label of being your fiancée, smile in front of people, and pretend as if nothing's wrong!"

Seraphina paced around the room nervously. The click-clack of her heels echoed sharply on the old wooden floor, grating on my nerves.

"Do you know what people whisper behind my back? 'Lady Seraphina is truly unfortunate. To be engaged to such a scoundrel.' 'They say Edelgard's scoundrel caused trouble again? What did his fiancée ever do to deserve this?' The pity, the ridicule, the curious gazes of being that scoundrel's fiancée! I've lived until now as the shadow of everything you've ever done, explaining you, excusing you, and taking your side in front of others!"

Seraphina, speaking dramatically, imitating 'people,' was crying. Gasping for breath, yet continuing her words without stopping until the very end.

As if she were imitating a tragic heroine.

"So, it's my fault?"

"Then whose fault is it?! Did I go into the restricted library and release monsters? Did I get into a quarrel with a classmate and cause a dueling commotion?! I merely, just because I'm your fiancée, had to apologize on your behalf when you caused trouble, had to search for you when you disappeared, and had to pretend I knew nothing, or lie as if I were protecting you, when people asked about you!"

Well, it's not that different, really. Because the opponent is a terrible villain. And perhaps the villain is just an idiot who gets blamed for things they didn't even do, and says nothing.

"And if I marry you, I'll have to do that for my entire life, until I die."

Gasping for breath, yet continuing her words without stopping until the very end.

I gazed at her silently. Cigarette smoke blurred my vision.

"How many more times do I have to spout that bullshit like 'Lavin wasn't originally like that,' something even I no longer believe in myself?!"

Had I ever loved her? Or she, me?

"I never asked you to do that."

"...What?"

I said, exhaling a long plume of cigarette smoke. Her face twisted as if wounded.

At least 'Lavin' had loved Seraphina more than anyone else. Even I, having inherited those memories intact, had believed I truly fell in love with her when we first met again.

Every time words like these brushed past my ears, my chest felt like it would tear apart. That is, until I eventually received the notice of engagement annulment, was expelled from the family, and kicked out of the academy.

However, such things didn't matter. At least, not at this moment. Because our relationship was not love, but something akin to a bad debtor and an unfortunate creditor.

"Now, that tiresome fact that we were childhood friends! That memory of once, when I was very young, liking you without really knowing why! This entire reality of being engaged to you, it's so horrible it's driving me insane!"

Seraphina glared at me, gasping for breath. A single tear carved a path down her cheek and streamed down.

The tear flowed down her cheek, hung on her chin, then dripped onto the wooden floor.

Now, even hearing her words, I felt neither hollow nor wronged. I let out a long sigh and stubbed out the burning cigarette in the ashtray.

"If you've said all you wanted to say, then leave now, Seraphina."

No matter what I said, it wouldn't reach her. I didn't even have the energy to argue, dragging out 'Lavin's' memories like last time, disinterring and desecrating each of our faded and tattered old stories.

After all, there wouldn't be many people in the world who would find it pleasant to dig up a dead body from its grave and butcher it again with a knife.

"What did you say?"

"I said, leave. I'm tired."

At my reply, Seraphina seemed speechless for a moment, her lips merely parting. In her trembling eyes, bewilderment, an even greater anger, and a very faint hurt flashed briefly.

"So, just go now. Go and do as you wish. Break off the engagement, or meet another man. It has nothing to do with me anymore."

She must have expected me to cling to her, or get angry with her, or at least offer some pathetic excuse.

And indeed, I had done so. We had gotten intensely angry together.

We had spoken without restraint, saying both what should and shouldn't be said, tearing at each other's most painful spots, uttering words that should never have been uttered.

"You... you really..."

She ultimately couldn't continue her words and simply stared blankly at me. Seraphina, with eyes as if possessed, opened her mouth softly.

"Every morning when I opened my eyes, I wished you were dead."

"......."

"I prayed every night before falling asleep that you would just disappear from this world, so that I could completely erase the stain of you, this terrible mistake, from my life."

The moment she uttered those words, she herself seemed startled, holding her breath. Seraphina stared blankly at me, then turned her back and fled, opening the door and stepping outside.

The sound of the door closing echoed heavily in the room. For a moment, I listened to the lingering resonance of that sound, sitting still, deeply sunken into the sofa.

Seraphina's words were never wrong. Because I, too, had wished I were dead. And though I did die, I failed spectacularly.

I rose from the chair and approached the window, which she had thrown wide open. The cold afternoon breeze brushed against my cheeks, which were steeped in sweat, alcohol, and cigarette smoke.

Outside the window, the peaceful and boring scenery of the academy spread out like a painting. Students laughing and chatting as they passed, the green lawn swaying in the wind, the distant spires of the library.

Everything was so peaceful that it felt unreal. At least, it wasn't reality for me.

Where Seraphina had stood, the half-burned and sooty piece of letter she had last thrown lay on the old wooden floor like a fallen leaf.

I walked slowly, bent down, and picked it up. From its singed edges, a faint scent of the lilacs she liked mixed with the repulsive smell of my cigarette.

I shoved that piece of paper into my pocket without a second thought.

And then I opened a drawer, stared at the revolver for a long time, and closed the drawer again.