A Butterfly Through the Mist - Chapter 88

The memory she had taken out and looked at whenever she had a spare moment showed no sign of fading; it only grew clearer by the day.

In the memories that became more vivid with time, Tilia began to realize, one by one.

What kind of heart he had always looked at her with.

Much later, she came to know through a news article that raised holy water as a societal issue.

That undiluted holy water could be used as a truth serum. That when used beyond the appropriate dosage, it could draw out secrets buried in the heart, secrets one would rather forget.

So the words Ilex Davenport spoke to her after ingesting vaporized holy water must have been his deeply hidden truth. Feelings he could only speak of after drinking a truth serum.

It had to be that way. Because back then, she had been no different from a hedgehog covered in poisoned thorns. She had been a watchman of the heart, desperate to allow no one to intrude.

To a woman who asked whether the antidote was a contraceptive, that was the only confession he could offer.

She also found out, much later, that intercourse under the influence of holy water didn’t require contraception. That a pregnancy was not possible from artificially induced arousal.

Watching the woman drink the urgently procured antidote, firmly believing it to be a contraceptive—what on earth had Ilex thought then?

What reason did he have to harbor feelings for someone who treated him like garbage as if it were the most natural thing in the world?

In a dark room all alone. When she closed her eyes, the words he whispered into her ear while caressing her came back to tickle her entire body.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

It was infuriating that those words she had dismissed as madness were actually true. Even though at the time, she had struggled, desperately wishing they were lies.

The more she revisited the fragments of memory, the more clearly the corners of them became, revealing clues she hadn’t seen before.

The steps that would slow to match her pace. The way his eyes would sneak glances at her lips or the bridge of her nose, and how he’d lightly trace those lines with his fingertips.

Once she abandoned the habit of murmuring that he was like a forest hidden in the fog, that she could never know the sincerity behind those elusive eyes—only then did it become clear.

That what had been hidden in those beautiful gray-blue eyes all along, was love.

That until the moment they parted, he had never once looked at her with anything other than affection.

Why had what is now visible as clearly as a well-polished window appeared so murky back then?

Through Tilia’s eyes, gazing with regret upon a garden radiant like the emblem of spring, the first day in Ontaroa passed.

Upon arriving in Ontaroa, filled with belated regret, the first thing Tilia did was write him a letter.

Getting off the train, she rushed straight to the house he had told her about, and before she could even unpack, borrowed paper and pen to hurriedly write.

Thank you, I’m sorry, and, and…

She no longer clearly remembers what she had written to fill that white paper with black ink.

Only the vivid memory of collapsing onto the sofa in exhaustion after writing her name at the bottom of the page remains.

The hair sticking to her forehead, drenched in sweat like she had a fever, and the stinging fingertips trembling from clutching the pen too tightly.

Without even washing, she fell asleep in exhaustion and awoke the next day. With a tense face, she took the neatly folded letter to the post office.

Only after checking the address several times and reviewing the contents repeatedly could she finally bring herself to send it. She had checked so many times, so obsessively, that by the time she left the post office, it was already evening.

It was only then that Tilia noticed her stomach growling and entered the nearest restaurant.

She had gone the whole day without eating, and now, as she brought clear, warm soup to her empty belly, she trembled uncontrollably.

Her head kept turning toward the post office building, where her letter now lay asleep. Her heart was already racing toward the day he would reply.

But the letter sent to Arkansis passed a month, then two, without showing any sign of returning with a response.

In the meantime, Tilia submitted applications and went to interviews. She bought daily necessities and groceries, familiarized herself with the neighborhood. But even as she gradually adjusted to a livable routine, the mailbox remained silent.

Just in case, she sent another letter with the same message. That she was doing well, that she had settled nicely into the home he had arranged in a certain district.

Maybe the mail coach had overturned. Maybe her letter had been lost. Even though she had sent it properly, her worry pushed her to keep sending more letters, each time adding trivial details. Eventually, it became such a habit that she started writing and sending them like diary entries.

Then, one day, a single white piece of paper finally landed in her mailbox. Her heart thudding so hard it felt like it would burst from her chest, she opened the letter—but it wasn’t from the one she had been so desperately waiting for.

At that moment, Tilia quietly examined the part of herself that felt disappointed, even after receiving her acceptance notice for the Ontaroa consular officer position.

To her surprise, she wasn’t even shocked by the change in her heart. She simply felt worried.

Had something happened to Ilex? Was he ill?

All she could feel was concern for one person alone.

Even while cautiously taking money from the envelope Ilex had given her to buy work clothes, Tilia could only think about him.

The thought that Ilex Davenport’s feelings might have changed never once crossed her mind. She couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

“You understand, right, Tilia? Until the day I come to find you… you have to wait.”

Those eyes that had sent her off, those eyes that had pleaded over and over for her to wait—they had spoken of unwavering love.

That was when Tilia began buying newspapers that reported news from Arkansis.

She regularly bought stationery, collecting news bulletins from Arkansis in hopes of finding traces of him that were otherwise impossible to come by.

And one day, when the boy selling newspapers began greeting her with particular familiarity, at last—the name she had been waiting for appeared on the front page.

「Ilex Davenport, second son of House Davenport, announces engagement to Cecilia Clayton, eldest daughter of House Clayton!

The union between the two great powers of Arkansis—the Davenport dukedom and the Clayton marquisate—has been confirmed. Marquis Clayton, at the modern exposition held on the 3rd of this month in Ederpfalz…」

As she traced their lavishly embellished engagement story, her hands trembled as she held the paper.

She remembered it as a time when she had just been assigned to her department and was struggling to adapt. The day she read that article had been one of those days when she had wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and sleep like the dead.

But the moment she got home, it was as if sleep had been driven away.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t tired. Her whole body felt like it was bearing a boulder, so heavy and worn she might collapse at any moment.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to lie down on the bed, or even kick off her shoes and sit on the sofa. Tilia simply sat alone in a dining chair, reading and rereading the crumpled newspaper.

Ilex Davenport and Cecilia Clayton’s engagement. Ilex Davenport and Cecilia Clayton’s engagement…

As if memorizing it, she read the article again and again, until, like waking from a dream, she suddenly sprang up, hurriedly pulled out her stationery, and grabbed a pen.

Unlike her first letter, whose contents she could no longer clearly remember, she could still write out every word of this one even now.

Though she had tried so hard to act indifferent, what she had filled that white paper with was selfishness, carved line by line.

To be honest, Ilex, I was happy that you liked me. I hope you’ll keep liking me, even now…

Even after writing all that, Tilia agonized for a long time over the one most important sentence she hadn’t yet written. Her heart refused to turn into words. She had broken into a cold sweat and, somewhat pathetically, might have even sniffled a little.

What’s certain is that the letter, its edges stained with moisture, contained more raw sincerity than any she had ever sent before.

I want you to keep liking me. I really, really do.

Sending off the letter, filled with nothing but selfish confessions, Tilia wore a solemn expression.

But even then—after one month, two months—no reply came.

In the meantime, the seasons flowed like a river.

Winter of memories passed, spring, which made people feel even lonelier, came and went. A summer where the heat felt particularly oppressive passed, and autumn, when all things turned toward death, came and went.

And then, spring returned.

In the sunlight that poured down, looking at the fully bloomed flowers that knew nothing of winter, Tilia thought:

What was I feeling last spring?

Two years ago, in the spring, the front page of the paper had once again featured news of Ilex Davenport and Cecilia Clayton’s grand engagement ceremony.

Only after seeing that did Tilia finally stop sending the occasional letters that had become like lingering attachments.

And, shedding tear after tear, she moved to a new home.