“So It Was Me Who Couldn’t Leave Him”

—

Melyn had probably anticipated that some things needed to be guided by the mother herself, and she also knew that if she didn’t leave, these two inherently “awkward” mother and daughter wouldn’t be able to speak.

And so it was.

Lis stood with her arms crossed, occasionally scratching her head, seemingly pondering how to begin. Compared to her, Leah appeared calmer, simply looking down at the green grass swaying in the wind.

“Leah…”

“Actually… actually, Mother, you should have just asked me directly.”

To Lis’s surprise, her daughter, who had become somewhat withdrawn and unwilling to speak after entering her rebellious phase, was the first to break the silence. Leah spoke very plainly.

“I… I won’t say nothing, even if it worries you. Hmm… because I’ve found that, when communicating with people, it’s truly… truly best to say everything, everything, everything you want to say…”

She looked up, gripping her staff tighter.

“You’ve certainly changed. It seems letting you roam freely for a few years wasn’t a bad thing at all.” Lis spoke with relief. Before Leah went alone to the human world to find her, she was extremely “avoidant,” subconsciously shying away even from her mother’s care. But now, Leah was the one who would speak first when neither of them could.

“No… I could have changed much less, if… if I hadn’t met him.”

“So, what did you experience out there? Your student… oh, no, perhaps I should say your beloved. I remember his name was Will, right? He…”

“He died.”

Leah said the words, and silence fell between them, a chilling wind blowing through. Leah had never even said this most heartbreaking phrase to herself, not even in her own mind. Yet, surprisingly, when she needed to tell Lis, the words came out with such alarming quickness. She… she didn’t even feel the “heartache” she had imagined. She pressed her hand to her heart. Though, there was still a tiny bit, just a tiny bit, you know?

“Mm. I… I see that.”

Lis reached out and took off Leah’s large hat. It was then that she saw Leah’s reddened eyes. But Leah wasn’t crying; she simply displayed a quiet “sadness” that seemed out of place on a “child.”

“Since returning here, you’ve been distracting yourself by completing experiments, trying not to think about it, right?”

Leah noticed that Lis’s tone, compared to her usual somewhat old but playful voice of recent “years,” had returned to how it used to be… to the tone she used when sitting by the fireplace, lighting a fire, and telling her stories. How many years ago was that? But regardless, for long-lived witches, a mother could be a mother for a very long time, and a child could be a child for a very long time.

“But, Leah. Since you’ve learned how to honestly express your affection, you should also learn to honestly express your grief.”

Her hand caressed Leah’s head, stroking gently.

“Mm… Mother, you’re right…”

Hearing this, Leah began to sob. She felt a “cold” pain from deep within her blood, stinging her heart, her cerebral cortex, every part of her veins. She had heard that sometimes, losing someone might not bring immediate grief. One would subconsciously numb oneself, feverishly doing one’s own work, frantically completing other tasks… until one day, when everything was done, sitting down quietly, one would find that the tears accumulated in the numbness would finally burst forth.

“So this is… this is what it feels like when someone so intimately close to you leaves this world…”

Leah leaned into Lis’s hand, burying her head in her embrace.

“I wanted him to never leave me, I wanted his magic circuits to boil for me, I wanted him to only crave my witch’s blood to live… it was me… it was me!”

“But the night I came back… my hands and feet felt ice cold, and no matter how I tried to activate my magic circuits, no matter what magic I used, they remained silent!”

Her eyes widened, large tears streaming from her red witch’s eyes. She looked at the box filled with Bloodmint Essence that Melyn had taken out and she had closed.

“Vial after vial after vial… I injected into my body…”

“Even though before, just one vial was enough… enough to flood my mind with stimulation, excitement, and pleasure…”

“But I sat on the bed, my nose filled with the scent, yet felt nothing, as if completely numb.”

“When I finally realized… I had already used up half of the Bloodmint Essence… yet even that didn’t change anything…”

“It was then I realized… I realized I couldn’t leave him at all.”

Leah’s voice slowly became calm as she said this.

“Mother, perhaps you’re right… He was the one who made me grow, the one I couldn’t leave.”

Lis wiped her tears with the back of her hand. How long had it been since she last saw her daughter cry like this? It probably went back to when she was a child, when she had just learned explosion magic and ended up covered in ash.

“…So, will witches always experience partings like this throughout their long lives?”

Lis didn’t answer, merely stroking Leah’s golden hair. Her golden hair, just woken up and not yet tied into the energetic and beautiful twin ponytails Leah preferred, slid through her fingers. Perhaps because her magic circuits were silent, her fingers slid down to the red tips of Leah’s golden hair, feeling its slight dryness and seeing the split ends.

“Leah, let’s go back inside.”

“Although it’s not winter anymore.”

“But, I can still tell you stories by the fireplace, just like before.”

…

Leah walked into Lis’s house. Lis still loved her mushroom-shaped hut, which, from afar, looked like something out of a fairy tale. The sky outside, its time controlled by the dungeon, was stuck at the most melancholic twilight. A ray of slanted sunlight shone through the mushroom hut’s small window, but due to the setting sun, it couldn’t illuminate the entire room.

But Lis still lit a candle and a warm fire in the hearth, sitting by the table. The table was still the same as before, with a few loaves of bread scattered haphazardly and two teacups filled with hot water. Leah noticed that this room was actually so “clean.” She remembered that the house used to be filled with all sorts of ancient magic books, especially the table, always obscured by thick volumes. Unlike Leah, who was an experimentalist, Lis’s most frequent research was the interpretation of ancient texts.

But now, this room was exceptionally clean and tidy. Those books and scattered notebooks and papers were nowhere to be seen.

“So, my current state is called… magical circuit depression?”

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