Chapter 25 (2/2)

“Have you come to mock me, too.”

He smelled like alcohol. Chloe was surprised this time. Her husband was originally someone who wouldn’t even touch liquor!

How hard it must have been for him that he had to have a drink. Chloe was now completely here for her husband, forgetting that she had been hurt by his words earlier. To the point of foolishness.

“Mock? What do you mean, I’ve never done that.”

“Don’t lie…”

Eric frowned. He swept a hand over his face, his sighs mixed with the scent of alcohol.

“There’s no way you won’t laugh at me. Because I’m a commoner who has detestably dirty blood in the first place.”

“Why are you saying that?”

Chloe was sincerely worried about Eric. She leaned forward.

“Darling.”

Eric’s gaze was gradually raised and headed towards Chloe. As their eyes met, Chloe opened her lips to speak.

“Nobody thinks of you in that way. You’re respected. You’ve constantly brought development through your inventions.”

“……”

Eric opened his mouth as though to say something, but he closed it at once. Damn it. He swore under his breath as he ruffled his fringe. He looked at Chloe, his eyes half-closed.

“You said you don’t believe in me.”

She didn’t know that he would say this here, so Chloe was flustered.

Eric closed his eyes and chose his words.

“You say I did something like that, but you don’t believe in me.”

He leaned over, resting his forehead on Chloe’s shoulder as he muttered.

“I never did anything. I never did anything for you…”

Chloe stopped breathing for a moment due to the scent. Along with the strong scent of alcohol, the pungent cigar smoke clinging to him mixed with the musk cologne he was wearing lingered at the tip of her nose.

One moment felt like eternity. Eric leaned a little more on Chloe.

“But why, why don’t you believe in me?”

“……”

She wanted to say it.

The fact that she heard him call her a terrible woman.

That’s why she didn’t believe anything he said.

But what would be the difference if she did say it?

Chloe smiled helplessly and slowly reached up. She placed a hand over Eric’s hair at the back of his head.

“I’m sorry.”

She stroked Eric’s hair slowly. Eric’s shoulders were tense, but he soon relaxed and closed his eyes. Chloe continued to caress his hair like that.

“…That’s right. I’m sorry.”

This continued until Eric fell asleep. Chloe said sorry to him over and over again. She didn’t know what she was apologizing for, but she was sorry for everything anyway.

The biggest thing she was sorry about was that she married him.

02. Nobile

Dreams are said to be something of a regression. Like going back to the past and living the same life again.

Eric had such a dream.

This was a long time ago. How old was he here? He couldn’t even remember this place.

He was born on the streets and raised on the streets. He didn’t know his parents’ faces, and the people around him were always new and they always died, so he couldn’t remember their faces anyhow.

Bread always came in crumbs, milk was never not spoilt.

It was such a hard life that he had to wonder whether he was living at all. There was no future, there was no present. There was no such thing as everything, only nothing.

All he had was a pathetic life.

It was natural that he would teeter from life and death as he was living in the slums.

It was also cold in the north. And that day, it was especially colder. Later, he heard that it was one of the coldest days that had ever come.

He was huddled under an old blanket that he managed to pick up from somewhere, and he had planks by his sides as his shelter. As long as he wouldn’t fall asleep, he’d be able to withstand the cold.

That’s what he thought.

Until a small girl came to approach him.

The girl without a name was very small. She was so small that it didn’t seem like she’d even reach his waist. The little child crouched down without a plank or a blanket, simply rubbing her hands together to ward off the cold.

He couldn’t turn a blind eye to the girl. He couldn’t pretend not to know that the child would die if he left her alone.

So he gave her his blanket. This sympathy was considered expensive.

He got frostbite and his flesh rotted away. It started with his big toe until it eventually reached his ankle, so he had to amputate his foot in the end.

It was sympathy so expensive that he had to give up his right foot. He regretted it, but it was already in the past. And the girl died. She couldn’t overcome her hunger and eventually died from starvation.

Wretched.

Until when would he have to live this wretched life?

He climbed up to the Pierre Bridge, limping. The river below was high and had a fast current. If he fell from this high, he would die.

He heard from somewhere that before one’s death, their past—their whole life—would flash before their eyes. He asked himself if he had such a life to look back on.

No. He did not. He was always hungry, always in a desperate situation, always just waiting for death.

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