If You Wish to Have Me - Chapter 118

Death. The moment life fades away. A body without a soul.

In Kisa’s mind, the first and last encounter with death in her life came flooding back.

It had been the same then. Following the servants with their dark expressions, she found her mother lying in bed with her eyes closed as if asleep.

Though they had spent time together every day, her mother had passed away when Kisa happened to be away from her bedside.

Everyone spoke of her death, yet when Kisa mindlessly grasped her frail hand, there was still lukewarm warmth remaining.

Just like right now.

“…….”

Bending her stiff neck to examine the cat cradled in the boy’s arms more closely, things that hadn’t been visible before finally came into view.

The unusually dull fur, the body that had grown thin over the past few days, and the countless wounds hidden beneath the fur.

Particularly the wound on the paw, which seemed to have occurred not long ago, still had blood seeping from it.

“This was probably the decisive cause that led to its death.”

The boy, noticing Kisa’s gaze, kindly explained in detail what he had observed and deduced.

“I saw earlier that there was a long trail of blood running through the alley. Looking at the wound, I suspect it got caught in some kind of trap like a rat trap. Perhaps it injured an artery? Anyway, if it lost a large amount of blood while already in a weakened state, excessive bleeding could certainly have occurred.”

Before this array of words she didn’t understand—or rather, didn’t want to understand—Kisa’s body began to tremble faintly.

“The other wounds on its body seem to have been there for some time, and judging by their shape, they look like scars from beast claws or teeth. It’s likely the work of other stray cats or wild dogs. It might have been territorial fighting. Given that this cat clearly looks old, it would have been at a disadvantage.”

But perhaps not noticing this fact, the boy continued speaking.

“It’s just my speculation, but that might be why it suddenly disappeared after visiting your house every day. Unable to roam around as before for fear of being attacked again, it would have been hungry, so it probably entered places like food storage areas that it wouldn’t normally approach…”

Only then did the boy stop talking and look at Kisa, who had been quiet all this while.

Then he asked:

“What’s wrong?”

With a truly puzzled expression.

Kisa, whose gaze had been fixed on the dead cat as if nailed there, took one step back, then two.

“Uh, uh.”

A groan escaped from her small mouth, and her head moved left and right as if denying reality.

“Are you hurt somewhere? You don’t look well.”

The boy tilted his head and approached again.

Not content with that, he brought the corpse in his hands even closer to Kisa.

“If so, you’d better say your farewells quickly and go home to see a doctor.”

In the process, the cat’s paw pointed downward, so it was natural that the blood soaked in the wound would drip down due to gravity.

The moment when the ominous liquid flowing from the dead body began to stain the ground drop by drop was the turning point.

Kisa had to acknowledge the cruel truth unfolding before her.

Mustache Jack was dead. He was no longer in this world.

After her mother’s passing, the cat that had restored the laughter Kisa had lost was dead.

What lay before her eyes resembled Jack but was nothing more than an empty shell that Jack had left behind.

An empty shell without a soul, unable to receive the food Kisa offered anymore, with nothing left but to decay.

“No!”

A sharp scream echoed through the air.

It was a scream so desperate and piercing that even Kisa herself found it unfamiliar.

“No! I said no! Don’t come near me!”

The boy’s eyes widened as he watched Kisa violently shake her body in rejection.

Perhaps realizing something, the boy no longer approached, but Kisa’s condition did not calm down.

Her legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground, thick tears flowing from the child’s eyes.

“Jack can’t be dead. Jack, Jack…”

Though she tried to deny it, even to young Kisa’s eyes, reality was all too clear.

Her crying grew louder and soon turned into wailing sobs.

And in that tumultuous situation, passersby gradually gathered around Kisa and the boy.

“What’s this? What’s happening?”

“Oh my, why is that little girl like that?”

“Did the boy bully her?”

Then, among those who each muttered something, a boy suddenly darted out.

“Kisa? Damn, it really is Kisa!”

It was Daniel Lowens, who had earlier left his fiancée alone to go out and play with friends.

“Get out of the way!”

Daniel, who had rushed out, put the cat down on the ground and pushed the red-haired boy who was approaching the girl with all his might.

“Why are you here? What about home? Aren’t there other people?”

He grabbed Kisa’s shoulders and questioned her, but the person in question was in no state to answer.

Kisa couldn’t properly recognize that Daniel had arrived and could only let her tears fall.

“Good heavens! Don’t tell me you came out alone in secret? Just to find some cat? You fool!”

After scolding her once, Daniel glared at what he thought was the culprit who had made his fiancée cry.

“You bastard! What did you do to her?”

“…….”

But regardless of Daniel’s reaction, the boy only stared at Kisa with an unreadable expression.

“Hey, who do you think you’re looking at right now? What did you do to her? Answer properly!”

The person who restrained Daniel, who seemed ready to rush forward and throw punches at any moment, was Kisa.

“Daniel, Jack… Jack…”

At the sight of Kisa clutching his sleeve and muttering as if she had lost her mind, Daniel clicked his tongue in frustration.

Between two paths—punishing the bad guy above all else versus protecting his fiancée for now—Daniel chose the latter.

“You, just wait and see. I’ve memorized your face clearly. I’ll definitely find you and smash you to pieces, so wait for it.”

He gritted his teeth and warned, then helped Kisa to her feet while supporting her body.

“Jack, Jack…”

“Kisa, pull yourself together. We need to go back quickly. Since you came out too, they must have noticed at home.”

While being dragged away by Daniel, Kisa couldn’t help but turn around at the gaze that seemed to cling to the back of her head.

The red-haired boy was still looking at Kisa. Steadily. Without even glancing at Daniel.

Startled, Kisa turned her head away.

Even as the grief of losing Jack overwhelmed her entire heart, a vivid fear raised its head.

The reddish-brown eyes that had seemed dry yet warm until just moments ago now felt endlessly cold.

‘Scary.’

Red hair really was frightening.

That boy was frightening.

Jack’s death was frightening.

The red-haired boy who had calmly held out Jack’s corpse.

For young Kisa, it was a scene difficult to accept as it was.

She just wanted to forget.

‘Yes, let’s just forget.’

Forgetting was Kisa’s specialty.

Hadn’t the memories of when Countess Vansfelt died also become somewhat dim, except for certain specific scenes?

Kisa closed her eyes tightly and muttered to herself.

Let’s forget it all.

****

Kisa gasped for breath.

Quickly looking around, she saw the view of a dark room lit by only one lamp.

Though her headache had subsided, her head was still foggy as a sense of reality gradually began to return.

‘The memory that just came back…’

Had it really happened?

The intensely vivid moments asserted the reliability of the memory, too clear to be called a dream.

Though it was surprising that she had completely forgotten such an intense event, there was something even more shocking.

That boy in the memory and…

“This scarf.”

Kisa looked down at the colorful woolen fabric in her hands while sitting collapsed on the floor.

Without needing to reconsider, Kisa had certainly been wearing this scarf that her mother had knitted at that time.

But since she had no memory of wearing it afterward, it was highly likely that she had lost it then.

“I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Even if the scarf had fallen to the street due to vigorous movement and the knot had come undone, she wouldn’t have noticed, and there was no one who would have asked Kisa about the scarf’s whereabouts when she returned after going missing.

Therefore, the identity of these dark red stains on the scarf must surely be Jack’s blood that had gotten on it from the ground.

Thinking this way, everything fit together.

“But why is this here…”

There was one possibility she could think of.

Someone had picked up the scarf from that place at the time and put it in that wooden box.

Like an amazing coincidence, both the boy who had been closest to Kisa at that time and the owner of this room were both possessors of red hair.

No, without going far around, didn’t the two figures look very similar?

She could still clearly remember the boy’s neat features.

Not long ago, he closely resembled the young brothers in the portrait she had encountered in this mansion’s picture storage room, and furthermore, if he grew into adults, he seemed like he would become a certain person she knew well.

‘Seyard.’

However, there was one crucial contradiction in this assumption.

“Strange. The name I heard then was…”

The boy’s name that had sounded similar to biscuit.

[Vischer. That’s my name.]

He had definitely introduced himself that way, so Kisa became even more confused about what was what.

This room was where Seyard kept his precious belongings, but suddenly his brother?

Kisa tried to calm her confused mind and stood up.

Though the shock was indescribable, she had confirmed what was in the box.

‘I’ve achieved my intended purpose, so I should get out of here first and then think about it—’

But the next moment, Kisa, who was startled out of her wits, had to stop thinking.

The door she had definitely locked was opening by itself.

And the figure who revealed himself from beyond the door was…

Kisa found herself calling out his name without realizing it.

“Seyard?”