Heat Rash (5)

Clear sunlight seeped in little by little through the window.

The night sky gave way to a brilliant dawn.

Following the dazzling shards of platinum light, the darkness that had filled the study was gradually torn apart.

Quiet, and peaceful.

Rachel, who had been blankly staring at that tranquil scene, soon snapped back to her senses and groaned.

“Ugh…”

Perhaps it was because she had been running frantically around the mansion since dawn.

A heavy weariness was weighing down on the girl.

As she rubbed her face roughly to shake off the drowsiness, faint breaths could be heard from below.

-Whiff… Whiff…

The black hair, deeply asleep with his head resting on her lap.

After hesitating for a moment, Rachel soon reached out her hand towards the boy.

The warmth of his skin touched her slender fingertips.

The girl lingered for a moment, savoring the comfort that warmth gave her.

“… I was worried, you suddenly disappeared.”

A relieved murmur escaped her crimson lips.

Slowly tracing the tear stains on the boy’s cheek, Rachel’s expression darkened.

“I passed by near your room early this morning. But the door was open, and the room was empty. So…”

A voice, gradually damp with trembling.

Melting into her shaking joints were emotions named worry, and fear.

“……In that moment, because I remembered the words you spoke about leaving, young master.”

Rachel was terrified.

She didn’t want to see the boy who’d brought light into her world of pure black sink into unhappiness and disappear.

She didn’t want the dew that had protected her dawn to fall as cold tears.

And so, the girl ran.

As soon as she discovered the nightmare-like emptiness of the bedroom, she frantically swept through the mansion.

Unable to hold back the surging sobs, she desperately called out the boy’s name.

For hours.

“I didn’t even realize you were here in this study, young master… I just kept running around.”

Rachel offered a bitter smile.

The touch of her hand on the boy’s face expressed various emotions like affection, sorrow, and pity.

A small ripple spread through her inner self.

The boy quietly grasped the girl’s hand.

“……Young master.”

She uttered the call, but there was no reply.

A pointless emptiness made the girl’s shoulders slump weakly.

Rachel wiped at the edges of her eyes, now blurring with tears, and brought the boy’s warmth to her cheek.

A single drop of dew fell.

“Staying here, it’s still no good, right? You’ve already made up your mind to leave, so…”

The boy’s hand was truly warm.

Warm enough to erase all the winter’s cold that had swallowed the study.

The girl bit her lip.

And then, with a voice that sounded like it would crumble at any moment, she muttered haltingly.

“Wh-what, do I do… I don’t, know, how to live, with, out, you, young, master…”

Now, what am I supposed to live for?

Unraveling the emotions tangled with worry and despair, the girl threw out a small question into the air.

A heart dyeing itself a clear blue.

Made the girl remember a scene from a past day.

– “You look like you’ve got nowhere to go… come with me, I’ll warm you up.”

– “My name is Raiden. What’s your name?”

– “Rachel… How’s that?”

– “Let’s go, Rachel. You’re family now, as of today.”

A voice, brushing past my ear.

Yesterday, severed, became a terrible phantom pain, piercing deep into the girl’s heart.

The thicker the concentration of memories steeped in tears, the larger the questions grew.

“Young Master.”

To serve for a lifetime.

To respect for a lifetime.

To love for a lifetime, was her resolve, and yet, if that god suddenly vanished.

Could the girl, left alone in an empty world, continue to live?

“Young Master.”

Rachel quietly clasped her hands, her eyelids falling.

And then she prayed.

“Please… wherever you are, may you be happy…”

Please, be happy wherever you go.

If leaving the world where she exists could grant you happiness, please let it be so.

“May you leave this place without a shred of regret…”

Her own happiness was of no consequence.

Her miserable breath would have already ceased to exist if not for you.

But…

She wanted you, at least, to shine with a dazzling smile.

“Please…be happy, Young Master…”

The girl prayed.

It was a love that professed devotion.

*

“Ugh, uhh……”

With a pathetic groan, she opened her eyes.

She was in a bedroom.

A throbbing headache gripped my brow, and I pushed myself up, the room swaying around me.

“Why… am I here…”

My last memory was of the study, for sure.

As a swirling question made me look around, a figure came into view in my blurry vision.

A girl, asleep with her head resting on the edge of the bed.

Staring at her disheveled brown hair, I quietly murmured her name.

“…Rachel.”

Looks like I fell asleep in the study, and Rachel must have brought me to the room.

She was holding my hand tightly, eyes closed.

A complex jumble of feelings churned within me.

I pulled my gaze away and let out a deep sigh.

“Haa… she must’ve worried again…”

The empty bedroom, the image of Rachel’s face pale with worry as she saw it.

My heart ached.

I bit my lip hard.

My troubled gaze swept over the girl, slumped against the bed.

“…She’ll hurt her back sleeping like that.”

Careful not to wake Rachel, I got out of the bed.

Then, I scooped her up from the floor, and laid her down on the blankets where I had been.

I mumbled to the girl as she stirred.

“Sorry…”

The words I’d uttered unconsciously broke into the silence and scattered.

I stood there, engraving the tear streaks on her pale cheeks into my mind.

Complex feelings rose and fell in a constant tide.

I reflected on the fleeting chaos, then silently turned away.

“Rest, Rachel… I’m going to get some air…”

-Click, creak…

I left the room with the light click of the hinges.

My steps in the hallway were weighed down by the heavy weights of my emotions.

I walked, feeling the slow crush of my senses.

Thud… thud…

My listless footsteps echoed hollowly in the dark corridor.

I moved quietly, my eyes vacant as they scanned the mansion draped in the night’s curtain.

It was night again.

It must have been quite some time since I collapsed in the study.

The grandfather clock in the center of the hall read 1 AM.

A groan escaped me as I rubbed my forehead, realizing I’d spent almost a whole day sleeping.

“What is this… I’m just alive, practically a corpse.”

A self-deprecating smile released a sigh.

My hand moved on instinct to feel for my pockets, but unsurprisingly, there was nothing.

“……Come to think of it, I ran out of ‘death bloom’.”

The realization of yesterday’s events hit me.

A void, unerasable, lingered at my fingertips.

Should I go get more now? The thought flickered through my mind, but

the idea of venturing that way, of being pulled back to mother’s study, made me shake my head.

Out of regret, I pointlessly brushed my hands off.

I slowly crossed the hallway, chewing over various thoughts.

“……”

Thud… thud…

The night’s mansion was a space where a tranquil air melted into the silence.

The quiet that slid along my ears had the power to steep you in reverie.

Among the thoughts that surfaced, the most prominent were memories of the past.

-Get lost, Ariel. Don’t call me ‘brother’.

-You b*tch… you’re just a maid, yet you’re so arrogant, Rachel. Stay out of my business, or I’ll cut your throat next time.

-Princess? A promise? Oh, you mean that childish game? I already forgot about it a long time ago. How foolish.

-Maharet… Ha, what an ugly face. Does it matter to you which woman I play with?

Hateful echoes that scraped against my nerves.

These were the blunders of my foolish youth, scars I could not erase.

Every time I spewed harsh words to precious people.

The expressions they wore, I couldn’t forget them no matter what.

“…fuck.”

Guilt, lethargy, a sense of futility, all mixed together creating a chaotic mess.

The erupting emotions burned me from the inside out.

I traced the scars left on the film, so vivid, and bit down hard on my lip.

‘I… now…’

What am I supposed to do now?

In this place only despair, regret, and hatred remain.

Should I continue to live, or should I run?

Choosing the former means a life of suffering will continue.

Choosing the latter means those left behind will be hurt.

Choices, as always, could only be made by causing someone pain.

“What am I supposed to do… if it was going to be like this, then maybe…”

…maybe, you should have just left me knowing nothing.

I chewed on the painful murmur.

I realized I was tearing at my hair.

While repeating the agony of these thoughts.

Beyond my unfocused vision, a faint, soft light began to seep in little by little.

‘…light? At this hour?’

I furrowed my brow, but unconsciously followed the flickering light, taking steps.

Across the hallway, down the stairs, one by one.

Reaching the first floor of the mansion, a secluded room, seemingly the source of the light, came into view.

A door, half open.

With a hesitant hand, I carefully pushed it open the rest of the way.

– *creak*…

“…what is this place?”

A soft, vermilion light illuminated the interior.

A long, rectangular table, chairs placed neatly around it.

Various kinds of liquor bottles lined the shelves in order.

The scene was like…

“…A bar?”

It looked like a luxurious tavern had been transplanted here whole.

A space I’d never seen before.

I chewed on a little bewilderment, my gaze wandering this way and that.

“Surely, up until the year before last, there wasn’t anything like this…”

“…Young Master?”

A deep, sonorous voice suddenly came from behind me.

Reacting to it, I turned my head to find an old gentleman standing across the table.

I blinked blankly.

“Gilbert… old man?”

“What brings the Young Master here?”

Gilbert held a bottle and a glass in each of his hands.

He filled the glass with liquid and slid it towards the edge of the table, as if offering it to someone.

“Thanks.”

The one who received the drink was a black-haired man with a sturdy build.

A man who gave off the air of a customer visiting the tavern.

He downed the glass in one go, then, following Gilbert’s gaze, turned his head towards me.

“Ah…”

Dark eyes met mine.

A middle-aged man with the blackest eyes, the rarest color in this world.

He offered a nonchalant greeting towards me.

“It’s been a while, Raiden.”

“…Father?”

I muttered, taking in the sight of Gilbert and my father.