Attachment Knight - Chapter 10

‘Those disgusting paintings.’

I swept my eyes over the portraits of Don Pisano hanging on the wall.

When the noise was completely erased, a stuffiness surged in. There are no windows in the room at the top of the tower.

There are only countless eyes staring at the person trapped here.

A boy dressed in flashy clothes was smiling with a face full of bruises.

It was a bit unpleasant to see him smiling even with casts on his broken limbs.

The painting of a four-year-old boy, smiling in the same hopeless mess even while bearing scars left by tools I don’t want to imagine, stopped in adolescence.

In the paintings, the boy always held something in his hand.

An old doll, a ball, glass marbles, a broken toy horse, and sometimes even a living creature like a frog or a puppy.

Don had the painter draw scenes of his childhood like this himself.

What a perverted eccentricity.

“Curious about your biological parents? Give that to the dogs, Millicent. Did you forget they’re the ones who abandoned you on the island? I take care of you like a parent, so what’s the problem?”

“You don’t need family or friends…. The only person you should trust and rely on is me. Don’t give your heart to anyone. Humans harm others far too easily. Even if it’s the closest family, all the same.”

I can’t understand his bizarre tastes, but I pitied him. He’s truly a pitiable man. The domestic violence he endured constantly since childhood rooted a vicious distrust and hatred deep in his heart. It transformed a gentle human into a sadistic, immoral monster.

“Those kinds of parents are worse than none.”

Don condemned all love and bonds, but I know how starved he was for those things. In that way, we’re very similar.

I pity Don Pisano.

I understand that man who, because he could never obtain it no matter how he yearned for it his entire life, hates and attacks every kind of love.

And that it’s self-harm.

When I was little and didn’t know anything, the way I absentmindedly touched his shriveled cheek might have been because of a certain sense of kinship. Like deer that distinguish each other by the scent of tears.

People condemn Don Pisano as a horrifying villain of the age and fear him. But he looked a little different to me. A weary beast that, because it couldn’t properly pick up a mother’s love, keeps eating and eating other fragile things to try to fill its hunger.

Avoiding the hollow eyes of the boy drifting gloomily through the room, I pulled the blanket over my head. Soon, sleep poured down.

***

As my sense of time grew faint, it felt like my brain thickened like melted candy.

Most of the time that didn’t pass was solved with sleep.

No matter how much I tried to sleep, time felt like eternity. Won’t I go crazy like this? When I was thinking dully, I felt a soft touch brush the hair buried in my blanket.

I lazily opened my eyes.

In my half-open vision, Don’s expressionless face wavered.

“Ten days.”

“….”

“Did you reflect at all?”

“….”

I smiled sweetly.

“While I was reflecting, I kept thinking about how much Don loves me.”

As if wondering what that was supposed to mean, he lifted one eyebrow. Still, it must’ve sounded good, because he stroked my head. The rings on his pale, straight joints flashed.

“I brought you a gift.”

He pulled a small box from his pocket. Inside the case covered in purple velvet were earrings.

“Pale green suits you well because your skin is so white.”

The man picked up the jewel-studded earrings and held them up to my ear. Inside a border crafted in the shape of intricately twisted gold, there was a large gemstone that looked like it would easily be worth more than five hundred thousand gold.

“Do you like them?”

“They’re pretty.”

After punishments, Don would always hand down sweet compensation as if he were sorry. Expensive jewelry and dresses, a lavish private villa, a thoroughbred horse. Perfume and dolphins.

As if he were courting me, he would press gifts into my arms.

He brushed my smooth earlobe, then carefully fastened the earring. The clear sensation of the sharp post piercing tender flesh woke me up.

“Millie, you’re my only one who understands me.”

He stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. Then he spoke as if scolding a child.

“So don’t commit a mistake again. If you don’t want to ruin our solid relationship.”

“I understand, Don.”

I nodded readily. And like a child grabbing the umbilical cord and returning to the womb, I fell into his arms. A clear jingling sound rang in my ears.

***

Radem stood blankly in the room, looking at the sky turning blue with evening again today. The bedroom, left without warmth for a long time, was kept clean only through the occasional care of the maid who came by.

Radem checked the time. Exactly seven in the morning. It was when that woman would come. He endured for ten days, but he couldn’t go on like this forever.

From far away, he heard a humming tune. The bedroom door clicked open, and the person he’d been waiting for appeared. The maid Yerenika looked surprised, as if she hadn’t expected Radem to be standing right beside the door.

“Hello.”

He greeted her politely as always, but he caught the maid who was about to pass by as if he were invisible.

“Where is Miss Millicent?”

“….”

“She hasn’t shown herself without a word, so I’m asking in case something happened.”

“Didn’t the young lady tell you? She’s in confinement right now. She’ll be released today, though….”

“Confinement?”

“You really don’t know anything. The young lady is quite indifferent.”

“What happened?”

Yerenika gave him a look with an expression that was neither quite a smile nor not, then she loosened the cord and began shaking out the curtains.

“It’s nothing. The young lady likes to boast, and she has bad habits like kleptomania too. This time as well, she stole something important and lied, got caught by Don Pisano, and is being punished with confinement. It’s common…. It’s hardly even punishment, so don’t worry. Ah, more importantly.”

Yerenika, who had glanced back at him, smiled gently as if she’d just thought of something.

“I heard you and the young lady were especially close when you were little.”

“….”

“The young lady back then must’ve been very different from how she is now.”

“….”

“It must be regrettable. To see her like this, after she changed.”

“What do you mean?”

Yerenika gripped a rag soaked in water. Her movements were as natural as flowing water, and at the same time she had almost no presence, like she was part of the room. Her hands wiped everything clean without a speck of dust, practiced and skilled.

Without slowing her pace, she muttered dryly, “Miss Millicent isn’t mentally sound, so she depends on medicine. Not just her, either, if you live here for a long time, it’s hard for anyone to stay sane. She must’ve been greatly shocked by what happened back then.”

“What thing back then?”

“There’s a training institute here for children. The master always strives to raise excellent wizards. Whether it’s magic or another ability, it’s so they can display some outstanding talent and contribute to Omelas’s prosperity. Until Miss Millicent’s talent was discovered, she always lived at the level of barely surviving. I heard the older sister she was close with died at the institute. Her name was Chloris, I think…. It’s unfortunate. Because of that, she still suffers even now. And there were other things, too.”

All of a sudden, Yerenika turned around and stared straight at Radem. He thought they were eyes that were quiet and calm but impossible to read.

“Miss Millicent can’t fall asleep without medicine and alcohol. She often has nightmares. Having watched that for a long time, I can’t help but worry. She sometimes lives believing the lies she made herself. She says her biological parents might be the masters of some great royal palace…. Or she says impossible things, like she personally received a consecration mass from a noble pope favored by the emperor. But everyone in the castle knows. That she is an orphan, and that she’s never even gone near the papal palace, let alone left the island. I find her appearance cute, but if anything goes too far, it becomes a symptom. She is broken now, but I believe she must’ve been different as a child. Because she’s pretty and lovable.”

“….”

“This time, I hope her claim isn’t a lie. That the two of you ‘really’ had a special relationship, I want to believe that too. Radem, I hope your existence can be a comfort to her….”

Yerenika put on a kindly smile and began tidying the room again. Then, as if something suddenly came to mind, she continued, “Come to think of it, she told a lie like this too. That she had a man of destiny, and she got married and even had a child…. Since she spends a lot of time shut in alone, she reads books often. I don’t know what novel she read and let her delusions run wild, but when I think of that time, I still get dizzy. Don Pisano was very angry. She really is something. To say that so shamelessly in front of her lover. I tell you, she’s like a bomb that could go off anywhere….”

A word that didn’t sit right snagged at his ear as he listened intently.

“Miss Millie called him her guardian.”

“Guardian, and lover as well.”

Yerenika’s expression changed. Her voice, turned cold, carried a sneer for some reason.