Chapter 80: Storm of Change.

The moment I realize I can’t sleep, sleep becomes even more impossible.
The more I panic, the more trapped I feel, and if I greet morning with my eyes closed yet unsure whether I actually slept, the only thing that increases is exhaustion.
When such days continue, my body eventually passes its limit and I collapse into something like unconsciousness; but can that truly be called sleep?

“…”

A sensation as if stones were jammed inside my organs.
A pressure clings to my entire body; different from weight, different from gravity, impossible to put into words.
If this weren’t a classroom, I would already be clutching my head and letting out a heavy, bitter sigh.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the environment prevents it, so from the outside I merely look like a melancholic beauty gazing downward.
The way my lowered lashes and vacant stare somehow appear seductive is thanks only to my looks; whether that draws more attention is a gain or a loss I can’t tell.
To the person who doesn’t want to stand out; me; it’s nothing but troublesome.
Especially on a day like today.

Nothing has recovered since I fled home yesterday as if avoiding Yulan.

That house is no different from a poisonous swamp for me, so it’s only natural, perhaps.
Even so, I should have built up resistance over the years.
I’ve survived countless sleepless nights before.

Yet the moment I began thinking about the emotion I had finally recognized and about my relationship with Yulan, my brain lost its brakes and started freely deriving every possible scenario.
If I had managed to sleep, I would surely have had terrifying nightmares.

In the end, I could neither sleep nor lose consciousness.

Thanks to Marin quietly asking the kitchen to reduce portions, I somehow finished both dinner and breakfast.
If she hadn’t noticed, I would have suffered trying to force everything down.
I’m grateful.
At the same time, it pains me that I’m worrying her.
I know exactly how much Marin cares for me, how much she tries to spare me pain.
Knowing that and still being unable to lift her worry is agonizing.

(It’s always been so much simpler.)

Normally, I could have given up far more easily.
Normally, I could have reached an answer much faster.

From the few choices available, pick the one that hurts the least.
Or simply do exactly what I’m told.
No matter how much I agonized or thought, it never bore fruit, so I just needed to kill my heart and move solely for the sake of efficiency.

This time should be the same.
I don’t even need to think; this emotion that would only harm Yulan; I just have to throw it away.
I know very well how to discard it, how to kill it.
It would stop hurting, stop feeling painful.
Just a mechanical process, a procedure; I would watch my own cells die off little by little with resigned indifference.

The best solution, the only answer, is right there.

So why can’t I carry it out?

(I thought I had no greed left.)

I thought I had used it all up in that sinful memory.
Even back then, the ending was tragic because suppressed emotions and restrained desires erupted all at once, but the root never changed.

I clung to hope.
I dreamed an entire sun from the tiniest ray of light.
I believed that someday, surely, a prince would come to save me.
That he had come to save me.

I mistook myself for the tragic heroine.

All the hearts I had kept killing were merely sacrifices for the happy ending.

I could be happy.
I would become happy.
The heroine has to be happy.
For that sake, anything was permitted.
Because for that sake, Violet had kept dying.

Now I can see how deranged that thinking became.
Simple longing twisted, dreams overtook reality, and the foolish heroine who believed her ideals would come true deserved nothing but a bad ending.

All the dregs poured out, my heart was crushed, and the inside of Violet became completely hollow.
In exchange for having no dreams or hopes, I could swallow even despair.
I no longer needed to feel yearning or envy.

I thought I had thrown away desire, so this time I could avoid making mistakes.

“—sama… Violet-sama!”

“—! Ah… sorry, what is it?”

My thoughts had been falling endlessly, enough to make me forget where I was.
If I showed such dejection in public, who knows what rumors would spread.

The girl who had spoken to me felt vaguely familiar; I knew her face but not her name; less than an acquaintance, a classmate.
In other words, not someone I would casually chat with.

“I’m sorry to call out so suddenly. There’s a visitor for you, Violet-sama.”

“For… me?”

Who could it be? The mere thought made my hips feel like lead.

In the past it might have been different, but the current Violet’s circle was shockingly small.
Among the few people I interacted with, only one was truly friendly.
If it were family, she would have said “your little sister”; most people knew the Verhan family tree by heart.

Which left only one possibility.

He’s probably here about yesterday.
I’m fully aware I cut the conversation unnaturally and acted like I was avoiding him.
It wouldn’t be strange for Yulan to find it suspicious.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“N-no problem…!”

Leaving the oddly fidgety messenger behind, the distance to the door where my visitor waited felt both endlessly far and terrifyingly short.

If he is waiting beyond this door, if Yulan came to see me, what emotions would that awaken in me?

I should be happy; that has always been the case until now.

But right now, for the current me, it is unbearably frightening.
My lungs feel crushed and heavy.
Happy yet painful, joyful yet sad.
If only I could reject him outright, everything would be neatly resolved.

Tortured by that contradiction and conflict, I turned my gaze to the person outside the door.

“Eh…”

The eyes that met mine were far lower than I expected, and I could only freeze in surprise and confusion.

The turmoil of moments ago vanished, replaced by nothing but question marks from failing to comprehend.

Because the person standing there was someone I had never once imagined, never even considered as a possibility.

“Rosette…-sama…?”

“G-good day…!”

A princess rigid with tension, voice trembling, whole body stiff, expressing nervousness with every fiber of her being, stood before me.