[……What I’m about to tell you, I’ve never told anyone.] (Chloe) [You may well think I’ve lost my mind. Do you still want to hear it?]
She watches him over the rim of her cup, testing. Erich’s face sets, and the answer comes back serious.
[Whatever it is, I could never think less of you, Mistress. Please tell me.] (Erich)
[……All right. Then I’ll tell you.] (C) [To put it plainly: I have memories of a life outside this world.]
[I beg your pardon……? What do you mean by that, Mistress?] (E)
[Let me say it more simply. Memories of a previous life.] (C) [I don’t know why I have them. But I remember a life I lived somewhere that isn’t here. Hazily. I remember it.]
It is an absurd thing to be told, and it leaves Erich with nothing to say. He doesn’t look doubtful for a moment, though. His face is still serious when he speaks.
[So that is…… I see. Then you learnt the taste of coffee there? In this previous life?] (E)
[That’s right.] (C) [Odd, isn’t it — the life changes and the memory of a taste comes with you anyway. I drank it nearly every day back then, and made it myself. So I know roughly what good and bad taste like.]
Erich thinks about it with his arms folded. Then he puts a hand to his mouth and looks down at the table.
[Then…… was ordering me to investigate your betrothed also the previous life?] (E)
[……Yes. It comes to that.] (C) [I can’t explain it well. There was something off about Leonardo-sama, that’s all.]
[I see…… You had a good eye for people in that life as well, Mistress.] (E)
He sounds impressed, and it leaves her a little guilty.
She hasn’t told him the rest: that this world is almost exactly the otome game she remembers, and that the game is why she can read Leonardo. Partly it’s difficult to explain. Mostly it’s what the game contains. Tell Erich that Leonardo poisons her for years and kills her, and he will deal with the cause. He is loyal, and a man who means harm to his mistress would not last the week.
‘Not that I’d mind much if Leonardo were disposed of. But as revenge it’s dull. I’d rather he stayed alive and suffered.’
Killing him and calling it finished is out of the question. He dragged her down without her having done a single thing to him, and he means to take House Calendula while he’s at it. A fool like that deserves an ending better suited to him — more wretched than this one, where getting as far as tomorrow is work.
Chloe catches her expression before it can twist, and turns back to him.
[It’s a ridiculous story, I know.] (C) [Can you believe it? I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I’d gone mad.]
[No. They are your words, Mistress. Of course I believe you.] (E)
His gaze is straight, without a trace of cloud in it. Chloe looks into it and something quiet and fond fills her chest. There is nothing like it in Leonardo’s eyes, which are stagnant and full of lies, and for a moment she simply looks.
[Fufu…… thank you.] (C) [Let’s leave it there and have the coffee and the pie while they’re warm. It’d be a shame to let them go cold.]
[Might I hear a little more about the previous life, Mistress……?] (E)
[Oh? Are you interested?] (C)
[I am. How you spent that life, what sort of world it was…… very much so.] (E)
[Well…… it’s a long story. Let’s stop there for today.] (C) [I’ll tell you another time.]
She takes up her cup again and drinks, elegantly, as though bringing the curtain down on the scene.
Talking spoils good coffee and good pie, and that’s part of it. The other part is that if they go on like this she is going to say otome game out loud by accident.
[Anyway. How do they drink it where you’re from?] (C) [Like this, with no milk or sugar?]
Erich looks faintly cheated. Chloe pretends not to see it and moves the conversation elsewhere, and loyal as he is, he goes where he’s taken without a word of complaint.
[No, Mistress. At home we take it with plenty of both.] (E) [There is little in the way of sweets to eat alongside, so the drink itself is made sweet.]
[That sounds nice. We’ll have the second cup that way, then.] (C)
Chloe puts her fork into the pie again — and somewhere he will never hear it, murmurs.
‘Sorry.’
