Please Kill Me - Chapter 92
It was more of an advice than a real question.
“Have you also lost all meaning in life, like me? Were you so scared to live that you had to let go of everything?”
The moment you find meaning in something, the world becomes an incredibly frightening place. As soon as you have something to protect, the fear of losing it arises. When you develop the desire to live, the fear of death naturally follows.
I was never allowed to be greedy, never permitted even the smallest significance. All that was left for me was resignation and emptiness.
Yekaterina’s gaze drifted toward the window. Her eyes, unfocused, stared blankly at the palace’s ornate exterior.
“…But he urges me to find meaning, Larisa. I never knew that holding someone’s hand could feel like that.”
She didn’t know she could feel so choked up over something so simple, or that it could make her feel so warm.
“Once you hold on, you’ll never want to let go… and I’m so scared of that.”
She feared that not wanting to let go of that hand might make her hesitate to die. She feared that the world would become overwhelmingly terrifying because of it.
That’s why last night, when Leonid asked:
— …So, does that mean every conversation we have is meaningless?
Yekaterina couldn’t answer. She wanted to move her lips, but at that moment, she felt something sink deep inside her.
There was only one possible answer she could give:
And it was: “No.”
She was someone who couldn’t lie.
“But if I had answered… I felt like there would be no turning back.”
So, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Because the time she had promised for her death was almost upon her.
From the beginning, the agreement between Leonid and Yekaterina was for one month. During her stay at Rostislav, that promise had solidified a bit more.
Seeing her passionately engage in horseback riding, Leonid had suggested:
— Yekaterina, how about joining the hunting party? It’s not long now.
— Hunting party?
—By then, my hand should be mostly healed. We might even be able to ride together.
— A fitting place to die naturally. Sounds good.
Yekaterina accepted the suggestion readily, assuming Leonid was proposing it as a place for her to die. Leonid didn’t explicitly deny it but had a somewhat uncomfortable expression.
— …Sure, if anything happens, you can attack me in front of others. That way, I can claim self-defense and avoid suspicion.
It made sense, and Yekaterina agreed without hesitation. Thus, the date and manner of their parting were set without any tension. The vague notion of death finally took form and lay before Yekaterina.
Perhaps if there had been no set date for her death, she might have found the courage to speak up and deny it. But with the appointed time so close, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
‘There’s not much time left.’
With that thought, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. With her death so near, she couldn’t turn back now.
So, she let Leonid misunderstand.
But maybe she shouldn’t have. Perhaps she should have done something differently.
As she watched Leonid walk away in anger, she felt a sense of something being wrong. It wasn’t a mission failure or a direct threat, but an unsettling anxiety.
If someone had given her orders, she could just follow them. If there had been a chance to run away, she might have taken it.
“Maybe you were running away too, Larisa. Trapped in that time because moving forward was too difficult and frightening.”
Perhaps that was the best she could do. Avoidance is a way to survive too.
But the unfortunate truth is that she didn’t know how to be trapped.
“Someone once told me. There’s no paradise for those who run away. I used to think it meant that running away wouldn’t change reality, but now I understand why.”
Because the only place to escape to is the same place you left.
Just like she had run away from her comrades’ deaths only to crawl back to the scene of the massacre covered in butterflies.
So, there was no place to escape. She was used to making unavoidable choices.
Yekaterina’s vacant gaze echoed somewhere beyond the window.
“Everything will be forgotten soon.”
This confusing feeling would fade, leaving no trace. Yekaterina had always forgotten everything eventually. Even if she couldn’t forget, it wouldn’t matter. What difference would one more regret make to someone who was about to leave the world?
She would soon be forgotten. Just as if she had never existed, like everything she had ever forgotten.
Which is more painful?
To disappear without leaving a trace in anyone’s memory, or to be trapped in the same moment, unable to forget anything.
“……”
Yekaterina lowered her gaze. Carefully, she covered the now-sleeping Larisa with a blanket to avoid waking her and quietly stepped outside.
As she walked into the white corridor, the afternoon sun’s rays created a dazzling scene.
