Miss, It’s Just a Cold

Chapter 36: Why?

Even though I had raised my voice earlier, it was uncomfortable staying in the same space as Aria. But I still didn’t want to return home, so I remained seated, continually drinking tea and eating snacks.

Noticing Aria’s slightly uneasy glances in my direction, I wet my lips with tea and spoke softly.

“I’m sorry for raising my voice earlier.”

“Oh, no. It’s fine.”

Aria awkwardly looked around, avoiding my gaze, then pursed her lips and hesitantly asked in a crawling voice.

“By the way, how much longer are you going to keep speaking formally?”

“I guess that’s up to me.”

I sipped my tea and answered with a slight smile.

“We’re not close enough for that yet, are we?”

“…Not yet, right?”

“Yes, not yet.”

Though I doubt the day will come when we grow closer.

Aria could speak casually to me if she wanted. After all, she’s much better than me in every way.

She ordered more food through a servant. Drinking tea with fragrant bread that seemed to have no sugar made me feel a renewed desire for life.

After some time passed, Ernst arrived as well.

The atmosphere didn’t change drastically with one more person joining. 

After all, the mood is always gloomy when I’m around.

Ernst observed us for a long while before speaking.

“Did you two have a fight?”

Aria and I answered simultaneously that we hadn’t.

I pulled my sleeves down as far as they would go, avoiding any chance that Ernst might see the bandages. If he did, it might lead to another heated argument like the one with Aria earlier.

“…Your head—did you hit it somewhere?”

“Oh, yes. I bumped into a wall while sketching in my notebook.”

Ernst didn’t seem entirely convinced but nodded nonetheless.

The three of us talked about various things—like balls and family. Of course, I didn’t contribute anything.

Time always passes quickly when eating snacks, bread, or drinking tea alongside idle chatter.

For someone else, this might be a dull and uneventful moment, but for me, it wasn’t painful.

Being around people who cared about me made it a somewhat happy time.

And I could eat as much as I wanted.

As the sun began to set, its light turned red.

The sunset hanging at the edge of the sky felt oddly ominous.

Perhaps it’s because, around this time, I used to be dragged into the punishment room instead of having dinner and locked inside.

While I reflected, the rest of my family enjoyed their meals as I “atoned for my sins.”

Ernst and I bid Aria farewell and left her house.

Seeing the red sunset from outside instead of from inside the house wasn’t so bad, surprisingly.

We took the usual path we walked to get home.

Naturally, this included the shortcut I often ran through when I was younger.

I felt slightly out of breath and figured I should rest for a moment here.

“…Should we take a short break? I’m a bit tired.”

Ernst nodded.

I stretched to shake off the stiffness, though I quickly regretted it.

“Maybe it’s because I sat for so long earlier, but my body feels stiff.”

“…What’s with your arm?”

“It’s just an injury. I wrapped it in a bandage, that’s all.”

“How badly did you get hurt to wrap your whole arm like that?”

“It’s just… a little. No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

I don’t want to lie.

At least not to someone who has shown me trust.

When I tried to brush Ernst’s hand away from my sleeve, he grabbed my wrist instead.

A sharp sting followed, and a trickle of blood seeped onto Ernst’s hand.

“…Ow.”

“……Hey.”

He stared at me.

I couldn’t tell if it was with contempt or anger.

But maybe this is my fault—after all, he did offer to help, yet here I was, doing this.

I’d upset Ernst.

“You said it was just a little.”

“I also said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“What could you have done to get an injury like this? It’s still bleeding!”

“What—did helping mean prying into every little thing and interfering?”

“Stop deflecting and just answer me.”

“I said no!”

Despite my refusal, Ernst forcefully rolled up my sleeve.

“For now, I’m still a noblewoman, so could you at least show a bit of—”

And then his expression hardened.

The wounds on my arm were visible, with the once-white bandages now stained red.

At home, I would replace them immediately if they felt even slightly uncomfortable, so the traces usually weren’t noticeable. I guess going to Aria’s mansion today had been a mistake.

I tried to lighten the mood with a meaningless comment, but it didn’t seem to work.

“What could you possibly have done to end up with wounds like these!?”

He interrupted me, yelling in anger.

I wasn’t particularly surprised.

Living every day surrounded by people who yell at me, torment me, and slowly kill me, it wouldn’t make sense to be startled by something like this.

If I was, I might as well abandon the name Emily altogether.

“…It’s just, I got scratched by glass.”

“These aren’t just scratches. Take off the bandage.”

“No.”

“Do it!”

“…I said no.”

I don’t want to show him my ugly self any more than I already have, but Ernst always exposes me.

He did it when we were younger, and he’s still the same now.

Maybe he feels like he’s getting to know me better and helping me, but the more he does, the more I want to hide.

I know it’s a pointless sense of pride or stubbornness.

But if my emotions were easy to control, I wouldn’t have been beaten like a dog by my mother.

This damned blood—it hadn’t gone anywhere. I wished Ernst would help me, yet I also didn’t want him to see my filthiness, my shame, my ugliness. These contradictory feelings collided in my mind.

Maybe these weren’t even my emotions—maybe they were Emily’s. As I rationalized it to myself, I eventually let out a hollow laugh.

How pathetic.

Ernst, still gripping my sleeve, simply stood in front of me, blocking my way.

“…Move.”

“Emily, what do you want me to do? Do you want my help or not?

If you don’t show me, I’ll leave right now. And I’ll just stay as that distant, awkward neighborly friend you talked about.”

Truthfully, even though I said that to Emily, I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow through on it.

Emily trembled slightly, biting her lip, and then told me to let go of her sleeve.

She asked me to take a step back from her.

If she had insisted on leaving it at that, I would have forced her hand and looked anyway.

The blood was welling up in long streaks, as if deliberately drawn by someone.

Emily sighed and slowly unwrapped the bandages.

A faint scent of blood, an overpowering smell of herbs, and the stale odor of sweat trapped inside the wrappings—all these mingled unpleasantly, but none of that was what mattered.

Her arm wasn’t merely scratched—it was carved.

Some wounds were long and jagged, like they had been made with something sharp and thin. They stretched across her arm like pen marks, scattered in every direction.

“…These are deliberate wounds. Who did this to you?”

There was no way she could have done this to herself.

“Your mother? Or maybe the eldest son you occasionally curse?”

Emily shook her head.

“Then that sibling of yours, the one who doesn’t make any sense, the one who’s jealous of you?”

She hesitated for a moment before shaking her head again.

Then she spoke softly, barely audible.

“I did it myself. I was already hurt, so I thought… It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”

It’s been a while, she said.

When we were younger, I wouldn’t have known. But around the time she entered adolescence, I rarely saw Emily.

Even if I visited her home, she wouldn’t come out. And when we did cross paths, it would end with her simply bowing her head in silence.

At some point, her gaze had started to look hollow, as if something inside her was decaying. 

It seemed like someone had forced her to behave properly, watching for any misstep. She began greeting me hesitantly, awkwardly.

Then we started talking again. Slowly, we reconnected. And eventually, I heard she was unwell.

Now, seeing her injuries, I understood.

Emily wasn’t just physically unwell.

And I was the only person who could help her.

Her family either didn’t care or were actively harming her.

These weren’t injuries that could be fixed with some herbal paste and bandages.

Even the poorest commoners would scrape together whatever they could to treat scars properly. 

Yet all Emily had were slightly bluish herbal concoctions and plain bandages on her arm.

Emily slowly rewrapped her wounds.

A tear escaped from her right eye.

She must have thought she wiped it away naturally, but it was clumsy. After awkwardly dabbing at her tears, she began to walk.

When I brought her to the front of her house after about five minutes of walking, I reached for her wrist but stopped, remembering her injury. Instead, I held onto her sleeve and spoke.

“If it gets too hard, run away. Even if it’s at night. Stay in my room, or I’ll ask Aria to lend you a room. Anything.”

At that, Emily let out a hollow laugh and replied in a faintly mocking tone.

“Well, thanks. If I could sneak out at night, I’d be sure to do that. Really.”

But she looked so pitiful that I couldn’t say anything else.

Emily walked toward her mansion with a heavy gait, her face stiff. Yet I stood there for a long while, staring at the spot where she had been standing.

The wounds she had shown me wouldn’t leave my mind.

She had called me her best friend.

Her one and only precious childhood friend.

So why hadn’t I spoken to her until she got to this point?

Why hadn’t I noticed?