Chapter 91: Pandora.
Looking back, Yulan had always stood at the end of every beautiful emotion Violet ever felt.
Even when she sank into a puddle of mud, he was the one thing that never lost its shine.
His surface might get dirty, but once wiped clean he was beautiful again; that kind of existence.
No matter how insane her greed became, the fact that Yulan was precious to her had never once been clouded.
Because those feelings were so fragile, so precious, so utterly natural that
until this very moment, she had never even tried to name what kind they were.
The one person she could love with no expectation of return, no calculation, and feel happy simply for loving.
An unconditional emotion that held no greed; she had been satisfied as long as he kept smiling.
That might be exactly why she had never wanted to give it a name.
She hadn’t needed to know where the feelings came from.
If she never classified them, she thought she could keep him forever as the one and only person she cherished.
“…Are you feeling calmer now?”
“Yes… thank you.”
Marin’s special hot milk was placed in her hands; warm but not hot, just the right temperature for Violet’s cat tongue to drink slowly.
Sweet, gentle; the taste that had always been by her side when she was exhausted or when her heart felt like it would shatter.
From the tip of her tongue, Marin’s kindness raced through her body, filling every hole that had opened from head to toe.
She knew Violet’s sense of taste, of touch, all five senses perfectly.
On days when Violet fell asleep steeped in this sweetness, it felt as though she could sink deeper and deeper, never to resurface.
A sleep from which she never floated back up was one without even dreams.
“Haa…”
One sip, and warm liquid slid down her throat.
What most people would call lukewarm was exactly right for Violet.
The sigh that escaped was not from pain but from relief.
She had thought that spilling everything would leave only despair behind her,
yet in a cleared field of vision, things she had never seen before came into view.
“Please rest a little. I’ll bring dinner to your room.”
“Dinner—”
“I’ll make it a small portion.”
“…Thank you.”
They say people feel hungry or sleepy when they relax.
Violet, it seemed, was the sleepy type.
Her gradually warming body was softening even her brain.
The poor sleep of late, combined with today’s emotional exhaustion, made her eyelids feel as though the threads holding them up might snap at any moment.
Before she drifted off, she set the cup on the table and walked unsteadily toward the bed.
Everything in her vision wavered gently; the floating sensation was pleasant.
When her strengthless body collapsed, it was enveloped in feather-like softness; she must have reached her destination.
She felt someone’s presence draw near, then move away,
and gradually the light behind her eyelids faded.
She surrendered to that heaviness and let herself be pulled under.
The lid had shattered.
The place to hide it was gone.
No matter where she tried to shove these feelings now, Violet would find them again.
She would find them, hold them, and cherish them.
She could neither forget nor ever throw them away.
Inside Pandora’s box, crammed full of affection, possessiveness, envy, longing; every emotion imaginable;
the one thing that was nowhere to be found, even at the very end,
was “hope.”