Chapter 28

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Walpurgis Night (2)

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“I want to ask, but I feel like I shouldn’t.”

“Even thoughts the size of a bean can be burdensome.”

Emily poked Rosen playfully. She laughed bashfully. Hindley sometimes hit her, but it felt different when Emily did the same thing. She wanted to rip out all of Hindley’s hair when he did it, but she was happy when Emily did.

Emily took the cake out of the oven.

“One blood, one wish, one magic. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I can explain the meaning behind tonight’s cake. It is related.”

“Cake?”

“Yes. The cake you eat on Walpurgis night. Did you know that if you make a wish on a cake, Walpurg will grant it?”

Rosen’s eyes were drawn to the cake, which had finished baking and smelled sweet. Emily noticed and plated her a large piece before putting candles on the cake.

As the knife pierced the cake, strawberry jam spewed out.

“This is the blood.”

While Rosen hurriedly shoveled the cake into her mouth, Emily lit the candles.

“Light a candle and make a wish to Walpurg. This is one wish… ”

“How amazing. All of this has meaning. I thought it was just a festival made to eat cake.”

Emily smiled as she wiped the cream off Rosen’s lips. Rosen thought hard, then asked again.

“Then what about one magic? Is it magic that makes wishes come true?”

“… Rosen. Have you ever made a wish to Walpurg in front of a cake?”

“I’ve made a wish every year. I didn’t have a cake, but I didn’t care. If Walpurg was real, she would think that I am such a shameless woman.”

As Rosen spoke, she glanced at the cake for a second time. She remembered the family scene she had watched long ago after wiping a window with her cold hands.

Suddenly she realized that she was now in the place she longed for so much. This time, really, Walpurg had granted her wish; someone who shamelessly loved her. And she didn’t even need to use a cake.

Warmth spread through her chest.

It was euphoric.

She was happy now. Everything was perfect.

She ate her share of the cake happily. Once she was finished, she questioned Emily again.

“Will you answer one more question, Emily? I’m dying to know.”

“What is it?”

“What was the first magic Emily succeeded in casting after becoming a witch?”

Emily hesitated for a moment and answered softly, unable to hide her embarrassment.

“…I made a cake.”

“That’s really boring.”

As Rosen burst into laughter. Emily pouted.

“Rosen, it’s all boring at first. Besides, I was six years old at the time. The thing I wanted the most in the world was a delicious snack. That was the limit of my imagination.”

“I see.”

“So, Rosen, what wish did you make to Walpurg without a cake?”

“…That’s it.”

Rosen replied with a mischievous smile.

“I asked for a cake.”

When Emily heard that, she smiled and shook her head like she was going to go crazy.

After they finished eating the cake, they pushed the table to the side and danced together in the kitchen. Rosen wanted to go out to the square, but she didn’t know what kind of punishment they would get if they did.

That day, on the cake she ate for the first time in her life, she made a wish to Walpurg. Don’t let Hindley come back tonight. These moments were so happy that she was afraid that if she made a bigger wish, she would be punished by Walpurg.

But could it even be called greed?

“B*tches! Why don’t you come out here?”

A drunken Hindley returned at dawn. He was angry after wasting his cash on the racetrack, so Emily and Rosen had to deal with his anger.

There were things she feared more than war. Their peace was always broken at the sound of Hindley at the front door. Shells couldn’t penetrate their basement, but… Hindley could at any time.

In the most disgusting ways one could imagine.

“Rosen, open the door!”

“…”

“Open the door now. Open up and talk to me. Please!”

Emily’s voice echoed through the bathroom door. Rosen covered her ears. She didn’t want to hear anything.

She grabbed a hanger and cried in the bathtub. It was terrible. Everything was terrible. It was terrifying that she was born a woman. If she could, she would vomit up all her internal organs.

She was not interested in winning or losing the war. In fact, the war outside did not mean much to her. Even before the war, her life was like a battlefield.

In the winter when she was sixteen, her menstruation stopped.

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Ian Kerner sent Henry outside the cabin, and watched Rosen look at the dresses spread out on his bed.

“What do you think? Which one is the prettiest?”

Rosen refused to let the crew members attend to her on the pretext of wanting to dress up for the last time in her life. He didn’t know if it was a conspiracy or not, but Ian couldn’t find any good reason to refuse her request.

After Rosen was released from her handcuffs, her mood swings intensified. She was happy and then depressed. Then she recovered and giggled casually after a few minutes. And she was impulsive. Fortunately, she wasn’t as dangerous as before.

Earlier, she hugged Layla with all her might and played an annoying board game, and when she lost, she got angry and beat up Henry.

She also kissed Ian’s cheek.

Whatever it was, it was preferable to a suicide attempt or self-harm. It was also natural for a person to organize their lives in the face of imminent death. 

Suddenly, he felt the touch of Rosen’s chapped lips on his cheek again. The kiss was too short, and what was contained in it was longing, not sexual desire. He couldn’t push her away.

No, it seemed like an excuse to defend his honor. There were other reasons he couldn’t shake her off. And a reason why he didn’t want to admit it.

He stood still because he understood Rosen’s actions. 

Because…

-Sorry, forget it. I didn’t do it to… I just wanted to touch your face. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s the same as the flyer.

Because he reached out to Rosen with the same feeling. He couldn’t comprehend the impulse that had taken hold of him at that moment. What would he have said if Henry and Layla hadn’t come in then?

“Sir Kerner? Are you listening to me? Which one is better?”

Thanks to Rosen waving her hand in front of his eyes, Ian was able to snap out of his thoughts. 

She pointed to a yellow, red, and blue dress in succession. He quickly grasped the subject and provided an appropriate answer.

“…It’s up to you. Does my opinion matter?”

He had no sense for picking out the beautiful or the wonderful. It was probably true, as the broadcast experts and photographers said so when he was called to make propaganda.

“I like all three of them equally. It’s better to hear more than one person’s opinion and look a little nicer than to choose anything. I can’t choose, so you choose. What’s the best?”

Ian pointed to the yellow dress without thinking. He hated the color red for reasons similar to those of other soldiers who fought on a battlefield. He also disliked the color blue. But if he said that, no one would believe him. Because he spent nearly ten years in the sky.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked the color blue from the start. Rather, it was the opposite. Rejecting good assignments and stable positions, Ian Kerner chose the Air Force. It was for a trivial reason. He wanted to fly in the blue sky. And because of his longing for the airship he saw at the festival in his childhood.

But now that everything was over, whenever he saw blue, he was reminded of it.

His comrades being sucked into dark blue water. The bombs he dropped from the sky, the villages that were destroyed. 

The roar.

“Do you like yellow?”

“No. I just hate the other two.”

“I actually like blue. I’ll wear the blue one.”

It seemed that Rosen had no intention of taking his opinion into account in the first place, but it was a good thing that her decision was clear. Ian tried to turn away, but Rosen’s movements were faster. Rosen flung off her dress in a showy manner. A skinny body was revealed in front of his eyes.

He knew that he should turn away, but he stiffened. His body did not move.

“What, do you want to see me undress? Take a good look. You are always welcome to.”

Rosen pointed to the bed with a smirk that he knew all too well. Ian sighed. It wasn’t because of her body Rosen was trying to show off that he couldn’t look away.

Scars.

Rosen’s exposed body was far more terrifying than he had seen last night. After hearing that Rosen had been abused and seeing the wounds with his own eyes, he was once again at a loss for words.

-You don’t know war.

No, Rosen knew war. Maybe she knew it a lot better than him. The war started ten years ago and was now over, but Rosen’s war started from the moment she was born and was still not finished.

Ian asked a stupid question.

“How much… was it?”

“A lot.”

“Did you get hit often?”

“Almost every day.”

Rosen replied quickly as if she had been waiting for that very question. Where did the tears she normally spilled for sympathy go? Usually, Rosen shed useless tears in front of him, but she didn’t cry when she should. That attitude often embarrassed Ian.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?”

“There is no reason in the world to unilaterally assault a person who cannot resist. I’m not even curious.”

“Don’t you know the real reason? You said you read the newspaper. It must have said that I cheated on him. But I didn’t. There was a misunderstanding that day.”

“Even so…”

-But look at this, look at my arm. I don’t even have muscles! Hindley was over one meter and eighty centimetres tall. He was big too.

Rosen’s words came back like a boomerang. His head was ringing as if he had been hit by something. Ian Kerner suddenly felt like the stupidest person in the world.

One meter and eighty centimetres. Hindley was a little smaller than him and had Henry’s build. He put Henry and Rosen side by side in his head, but stopped. There was no need to think about it. She was no match for him. A physical fight could never be started. And you wouldn’t even be able to call it a fight. It would be a one-sided assault.

And, at that moment, Ian remembered one more reason why he hated the color blue.

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Bruises were blue, too.

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[T/N: Just how did Hindley die?!]

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