episode_0134

[Episode 134] – Dependence (3)

“how is it? “I know how to drink now, right?”

With a bright smile, Titania swallowed the wine in her mouth and opened her mouth to show her tongue. Vivian frowned and glared at Titania, as if asking if she was joking in this situation.

“…Do you think I will accept your heart just because of this?”

Vivian growled, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her negligee, which had become wet from the spilled wine. Titania, who was looking at that scene, laughed and kicked the bottle rolling on the floor.

“…Alcohol is a kind of escape.”

“…what?”

“To forget bad things, to run away from reality, depression, loneliness, anxiety, fear. Etc. – I heard from the Minister of Foreign Affairs that adults drink alcohol to escape various bad feelings.”

Vivian frowned at the sudden story. I couldn’t understand what on earth Titania wanted to say. Titania, who was looking at the liquor bottles lying on the floor, burst out laughing.

“Was it so painful for you to be here that you fell into drunkenness?”

Titania glanced up and glanced at Vivian. The moment Vivian tried to avoid her gaze, Titania came over and held Vivian’s chin with one hand. As if telling him not to avoid his gaze.

“…Put this down.”

“How have you been so far? Well, it’s obvious even if you don’t look at it. You probably drank all day, got drunk and fell asleep, and just spent your time like that. “To forget this situation.”

“…Are you kidding me?”

“It can’t be. I just thought you finally understood the pain I felt to some extent… but it seems like it’s still not enough? “I guess I should have come to you later.”

“what…?”

Titania let out a chuckle and stroked one of Vivian’s cheeks with the hand that was holding her chin. At Titania’s last words, Vivian thought for a moment that something was going on in her head.

So, the reason Titania came late…

“Didn’t you tell me you were busy…? That’s why it’s hard to see his face…”

“…You weren’t particularly busy, were you? Did I say that?”

Vivian’s teeth ground at the sound of Titania’s giggling laughter.

My jaw was tense and bulging as I tried to suppress my anger. It happened like this last time too. Clearly, Titania had begged him to wait ‘just a little while’, saying she was too busy to think about it.

This time it was the same as last time. Obviously, he said he couldn’t come because he was busy, but he said he would come a little earlier next time. He came late on purpose and showed his face after a week. This time it was a ‘lie’ again.

I definitely believed that if I waited, they would come to take off these shackles. He asked me to give him time to think, and I believed that if I gave him time, he would think that my feelings for him, my adoptive mother, were an illusion. but…

“You lied again…!”

The moment Vivian was about to get angry.

“You’re the one who lied to me first, right? “You’re not trying to say that you forgot, are you?”

Vivian couldn’t say anything to Titania’s words.

“Who is it that promised me that they would stay with me for the rest of my life, but then just threw away a flimsy piece of letter and disappeared without saying a word? Oh, by the way, the reason you left me was because of that ‘promise’, right? ”

Titania giggled and looked at Vivian. Would you say this is a red flag? I wondered if there would come a day when my mother would understand who lied first and why she fell apart because of it.

Titania just wanted to let Vivian know.

How much pain he suffered while his mother was away. How much pain I suffered from my mother’s lies. How painful it is to be betrayed countless times by someone you have trusted your whole life.

So I put shackles on my mother.

With the feeling of telling you not to run away from me and feeling at least half of the pain I felt when I was deceived by you. They punished me by making me deceived by shallow ‘lies’ and making me believe them endlessly.

The mother, who was left alone with the ‘lie’ of asking for time to think, must have continued to believe and wait. He must have had no doubt that the shackles on his ankles would soon be lifted. Stupidly, naively.

My mother must have believed and waited even though she was nervous about the ‘lie’ that she would come sooner than later. The empty liquor bottles scattered on the floor proved it. You must have believed that shallow lie and felt anxious.

Although anxious about the lies, all the mother could do was wait in an empty room, unable to communicate with anyone, believing only in the ‘lies’.

Could it be that Titania lied?

Why is it coming so late?

Could it be that he has no intention of taking off the shackles?

If this continues, won’t I end up living here for the rest of my life?

Nervousness and anxiety. And, after seeing the face of the person who made the promise, I thought, ‘It wasn’t a lie. I felt relief when I thought, ‘It’s just a little late.’ That was the emotion reflected on my mother’s face when I met her four days later.

Titania felt quite happy when she saw Vivian’s expression. My mother, who became so anxious after only four days, was both cute and hateful. I’ve been suffering like that for years.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Did you really believe that I wouldn’t lie to my mother? “Why did my mother lie to me like that?”

Giggling, Titania looked down at Vivian and sneered. Stupid mother. A mother who is extremely naive. The mother’s expression on her face as if she didn’t know her daughter would fool her was truly foolish.

“I’m not sure if my mother is really naive or if she doesn’t have any sense of guilt. In my mother’s eyes, do I still look like the innocent ‘child’ I used to be?”

At that moment, thick tears formed around Vivian’s eyes. The expression of a child who looks like he might burst into tears at any moment. Vivian’s shoulders were shaking as if she was holding back her tears.

However, no matter how much Vivian cried, Titania had no intention of stopping. Because he cried every night for years. Because I cried every day, missing my mother and suffering from lies.

“Ever since you left me, while I was happily living with someone else, every day has been hell for me. In that hell, I cried and cried out for you, waiting for you to come back. But you…”

He forgot about me and lived happily ever after. Titania, who was muttering with a hollow laugh, laughed bitterly. Titania reached out and wiped away the tears from Vivian’s eyes with her fingers.

“I just… I want you to become self-reliant…”

“Isn’t this what your mother meant by ‘independence’? “Isn’t being betrayed by someone you trusted and being left alone and suffering the ‘independence’ you were talking about?”

“Oh, no… I want you to…”

“…You say no, but that’s the pain I felt.”

Titania pondered why Vivian left her side. Now that I’m all grown up, I need to leave my side and become independent. Adult baby birds have to leave the nest. My mother had no doubts about it.

However, what the mother did was to push the baby bird out of the nest without any responsibility. Without even asking the baby bird’s opinion, the baby bird, which cannot even flap its wings yet, is taken out of the nest.

The baby bird fell out of the nest and plummeted to the floor. It cried out to its mother from the bottom of the tree and begged for help. However, the mother bird left the baby bird alone and flew away.

“Do you understand now? “You just abandoned me.”

“ah…”

Drop, drop. A teardrop ran down Vivian’s cheek. Thick teardrops continued to flow down my cheeks. Titania just looked down at Vivian’s face.

The teardrops running down her cheeks and down her face wet Titania’s hand as she caressed Vivian’s cheek. Titania only smiled bitterly every time hot tears touched her skin.

“Do you still think you should leave my side?”

Vivian said nothing.

He didn’t even nod his head. As if I still didn’t understand, I just stood there blankly with tears flowing silently. Even though I did this, I was a little annoyed at my mother for not giving me an immediate answer.

Titania took out a small key from her pocket and placed it in Vivian’s hand. Vivian knew what key the key she held in her hand was without Titania telling her.

“If you still feel the need to leave my side, please leave here tomorrow.”

“……”

“If you leave, I will cry every day. You will live the rest of your life feeling more pain than you have felt in the past month. “If you still think it’s okay, you can leave my side.”

Titania smiled and placed the key in Vivian’s hand. He let me hold his hand and forced me to make my own choice. Titania took a step back and left the room.

Calmly, without saying a word or looking back.

As the door closed, Vivian looked down blankly at the small key in her hand. Even though I was given the freedom of being able to leave this place right away if I unlocked the shackles with this key, my feet did not fall off.

“……”

Vivian thought about the past month.

The time I was locked in this large room alone, anxious that Titania would not keep her promise and anxious about when I would be able to leave. It was only one month, but that month felt like a year.

It was a month where I lived under the sway of Titania’s every word. For her, it was only a month, but for Titania, it was a lifetime. It is said that he lived with these feelings for several years after he left.

Moreover, he says that if he leaves, he will live with these feelings for the rest of his life. Titania said that and placed the key in my hand. The key to getting out of here right now and being free.

“……”

Vivian bent down and inserted the key into the lock attached to the shackles. The lock came undone with a light clang sound, and the shackles that had bound him for a month were released so easily.

I was no longer used to the sound of crunching under my feet every time I walked. As expected, humans are creatures of adaptation, Vivian smiled bitterly as she stood still.

Vivian raised her head and looked at the door that was tightly closed. If I took a few more steps, I could open that door and go outside. Get out of here, out.

*

Crash.

The sound of the door opening was heard and Titania entered the room where Vivian had been locked up. The first thing I saw when I entered the room was the shackles neatly arranged under the bed.

The shackles that no longer bound my mother’s ankles were under the bed, waiting for their turn to come again someday. Titania turned her head and looked around the room. The room looked cleaner than yesterday.

The liquor bottles that had been lying around no longer stained the room, and unlike yesterday, there was no pleasant smell of alcohol, perhaps due to ventilation. Titania smiled at the sight of the room and approached the bed.

“Why are you still here?”

On the bed, my mother, dressed in a negligee, was sitting quietly reading a novel. Vivian glanced at Titania with a roll of her eyes and closed the book with a small sigh.

“……well? “Why did he stay?”

Vivian chuckled and looked up at Titania. Titania also smiled and looked down at Vivian. As they looked at each other smiling, the room began to fill with each other’s laughter.

The laughter died down, and Vivian, sighing, got up from the bed and approached Titania. Vivian walked up to Titania’s nose and raised her hand to stroke the head of her daughter who was taller than her.

Titania didn’t like Vivian, who still treated her like a ‘child’. Titania frowned slightly in annoyance and gently pushed Vivian’s hand away from her head.

“Honestly, I don’t know the feelings you have for me as a lover… but I feel like being by your side is the right choice for now.”

“…Do you know that now?”

“Yes, foolishly.”

Vivian chuckled, raised her head for a moment, looked at Titania’s face, and stroked Titania’s cheek with a sad expression. Was it because I was trying to give up too much?

It seemed like it had been a long time since I had looked at Titania’s face this closely.

“…You cut your hair.”

“…It’s been a while.”

“I knew, but I don’t think I told you.”

The hand that was running down Titania’s cheek went straight to the hair that fell down to her shoulder. Vivian smiled and stroked Titania’s hair, her hair half as thin as before.

“It suits you.”

“Do you know that it was your mother’s fault that you cut your hair?”

“…I thought so.”

So Titania and Vivian exchanged small stories with each other. How he lived without his mother until now, and how Vivian lived in the cabin.

Stories bloomed and filled the room. Unraveling stories that have never been shared before. We continued talking to each other, as if we were narrowing the distance that had been pushed away for a while.

While talking for a while, Vivian folded the backs of Titania’s hands and made eye contact. In a slightly serious mood, Titania quietly looked into Vivian’s eyes and listened to the story.

“…I promise that I will continue to be by your side from now on. “I won’t leave your side unless you push me away first.”

“……”

Vivian grinned and held out her little finger to Titania. When Titania didn’t stick out her little finger, as if it was hard to believe, Vivian forcefully grabbed Titania’s hand and hooked her little finger.

Titania looked at the little fingers that were forcibly intertwined and smiled.

“Ha… Considering the promise you broke to me, a thousand needles wouldn’t be enough… Since this has come to an end, shall I get some needles? “I wonder how many needles my mother can swallow.”

“It’s true this time. “I will really protect it…”

Titania chuckled at Vivian’s confused appearance and looked at her little fingers intertwined. My mother’s little finger got caught somewhere in my own little finger.

Titania let out a laugh as she looked at the intertwined hands shaking up and down as if to renew their promise. If I get fooled again this time, I really wonder what I should do to my mother.

“…I’ll trust you just one last time.”

A smile bloomed on Vivian’s face at Titania’s reply, ‘I believe.’ Now in an atmosphere of reconciliation, Vivian looked at Titania, squeezing her intertwined little fingers.

Vivian looked like she wanted something. I just slightly raised my eyes and asked Titania. As if he was being cute. Titania smiled at that attitude and looked at Vivian.

“Well, now that we’ve made up, can we get out of here?”

“…..”

There was a short silence. Surely you don’t plan on keeping them here forever? Titania sighed as she looked at him like this. Titania opened her mouth as if her worries were over-

“…I will allow you to go to the garden.”

“What…?”

I still had no intention of letting Vivian go.

* The next episode is a weak IF that continues with episode 133.

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Thank you very much for reading today!