Chapter 125 – Rainy Season (8)
A cold glass that you can feel at your fingertips. Isabella set the glass and bottle down on the table and inserted the opener into the mouth of her bottle. Soon, a popping sound was heard, and a nice scent filled the room.
“I didn’t know what kind of drink you would like, so I brought it according to my taste.”
Isabella, holding her bottle, soon sat down at Mason’s feet and held out her bottle. Having filled her Mason’s cup with her drink, she soon poured her own.
“Now then, for your sister.”
Isabella raised her glass for a moment, then she took a few sips. Mason stared blankly at Isabella drinking her drink. She looked unfamiliar. I think this was the first time she knew that Isabella was her drinker.
“This is my first time seeing you drinking.”
When Mason brought up her topic, Isabella smiled and said.
“That’s right. It doesn’t seem like I’m getting drunk very well in the first place, I’m just full. Still, I drink it once in a while. “Because wine has a good aroma and taste.”
Mason silently studied Isabella’s answer, but she did not easily bring her drink to her lips.
“Fuha, why? “Do you think I might have taken drugs?”
It was a straight-forward question, but she didn’t answer. Finally, Mason placed the tip of his tongue on her glass and tasted her.
The taste of ordinary wine. Other than the alcohol content feeling a little high, it didn’t seem like I was taking drugs.
Isabella burst into laughter as she looked at Mason, who was staring at her glass with disgust. She then emptied the rest of her drink into her own glass and smiled softly.
“Did you see it? “I didn’t do any pranks, so you can drink freely.”
Isabella’s actions did not completely dispel Mason’s suspicions, but he did raise her drink to his lips. Her throat was burning, and she thought it would be better to get through the nightmare and fall asleep quickly.
After watching with satisfaction as Mason drank her drink, Isabella filled her empty glass again. Isabella emptied her glass in one go, letting the red liquid flow gently.
Isabella let out a deep sigh and tilted her head to one side, making eye contact with Mason.
“Sister.”
Normally she would have been furious at Mason not to call her sister, but for some reason she didn’t feel that way right now.
Maybe it was because it was her dream, or maybe it was because her voice seemed to contain emotions she had never felt before. When Mason responded with her silence, Isabella was the first to break the silence.
“… Where did it go wrong?”
Isabella’s smile was crooked as she came into Mason’s field of vision as he turned around to hear her unexpected question. The redness that colored the cheeks on both sides of her face gave her human beauty.
She was the most inhuman monster in the world, and she continued to look the most human she had ever seen.
“Once upon a time, when her older sister lost her parents and left the village to become her knight. “Everyone was sad, but little by little they returned to their daily lives.”
After tidying up her temporarily disheveled hair, Isabella stood up and came over to sit next to Mason.
“Lucia, who never seemed to come out of her room or listen to anything she said, began eating little by little, smiling little by little while waiting for her sister’s letter, and hanging out with the kids in her neighborhood.”
She sat down on the bed with her back to her and remained silent for a moment after Mason briefly set her glass down on the bedside table where she was sitting. It was as if she had returned to being a child. She was moving her legs, and I could feel the vibration coming from the edge of her bed.
“But it wasn’t me?”
After a long period of silence, Isabella’s voice echoed through the room again.
“After she left, I felt something I had never felt before.”
Her voice was still calm, but Mason could read the emotion beneath it. Something that an ordinary person would have felt blessed.
However, Mason knew very well that Isabella was an impossible person.
“I didn’t realize what it was until I got a little older. “The moment I realized that I was not having as much fun as before, even though I was just playing family games with Lucia and Becky as usual, going to the forest to play, and occasionally trying to stop them from bickering.”
She reached out her hand and took her glass.
“It was only then that I realized what the emotions I was feeling were.”
Mason looked at Isabella, who still had her back to him. It was unusual for her to show herself like this, as normally she would have tried to keep herself in her sights.
“Sense of loss. The fear of losing her sister to her world.”
Isabella spoke calmly and then brought her cup to her mouth.
The words Isabella spoke stayed in the air for a long time. It felt strange to reveal the truth that she had kept locked away in her own head, something she had never revealed to anyone.
“… That was the first time I felt a sense of loss towards someone or anything.”
For the first time she was realizing how difficult it was to get the words out of her mouth. She had been deceiving and destroying her opponents with her words, but this was a moment that made her realize a side of herself that she didn’t even know she had.
“Her sister will never know what her absence meant to me.”
Isabella let out a low laugh and muttered self-deprecatingly. Is Mason sitting behind her looking at her?
Are you listening to the words that are coming out of your mouth now, or are you ignoring them because of the madness of a monster?
Now she would never know.
“When my sister left, she made me a promise. She will definitely come back, and she will take good care of Lucia until then.”
Isabella remembered that day clearly. When her winter was over and her new spring came, she gave her greetings, saying she was sorry for coming out on behalf of Lucia, who had not seen her off until the end.
Even though she was young, Mason tried to stay strong, and even as she held back her tears that were on the verge of overflowing, she spoke to herself in a voice that did not tremble.
Mason’s promise to her became an obsession for Isabella, who had come to a separation so quickly that she could not handle it.
Her ability was outstanding, but she had no will, and although she was extremely intelligent, she had no ego to center herself.
Her promise to Mason was her only anchor.
Her weight, the one thing that bound her and held her steady in the meaningless world of her world.
So Isabella began to envision her future little by little.
The future where Mason returns. And from then on, those who stay in her own world also have a future together.
Build a solid wall so that no one can get away from you, and cut down all the vines on the wall that might try to climb up.
A world where you can be happy for a long time with yourself.
Paradise.
Isabella did her best to achieve her goal. She bewitched Lucia and made her hers, and also prevented Becky from leaving her. Although she created a good image among the villagers, she did not close the distance with them any longer than necessary.
They like her, but they don’t care about her or make her behave beyond her control.
By assisting her father in his work, she proved her abilities and gained his full confidence in her work. He left the management of her farm to her and went to another country to expand her business.
When the work she had done was on track, and she waited day after day for Mason to return.
“And her sister kept her promise.”
The bird that left her embrace returned to its cage.
And that too with a very small, fragile, pretty colored baby bird.
“Bringing Sianna to our village was unexpected.”
It was a little envious of Mason to worry about Siana, but Isabella wasn’t stupid enough to mess things up like that.
From the beginning, Sianna’s presence was manageable given the abilities she had built up, but more importantly, she hoped that Sianna would become Mason’s shackles.
Just as Mason became his anchor, now he will become the reason he will never leave this place.
So Isabella did her best to change Sianna.
Relenting her claws that stand on her day.
Just by touching her, her body, which he thought was her source, was leaning against him.
When they see you, fly over and chirp excitedly.
When she finally had it all in her hands, Isabella broke the delicate, beautiful wings of her bird.
So that she will never be able to fly again, and that she will never be able to live without her help.
“Everything was perfect.”
As Isabella recalled the time when she used Lucia to completely break Sianna’s spirit, a smile appeared on her lips and her voice softened. Maybe it’s because she’s become a little more devastated these days, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide her emotions like before.
“It was only for a moment.”
After taking down Sianna, Mason seemed to be well under her control. With the help of her Lucia, she lost herself little by little. She crosses lines that she shouldn’t cross and becomes dependent on Lucia.
But for what reason?
Perhaps it was because one day she was just a crow flying freely, avoiding her eyes and hands.
Or maybe it was because it was a bird she was determined to get in her hands, and she could not easily break her will.
Little by little, Mason began to resist her methods.
Soon, one by one, they began to stop following him, as if he was having a negative impact on the birds that had quietly followed him until now.
It was the moment when all the time and effort she had put in so far began to falter.
“You know what?”
Isabella reached out her hand and picked up the wine bottle. Even though she didn’t seem to have drank much, the inside of the bottle in her hand was lightly slurping.
“Up until now, I thought I was a person who could control my emotions well to achieve my goals.”
She poured the entire contents of her bottle into her glass. The stream of wine that was pouring became narrower as the bottle was tilted. Until only a few drops hit the surface with a crackling sound.
“But that didn’t seem to be the case either.”
After finishing her words, Isabella brought her glass to her mouth. The bitter yet cool taste of alcohol along with her soft fruity scent slid gently down her tongue and down the back of her throat.
Isabella tilted her glass until it showed the bottom. She lightly wiped the alcohol dripping down her mouth with her hand. She giggled as she saw wine stains on her hands. It probably left that mark on my lips too.
“I think I understand now.”
She stood in the middle of the cage and stared blankly at the sky.
When we come into the cage, the birds that used to fly around and chirp happily no longer come out of the nest.
No matter how high and wide the cages were stacked, was the space too narrow to contain them?
But now it feels good.
“I failed.”
She sat in the cage and quietly stretched out her hand to pet the only bird left next to her.
It’s safe to say that it’s barely breathing anymore, a slender and beautiful bird.
“But just because you failed, don’t think I’ll just accept it.”
She looked up at the sky and petted the bird, and was soon able to find the part she wanted.
A very thin neck that connects the bird’s thin body to its head, which struggles to keep its eyes open.
She started pressing it gently.
Isabella grabbed the lamp next to her bookshelf where she had placed her bottle, brought it to the window, and opened the window. Feeling the slightly cool night air, she lifted the candle above the lamp to her mouth.
“Huh.”
All too easily, the flame died down before the wind. Leaving behind a faint smoke.
After Isabella closed the window again, she turned to face Mason.
Her brown eyes were hard to see in the dark, but I felt they were aimed at her.
“Sister.”
Isabella spread her arms and leaned in. In her dark bed, she felt Mason’s body in her arms, leaning against her head.
Warm, soft.
It was the embrace of her older sister, whom she always missed.
“Let’s stay like this for a moment.”
Isabella whispered with sincerity. She thought that perhaps she was the most honest version of herself she had ever seen.
Now that the play, which may be her last work, is coming to an end.
Before she put a period to the last paragraph, she wanted to allow herself to enjoy the moment.
Mason was still sitting on the bed, drunk from her fatigue.
Isabella’s embrace was less terrible than she remembered, and somehow evoked a sense of nostalgia in her.
It must have been a strange dream. If she were awake, there is no way she would have felt this way toward Isabella.
But I couldn’t deny that it was a better dream than the bizarre nightmares I always experienced.
So she let Isabella hug her, closing her eyes as her arms slowly approached her. Little did I know that the next morning, the wine bottle and glass would still be on the bedside table.
The next morning, the rainy season began pouring down from the sky in earnest.
Many servants wandered around her mansion looking for Isabella, but no one could find her.
