Chapter 74
Eric chased after Chloe.
The sand wasn’t a good place to run and his legs were telling him not to run, but he had to catch her anyway.
“Chloe!”
As he ran, Chloe quickened her pace.
“Stop, Chloe!”
Still, he continued his steps.
Even though it became difficult to run because his feet were stuck in the sand, he didn’t stop. Only the thought of capturing Chloe remained. However, it didn’t feel like his body. There was a problem with his leg, or prosthetic leg to be exact, and he ended up collapsing.
“Ugh!”
Eric just rolled on the sandy beach, feeling the sharp edges of the cracked machine piercing his flesh. Although he bit his lip and tried to hold back a moan, he couldn’t stop the pain from flowing out.
“…Eric?”
Chloe looked back in surprise at the unexpected situation. She immediately turned around and ran straight to Eric when she had only wanted to leave. Looking at the blood dripping onto the sand, she widened her eyes.
…Eric was hurt? Why?
“What is this…”
Her jaw trembled. She hurriedly took out her handkerchief and moved towards his leg because she seemed to have to stop the bleeding first.
“Don’t come!”
Eric groaned. His voice was desperate, showing that he really didn’t want her to come close, so Chloe couldn’t reach him, and she stopped.
Grabbing his leg, he turned around.
“But, Eric… you’re hurt right now. You need treatment. At least stop the bleeding…”
After catching her breath for a moment, Chloe slowly approached him and opened her mouth but Eric shouted again.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come!”
He was so ashamed of this situation right now.
…Falling, hurting, and showing dirty blood in front of Chloe because of this goddamn prosthetic leg! His desire to hold on to her disappeared, and all he could do was wish that she would disappear.
“Go back. Right now!”
As he shouted loudly, he felt like a wary beast with its fur raised. Chloe was taken aback by the high-pitched voice, but she couldn’t back down. How could she turn away from a bleeding person?!
“No.”
She uttered firmly and moved closer to him.
“You need treatment. I can’t leave you like this. Come on. I’ll help you…”
“Didn’t I say I was okay!”
Eric shook her outstretched hand, but maybe it was because it was too strong? Chloe stumbled and fell.
“Ugh!”
“Chloe!”
Eric hurriedly helped Chloe.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.”
He first checked that Chloe was not hurt. Even though his action just made the metal core stuck in his leg, he held back the pain and spoke to her in a calm voice.
“But please go back… Please.”
However, she looked strange. To be precise, she had a strange look in her eyes. Seeing that, Eric turned his head to where Chloe’s gaze was.
“Eric.”
What she was looking at was his leg, a prosthetic leg.
“What is that?”
Chloe let out a gasping breath.
“You…”
Then, he said something Eric really didn’t want to hear… something he never wanted to ever hear.
“Were you wearing a prosthetic leg?”
The prosthetic leg, in other words, his severed foot, was Eric’s biggest complex. Every time he saw his legs missing below his ankles, he remembered the past, his past self, and his poor past.
The day he lost his feet was bitterly cold.
Eric remembered giving a blanket to a child who was shivering with cold next to him, losing his leg because of it and remembering that the child he covered with the blanket died.
That was why, to him, having his leg cut off was both a disgrace and a piece of the past that he didn’t want to recall at the same time… It was because it was proof of poverty and proof of a terribly cruel past.
That was also why he never wanted to be found out by Chloe… especially Chloe!
“Wh-what happened? Since when did you start using prosthetic limbs? Is it since you lived with me? Or before that?”
Gazing at his leg, Chloe asked in a trembling voice.
“Why… didn’t you tell me?”
Her harmless words, yet full of sympathy and pity, choked his breath. Eric tried to avoid her gaze, but he followed her eyes and raised his head involuntarily. Seeing the sigh in her eyes, Eric closed his eyes tightly.
“…I’m afraid you’ll look at me like that!”
He shouted.
“I was afraid that you would look at me with such compassionate eyes, you would look at me pitifully, so I didn’t say anything… I’m afraid you’ll act like you are now!”
Chloe hesitated. She clasped and opened her fists, panting for breath.
What should she say? What can she say to comfort him? She hadn’t realized that the very thought of having to say something comforting came from sympathy and pity. That was why she couldn’t properly accept Eric’s inferiority complex and shame.
“I…”
She spoke slowly.
“I do not sympathize with you. I don’t even feel pity. I just…”
‘…I, what’s next?’
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t sympathize with him, she just… just what? Even though Chloe tried to get several words out of her mouth, the right one couldn’t come. Everything seemed to hurt him.
Eric laughed at her.
“Look at this. You are unable to talk.”
“No, no, Eric. I just…”
She felt that she shouldn’t be like this.
As she slurred her words and pursed her lips, she turned her head away, trying not to keep her eyes on Eric’s bloody prosthetic. Then, suddenly, she remembered a conversation she had had while looking at his prosthetic leg on the airship.
“It must be uncomfortable to have something like this on your leg. It looks like it might hurt.”
Ah…
Chloe closed her eyes.
How did he respond to that? He asked in a really flat voice as if he was talking about someone else, but with a certain emotion.
“Is this gross?”
She should have said no. She should have said that she had never thought of it, that prosthetic limbs were just amazing.
Still, Chloe didn’t respond.
“It’s just a pity.”
“Losing a leg… it just meant that they went through unimaginable pain, and that’s really a pity.”
…Pity.
It was sympathy.
Yes. Chloe now had to admit that she sympathized with Eric. She had to admit that she was giving him the sympathetic glances and voices she didn’t want to receive! Why did she not want to be found out that she was sick…?
Was it not because she did not want to receive cheap sympathy? Yet she, too, sympathized with him!
…She pitied someone while she herself didn’t want pity!
Ah, Chloe buried her face in her hands.
She realized that her benevolent attitude and that Eric had kept his prosthetic leg hidden for years because of her attitude led to a secret between them and a misunderstanding. It was all their own fault. If only they had been a little more rational! If it were, he wouldn’t have tried to hide it to the end!
“Now I…”
Chloe raised her face, looking like she was about to cry.
“I’m regretting what I said in front of you.”
She uttered with all her heart.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t understand you.”
Eric’s eyes hardened.
He also seemed to recall the conversation they had on the airship.
As he clenched his fists tightly and turned his head, he gave a brief swear word. He had long forgotten the pain of the cracked prosthetic leg digging into his flesh, as the shame and humiliation he was experiencing were greater than the pain.
“You…”
Eric opened his mouth.
“Why are you so damn nice?”
He seemed somehow angry. While Chloe looked at Eric in a slightly frightened state, he stared at her as the tips of his eyebrows dropped before glancing down at his legs.
“Being foolishly kind, stupidly kind, trying to embrace even these disgusting legs.”
He gritted his teeth.
“…This is why I hate you. You’re so goddamn nice… you’re so gentle that I don’t dare to belittle you!”
This was why he rejected Chloe. This was the reason why he couldn’t accept her with his heart.
…Because she was so kind, because she was the kindest person he had ever known.
From Eric’s point of view, she was a very burdensome person. It felt as though he had to always reciprocate her kindness and goodwill, or else he would be miserably mean. That’s why he didn’t like Chloe. He hated her.
“I mean, it’s rather bad… Be mean so I can hate you! To hate nobles like you! Behave so that even you can be treated with contempt, so as expected, nobles are all equally filthy!”
However, Chloe wasn’t that kind of woman, and that was why he…
“…Why didn’t you do that, why did you make me love you?”
He fell in love.
Eric grabbed her shoulder, then buried his face in the nape of her neck and let out a groan.
“Why…”
At the same time, Chloe couldn’t answer anything, and he didn’t say anything more either. Only the sound of the waves of the sea filled the space.
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