Please Kill Me - Chapter 126
The path to the Rostislav barracks wasn’t very long.
Yet, why did it feel so distant and heavy compared to when she left? Was it because she had to exchange farewells that seemed inevitable? Or was it that the events of the previous night had already become distant in just a single day?
Leonid had said that Yekaterina would regret what happened, claiming that she was enchanted by it.
He was wrong. Yekaterina did not regret it.
For that brief moment of their kiss, she felt truly alive. The primal, intuitive sense that the other person wanted her. That melting kiss traced every breath she took. The breathless sensation and the intense heat seemed like proof of life itself.
In the past, the battlefield was Yekaterina’s proof of life. The shivering thought of possibly dying and the pounding heart as life and death intersected. Even wounds heightened her sensitivity to pain.
But Yekaterina could no longer easily feel pain. Nothing could wound her now. With the numbing of her senses, even the concept of being alive grew increasingly blurred.
Even when surrounded by the affectionate servants of Rostislav, or enjoying a delicious meal, the dulled senses did not easily return.
Only when with Leonid did she feel otherwise.
Had she caught Leonid’s tendency to get angry easily?
Her dulled emotions reacted more acutely around him. In his presence, she did not feel emptiness. The hollow feeling that remained before the exquisitely beautiful colonnade lost its meaning in his presence, like snowflakes on her fingertips.
Perhaps that was why.
When she realized Leonid would not kill her, and when he asked her to come with him,
‘I was happy.’
The realization made her heart race with a fierceness that matched the joy. As if she had been waiting for those words, like a child unwrapping a gift.
It was painful. She was someone destined to die.
There were so many reasons she had to die: being a fugitive from Offenbach, possessing protective magic, being someone who could wish for nothing.
The death that had become an obligation due to countless reasons, made even feeling joy at such a proposal feel like a sin. She feared that the joy she felt would only lead to a greater price to pay.
But Sergei was dead.
This simple statement felt like a hatchet splitting her head open. It was only after Sergei’s death that Yekaterina began to sense things she had never felt before. The extent to which Sergei’s existence had bound her, pushing her to extremes and forcing her towards death.
Even after leaving Offenbach, Yekaterina had never fully shed the way she had lived her entire life. It was only with Sergei’s death that this shell had shattered completely, like breaking an eggshell.
‘There’s no one left who wishes for my death now.’
In reality, from the beginning, only Sergei had wished for Yekaterina’s death. She had simply failed to notice it. The dark veil Sergei had cast had obscured her view, making it seem as if Offenbach, Dmitry, and even herself wanted her death.
But now she knows. It was all just her misconception.
This realization had come from the time spent in Rostislav.
‘If I had stayed in Offenbach, I might never have known.’
Just as a fish living only in water cannot know how to breathe without it. Perhaps the mermaid from the tale who left the water also did not know how to live on land.
Although it is said that only death awaits the fish that leaves the water, she had already chosen to embark on that path. It no longer mattered.
If she could go to the place she desired, to the side of the one she wanted…
— …Yekaterina.
Suddenly, the voice from last night, desperately calling her, came to mind. The hands that held her, the warmth against her face, the deepening breath, and the persistent gaze.
The way he expressed his desire for her with his whole being.
She could almost understand the woman from the tale who left everything behind to go to land. If, at that moment, Leonid had spoken even a single word asking her to live…
She might have answered without hesitation.
She would have said she would live, if only he would let her stay by his side.
‘…But now, such a hypothetical is meaningless.’
She would ultimately make the same choice as the woman in the tale. If it weren’t for her, Dmitry would not have attacked Leonid.
So, if being with Leonid would cause him harm, then it is right for her to disappear.
The brief time she asked of Dmitry was merely to sort out her feelings.
And to say goodbye.
Yekaterina went in search of Leonid. Since it hadn’t been long since he had been moved to the medical tent, he would still be there.
After arriving there, she heard the bustling sounds of medical staff coming and going. The medical tent was crowded, due to the many injuries sustained at the hunting event the day before.
“Leonid… or rather, Duke Rostislav, where is he?”
“He’s in the tent over there, around the corner.”
“Thank you.”
Yekaterina followed the directions and reached the tent she had been guided to. Once there, she could hear voices from inside. Even without seeing their faces, she could distinguish the voices—one was Vasily’s and the other was Leonid’s.
These were the most familiar voices to her. The familiarity held her back.
At a moment when she would normally have confidently entered the tent, she hesitated. Her outstretched hand hovered in the air, unable to touch the tent’s fabric.
“Your Grace, are you done with pretending your hand is injured?”
