Chapter 30.2 — The Day The World Changed

The hand that touched Marin was small, and when she saw Violette’s expression straight, she looked more childish than what she initially thought. At that moment, Marin realized that the girl was also a child younger than her. Marin herself wasn’t adult enough to call Violette a child, but it didn’t change that she was still weaker than Marin who was born a few years earlier than her.

“I’m sorry to get you involved, and I’m sorry to make you accompany me in this… If you want to quit, I won’t stop you.”

Violette’s distorted smile looked sad and lonely, yet she was still forcing herself to make it.

Even if Violette said that she wanted Marin to stay with her, she couldn’t reach out her hand and tell her not to go.

If no one could grant it for her, her hope was the same as a garbage. Even if she wished to express her thoughts to someone, that someone was nowhere to be found. While such things were repeatedly happening, what was imprinted on Violette wasn’t that her wish was unfulfilled, but that she wouldn’t be able to obtain everything that she wanted.

Violette’s appearance resembled Marin when she was still the daughter of her parents, which ended in just four years.

Marin who couldn’t forced out from the world where she was not loved, and Violette couldn’t escape from the world where she was not loved. While knowing the same world, they ended up with completely different results.

Marin wondered which one of them was happier, and she felt that she was being ridiculous.

Someone in this world would be happy with running away from their parents that didn’t love them and receive the benevolence from the sisters. Someone in this world would be happy with becoming a noble daughter who had wealth and power, even if they were not loved. Someone in this world would be happy to be able to stay alive.

People could easily say that they were happy. When Marin mulled over it, there was no end to this thought. There were a lot of people who were more miserable than Marin and Violette, and they pretended to comfort other people and trampled their own heart.

Marin saw those cotton-like kind of people, full of faith and selflessness, in the church. They were actually good people who were soft and gentle, but she didn’t want the happiness where she had to laugh and ignore and aggravate her already painful wound.

Marin was abandoned without being loved by her parents, and Violette was made to accompany a distorted delusion. They were by no means happy.

So surely, Marin was feeling sympathy to Violette.

“…I won’t quit.”

The girl who was standing by herself without even crying was too lonely. The fact that there was no one that supported her back was painful.

Even though Marin couldn’t stand next to her, she wanted to make sure that when Violette looked back, there was someone smiling at her.

And if her parents abandoned her, Marin should be able to take that position.

“I’ll stay with you forever. After all, this is a life that you… Violette-sama, have saved.”

This small hand certainly saved Marin on that day. If Violette had turned away from her at that time, Marin’s life might have ended at that point.

The person that saved Marin’s life and still held on to her even until now was Violette.

Nourishing foods, clean clothes, clean water, and warm blanket.

The church, which believed that allegiance to God alone would be able to manage everything somehow, was always in poverty, receiving more orphans than its capacity. Her life was average when she was still caught in between her family members, but the current her had an even more comfortable life than all of that. All of the treatment and weighing pressure were pleasant.

If the reason was trivial, she could just laugh.

Violette said that the eyes Marin she hated so much were beautiful. Those words, that small kindness, was the trigger of everything.

In the middle of her heart, in the center of her life. In the place that gave a beating sound, there was a gentle heat.

Marin wanted to stay with her. This time, she wanted to tell the girl that said her eyes were beautiful that she was beautiful.

This was surely sympathy, and unquestionably the first affection that Marin ever had.

Not only Violette, but Marin’s world also changed at that day.

×　×　×　×

The time Marin returned to her room was later than usual because she was discussing about the breakfast menu for tomorrow. If there was a shadow of this in the morning, she would make Violette worry.

“Ah, tomorrow’s schedule…”

Violette said that she would have an outing after school, so her return should be a little later. Marin opened her regularly used schedule book and edited the timetable she had already expected to some extent.

The sound of the metal scratching the paper echoed, and the fountain pen in her hand entered her sight. Marin thought that this cherry blossom colored pen was too cute for her to use, but she was sure that she wouldn’t change it for the rest of her life.

Violette gave it to her to celebrate Marin becoming twenty years old.

She had become an adult, and Violette was also already seventeen years old.

Marin had stayed with Violette for seven years since that day, originally due to sympathy. She had seen Violette’s refreshingly selfish parents and how she was distorted little by little.

The compassion changed into affection, and Violette became more important day by day. The more Marin took care of Violette, the more she felt when Violette was not taken care of, and the more she detested those who didn’t take care of Violette.

(It’s great that she looks happy.)

Violette was a person who was good at suppressing her emotions and killing them, and rarely showed any expression. Marin couldn’t fault her since she was also like that, but in her own case, it was because her emotions’ ups and downs were very small.

That Violette seemed unusually happy, assuming from how she also didn’t force herself at the dining table that was supposed to make her feel depressed. None of the people who shared the same table with her realized that, but even if they noticed, they would only have given gave some kind of preach. If they didn’t care about Violette’s feelings anyway, it might be better that they didn’t notice anything in the first place.

When Marin inquired about the reason, she said that she made a promise with Yulan to have an outing.

Marin knew Yulan Kugles. They had met each other through Violette, but they had hardly ever spoken. The Yulan that Marin knew was from the expression she saw when Yulan was together with Violette, and also his actions to Violette’s talks.

Marin knew his name, face, and some information about him to some extent, but their relationship was not so different from strangers.

Nevertheless, Marin’s trust in Yulan was strong enough to call him her comrade.

Comrades who thought of Violette with great care.

Comrades who wished for her happiness more than anything.

If Violette was going out alone, Marin would have had to consider things a little bit more, but if she was together with Yulan, he would surely protect her from troublesome favors. Despite all of the attention Violette received, she surely didn’t understand the impact of her own appearance. It was only natural that she wasn’t aware about it in the house where she wasn’t even called by her own name, but once she went outside, everyone would be attracted to Violette, regardless of her awareness.

“Should I reduce the amount of the dinner…”

Violette would be back in time for dinner, but if she ate something before that, Marin had to reduce the amount for her master who ate less.

Marin wrote a note so that she wouldn’t forget and put it on tomorrow’s clothes. The moment she entered her bed, she became sleepy.

In her consciousness that slowly fell into the world of dreams, she wished that tomorrow Violette would return home with a smile.