Chapter 88
Aaron immediately got up.
It was hard to look at his droopy friend… Well, no, he got up because he was worried about his younger sister who was staring blankly at the waterside.
‘Is the lake deep?’
It was funny that he had to think about this when they came all the way out to play, but because of the habit he had developed, he couldn’t contain the anxiety rising when Selena was staring at something in the distance.
One, two, three.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, Aaron fixed his gaze on Selena’s slender back as he opened his mouth.
“Lucas.”
Gosh, he didn’t want his voice to tremble. Even if he tried hard to hide it, it seemed that the trembling could not be completely hidden.
Lucas turned to look at Aaron.
Confirming that Aaron’s clenched fists had turned pure white, Lucas exhaled his shallow breath and slowly closed and opened his eyes.
Lucas got up and stood next to Aaron.
“She looks fine. Don’t worry.”
His voice was the same as usual.
He seemed to have unusually cloudy eyes at one point.
He had a laid-back voice that suited him well.
Of course, the person who used such a voice was mercilessly disturbed.
***
“Selena.”
Aiden and I silently watched the people by the lake, but Brother came running from behind.
Oh, why was he running all of a sudden? By the way, were the discussions over the ownership of the fountain over?
“Brother.”
When I called out to Brother, asking what was going on, a bright smile soon appeared on his slightly shaded face.
My brother raised his hand and stroked the back of my head, then stood next to me.
He dared to burrow between Aiden and me.
I hesitated at the strange seat selection and had to step back, but Brother smiled with an expression that he did not know anything and only looked at the lake.
“Selena, look over there. They look happy, don’t they?”
“Yes, they look happy.”
The answer came from my side, not from me.
For some reason, Lucas took the empty seat next to me and stood there.
‘No, wow…. I really didn’t notice. When did he come…?’
So, I looked up at Lucas, who had silently come up to me, with small admiration.
Perhaps Lucas knew I was going to look at him, as he turned to make eye contact with me.
However, his gaze was not on me, but behind me… To be precise, it was directed at the top of my head.
“I didn’t know there were two Selenas?”
“What’s wrong with that, Brother? Aren’t we good siblings?”
Brother let out a sigh as he spoke, and Lucas, still smiling, replied calmly.
Ah, this composition.
I felt a strange sense of déjà vu in this arrangement. Yes, it was from the day of the big party with plates and teacups flying around.
That day, too, the two of them talked over my head, using me as the forum table.
I took a step back from the memory that came to my mind and slipped between the two.
“Selena?”
“Selena?”
The two people who were looking at each other panickedly called me at the same time, and I raised my hands like on that day.
It signaled that if they were going to fight, I wanted them to go somewhere else and fight.
Fortunately, the fight… No, it wasn’t even a fight. The friendly conversation between the two ended there.
Anyway, it seemed like everyone was past the age of fighting.
After the two of them were silent, I told Brother the answer Lucas had intercepted.
“Yes, it looks really fun.”
They looked happy. They looked so happy that it seemed like a painting.
‘How dare they look so happy that I couldn’t even imagine myself that way.’
After the short answer, my inner thoughts were stretched out.
I was obviously talking to myself, but everyone’s eyes wouldn’t leave me until the murmur in my mind stopped.
I rolled my eyes at the unexpected reaction, but Brother, who was standing next to me, suddenly turned his back.
‘Huh?’ Scared to ask why he was doing this, Brother walked with his back turned to the place where the tent was.
For some reason, I felt a firm will in my back.
The three of us, who were left behind all of a sudden, tilted our heads and followed Brother’s back with our eyes.
Arriving at the tent, Brother said something to our parents. They, who had heard the story, glanced at me and stood up.
And then they were walking this way with Brother.
‘What…’ My family members, who approached me with smiles, stopped in front of me.
As I raised my gaze, Father lightly laid a large hand on my head, as Brother had done earlier.
I wasn’t nine anymore, I was 19… Why did everyone want to stroke my hair so much?
However, the hand carefully stroking my hair, like it was something sacred, wasn’t bad, so I just looked at Father’s face in silence.
Before long, the weight of the hands left my head and the father spoke to me in a friendly voice.
“Would you like to play in the water, too?”
“…What? Play in the water?”
‘Playing in the water… Suddenly, what… Oh, maybe it was because I said they looked happy?’
When I looked at Brother, he had a proud expression while looking at me to confirm my thoughts.
‘Oh no. How did such a one-dimensional interpretation come about?’
It wasn’t a situation like, ‘Seeing someone who likes jajangmyeon makes me want to eat jajangmyeon right now’… By the way, for nobles to play in the water by the lakeside…?
In fact, it was virtually impossible for nobles to play in the water on the shore of a crowded lake.
But now that I thought about it, today was the last day of the imperial foundation ball.
So, by now most of the nobles had already attended the ball, or would have been busy getting ready for it.
Therefore, most of the people who came to play by the lakeside would be commoners, which meant we couldn’t tell whether they were nobles or just wealthy commoners.
Well, if that was the case, there was no need to worry about whether or not you were a noble.
No, no. In the first place, it wasn’t a problem.
“Yes, Selena. How is it? I want to dip my feet in the water for the first time in a while too.”
As I was shaking my head in confusion, even Mother spoke with shining eyes.
What should I do with this… I was immersed in my worries and looked at my family’s faces once again, but in an instant, I remembered the family I met yesterday.
While talking with a smile on my face, the shadow of fatigue was thickly under their face.
Today it was a bit better, but after today the shadow would grow even darker.
I nodded slowly.
The weariness of the future will be waiting for them, but they should enjoy today, as they had come out to play.
When I nodded my head in affirmation, Mother and Brother grabbed me by the arms and walked towards the lake with light steps.
I could feel Father, Aiden, and Lucas following behind me.
I felt like a child.
A child who knew nothing but play, who did not even know that difficulties and hardships existed in the world.
When we reached the shore of the lake, Mother and Brother let go of my arms. I stared at the two in a daze at the falling warmth.
Mother, who rolled up her skirt of the sagging one-piece dress, was the first to dip her feet in the water.
Brother, who had folded his trousers, entered after her, and those who arrived after him also dipped their feet into the water.
Everyone had smiles on their faces, showing they liked the water of the lake on a summer day.
Those who talked about the coolness gestured to me standing alone on the shore with smiles on their faces.
Come on. Come here.
It was strange. It was a strange sight.
They were calling me with smiles on their faces, so I felt like I was watching some kind of TV.
It felt like being a distant stranger, looking at the main characters on the other side of the screen.
Very occasionally… Or more often than not, I used to feel this way. Even though I was Selena, I still felt like a stranger.
Apparently, today was such a day.
I slowly raised my hand and rubbed my eyes.
Thinking that if it was an illusion, it would disappear.
As I removed my hand from rubbing my eyes, my vision, which had been blurred by the pressure, gradually brightened. They were still calling for me.
The channel did not change.
There were things I only learned after coming here. It could have been something I realized gradually, or it could have been something I realized all of a sudden.
That my tiredness, my numbness, my annoyance, my resignation were all created by others.
Everything in my previous life wasn’t my will, and even breathing wasn’t my will.
I only found out about it when I came here.
I knew in my previous life that I was only walking on the path my parents had set for me, but it was only after I came to this peaceful world that I found out that my parents held on to the leash of things I thought I had let go of.
There was no one who determined my future path as Selena.
Therefore, everything was done only by my own will. Everything was done only by my choice.
At first, I was scared and afraid that I had to walk the path I chose, not the path someone else had set for me.
However, in the present, where I had even become accustomed to all unfamiliarity, I had nothing to be afraid of or scared of.
It was common. It was an ordinary thing… And now, with my will, what I chose… was to keep approaching those who were calling me with a smile.
Even if the memories of the past held back my ankles, even if I felt like a stranger, I kept walking forward to hold their hands.
I walked slowly.
With my skirt rolled up and my shoes left in place, I walked and walked to where there were people waiting for me.
After standing precariously on the middle line of dark memories and peaceful days, I crossed it.
It felt like I was blinded by the hot sunlight.
However, my expression did not distort.
Come to think of it, it was this day. The day closest to the ‘happiness’ that Eunji mentioned.
That day was this one.
The sky was high.
The cool wind unique to this world made my hair flutter, and water droplets splashed all over my body.
Everyone was smiling happily, and the laughter never stopped.
Hearing the sound of laughter that came from me, I even awkwardly raised my lips.
The people who saw that smile looked at me with surprised eyes and each made a different expression.
Even that appearance was nice to look at, and it seemed that I was trying to keep the corners of my lips raised stiffly.
Oh, my life.
The happiest moments had passed peacefully like that.
Forgetting that my happiness was always followed by unhappiness. It was going so well.
Yes. And just like that, the peace was gone.
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