## Chapter 215 – Confession (5)
“Please, come in.”
The chapel occupied an entire floor of the workshop building.
The unique scent of new furniture filled the air, and Anne couldn’t help but let out a small gasp of admiration.
The chapel, adorned with various religious ornaments, felt both splendid and simple, desolate yet cozy.
Although Anne had never seen it in person, she could roughly imagine the atmosphere of the Sistine Chapel.
Yeriell, noticing Anne’s reaction, smiled warmly and spoke to Karla.
“You’re the second nun to visit the academy’s new sanctuary.
It must all be by the grace of God.”
“Nun…? Me…?”
“All who seek a path are merely walking the path of asceticism.
They agonize over truth, wander in search of life, and are moved by their given fate.
Asceticism is just that. It’s nothing grand.”
The ‘religion’ she knew was mostly a ‘cult’ that prioritized blind faith.
“Not everyone needs faith.
Sometimes disbelief and indifference are also ways to live.
In that sense, Miss Anne, you are undeniably a nun practicing asceticism.”
Anne wasn’t sure if a religious person should be saying this, but she nodded anyway.
Of course, a nun from Sistina might have her own doctrines.
“Then, I should inform our sister about some simple precautions before the confession.”
Just as Anne was fidgeting, feeling a bit uncomfortable, Yeriell’s voice rang out clearly in the chapel.
With her voice, her slender, soft fingers pointed to a small booth.
“That is the confessional.
The first rule is that you can say anything you want inside.
You can pour out everything that’s been festering in your heart.
You can rejoice in joyful things, and sometimes resent your sad fate.
From the moment you leave that place, I will forget everything.”
“Secrets…”
“Inside, I will share all of your emotions and pain.
But this is a process of confessing sins to God, so I swear to God that I will not spread the secrets you reveal.”
Yeriell’s voice, seemingly trying to reassure Anne, held a strange warmth, and Anne, who had been wary of Yeriell until just now, felt her heart melting a little.
However, Anne couldn’t hide her embarrassment at Yeriell’s next words, as her expression turned solemn.
“But, before you leave that place after the confession, please empty your heart completely.”
“Empty… my heart…?”
Emptying one’s heart.
Even when Roxanne had told her that, she didn’t know what to do.
Wasn’t that why she had come all the way here?
Still, compared to that vagueness, Yeriell’s answer seemed relatively clear.
“It means leaving all the burdens in your heart here.
That’s what confession is for in the first place.
Leave behind the sins and hardships you confess, and the difficulties.
And leave this place as a new person.”
“A new person…”
“As Anne de Moneghan.
But no longer as a suffering human being.
Think of it as becoming that kind of person.
Hehe… Then, I’ll go in first, so please come in when you’re ready.”
Anne, quietly watching Yeriell’s back as she entered the confessional booth, repeated the words she had just heard in her head.
Honestly, she didn’t quite understand the meaning, but at least she felt like she had heard something like this before.
‘Sharing worries makes them smaller.’
But, if this woman listened to her without any compensation or personal gain…
‘Is it real…?’
Honestly, in a world where information is sometimes comparable to money or life, she couldn’t completely believe Yeriell’s words.
But the truth was, it was too painful to just hold these worries alone.
Honestly, who could she tell about the worries she had now?
She couldn’t tell her family, of course.
She didn’t want to tell them that their only daughter and sister was so mentally weak, envying and jealous of someone.
In the end, Anne swallowed hard, closed her eyes tightly, and followed Yeriell into the confessional.
“It’s not this way, it’s the other way around?”
“Ah… Yes…!!”
That resolve was momentarily replaced by a burst of laughter and a blush.
Following Yeriell’s guidance, Anne finally found her place and hesitated for a moment before deciding to start with a small secret.
“I’m… well… I’m an outcast…
I used to be bullied… and I don’t really have any friends…”
“That must have been very difficult…”
“Not as difficult as you might think…
There was just… something more painful than that…”
“Did something happen to torment you, sister?”
In response to Anne’s confession, revealing what she thought was the smallest thing, a small voice echoed from beyond the partition.
Something that tormented her.
It would have been fine if she had only tormented her.
But Vivian was ruthless and used the family’s power to touch her family.
She moved the bonds of the trading company, where trust was life, causing collection and rapidly worsening the family’s situation.
However, at the same time as Vivian’s disappearance, the threat to touch her precious sister Marie as a result had ‘not yet’ been realized.
But in the end, as the family declined, Marie’s life was already half twisted.
Even so, Marie, walking a difficult path, silently showed only a smiling face for her sake.
“My sister… my mom and dad… are having a hard time because of me…”
“Did you do something wrong to your family?”
“I… didn’t do it directly…
If I had put down my pride…
If I had, nothing would have happened…
If I had listened to Vivian… my sister… my family…”
Anne desperately filtered her emotions, holding them back in her throat, as the words began to pour out from her throat involuntarily.
Was it because once she started talking, it didn’t feel difficult?
Anne’s voice, recounting the stories that were unfair but inevitably had to be accepted as fitting the walls of reality, was gradually becoming more intense, making it difficult to control the suppressed emotions.
“Vivian… Is that the name of the person who tormented you, sister…?
I hope that one day she will also come into this confessional.”
“That woman… can’t come…
She’s gone… from the academy…
But… I feel like she’s watching from somewhere…
Maybe again because of me… this time directly at my family…!!”
“Sister. Shall we think about it together?”
As Anne poured out her difficulties with her family, the returning voice was even more subdued.
As if comforting Anne, who was suffering from the hardship of her loved ones, a small voice was conveyed.
“Your family will surely be fine.
And they won’t blame you either.
They are the family of someone as good as you, right?”
“That can’t be…!!
If they know the truth… they’ll be disappointed… sob…
Because of me… because of me…!!”
“Your family… your sister and parents…
For their own peace, would they have made you bow your head to the enemy?”
“Sniff… Pride is no good…
They’ve said that before…
If I had listened to them… by now… sob…”
To regret one’s actions is, after all, to admit one’s mistakes.
But was there really a right answer in this situation?
“That’s not what I meant.
Stubbornness and obstinacy are different things.
Everyone has something precious to them.
And they want that precious thing to not be broken, to shine forever.”
As if wanting to say those words, Yeriell was whispering softly to Anne, who was struggling not to cry, in a calm voice.
“Your precious thing is your family.
Then, isn’t your family’s precious thing you?
An existence like a jewel that they want to never break and to make shine?”
Her most precious family.
Her sister, who had been with her since childhood and knew each other better than anyone else.
And her parents, who were her only place to rely on in the world.
For them, she too would be their most precious existence.
“If that jewel is tarnished and wounded by someone’s malice…
Would your family have just stood by and watched?
Would they have covered you in filth in order to be at peace?”
“No… my family…
My parents… my sister… they wouldn’t do that…”
They too would do as she had done.
Yeriell’s words, encouraging her to stand against the malice and to carry the burden together, were the words that Anne wanted to hear so much, and they resonated with her heart.
“That’s right. It’s not your fault, sister.
I don’t want to argue about right and wrong, but at least that’s what family is.
No precious thing in the world can be compared to family.
Your family is just willing to share your hardship.
So, sister, you just need to do what you can for your family, who are carrying the burden together.”
She wanted to lighten her heart, but she couldn’t.
She was even afraid to ask herself that.
She had come here because she couldn’t tell her family, but was this what it felt like to hear someone affirm her?
Perhaps her understanding of religion had increased a little as a bonus.
Maybe this is why people pray or visit a chapel when they want to rely on someone for various reasons, and when they want to lean on their anxious and painful hearts.
Now, according to Yeriell’s explanation, she could leave this feeling for her family in this confessional and leave.
Now, instead of feeling sorry and tormented for her family, she would just do her best for her family as they had done for her.
At the end of that, her family would surely look back on the past and be able to reveal their honest feelings and the strength they relied on each other.
A smile distorted by tears was forming on Anne’s lips.
How many times in her life had she been able to feel this kind of refreshing feeling, which was more than she had expected?
She had sorted out her feelings for her family in this way, but there was still a very important problem left.
The problem that had been tormenting her for over a week.
It was about the scene she had witnessed in the women’s restroom.
But just as Anne was about to put this into words.
“You don’t have to talk about too many things from the beginning, sister.
You are still carrying a lot on your shoulders.
I think it would be better to stop here today.”
Anne felt her mind sharpen as soon as she heard those words.
What she was about to say now was a secret that she had to hide from others.
Whether or not they would believe her was only a secondary concern.
It was a matter of a woman’s dignity as a human being and her remaining life.
Leaving aside whether or not she could completely trust Yeriell, she herself had to approach this issue carefully.
Fortunately, as she sorted out her other burdensome feelings, she had a little more time to think deeply about this.
The one word that came out of her mouth was this.
“Besides my family… there’s someone precious…”
“Someone precious?”
As she suddenly thought of Edward, her heart felt heavy.
One-sided unrequited love.
But all the more so, she didn’t want him to suffer because of her choice.
“Yes… someone as precious as my family…
I want to protect that person from getting hurt…
My greed might hurt that person…”
“Would you regret it?”
“Regret… I think I would…”
Yeriell, who had listened to Anne’s hesitant and grudging words to the end, showed a sad smile and slowly brought her hands together in front of her, as if in prayer.
Was it inevitable for Anne to expect what words would come out of the praying girl’s mouth?
“『Torso, thorny flowers are sprouting on your path.
If the thorns of regret prick you, you will not be able to return.』
That is a passage from the scripture that refers to regret.
Everyone walks a path, and in the process, they are bound to be pricked by the thorns of regret.
But if you are pricked by the thorns of regret, you will lose your way back because of the pain and fear.
Regret prevents people from truly looking back at themselves.
It always makes their eyes look back only at the mistakes of the past.”
Was it the content of a scripture similar to the Bible?
Metaphorical, but all the more fundamental.
Yeriell was explaining it to Anne in a gentle voice, and Anne, who was listening intently so as not to miss a single word, nodded slightly.
“If you think you will regret it, sister, why don’t you try to find a way to not regret it?
Now that you have laid down the mistakes of the past that you have looked back on while confessing.
Now you can truly look back at yourself.
Then… maybe you will be able to find that way too?
I believe that you will be able to find that way entirely on your own, without giving up.”
“I guess…”
“You have to.
That’s the common point of enlightenment and choice.
In order to grasp it, you have to walk forward entirely on your own.
So, it’s time for you to walk out of this place now.”
“Ah…”
“If you need confession again, you can visit me anytime while I’m here?
There will be a separate service on the weekends, so if you’re interested, you can visit from the morning on the weekends.
Actually, I’m saying this because I think I’m going to be late for my first class.”
“Ah…!! What time is it now…?”
“Probably… 5 minutes before the start of the first class…”
Anne, who immediately jumped out of the confessional, ran to the opposite entrance of the confessional and pulled away the blackout curtain.
Then, Yeriell’s surprised expression was revealed.
“We have to run!! The Holy Arts Department is a 5-minute run from here…!!
And even more if you walk down the hallway to find the classroom…!!”
Anne grabbed her wrist, pulled her out of the confessional, and hurriedly started running with her.
While running down the hallway of the chapel, down the stairs on the first floor, and out of the workshop building.
Anne, looking at Yeriell’s face, smiled and conveyed her gratitude.
“Yeriell…!! Thank you…!!”
If it hadn’t been for her, she would have been swayed by helpless emotions until now.
But Yeriell’s expression, shaking her head with a very bad expression, was filled with a shadow like a dark cloud.
“Haa… haa… It’s nothing…
More than that… haak… hak…”
“Yes…?”
“I… actually… my stamina… sniff…
Haat… is so… hot… bad… haat…!!
If it’s not… heut… rude…”
Yeriell, who suddenly sat down after running for a while and smiled awkwardly.
“Haat… haaat…
Could you… possibly… carry me on your back…?
AHAHA… haha…!!”
Anne’s eyes, looking at her with a dumbfounded expression, were shaking.
“Sniff… my heart… is pounding…
Ah… it hurts… aheueu…”
‘Her stamina is so weak…!!’
In the end, Anne carried Yeriell on her back and took her to the Holy Arts Department, and she had no choice but to be late for the first class of the first period.
But what she had gained was so important that even while being punished, a bright smile was hanging on Anne’s eyes as she was deeply thinking about it.
