Time of the Blind Beast - Special Side Story 4

***

“Tell me, are you seeing someone else?”

Lisanne did not ask indirectly.

Whatever words she used to begin, this restless feeling couldn’t be hidden. Better to be straightforward. It was the conclusion she reached after agonizing through the entire meal.

The reason she ended up concluding it was an affair was simple. He had vanished without even telling his subordinates his destination and then returned out of nowhere with opals. For him to have bought opals meant he had gone all the way to the central region, full of wealthy cities, or even to the southern mines. And as far as Lisanne knew, there was no one in the central or southern regions he would need to meet in secret.

So the answer was clear. The purpose Ezekiel had hidden was someone she was not supposed to know about.

But then, why had he given her the jewels?

Because he felt guilty about deceiving her?

Or had he bought two boxes of opals, one to give to the other person, and the other to push off on her?

“If that’s the case, I wish you had just told me honestly.”

Speaking as if her heart were already settled, Lisanne looked at Ezekiel. He stared back in a daze.

He had been uneasy. He had sensed she noticed something was off. But Lisanne had shown no sign throughout the meal, laughing and chatting along with the cheerful atmosphere Feder led at the table.

He had let his guard down, and then suddenly she gripped his heart tight and let it go.

Are you seeing someone else?

If this was a kind of surprise attack, there could be none sharper.

“Honestly? What do you mean by that, Lisanne? What kind of answer are you expecting? And what do you plan to say to me?”

He couldn’t read her thoughts. His wife was always a difficult person to read, but now she was more difficult than ever. In fact, Lisanne had always been the sort to act outside the expected range. Instead of running away with the jewelry Akenaus had bribed her with after she had injured his eye under threat, she had gone to the northern mansion where Ezekiel stayed to serve him. And when the net had closed in, she had chosen to swallow poison with her own hand to end her life.

So calm, yet so ready to make terrifying decisions. Ezekiel felt he had to gauge her thoughts first.

Hearing his question, Lisanne lowered her gaze for a moment, then lifted it again.

“In truth… if you said yes, I wouldn’t have much to say. I’d just accept it. Say, ‘So that’s how it is.’ What else can I do, if a person’s heart has changed? There’s nothing that can be done.”

Without pressing further, Lisanne stepped back.

Her detached response sent a chill through his chest.

Was that it?

He had thought that even if his wife cheated, he would pretend not to know, just to hold on to her. But Lisanne was saying she could let go so easily? That she was ready to walk away?

Ezekiel scanned her face for another answer she might be hiding. But she looked completely detached, like someone who could let everything go at any moment.

It was unfair. So unfair it made him ache.

Ezekiel reached out and grabbed Lisanne’s hand.

“That’s not it.”

Startled, Lisanne looked back and forth between him and her hand.

“There’s no way I could look at anyone else when I have you. And even if you ever suspected it, this isn’t how you should react.”

Ezekiel straightened her fingers one by one and placed her hand on his face.

“You should slap me first.”

“…What?”

“Kick me, curse me, hit me, and get angry.”

“Who at who?”

“You at me.”

“……”

“Why did you leave my eyes untouched? Stab them. You gave them to me, so take them back. Or better, should I bring you a gun? You could just shoot me dead. That’s the kind of man who would deserve it.”

At his serious words, Lisanne also grew serious.

“…So you did it?”

“I didn’t. Even if the world fell apart, I could never, Lisanne. Didn’t I tell you? I can’t see anyone but you. My eyes belong entirely to you. Not only my eyes. Every sense I have is broken, fixed on only you. How could I ever look at anyone else?”

“Then why say such terrible things about bringing me a gun to shoot you?”

“Because it’s still my fault for making you doubt, even for a moment.”

Blinded by jealousy, he had made a shameful mistake he hadn’t dared admit aloud until now. But since things had come this far, he had to confess.

Ezekiel swallowed his shame and said, “The truth is, I read one of your letters.”

She had sent him so many. Lisanne blinked, not sure which he meant, so he hurried to explain.

“The love letter you ghostwrote for that student, Rose. The one she sent to her boyfriend.”

“Huh? But how did that get to you?”

“I don’t know either. Maybe the courier recognized your handwriting and assumed it was for me.”

“Oh, I see… That could have happened. Then it never reached the person it was meant for? I didn’t know. I promised her I’d send it properly. What do I do?”

“No, it was delivered. In fact, it got there faster than if the courier had taken it.”

Ezekiel admitted awkwardly, “I delivered it myself.”

“…You went there yourself?”

“The sender’s name was Rose, and it was a love letter in your handwriting. I had to see with my own eyes who it was.”

Still, Ezekiel left out the detail about carrying a firearm, clinging to that last shred of dignity. But since Lisanne knew better than anyone his habit of always keeping a rifle at his side, there was no way she hadn’t guessed. Feeling awkward, Ezekiel’s face stiffened.

“I was so much closer. Why didn’t you ask me directly? Did you think I’d lie? Do I seem that untrustworthy to you?”

“No.”

He denied it at once, then after a pause, added quietly.

“I was afraid.”

For a moment, Lisanne was at a loss for words. She simply looked at Ezekiel in silence.

A man who seemed as unshakable as a mountain, who looked as if nothing in the world could ever frighten him, had just confessed he was terrified because of a single letter.

He hadn’t dared to ask her, and had instead ridden all the way down to a far southern city. What had he felt all the while? Even after facing Heinz directly, confirming there was no connection, and arriving back completely drained, he had still, out of habit, picked out a gift to bring her. What did that heart mean?

Lisanne could no longer even laugh.

All the while, she had been living idly, making earrings and a necklace from the gems he brought, without the faintest idea.

“Lisanne, I’m afraid. I’m someone who could hurt you without even realizing it. You’ve suffered so much pain because of me before. You even left once because enduring me was too hard. I live in constant fear that something like that could happen again because of my mistakes.”

Lisanne had never realized, since he had never shown it, that Ezekiel lived consumed by such fears.

She listened to his confession in stunned silence, then drew a deep breath.

“We have…”

She chose her words slowly.

“When I look back, we really have been through so many disasters.”

If she were to plot her life on a graph, the highest and lowest points would both be in that time. They had lived through days when they couldn’t see even a step ahead. It had always been turbulent, unpredictable. Bitter, sweet, and sour memories had all piled together there.

“Hearing you say this, it all comes back to me. But until now, I had forgotten completely. All the things we went through, all that past.”

Lisanne nodded gently.

“Because now I’m too happy. So happy I could erase it all. I’ve never enjoyed living as much as I do these days. Every day is so good. And the reason I can live so carefree, with no worries or fears, is because I believe you’ll always be living this life with me. Even if hard and frightening things come, as long as the two of us are together, I have absolute confidence that we’ll overcome it.”

He understood what comfort she wanted to give. As always, his tender wife soothed the unease inside him.

“So I want you too… to be completely happy without fear, like me. In the past, I wasn’t hurt because of you. I was hurt because of myself. And now I think even that time was a necessary process for me. Only after paying that price could I finally have the right.”

Lisanne paused, then concluded, “The right to be here. I think I needed time to forgive myself.”

Because both had known deep wounds, they could understand and embrace each other’s pain.

“I’m glad.”

“What is?”

“That my wife is you, Lisanne.”

If Akenaus, who had lived his life consumed by inferiority, tried to kill his only brother, and when that failed, even abandoned his country, had done one good thing in his life, it was sending Lisanne to him.

“You probably know already, but remember again. You are the one and only miracle and blessing in my life.”

That was why she had never once doubted his love.

Lisanne wrapped her arms around Ezekiel’s neck, rose on tiptoe, and embraced him warmly. True to his nature, Ezekiel, who always leapt from one to ten in an instant, lifted Lisanne up in his arms and strode straight toward the bathroom.