Episode 164. You Make Me Uncomfortable
The scenes kept changing.
The sharp storms of one season were cruel to both the grandmother and the young granddaughter.
Every scene was tinged with Olivia's pain. And with her grandmother's pain as well.
Olivia watched the desolate end of her grandmother's life, which was slowly drying up.
The grandmother who endlessly waited for her arrival beyond the square window. The grandmother who would caress and caress the award certificates her granddaughter received as if they were her own. The grandmother who treasured even a small scrap of doodle as a family heirloom if it was Olivia's.
At one time, it felt like an obsession, suffocating her.
As Professor Marguerite had said, sometimes she felt like the grandmother's guardian, and it was overwhelming. Unable to show her hardship, unable to share the burden on her shoulders.
At the same time, she grew angry at her grandmother, unfairly.
"Why am I a commoner?"
"I am a commoner, so everyone asks why I study... Why is Grandmother so insistent on sending me to school? Without even knowing how I'm treated at school. Without being able to protect me from them. Telling me to accept that the world is unfair!"
However, her diary was filled with tear stains that were not her own.
After her grandmother stole even her diary and declared she would never write again, there were no more, but it was like that while she was writing.
Olivia realized late that the only way to see her granddaughter's life was through her diary. And that her grandmother must have been even more devastated than she was.
Olivia ran with all her might towards the bent, dry back she would never see again. And she embraced her back.
"Grandmother!"
Olivia cried, embracing her grandmother.
She cried out loud like a child. She cried as if she would die from crying.
How long had she been crying like that?
Someone embraced her in a world submerged in tears.
"Olivia."
A voice, reminiscent of a cool, deep valley, called her. She wiped her cheeks, drying them.
Held in a firm, warm embrace, Olivia wept incessantly, searching for her grandmother.
"Grandmother, Grandmother..."
"I understand. Let's go home, Olivia."
Let's go home.
So, don't cry.
Leaning on the soothing words, Olivia opened her eyes.
It had been exactly ten days since the accident, and by then, Herot's warship carrying her had reached the waters off Pulder.
Her memory ended at the scene of watching the moonlit night sea. She couldn't remember what happened afterward.
But it was clear that something major had happened. Otherwise, there was no way she would have such a large wound on her abdomen.
"Are you okay? Lie down for a bit."
Olivia, who had been leaning her head against the carriage wall and looking outside, turned her gaze towards a gentle voice from the front.
He looked somewhat thinner than usual.
Following the doctor's orders that she should walk rather than lie down, Olivia practiced walking until just before disembarking from the ship. A terrible pain assailed her, but she walked nonetheless.
Each time, Noah was by her side. No, from the moment she opened her eyes, he stayed by her side as if he wouldn't leave her alone for a moment.
Was this love?
Or was it a terrible sense of responsibility?
Her body had awakened, but her mind still felt hazy, as if it hadn't escaped the deep sea within.
Olivia looked out the window wordlessly.
The spring atmosphere of Pulder was quickly passing by.
Tender shoots were sprouting greenly between the desolate stone paths. The distance was full of flowers, like looking at a pointillist painting dotted with colorful specks.
"This is Pulder, Liv. Where do you want to go?"
"...Home."
"Yes. Let's do that."
After passing a long, old road for a while, the carriage's speed noticeably slowed and then stopped. As soon as she lifted her head, Noah approached and wrapped an arm around her back.
The sudden closeness filled her nostrils with a musky scent.
"I'll help you, so get up slowly."
Olivia took a breath and tried to get up on her own as much as possible. But it was excruciatingly painful to get up, far worse than walking.
As she unconsciously tensed her body, the firm hand supporting her lower back gently lifted her.
Noah descended the carriage steps backward, helping Olivia disembark.
Pulled by his strength, Olivia stepped down and gazed blankly at the ground. A path filled with finely crushed sandy soil and rough-edged gravel.
And as she raised her gaze along the path, she saw a house that was familiar yet had somehow become strange.
"......"
Staring blankly at the house, Olivia finally took a step after a long while.
She walked alone, pushing away the man's hand that kept trying to take hers.
Towards the house, so pitifully and tenderly that it felt like her grandmother would run out to greet her, as if she had been waiting.
And towards the house she had once hated so much.
The house was perfectly preserved. Even an old notebook was still there, and the scent it held was the same.
Olivia scanned the corners of the house with a dazed gaze, like someone lifting a corner of a memory, and then walked as if drawn by something.
Passing through a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway, a dark brown wooden door with a brass handle appeared on the right.
The door opened smoothly, as if it had been oiled.
'Welcome home, Liv.'
An old room filled with gentle silence. On the wall hung an empty frame, taken by her, and below it were books she had collected for a very long time, neatly arranged.
By the bed was the knitting basket her grandmother always fiddled with, and next to it was a faded cotton sofa.
Olivia approached the bed her grandmother had used after her death. She slowly knelt and buried her face in the bed.
'My puppy, you're here?'
"...Grandmother."
'Yes. Rest a while.'
Just then, someone embraced her back.
"Her Highness, I will help you lie down on the bed."
With Betty's help, Olivia slowly sat on the bed. As she slowly exhaled a long breath, a huge shadow, completely out of place in this house, entered the room.
Noah entered with a rather large bag and placed it on the sofa, which was disproportionately small in comparison. He then cast a brief glance at the sofa. He seemed to intend to sleep there.
Olivia opened her mouth.
"You go somewhere else."
Noah, who had genuinely intended to sleep there, suddenly turned his head and looked at Olivia. When Olivia didn't avoid his gaze, Noah blinked and nodded slightly.
"Alright. Then the next room..."
"Go to the Ritz Hotel, or go to Princess Marguerite's house."
"...Why?"
After a long while, the question was finally uttered.
In contrast, Olivia gave a monotonous reply.
"Because it's uncomfortable."
Noah seemed lost for words. He even looked pained for a moment.
Could it be?
Was it because her body was weak, or was it so difficult to care about him that she wanted to stop?
Olivia averted her gaze from Noah and lay down on the bed.
She felt sleep, which had been so stubbornly absent, slowly approaching. And as her consciousness began to fade, a cool voice reached her ears.
"Rest. I'll come back."
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
The news of Olivia and Noah's arrival in Pulder also reached Margo.
"Then we must arrange for them to stay at my house. Quickly prepare a room..."
"Actually, Her Highness the Princess consort wished to stay at the house she originally resided in."
"Ah... yes. She might want that."
"And Her Highness the Princess consort is severely injured and has just woken up..."
"What?! Olivia? Where... where is she injured?!"
Margo's fingers trembled slightly.
She realized this was not the time to be standing around and quickly got into a carriage, heading for Olivia's house. After passing through a road that felt unusually long, she arrived at the small house, like a cottage.
"...My word..."
She met a lion, dried up and dying.
Her niece, who had seemed so proud and fearless, was emaciated.
Then, when their eyes met, Margo felt that he was sobbing.
"Noah..."
Noah slowly lowered his head and wiped his face. And when he raised his head, he was smiling as if nothing had happened.
"It's been a while, Aunt."
Margo unconsciously moved closer and brushed his shoulder with her hand.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"No, this isn't the time for me to be like this, it's Olivia...!"
Margo, regaining her composure, tried to rush into the house, but Noah stopped her. When Margo looked at him in confusion, Noah gently shook his head.
"She just fell asleep."
Noah hesitated for a moment, as if about to say something difficult, and then spoke.
"Aunt, may I impose on you for a few days?"
At his question, Margo tilted her head, looking back and forth between the house where Olivia slept and Noah.
Then Noah slightly narrowed his eyes and turned his head. His gaze, which had landed on the tidy window, moved to the wisteria beginning to bud, then to the low chair beneath it, and finally lost its direction.
He seemed at a loss, like a lost person. Then, after a long while, he let out a voice choked with emotion.
"She said it was uncomfortable."
In front of her nephew like that, Margo couldn't insist on seeing Olivia. She let out a long, slow sigh and slowly turned away.
