Summer looked completely exhausted.
“Today, it all ends.”
This meant to stop tormenting her and just leave her alone. But there was one thing Summer didn’t know.
Pay was scratching her head awkwardly, hesitating to speak.
“Um, I’m sorry, but it’s black hair. It’s tomorrow.”
“……What do you mean?”
Summer’s eyes turned into triangles. She was tired. It felt like the world wouldn’t leave her alone and kept tormenting her.
She wanted to hurry back and cry in her mother’s arms. Then, she wanted to eat a bowl of ramen and sleep soundly.
In her own bed in the real world.
“The world has turned back time a little. A few hours ago. So right now, it’s yesterday.”
“What nonsense are you talking about? Why would the world do something like that? Is turning back time that easy?”
But it had been postponed.
Does that make sense? Why would the creator, the author, go through the trouble of turning back the world’s time?
“No. The forest I live in must be in chaos.”
“Ah, no….”
This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be. Even if it was the world, it could no longer stop Summer.
Summer shot up with unfocused eyes. Pay, filled with sudden fear, grabbed Summer’s hand.
“Black hair?”
“It doesn’t have to be done tomorrow, right? Isn’t that so? It’s like that, right?”
“Y-yes, but….”
“Pay. I absolutely have to leave today. I can’t bear to stay in this strange world any longer.”
“Yesterday, I mean today, you were laughing with your maids, and suddenly why?”
Pay’s attitude seemed to be trying to stop Summer. That attitude frustrated Summer to no end.
“Can I go back?”
“You can go back, but….”
“Can I go back or not! I asked if I could go back, didn’t I!”
Summer shouted, shaking off Pay’s hand.
Why? Why are you stopping me? No one will remember me when I return to the real world anyway.
It will end like a scattered dream when I return to the real world.
So, like a book that has been closed after seeing the ending.
“So I don’t understand why you’re in such a hurry to die,”
Summer cut off Pay’s words and glared at her.
Her burning, glistening blue eyes looked hotter than red flames.
“I’ve never wanted to die even once! Every moment, I wanted to survive! It’s just that it wasn’t in this world; I wanted to, I wanted to… live, you know? Do you understand?”
“Summer, calm down….”
“Don’t call me that name too!”
Summer screamed as if she were struggling, stomping her feet. She was so angry she couldn’t contain herself.
She held it in. She held it all in. Even when Pay deceived her, even when Mary kept holding her back, even when the protagonists tried to stop her. All of it.
After all, this is a story with a set duration. A story that will end someday.
But the story didn’t end.
It felt like she had read what she thought was a one-volume novel only to find out at the end that it was a ten-volume series.
As Pay fumbled and tried to approach Summer, a sharp, cheerful knock cut through the tension between them.
“Miss. A guest has arrived.”
Mary’s voice came from outside the door. Summer glared at the door fiercely and said,
“Tell them to go away.”
“It’s Duke Bertrand.”
“……Ha. Tell him to wait.”
“Yes.”
Summer’s fierce demeanor softened a bit. Still, her eyes were unfocused, as if she had lost her mind.
Summer staggered past Pay.
Pay wanted to say something more, but she could only open her mouth in silence. She couldn’t speak honestly or state the truth.
“Tonight. I will go back. So bring Summer’s soul with you.”
“Where to?”
“……To the temple. To the temple.”
“……Got it.”
Summer threw her last words at Pay in a hoarse voice and opened the door.
Mary, waiting outside, sensed the tense atmosphere and looked back and forth between Summer and Pay with wide eyes.
Pay, who usually babbled like a child, was strangely quiet.
The witch, slightly lowering her gaze and lost in thought, resembled the Pope Pay that Mary had seen a long time ago.
“She’s in the reception room.”
“Ah, yes! She’s waiting in the reception room.”
“Understood.”
Summer walked slowly down the long corridor. It was a long, long hallway. Mary watched Summer sway unsteadily with concern.
“Witch. Is this your doing?”
“It’s because of you, you frog! You kept talking about the real world and all that.”
“That’s the most important thing, but it seems like you’re not considering it at all. It’s true that there’s no way to check if she’s safe, right?”
“Yeah. I can’t interfere with another world either.”
Pay nodded readily at Mary’s probing. It was the truth.
If she could have interfered with that world, she would have done so long ago. She would have gone and asked the god who abandoned her why they did that.
“……Why did time turn back?”
“The world doesn’t intend to send black hair back.”
“What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that?”
“Strangely, the world is preventing black hair from leaving, even at the cost of its own destruction.”
“Why on earth?”
Mary’s expression darkened sharply.
Pay’s purple eyes also sank into darkness. It felt eerily calm before a storm.
It felt like being a small creature that could only look at the sky, not knowing what the coming storm would be.
“Summer.”
Russell called out Summer’s name as she entered the reception room.
Somehow, Summer looked much more precarious than on the day they parted.
Summer plopped down opposite Russell, grabbed a teacup, and gulped it down in one go. It felt like her sore throat, which had been rough, was calming down a bit.
“Today, I don’t really want to hear that name. If you had seen me for the last time that day, it could have remained a pleasant memory.”
“What happened?”
Russell seemed genuinely unaware of the mansion’s atmosphere.
“If something happened, can you solve it?”
“Can I solve it?”
As if he were a prime minister. Summer shook her head and replied.
“Ha, no. What can the dolls of the world do together?”
“…….”
“Why did you come?”
“Because today is the day you leave. I wanted to see you at least one more time.”
“…….”
Summer felt strange at Russell’s honesty.
Was it because he was rational that he could be so honest? Or was it because he had no storms in his life that he could be like that?
“Mr. Russell, you really say things that lead to misunderstandings.”
“Am I the one?”
Russell asked innocently.
As he tilted his head, his fine blue hair fell softly, revealing his neat eyebrows.
Now she understood why the citizens of the empire loved Russell so much.
He was calm and composed.
But rather than warm, he was a bit cold, and in a hot and noisy world, that coldness felt refreshing.
“It’s really too much to say such things with that face.”
“……I will correct it.”
“Puh, it was a joke.”
Summer let out a weak laugh. She still looked drained. It seemed like she could stop breathing at any moment.
“You look very tired.”
So an unrefined question slipped out.
“Maybe. I feel like I’m going crazy, but I’m not sure. I don’t want to think about it. It’s hard.”
Summer glanced at Russell’s expression. Fortunately, Russell didn’t seem to feel any emotion upon seeing her ugly state.
Suddenly, Summer thought that she liked Russell, who was always calm and composed, but at the same time, she found him a bit cruel.
That feeling made her lips naturally pout, but Russell’s calm and low voice began to speak.
“I have lived my life searching for efficiency. Administration must be rational. Listening to each individual’s circumstances is the job of a clergyman, not an administrator.”
“…….”
Ah. It was Russell’s story. Summer stared blankly at the side of Russell’s face as he began to speak.
His violet eyes, glimmering in the sunlight beneath his downcast lashes, sparkled.
Everyone loved him, but in the work, Russell never seemed to love anything.
He was a cold person. At the same time, he was thoughtful. How easy it was to misunderstand.
As she focused on Russell’s story, Summer looked at her reflection in the teacup, following Russell’s gaze.
If she had to argue, Summer thought of herself as an emotional and passionate person. That’s why she easily got tired. Just like now.
“I see the world through statistics. What is the poverty rate? What is the harvest yield this year? Then, how much of the national treasury should be allocated for the relief of the poor to be the most efficient? My thoughts are usually filled with these kinds of things.”
“……Russell.”
He truly was a prime minister at heart. When she returned, she felt like Russell would linger in her mind while she worked.
Her heart fluttered. Suddenly, Summer felt that this was really the moment of farewell.
In the strange world, where there were more terrible things than good, there were still some good things. That’s why she kept looking back.
“I was raised like that since I was young. I had to become a talent that would contribute to the country. My life was calm and serene, and at the same time, it was cruel. It was the fate of a child raised with a purpose, so I accepted it.”
“……I thought Russell was just someone who lived well. But after hearing that last lie, you seem quite like a protagonist.”
“Everyone has a narrative within them. It’s just that they don’t realize it.”
“Well.”
“I heard you prepared for a long time. I too was raised almost entirely by nannies and tutors from the moment I was born. Once I got a little older, I entered the academy, and before I became an adult, I took on my father’s work and started working.”
“…….”
“I too have walked a long, tedious path.”
“I—”
Summer felt like she wanted to refute something, but in the end, she couldn’t say anything.
Was it because of the sorrowful atmosphere that Russell was creating as he spoke? Or was it because of his sad habit of hardening his face to suppress even that sorrow?
“Summer.”
“…….”
A calm voice called her name. Summer. If that name belonged to her, would she have felt helplessly fluttered at this moment?