Dogs Among Withered Roses - Chapter 11

How is that the gaze of a desperate man?

If he looked any more desperate, he might devour someone. She almost wanted to drag that exact face in front of Ricardo and demand, Does this look desperate to you? But ignoring Ricardo’s beastlike instincts felt just as uncomfortable.

That aside. Something’s strange.

Back then, the cold air was unbelievable. Of course, it’s not like his attitude is warm now either, but….

Berenice’s ‘back then’ referred to last year.

More precisely, a season that was neither spring nor summer.

That day in question. While sipping brandy on the balcony, Berenice sharing the reddish sunset with Erkin, who stood alone in the garden, or the breeze carrying the scent of grass, wasn’t anything unusual.

Members of the Family often strolled leisurely through the garden when they came to the mansion after being invited to dinner by Ricardo or to deliver work reports. Especially on late spring evenings, just before summer.

So the fact that her gaze stretched out somewhere and happened to settle on a young soldato she had never met before wasn’t even noteworthy enough to write in a diary and mull over later.

At least, up to that point.

If Erkin hadn’t ignored and avoided Berenice as if she were some ancient monster that turned people to stone when their eyes met, if he hadn’t turned his back and built a wall while she tried to greet him with a small smile, she probably would’ve confidently said even today that nothing happened. Maybe she would’ve forgotten it completely before long.

But that day, he gifted her a moment she couldn’t forget.

Berenice froze stiff at the blatant snub and couldn’t straighten the awkward bend of her neck until the man left the garden and disappeared inside the mansion. No one else had witnessed it except Erkin and Berenice themselves, yet she felt so embarrassed her face burned hot.

Even thinking about it now makes her flustered.

Back then, she’d only been busy trying to bury the unfamiliar disregard and the wave of shame that rushed over her as if it had never happened, and afterward she was obsessed with pretending nothing was wrong every time she ran into him….

If she’d known she would end up facing this face again like this, as bodyguard and the one being guarded, she wouldn’t have done that. If she’d known she would experience this disgusting feeling of a not-quite-secret being forcibly dug up, she would have found some way to settle it back then.

But how could she have known it would still scratch at her nerves even now?

Why did he ignore her like that back then, and why is he sharing his gaze with her now? Did she make some mistake she didn’t know about? Just as she continued to debate whether she should ask even now, Erkin’s low voice drifted into her ear.

“Or do you simply not want to walk?”

Erkin’s gaze, which likewise failed to find what it was looking for, dropped to Berenice’s shoes. Feeling oddly embarrassed by the attention on her feet, Berenice tried to step back, but Erkin caught her arm, worried she might fall.

His expression of relief that she hadn’t fallen lasted only a moment. Narrowing his eyes as if something seemed suspicious, Erkin finally fired off the question with a face that suggested he’d endured enough.

“Why are you wearing those shoes?”

“…Why are you curious about that?”

“If you have another engagement, I should know about it.”

“You don’t need to know about any other engagement. We’re together right now, aren’t we? We’ll keep moving together.”

Berenice’s voice, speaking the truth, was flat and even. At the same time, she looked at him as if scolding him for prying so much, but Erkin paid no mind and repeated the question.

“You didn’t answer about the shoes.”

“What about the shoes?”

“Judging from Michele and the boss’s reaction, they don’t seem to be something you normally wear. So why….”

“That’s because—”

Berenice, who had been speaking, suddenly shut her mouth.

How could she possibly say that she thought if she wore stiletto heels, she might at least match his eye level a little, since she hated the way tall Erkin looked down at her?

She could never say that even if she died. She refused any more embarrassment. So Berenice decided to make up a plausible excuse and brush it off. She even put on a gentle, flawless smile.

“I just wore them because they’re pretty.”

“Because they’re pretty?”

“Why else would anyone wear something that’s painful and uncomfortable? Being pretty is the only reason these things exist.”

“….”

Just because they’re pretty…. Erkin repeated her words somewhat blankly, then slowly straightened his back. She thought she’d answered with a fairly decent smile, but he didn’t seem to trust either her answer or her smile very much.

His attitude, which said he didn’t fully believe her but would let it slide for now, was ridiculous. Still, as Erkin stepped back and put some distance between them again, Berenice finally felt she could breathe easier and admitted to herself that she’d done something unbelievably stupid.

Matching eye level, my ass. What good would that even do?

Thinking none of it mattered anymore, Berenice moved her heel and slipped off her shoes. A sense of relief spread as if blood flowed freely through her veins again, and her feet in nylon stockings touched the marble floor. The chill climbing up her calves made her shoulders shrink slightly by reflex.

“Hm.” Erkin let out a low sound and tilted his chin down, lowering his gaze a little further. Judging by the way his eyes moved briefly near the floor, he seemed to be comparing the shoes he was wearing with Berenice’s bare feet. As if he might take off his own shoes for her if their sizes were somewhat similar.

Is his eyesight bad or something?

Berenice wrinkled the bridge of her nose as she glanced at his feet, which were as large as his tall frame. Stiletto heels were uncomfortable, but there was no way she could walk properly wearing shoes that big. As if rejecting his pointless consideration in advance, Berenice curled her toes slightly.

“You’ll give me athlete’s foot. I don’t need them.”

“….”

Perhaps that nonsense was a little too ridiculous to ignore. Erkin stared at the ceiling for a moment as if calming himself.

“Then what, should I carry you?”

“…What are you talking about? Are you possessed by Satan?”

“….”

Berenice, who had hooked the shoes on her fingers thinking the conversation was over, was startled and shot back the question. Carry what? Is he trying to haul me around like luggage?

There was no trace of the earlier nonsense about athlete’s foot on Berenice’s face now. Instead she looked as if no one in their right mind could say something like that unless they were possessed by Satan.

“Good heavens, you must be serious. I don’t even have holy water. What am I supposed to do with you?”

“….”

If she’d been holding a cup of coffee, she looked ready to dip a cross into it and sprinkle it like holy water. Casting Erkin a glance that seemed to say it was a shame for someone so young, Berenice walked past him and started striding down the hallway barefoot.

【 The Sin of Failing to Discover 】

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

After calmly making the sign of the cross, Berenice fixed her gaze on her neatly folded hands.

“It’s been a month since my last confession.”

A clear, low voice echoed inside the cramped confessional, and the sins she confessed one by one while kneeling in repentance were not much different from the ones she recited here a month ago.

But were those the only things that were similar to the sins she confessed a month ago? Since her first confession fifteen years ago, Berenice had repeated and recited the same sins countless times.

Listing her sins like a machine, Berenice slowly rubbed the rosary ring on the sinner’s hand. With a silver cross at its center, ten tiny roses engraved one by one turned slowly, as if offering a rosary prayer.

Berenice stared blankly at the silver roses that would never wither. Her lips closed for a moment, then reluctantly parted again. The confession she prepared for the sacrament had already come to an end.

“Please forgive the sins I failed to discover as well.”

The sin of failing to discover.

Berenice’s lips, which had spoken the words in the set order, stiffened for a moment as if they’d lost what to say next. She often wondered if calling them sins she failed to discover was truly appropriate.

Even after coming this far, she still couldn’t bring herself to confess them. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to call them sins she concealed, deceiving even herself? While raising the old question alone, her mouth moved again like a machine.

“Because I have wounded God’s heart, I sincerely repent all the wrongs I have committed, the evil I have done, and the good I have failed to do. By God’s grace….”

Repent, my ass. What a joke.

She said the words herself, but if she hadn’t tightened her stomach at the right moment, an irreverent snort of laughter might have slipped out with them. What struck her as absurd was the sight of herself in this cramped confessional, whispering that she repented so only the priest could hear. Things like this, she thought, were meant to be said tearfully before a judge and jury in a courtroom….

Though maybe that was a bit hypocritical.

After all, statements made in court were less about repentance and more about reducing the sentence. And what about the meticulous plans made with a lawyer to stir the jury’s emotions? Thinking about things so calculatingly like this might itself make repentance and forgiveness somewhat impossible.

Berenice recalled the moment twenty years ago when she placed her dirt-covered hand on the shoes of a gentleman and his son during a visit to the orphanage.

“Do you want to come with me?”

She’d only just turned five at most, yet the memory remained vivid, without the slightest sign of wear.

The withered rose petals scattered beneath the flowerbed, the grassy scent mixed with the smell of wet earth, the dark shadow falling over her head, and even the graceful hand extended toward Berenice were all as clear as if it happened yesterday.

That was why she wondered even more.

If she returned to that day twenty years ago with this same memory, would she be able to refuse that hand and run away from them, or would she repeat the past once again?