Winter Bud - Chapter 94

He thought of Jerix Rotusi. Turned into a beast by the alchemist’s hypnosis and having sex with the woman, when morning came, he turned pale like someone who was drunk and forgot everything.

When his eyes met the naked woman lying beside him, he twisted like a man who’d been raped. The alchemist who left his bedroom, Roana, explained the situation at the time in quite a lot of detail.

“He looked frightened. By the nature of hypnosis, the memory of the time he was hypnotized can’t help but be blurry, so it’ll take a long time for him to grasp what happened to him.”

Roana explained calmly. She’d gone to the bedroom wearing a dress similar to Nanna’s so Jerix wouldn’t react with rejection, and he’d been hypnotized so he would see her as Nanna. Orestes stared at the woman for a long time.

The alchemist had nothing about her that resembled Nanna except her build, but even so, she looked like she had a knack for it. He told the woman to try to get pregnant with Jerix Rotusi’s child. If she couldn’t from that one time, then by any means, she had to approach him again and conceive.

In truth, he didn’t care whether Jerix started a family, met a woman, and had children. If only he hadn’t wanted Nanna. If only Nanna hadn’t loved him…. So there had to be something irreversible between them.

Nanna was carrying his child, yet she was acting like a woman with nothing to lose, as though nothing mattered to her, so the only thing left was Jerix Rotusi. At the very least, having grown up as an illegitimate child on the fringes of his family, he believed that he wouldn’t abandon his own child, even without any feelings for the woman.

So, even if it was cruel to Nanna, he had to force it. Because he could never let Nanna go. If it had been possible, he wouldn’t have come this far.

“…It’ll be hard to get up, but today we have to leave here.”

He opened his lips as he looked at her with dark eyes. Nanna didn’t move. She was unresponsive, like someone who couldn’t speak. Even with that consistent indifference, he didn’t get irritated and lightly picked Nanna up. Nanna hung in his arms like a marionette doll with its strings cut. After ordering a maid to bring a shawl to cover Nanna, he took her and left the quarters.

Nanna didn’t look at him the entire time they traveled by carriage. She looked out the window where the greenery flowed by, or stared at the floor to avoid Orestes’s gaze. Orestes parted his lips toward the woman like that.

“Aren’t you curious where we’re going?”

“….”

“Nanna.”

“….”

“What are you thinking about?”

He was asking as if it were nothing, but it was hard to endure the silence. So Nanna, who consistently ignored him and treated him like he wasn’t there, didn’t seem to think of him as a person at all. She was a perfect still life. If she couldn’t escape him by dying, it seemed like she was trying to escape him even in this way.

He turned his gaze, feeling like he was sinking deep into the sea. Even though he knew he wasn’t in a position to demand anything. Even though he repeated it to himself over and over… Nanna’s indifference wasn’t something he was used to. The face of a woman who didn’t react to him was unfamiliar too. So would it be okay once time passed?

He had no intention of letting Nanna go. He had to keep her by his side and watch her. Even if she was a woman like an empty shell, he had to hold on to her. That was what he decided. In truth, maybe… he thought that if he took her somewhere a little more pastoral, outside the imperial palace, and made her live there, she might get better.

Nanna was originally a girl from a farming household. They said her parents were all farmers too. When he checked on whether they were alive or dead to look after her family, he found out her father died long ago and her mother also remarried long ago. Her younger siblings were the same.

Nanna’s younger sisters either married off early, or were sold as wet nurses to landowners who lived far away. Her younger brothers were in similar situations. They said the small farm where she lived was empty, but since no one lived there, it remained like a ruined house. They also said there were not a few residents who had long since left because there was nothing to eat and live on in their hometown.

As he listened to stories about Nanna’s family and hometown, he wanted to gift her a pastoral house similar to the farm where she spent her very early childhood. He heard she wanted to tend a vegetable garden and harvest small crops with Jerix Rotusi…. He wasn’t interested in farming, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t match her pace.

So he believed it would be fine. Everything…. As much as he put his heart into it. Because Nanna loved him. Especially since the Rotemore in the south, where the carriage was headed, was a place of spectacular scenery, to the point that nobles and the imperial family had summer villas there.

But did Nanna really not have even the slightest will to live? Was her choice then not a simple impulse? When evening came, he went to a nearby lord’s estate. Since he couldn’t camp while bringing Nanna along, he had to find proper sleeping quarters.

By deep evening, Nanna sank even further. What she was thinking, what she was feeling. A face that looked like it had scrubbed off every expression was very pale and small. After word of his arrival spread, Orestes declined his seat at the banquet with a regretful expression toward the lord who had prepared the dinner and stayed by Nanna’s side.

He felt like he should. He got her promise that she wouldn’t do that again, but he knew better than anyone that it was meaningless. Nanna had nothing left to fear. To her, even her child was no longer something to fear. She didn’t fear becoming a heartless mother, and she didn’t feel guilty.

He never once thought it would become like this. Even in the moment she gave birth to an unwanted child, Nanna loved that child with her whole heart. But for there to be nothing left like this. Orestes reached his hand toward Nanna as she blinked with dry eyes. His wandering gaze tangled in the air.

He often thought of the woman who hanged herself. Tearing down the curtain with difficulty and wrapping it tightly around her neck…. For the first time in his life, he was terrified, and in that unforgettable sensation, he felt like the ground was collapsing beneath his feet. Even after quite some time passed, it was hard to shake off that dizzying fear.

“You’ll want to sleep in separate rooms. But that can’t happen. As you know, you….”

Orestes, who chose to stay only by Nanna’s side and even refused the banquet, calmly parted his lips in front of Nanna. Nanna sat at the edge of the bed like a doll and quietly looked at him. Orestes stared at her in silence.

A suffocating silence flowed. At the end of that silence, he slowly knelt down. The woman’s slender eyes carved a bruise into his heart. He drew in a deep breath and trembled slightly.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”

“….”

“Because I ruined you too cruelly. I took everything from you. I know.”

Orestes chose his words, steadying his breath. He wanted to say it. That she didn’t have to forgive him. That he still wanted even a chance to look after her. But the gaze that met him straight on.

Harmless to a chilling degree…. No, empty eyes. The watery eyes that stole his heart indifferently dug into him. He bit his lip tight, feeling as if his flesh was being carved.

Nanna looked at the man who seemed to have turned rigid like a rock. Now she wasn’t afraid of him. Even if he grabbed her hair or slapped her here, she wouldn’t be afraid. Because she had already tried, once, to kill herself.

Nanna slowly pronounced what he had put in his mouth, shaping it with the tip of her tongue.

“Forgiveness….”

“Nanna.”

Now she couldn’t know what it was. Because nothing would change even if she did it. She lowered her gaze, staring at him as if he wanted nothing. Nanna couldn’t know whether he was speaking sincerely. But even so, it wasn’t something important to her.

Because Orestes was nothing. Yes. Nothing.

***

Orestes couldn’t sleep for long. They lay side by side on a lavish four-poster bed. Nanna looked at the high ceiling and closed her eyes. Orestes stared at Nanna in silence. It seemed like he was worried her breathing might stop, the woman who didn’t move like a still life.

Nanna didn’t notice his gaze. In this moment, even if he climbed on her again and forced his way in as he pleased, it felt like she wouldn’t be hurt at all. Because Nanna’s body was now an empty shell. As if all its substance rotted away until only dry husk remained.