Please Kill Me - Chapter 66
Every time Leonid faced her, the lack of connection in their gazes and all her somewhat lacking behaviors sparked questions in him.
Had Yekaterina really lived an enviable life in Offenbach?
A noblewoman brought up in a typical manner wouldn’t so casually discuss walking into torture devices. She wouldn’t converse in a way that felt like hammering on a gong with each word, having never learned the proper social skills.
Leonid undoubtedly felt an estrangement from Yekaterina, but he never asked. He tried not to care, fearing it would dredge up his own memories of death.
That’s why he kept silent last night, knowing it was unnatural. He didn’t want to revisit the abyss he had managed to bury.
However, upon learning of Yekaterina’s departure and when he faced her again, Leonid realized he could no longer ignore it.
“Why are you…. so intent on dying?”
Every time he recalled Yekaterina’s disregard for her own life, he felt sick. Her disregard of her own life was horrific.
Yekaterina could discuss her death as casually as saying good morning.
He couldn’t bear it.
The moments she was nearly crushed by the monster’s foot and when she monologued under the illusion flashed through his mind.
– “I…. have nowhere to go.”
Her face as she said it. Filled with a pointed emptiness, like a castle of snow melting at sunrise.
“Why don’t you take care of yourself at all? Do you ever think about how those who watch over you feel? What if you really got hurt—”
“Leonid.”
Yekaterina’s hand covered his.
“You should have listened to the advice. Spend your time on something more worthwhile.”
“How can you say that? Is that something you can control?”
“Try. There’s nothing that can’t be achieved with effort.”
“Are you going to start with that damned lecture about putting more heart into things again?”
“I don’t see why you think it’s impossible.”
“I really don’t understand why you think that cutting off emotions is actually possible.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve done it.”
Leonid was at a loss for words.
“…You did?”
“Everything becomes numb. Everything passes, even feelings.”
Right now, you care so much about me, but I know that even the hardest rock erodes under the relentless ticking of time.
“If I die, you’ll soon forget me. So, don’t worry about it.”
“…Yes, I would forget if you died. That’s natural.”
“Finally, we’re getting somewhere.”
“Does that mean I should start letting you go now?”
“I didn’t think you were foolish enough to not understand my advice.”
“Didn’t you know? People in love are fools. So don’t talk like that in front of me again.”
“What way of talking?”
“Talking like death is trivial. Like you’re nothing. All of it.”
“I was just stating the obvious.”
To her, life was as common as the pebbles scattered along a lakeshore—insignificant.
Not born a jewel, Yekaterina never expected to be treasured.
However.
“If you really wanted to maintain that you are an insignificant being, you should never have appeared before me.”
Leonid bit off his words.
“If you really wanted to die that lightly, you should have sought someone who could kill you, not me. I can’t do that.”
But Yekaterina had already appeared before him. That was their only misfortune.
“So don’t leave without my permission again. Don’t even try to die without it.”
“…I didn’t leave to die.”
“Where did you hear the first part of what I said?”
“I wondered if saying not to leave without permission means I can come back.”
Leonid looked as if he was questioning his ears.
“Then where were you planning to go? Just so you know, no more. Not Offenbach or anywhere else! I’ve had enough of chasing you around!”
“I had no plans to go anywhere. But,”
I never thought I could simply return either.
I didn’t expect you to come all this way to find me.
‘I thought you might be angry because I deceived you.’
But that anger, she assumed, would stem from feeling tricked. However, Leonid’s anger was directed somewhere entirely different.
And then there were those questions they had both avoided.
Why wouldn’t Yekaterina know that there are things Leonid deliberately chooses not to ask about?
Especially after such an unnaturally abrupt end to their conversation last night.
Yekaterina wasn’t foolish. She simply chose not to reach out.
Neither interested in learning about him nor in revealing herself.
And Yekaterina’s thinking remained the same.
‘You still see me in that way.’
Like a piece of ice barely rescued from boiling water. A look that neither understands nor wants to understand what it sees.
-‘Do you think death is so trivial?’
I remember the face that once asked me that. Speaking of something so mundane to me with such agony.
I could have answered, if I wanted to.
To me, death is trivial.
