CH 60

Annette looked up at the somewhat outlandish question. The moon was hidden behind a passing cloud. Heiner’s face was shadowed and dark.

“I’ve always been nothing to you. It was the same when we were at our best, and it was the same when I ruined your life.”

“Is that what you want to say, Your Excellency? I was nothing to you too.”

“I hated you at least!”

The words carried raw emotion. Annette’s eyes widened slightly. Heiner fell silent as if to restrain himself and spit out the half-mashed words.

“Well, then, at least.”

“….”

“At least—isn’t it right that you hate me for the rest of your life, too?”

“…”

“Why do I always like this…nothing?”

The edge of his voice trembled slightly. He sounded like someone who had returned after being missing for a long time.

He seemed surprised, angry, and sad. Annette stopped trying to detect his emotions.

All the words lingered in her mouth were erased. There was no good in the relationship that could no longer be saved.

Annette took another step back from him.

“Your Excellency, I-“

For some reason, her throat choked and her words trailed off. She barely got her words out.

“I never want to see you again …. 

for something like this. I’ll leave you to it.”

As if to declare, Annette turned her back immediately. The lightless grass gave it a grotesque feeling. She retraced her steps back the way she had come.

She couldn’t take a few steps before her shoulder was grabbed.

A force, not strong but stubborn, pulled her body back.

Suddenly turning around, Annette stiffened. His face was close before her eyes. His gray eyes were dark and hot like a shell pit.

Annette locked eyes with him, not even thinking about freeing her trapped arm. Their breaths mingled in close proximity.

A chittering insect chirped among the swaying grass. Slowly his mouth opened.

“Annette.”

“…”

“Annette, to you…….”

The tightly closed voice flickered out. Strength drained from the hand that had grabbed her arm.

Heiner hesitated for a moment.

What came after a long hesitation was an infinitely helpless confession.

“……I didn’t mean to be angry with you.”

“…”

“…like this……….. it was not my intention to see you again.”

For some reason, he choked on those words.

Annette carefully pulled her arm out of his hand. Heiner stood in the distance, staring at her like a child who had missed his precious balloon.

“…… you divorced me according to your will because you said you would live. I would never have let you go if I knew you would give up your life in a place like this.”

“That’s all over now, isn’t it?”

“Annette, let’s go back to Lancaster.”

“…what do you mean?”

“You can buy a townhouse and stay there instead of the government mansion. Although I can’t promise to give you back the life you used to, where everything happened.”

He bit his lips, as if choosing what to say.

“But I want…”

“No.”

Annette said decisively, avoiding his gaze.

“We are done here.”

“Annette.”

“I don’t know exactly what on earth you want from me, but I have nothing more to offer Your Excellency.”

“…”

“It is better that we never meet. It’s a relationship that only hurts each other.”

Heiner did not answer. Annette read between the many lines in the silence.

All the while she acted like someone who didn’t know what to say, but it wasn’t because she had nothing to say. Rather, it was because she had too much to say.

Annette also had many questions she wanted to ask him. 

Why did he seek her out again? What exactly did he want from her?

Why did…… he act like someone trying to hold on to a past lover?

But she did not ask anything. And she was not going to ask anything. In fact, Heiner’s words and actions, which seemed to have lingering feelings for an ex-lover, did not touch her at all.

In the past, Heiner had acted as if he loved her dearly. But everything he showed her was a lie.

It was not something to resent Heiner for that now. But what he was saying could no longer be trusted.

No matter how much Heiner tried to have her well-being at heart, Annette just wondered what kind of revenge was left.

“If you insist on giving me a discharge order, as for me, I will have no choice but to obey it. Why are you asking me otherwise? You do what you want anyway.”

“——.”

“I hope I never see you privately again. Commander-in-Chief.”

Annette turned away again, ending in a cold tone. A cold air swept over her cheeks. This time there was no voice or hands to catch her.

The winter night deepened chillingly.

***

Somewhere along the way, he had a wild dream that made him sick.

When he saw her in her dreams he didn’t know it was a dream, but now when he saw the woman he realized it was a dream.

Perhaps that was why.

The fact that her figure standing quietly among the grass didn’t seem terribly real….

Heiner lived every day wandering through his dreams. Most of the dreams did not even produce a proper memory, but the cause and effect were always clear.

Just as the cause and effect of a life of persistence was always clear.

It was strange. Life couldn’t be like this. It was about erasing the only woman in his world. It didn’t make sense to suffer from such a terrible feeling of emptiness.

He felt like something had been taken away.

It was for this reason that he had finally come to see the woman, knowing in his head that he had no reason to see her, or rather, that he should not see her.

The chirping of the grass insects slowly subsided. The world was locked in a dark silence.

Heiner leaned against the wall. The moonlight that had been streaming white in the air was now completely shattered.

He took a deep breath under the shadow of the wall.

“If you treat me at least as a human being, you cannot do this.” (A)

“…ha.”

A bitter sneer flowed through his lips.

Catherine Grott had said the same thing. Respect her choice, human to human, even if it wasn’t love.

It was unbelievable and ridiculous.

He witnessed with his own two eyes that the woman was standing on the verge of death. But he was told to sit back and watch her dive into death again.

He really did not mean to ruin the conversation. He was just scared.

The woman who had dismissed all of this as meaningless, who had never even considered her promise to live when she said she would return to the frontline…

Very easily, it seemed, she could let go of life again.

‘Why did it end up like this again?’

He thought with empty eyes.

It was possible, he thought, that Annette would rebel against the order to move. But it had to be resolved successfully through dialogue.

Of course, he had some confidence in that idea.

Heiner thought that Annette was also completely tired of this life. The battlefield was not a place that a woman from an aristocratic background who had grown up precious could endure.

He expected that she would accept the pretense of not being able to win if he gave her a hint of the next battle, along with an appropriate praise, and recommended that she be discharged.

“I hope I never see you privately again.” (A)

He had expected that……..

“Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief.” (A)

Come to think of it, how many times had she met his expectations?

Heiner had always superimposed his old fantasies and delusions on her image.

A graceful swan. A princess of noble blood, as if she were made from all the precious things in the world. A weak and beautiful woman with her selfish blue-blooded habits intact.

From one moment to the next he couldn’t even distinguish whether it was really the woman he was drawing or a distorted memory. He really didn’t know anything anymore.

“It would be better if we never met.” (A)

Still, he just couldn’t let go, was it because he was a deeply broken being?

Heiner straightened up. He put on the officer’s hat he was holding and raised his head. He was compulsively neat and well-groomed.

Before long, his conventional disheveled appearance was completely gone. He moved his steps at regular intervals.

“It’s a relationship that only hurts each other.” (A)

“Hurts…”

Heiner muttered blankly across the backyard.

It was a meaningless word. His life had always been full of wounds. If he was going to be unhappy, he would rather be unhappy around her.

Like a dog circling around while tied to a stake.

Until it no longer waited for its master………