Miss, stop committing suicide

Chapter 46

“Ugh, my head hurts.”

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a room I remembered visiting before.

Vivian’s room looked exactly as I remembered—or rather, just as it had the last time I’d been here.

“Erica, have you calmed down a little?”

Seeing that I was awake, Vivian approached me, looking me over as if to make sure I was truly okay.

Her gaze felt unpleasant, like worms crawling all over my skin.

“Calmed down? After being dragged here by force, you have the nerve to talk about calming down?”

I was lying on a bed.

When I tried to sit up, bracing myself with my arms, I realized my wrists—slashed in a straight line as if cut by a knife—were bound with ropes to the headboard of the bed.

The bindings were so tight that even when I moved my arms around, the headboard rattled, yet the ropes stayed firmly in place, digging into my skin.

“Ah, damn it.”

Vivian flinched when she heard my muttered curse.

Oh, is this her first time hearing me swear?

“…”

“I’m sorry for tying you up, but your injuries are severe. I called Evan, so he’ll take care of it.”

“Stop joking around. Untie me right now.”

I scowled and snapped at her, and perhaps she thought she could subdue me by force if necessary. To my surprise, Vivian quietly undid the ropes.

After that, while she was seated again, sipping her tea, I reached for the gun I usually carried at my waist to aim it at my head.

But my hand grasped at the empty air.

It was gone.

“Looking for this, perhaps?”

My gun, its bullets removed, was standing upright next to a plate filled with baked treats Vivian had placed on the table.

The room’s lighting glinted annoyingly off the ivory grip and gold detailing of the weapon.

“You kidnapped me, tied me up, and now you’ve rummaged through my things to take something precious from me.”

“A moment ago, you were speaking perfectly fine, even angry. Someone who seemed so proud and confident just a minute ago… If that same person were now twisted into something pathetic before your eyes, what would you think?”

Vivian spoke while handing me a lukewarm cup of tea and a cookie filled with chocolate chips.

I took them and, feeling no particular urge to eat, set them carelessly on the bed.

“What would I think? I’d just assume you’re having a hard time and leave it at that. Is that so difficult?”

“It is difficult. The lectures ended long ago, so no one would be around to bother you, and yet your arms have deep, straight knife wounds. Doesn’t that raise questions?”

“I could have accidentally cut myself while breaking a teacup.”

I couldn’t help but laugh hollowly at my own absurd excuse.

Still, I kept spinning nonsensical excuses, hoping to leave this room somehow.

It didn’t seem like Vivian intended to let me go.

“Do you really think that’s a reasonable excuse!?”

Vivian’s voice rose, her eyes widening with anger.

The memory of being pinned down, unable to move, flashed through my mind, and I reflexively shrank back.

“If it’s so precious to you, why not just keep it as a decoration? The gun was fully loaded—with six bullets, ready to fire as soon as the hammer was pulled back and the trigger squeezed!”

Vivian slammed her hand lightly on the table as she spoke.

Her words pierced through me, no matter how hard I tried to let them wash over me.

“…Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Evan, you, Lydia—all of you, I wish you would just leave me alone.

“Can you give me back my gun?”

Vivian pushed my gun aside, shaking her head as if to say no.

I noticed then that the bullets had long since been scattered across the floor.

She looked at me, her face a mixture of concern and confusion.

In truth, all of this would resolve itself if you’d just stop paying attention to me.

If Lydia ignored me, lived quietly in the academy without causing trouble, there’d be no need for any of this.

Evan’s indifference after our fight was refreshing, though he hadn’t always been so detached. Vivian, this unremarkable girl who hovered in-between, would make my life so much easier if she left me alone.

I don’t want to feel jealous standing next to you. I don’t want to feel like a wretched creature compared to you.

I don’t want to see my own shortcomings.

And yet, when you show me kindness—offering me cookies and tea despite my rejection—I can’t help but feel like a miserable insect.

The crown prince is the best, isn’t he?

Even though he’s pushed me into this pit, as long as he doesn’t go insane and kill a student outright in the academy, he doesn’t care at all.

Ha, words I can’t even say out loud.

Or maybe after a few more deaths, I could say them.

When I first woke up in this body, I never dreamed of things like this—cursing, raging, killing, losing control.

Back then, the compulsion to maintain this girl’s dignity was stronger than any fleeting joy I might have felt in regaining my limbs.

“Vivian, for me, that’s all there is now. I have nothing left. So, will you return it to me?”

I spoke with a faint smile.

“…Miss, I’ve lived with someone who wore that same expression.”

Vivian’s face darkened as she began recounting her own story.

But I didn’t need to hear it. I already knew it.

Even after your father’s death, you still had people to take care of you, didn’t you?

You were never completely alone. Even if you faced hardships, you always found a way to overcome them.

Look at you now—your extraordinary magic, your beauty, your optimism, so dazzling it’s almost shameful to envy.

Shaking off my spiraling thoughts, I asked her again.

“What’s so strange about my expression, Vivian?”

Vivian, ever so kind, began to explain.

“It’s the face of someone who’s given up on everything—even the last thing the gods left for them.”

When she mentioned “the last thing the gods gave you,” tears welled up in my eyes.

Smiling while crying—it must have been a bizarre sight.

I, the lady… no, I, am I the lady? No, it feels like it’s me. Or maybe the distinction doesn’t matter. I’ve gone over this countless times, yet in the end, I am simply crying, sobbing uncontrollably.

I didn’t make any wailing sounds, but my breath hitched, and it became harder to suppress the sounds of my sharp inhalations and exhalations.

Tears slid down my cheeks, pooling at my chin before forming small droplets that fell as they could no longer bear the weight of the ones still falling from above.

“I gave up a long time ago. But someone… someone refuses to let me give up.”

For a moment, my vision blurred.

Maybe it was because of the tears filling my eyes, or perhaps the surge of emotions had made my head spin.

There’s so much I don’t know.

I don’t know who has made me suffer like this. I don’t know what it is that Vivian, who claims to believe in a god, expects from me.

All I can do is resent and curse. But I can’t even voice it properly; all I can do is plead with someone much stronger than me to return what’s mine. That seems to be the limit of what I can do.

I stood up, taking the tea and cookies Vivian had handed me moments ago, and placed them back on the table in front of her. Then, I sat across from her.

To soothe my parched throat, I drank the tea and ate the cookies in large bites.

Well, not exactly like a glutton, but close.

After a while, having eaten enough cookies and drunk enough tea to fill my stomach, I spoke to Vivian in an absentminded tone, as if I were merely venting.

“Just leave me alone. Anyone, I don’t care who.

Don’t talk to me. Don’t worry about me.

Don’t look at me with pity. Don’t show me kindness.

Don’t look at my past with sorrow. Don’t think about my family.

Just shove me into some corner, and once in a while, think, ‘Ah, there was someone like that,’ then forget about me and stop caring.”

With that, I flung the white cloth covering my right arm aside and clawed at the partially healed wound with my bare hand.

The twisted flesh split open grotesquely, and blood began to pour out in streams.

“No matter what I do—whether I starve to death in the streets or kill someone—just don’t care. Leave me alone.

Don’t pity me. Don’t worry about me.”

I grabbed the teacup with the hand I’d used to tear at my wound and slammed it against the table.

There wasn’t any dramatic sound like a shattering crash, but the glass broke neatly in half.

Vivian, her face tight with anguish as if she might cry, grabbed my arm to stop me.

Her grip was so strong that I heard a faint cracking sound from my right hand, while my left twisted painfully, sending signals of impending uselessness to my brain.

“If you ever think of me, just spit on my grave! That’s all I ask!”

Vivian’s face was flushed, her expression filled with anger and sadness. She held me tightly, then tossed me onto the bed.

Using her strength, she overpowered me and began tying me to the headboard again—this time, binding both arms.

“Please, just… hic.”

A hiccup broke through my sobbing—or was it laughter?

“Leave me alone…”

The room spun.