episode_0080

[Episode 80] – A sense of discomfort

“How did you do the ‘magic’ I told you about before?”

At first, it was a very small sense of discomfort. A very small and trivial sense of discomfort that I thought was just an illusion from seeing each other after a long time. That was what Catherine felt when she saw Trisha at the ‘tea party’.

I thought that Trisha’s small ‘mistake’ of visiting the tea party after a long time and standing awkwardly, calling me ‘Countess’ as if it was the first time she had seen me, was just an awkwardness after the fight.

But the feeling of discomfort, like ink spreading quickly through water, became more and more vivid the longer I spent with Trisha.

The illusion that people have changed.

Catherine herself couldn’t figure out why she felt this sense of discomfort whenever she looked at Trisha. It’s just that she didn’t know everything about Trisha.

I just thought that maybe I was discovering a side of him that I didn’t know about while living together. Because no one doesn’t change as time passes. People always change more and more.

Catherine thought so.

Until I found Trisha’s letter.

When the Count’s maid, Vivi, was cleaning Trisha’s room, she handed Catherine a letter, saying she had found it lying under the desk.

The letter, filled with sorrowful content about wanting to meet and see each other’s faces, seemed to have been written with tears streaming down its face, as tear stains were spread all over the letter paper.

“My earnest wish is”

Since receiving the letter, Catherine has been staring at the last words written in vain. Judging from the contents of the letter, Trisha must have definitely used the magic she had given her.

‘But why? Trisha doesn’t tell me anything about magic? Why doesn’t she say anything about the note I gave her?’

As if he didn’t remember anything about magic.

As if only the content about ‘magic’ had disappeared from my memory.

Catherine was convinced that this was the cause of the discomfort Trisha felt.

So I wanted to ask Trisha.

What wish did you make?

What was your earnest wish?

but.

“….Huh?”

What came back from the question was a look of complete ignorance, as if to ask if she had misheard. Trisha forced a smile and asked back, convinced that this was a joke.

“Magic, huh?”

The moment she looked at that expression, Catherine felt a sense of discomfort that made the hairs on her body stand on end. It was as if the nausea surged up at the thought that the discomfort she had felt up until now was not a lie.

Her heart was pounding like crazy with anxiety. Countless worst-case scenarios were going through her head. At the moment when her anxiety became certain, Catherine remembered the contents of her mother’s letter, which she had ignored until now.

‘Please don’t forget who the items in that box were made for, and use them well.’

Magic for fairies.

Fairy magic.

A magic spell that grants a fairy’s fervent wish.

Catherine believed in the existence of magic, but did not believe in the existence of fairies. She denied their existence, saying that the term fairy was simply a term for wizards.

However, Trisha, who was covered in a sense of discomfort, used magic and even forgot about the existence of magic. The fairy magic book her mother gave her did not say anything about losing memories when using magic.

‘Please don’t forget who it was made for, and use it well.’

What if Trisha was wrong with the magic he taught her?

What if it’s a side effect of someone else using magic, not someone of fairy blood?

This sense of discomfort when he looks at Trisha and feels like she’s ‘someone else’.

What if it’s not a feeling of discomfort but fact?

“Catherine..?”

Thump, thump, thump. The sound of my heart beating so fast with anxiety was loud. Trisha’s voice couldn’t be heard properly because of the sound of my heart beating so fast that it seemed as if it had moved to my ear.

Catherine looked up at Trisha, her shoulders shaking with anxiety, perhaps from the tears or the headache that threatened to split her head.

Trisha’s face in front of me was blurry and I couldn’t see it clearly.

*

After sending Trisha out, Catherine began drinking alone in the dark room.

On the floor, bottles of alcohol that had been drank to drown out the anxiety were scattered, and the cheese that had been brought as a side dish had dried out and become mushy from not being touched for a long time.

Trisha.

Catherine repeated the name silently, her lips moving slightly. For some reason, it seemed like she couldn’t say the name of her lover out loud right now.

Catherine took out the letter Trisha had never sent and began to read it slowly, as if she was memorizing it. The letter was filled with her longing for herself and the pain she had suffered.

It’s not clear exactly what happened to Trisha.

Just one.

This much was certain.

“…It’s my fault.”

The problem Trisha has is that it’s her own fault.

Catherine roughly wiped her dry face with guilt. Blood flowed from her cracked lips, and a bitter taste appeared in her mouth.

If you hadn’t taught me magic, if you hadn’t insisted on waiting for Trisha and had just sent her a letter, Trisha wouldn’t have been in trouble.

If only I could have known what Trisha had wished for, I would have known what the problem was, but Trisha had no memory of magic whatsoever.

‘What kind of wish did Trisha make? She must have made a wish to escape her difficult life. She has escaped her difficult life now, but if that was her wish, it doesn’t explain her behavior, like she’s changed and lost her memories.’

Is losing one’s memory simply a side effect of the magic? Or is it another wish? If so, what wish? What wish could possibly be enough to lose one’s memory, or even change one’s personality?

The more I thought about it, the more empty bottles there were, but I couldn’t find the exact answer.

Rather, isn’t it natural that we don’t know?

‘Because I wasn’t there. I have no idea how Trisha lived or how she suffered.’

Catherine laughed at her own incompetence. She pretended to know so much about Trisha, and shouted how much she loved her, yet there was so little she could do for her.

The problem that happened to Trisha, the cause, and the solution.

I couldn’t figure it all out.

As she was repeating her self-reproach and regret, someone knocked on Catherine’s door. Catherine turned her head for a moment and looked at the clock. It was late in the morning, and there was only one person in the mansion who would come to her room at this hour.

“…come in.”

Creak, the large door opened quietly, and someone came in. The guest, who was wearing a negligee as if everyone was asleep at dawn, frowned in annoyance as she looked at the state of the room, tidiing her messy hair behind her ears.

“…What are you doing now?”

“You’re drinking. Do you want some too?”

Catherine, who had filled her empty glass, chuckled and offered it to the late-night guest. The glass, which was nearly overflowing, shook violently in the air as it shook.

“Sorry, but I only drink with people I like.”

“It is polite to accept and drink alcohol given by your superior. In social circles and among businessmen.”

The woman, who furrowed her brow in annoyance at Catherine’s words, roughly snatched the glass from Catherine’s arm and drank it down heartily. Then she slammed the glass down on the desk with a bang!

“Oh, okay. Okay? Then, shall we have a serious talk now?”

“…Yeah.”

The woman, who was frowning because of the strong alcohol, put down the documents she was holding in her arms on the desk with a thud! Catherine began reading the documents on the desk one by one as if she was used to it.

“As expected, you have more talent than I thought. Is business in your blood?”

“Don’t be disgusting. It makes me sick just to have that human blood mixed in me.”

“…But it’s true that it’s amazing. I just lent money to a business that was on the verge of collapse, and it’s been saved like this. No, is the education I gave you a good one?”

“…You’re too drunk. What happened?”

Hib, Catherine, who was hiccuping, rolled her eyes and looked at the woman standing in front of the desk. Normally, she was not the type to talk to others, but was it because she was drunk? Catherine sighed for a moment and started to tell her story as if making an excuse.

“It’s not my story, it’s my friend’s story. It’s definitely not my story, okay?”

“…Okay. Let’s start the story.”

“So… let’s say your friend likes someone. Let’s call that person A. Your friend likes A so much that he would do anything for her.”

“Hey.”

It was a reaction that didn’t have even a single grain of soul in it, but Catherine continued talking regardless.

“A friend said he would do anything for A, but A kept rejecting him. However, the friend did not reject her until the end and kept courting her, but in the end, A ended up with someone else.”

“That, right.”

“My friend was so angry. The person who was connected to A was a piece of trash and had a daughter. After investigating because of his dirty background, I found out that he was addicted to alcohol and gambling.”

“…….”

“The friend tried to stop A until the end, but A ended up marrying that piece of trash. But the friend, the friend was confident. He believed without a doubt that A would eventually come back to him.”

The woman thought it would be too long to listen while standing, so she sat down on the sofa and watched the drunkard’s drunkenness. She thought to herself that even though she was not usually an emotional person, she became a dog when she got drunk.

“Yes, my friend believed and waited. He believed, believed, believed, believed, and waited. Yes… He just waited. He didn’t send letters or say hello, just.”

“You’re a bad person, just waiting.”

“…That’s right, he’s a bad person. Anyway, in the end, just as my friend believed, A returned to my friend’s side. My friend was very happy. After all, things went his way. However, as my friend spent time with A again, she began to feel something strange about A.”

“……”

“Something… It’s like the person has changed, like, it’s that person, but it’s not that person. The face, the voice, it’s definitely that person. But for some reason, it feels uneasy. Like the person has changed.”

“…So?”

“At first, my friend thought it was nothing, that it was just his imagination. He just thought that the feeling of discomfort he felt from A was all a mistake. But…”

Catherine, feeling thirsty, filled the glass again, which the woman had emptied, and gulped it down. Then she quietly looked at the empty glass and continued talking in a small voice.

“It’s hard to explain, but… In the end, I realized that A’s change was my friend’s fault. It was all my friend’s fault. The reason I felt uncomfortable with A, and the fact that A changed, was all my friend’s fault.”

“…..”

“My friend said that he doesn’t know how to turn A back. So what should my friend do? How can he erase the guilt of changing A and the suspicion that A might be a different person? How can he look at A again like he used to?”

There was silence in the room for a moment. The woman who had been listening to the story seemed to be thinking for a moment, then she tucked her disheveled hair behind her ear and asked Catherine.

“Is this a story about you and my mother?”

“…I told you it was a friend story. Elise…”