Please Kill Me - Chapter 78
‘Because she reminded me of myself.’
If that’s the case. Was she feeling pity for herself?
This unsettling question caused Yekaterina to startle without realizing it.
Bang!
The half-open door was flung wide with a loud noise.
With urgent footsteps, two shadows stretched long into the lounge.
“Mother! Are you here—”
And then, they froze. This allowed Yekaterina to clearly see the expressions of shock on their faces.
“Yekaterina?”
Even Leonid’s voice, stiff as it called her name, was clear.
* * *
“Will the Queen be alright?”
“Yuri is looking after her, so she should be fine. He has sedatives on hand just in case…”
“It seems like the situation has calmed down somewhat.”
Leonid gave a slight nod in response to Yekaterina’s observation.
The two of them were now in the finally quiet room.
A short while ago, when Yuri and Leonid had rushed in, they had the most astonished expressions Yekaterina had ever seen.
It wasn’t because she was merely wearing a gown, or because she and Larisa were in the same room. Though the latter might have played a minor role.
The real reason for their shock was because Larisa had seemed lucid.
There is a significant difference between Larisa when she is in her right mind and when she is not. When she’s not, Larisa is always crying, laughing, and trapped in her past.
Thus, it was unmistakable when they saw her that she was in her right mind.
It would have been wonderful if that state had lasted longer, but unfortunately, Larisa’s condition quickly deteriorated.
As Yuri and Leonid approached, it seemed that frightening memories resurfaced, and she began to scream and cry out.
– “Stay away! Stay away! Don’t come near me! Aah! Sister, Sister!!”
Larisa, fleeing from her son and nephew, grabbed onto Yekaterina’s hand instead.
– “Sister, Marina,…”
– “Mother. This woman is not your sister.”
– “Let me go! Sister, Sister… Please take me with you. Please…”
– “Mother.”
– “Sister, let me die too… I want to die…”
Larisa clung to Yekaterina’s hand as if it were a lifeline, pressing her forehead against it. Her wailing echoed in Yekaterina’s mind.
I want to die.
At those words, Yekaterina felt her blood run cold. It was like being thrown from a warm bath into a snowbank.
Even now, as Yuri restrained the struggling and crying Larisa and took her away, leaving the palace in silence, that feeling wouldn’t go away.
Why?
Yekaterina looked down at her hand. It was far from what one would call graceful, marked by white scars and rough calluses.
The desperate strength with which Larisa had gripped it, the warmth, the urgency.
A sudden thought struck her.
‘Leonid.’
Did you feel this way when I asked you to kill me? When I spoke and acted with such a desire to die?
Everything dulls over time. Any wound, any blade loses its sharpness eventually.
But does that mean the pain of the wound or the sharpness of the blade ever truly disappears?
Now she understood why she felt such pity for Larisa.
Larisa was someone who didn’t know how to become numb. She could escape into fleeting happy memories, but the sweeter the dream, the colder the morning when she woke up.
While Larisa’s memories shine brightly, her wounds remain unhealed. She would continue to bleed, reminiscing about Marina until she died.
And by her side, there would be her son.
Yekaterina thought back to Yuri, to the moment he realized Larisa had come to her senses.
Yuri’s steps toward Larisa had been slow. His voice had trembled, and his mouth had produced more broken sobs than words.
– “Mother…”
How could she describe him then?
Yekaterina knew she could never truly capture that moment. There was no word in any book she had read that could encapsulate what she saw.
But one thing was certain: just as Larisa had longed for Marina, Yuri cared for Larisa deeply.
If she had to put it in one word, it might be love.
‘Love.’
Yes, love.
At that point, Yekaterina diverged from Larisa. Larisa had something to love and people who loved her.
And it wasn’t just Larisa. The same applied to Vasily.
Both had people they cherished and who cherished them.
‘So that’s why.’
That’s why she felt pity for them. They were not outsiders.
They had people to share their joys and sorrows with.
That’s why their deaths and wounds seemed so tragic.
The realization was chilling, almost painfully hot.
Suddenly, voices from the past echoed in her mind.
– “Can’t you see me at all?”
– “Why do you… want to die so much?”
Leonid’s bewilderment. His gaze always seemed like it was fixed on ice that would inevitably melt one day.
She had always thought he couldn’t understand because he didn’t know her circumstances.
But now she understood.
‘This is how I must have appeared to Leonid.’
Just as she pitied Vasily and Larisa.
He must have pitied her too.
That must have been how it felt.
