Chapter 88: Fragment Anxiety.

The Violet who came after that was, to put it bluntly, useless.

She left more than half her lunch untouched and didn’t even order the dessert she’d been looking forward to.
Her behavior was erratic, unstable; she couldn’t sit still and ended up worrying Rosette.
She kept saying “I’m fine,” but even Rosette, who had known her only a short while, could tell it wasn’t true.
Neither of them could put their feelings into words, so they only managed surface-level conversation, never touching the heart of the matter.
Violet believed her own “I’m fine,” looked away from Rosette’s anxious gaze, and simply kept thinking about one thing:

What on earth was she supposed to do with this newly confronted reality… with these feelings?

×　×　×　×

For the first time in her life, Violet found an advantage in having a family that showed no interest in her.
When she was suffering, hurting, or lost in thought, they left her alone.
She felt no gratitude; the injustices she’d endured outweighed that advantage a millionfold; but being ignored was still better than having her fragile state trampled into dust.
She had to believe that, or she couldn’t go on.

No one noticed her hurried, unsteady return home.
She slipped straight into her room and no one came to check on her.
Thank goodness Mary-June wasn’t back yet.
Mary-June was the only one who might have noticed something wrong, and noticing would only allow her to corner Violet further.

“Welcome home, Violet-sama.”

Marin, who had come to tidy the room, greeted her mistress.
Violet closed the door behind her with both hands, still facing away, head bowed.
Marin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Coming home earlier than usual was one thing, but her movements were sluggish, her steps uncertain.
A bright, energetic Violet felt out of place in this house, yet a visibly sunken Violet was equally rare.
She was the type to bottle everything up until it exploded.

“Has some—”

The rest of the question; “Has something happened?”; was cut off as grey fabric suddenly filled Marin’s vision.
The sheet she had been holding fell to the floor with a soft thud, and a warm body pressed against her.
Violet buried her forehead in Marin’s shoulder, arms wrapping tightly around her back, creasing the uniform with desperate strength.

For a moment Marin couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
She caught Violet instinctively, but her mind went blank; all she could do was stare down at the head resting just below her own and freeze.

She was too bewildered even to think of returning the embrace.

“Violet-sama…?”

Never once had Violet clung to her like this.

Marin had touched her, of course.
She had cared for her tenderly, gently, wanting to heal that wounded heart.
Violet, too, had sometimes placed her beautiful hands on Marin’s hair or cheek in gratitude for her service, in comfort for the pain Marin felt on her behalf of her mistress.
But they had never come closer than that… had been unable to.

If she could, Marin had always wanted to wrap Violet in her arms, warm her, let her cry against her chest.
She never wanted to see her mistress hugging herself in fear of nightmares, sleeping alone in the cold.
If only she could share her own body heat with that freezing back, if only these arms could become Violet’s sanctuary; she had wished for it countless times.

(So… that’s it.)

Had she been afraid of embracing Violet?

The memory surfaced: a woman laughing as she hugged a still-young Violet, a woman enraptured while the child in her arms looked utterly lifeless.
A mother who whispered “I love you” while slowly killing her own daughter.

Those same crimson eyes gleaming horribly; the nightmare made real.

(To think I was overlapping myself with that monster…)

Yet it had been Violet herself who once looked into Marin’s identical crimson eyes and called them beautiful.
Those words had changed Marin’s life; Violet had taken root at the very center of her heart.

(That’s why…)

The more she cherished Violet, the more those tiny seeds sprouted and bloomed; and with them, new emotions had taken root as well.
The more she loved her, the more anxious those eyes she had finally learned to like; that red color; made her.
She could not shake the vision from her dreams: limp arms, unfocused gaze, a voice stripped of emotion; the Violet who had given up on living that day.
If, when Marin finally embraced her, Violet were to call her name in that same hollow voice, with that same empty expression…
The mere thought felt like it would tear Marin’s heart to pieces.

Slowly, gently, she placed her hands on Violet’s back.
The hair she had touched only this morning tangled around her fingers; she traced its softness again and again, as if confirming the warmth of a living person.
This person was alive.
Her beloved mistress was breathing steadily even now, inside these arms.

That alone was enough for the suffocating anxiety to melt away without a trace.
What she had believed to be a wall had been nothing more than mist.
She hadn’t been blocked; she had simply been unable to take the step.
It was only an illusion created by her own mind; not a single drop of Violet’s true feelings had been in it.

Because right now, Violet was clinging to her.
She was feeling something, wanting something, needing Marin.

Then there was only one thing Marin had to do.
There was no reason left to hesitate.

“—What’s wrong, Violet-sama?”