It's raining.
Rain, laden with regret and the scars of indelible memories, was falling between the two.
-Whoa!
Mikhail was looking at me.
He stood there without saying a word, looking at me with rain-soaked eyes.
His lips were trembling as if he wanted to say something, but Mikhail's eyes were tightly shut and his shoulders were shaking.
"I am..."
What happened?
Mikhail was trembling like a frightened man. He couldn't look me in the eye, and his trembling eyes just didn't know where to look.
I couldn't tell what had happened, but I looked into Mikhail's eyes, soaked in tears, and smiled faintly.
"Miss Misa."
As it always has been.
*
I can't say anything.
"Miss Misa."
I couldn't respond to his detailed questions. I couldn't even say a simple "yes," or meet his eyes.
Mikhail couldn't think of anything to say, or how to begin. He didn't dare open his mouth.
Those two red eyes looking at me.
Just looking at his back, Mikhail's heart ached at the fact that it was the shoulder he had hated.
-Whoa!
Ricardo, who was getting soaked in the rain with an umbrella over his head, was smiling. He was giving her a smile he didn't know meant the same thing he hated so much.
My heart hurts.
It hurt so much... I could hardly breathe properly.
"...I am."
What did you do?
"I am…."
Who did you hate?
"I...I."
Why was it like that?
An unbearable tidal wave of regret was washing over me. A regret I couldn't deny, no matter how much I wanted to, gripped my heart with a gnawing grip.
Don't talk nonsense.
My heart was beating like crazy, as if he was saying, "How dare you raise your head?"
"are you okay?"
Ricardo looked at himself with eyes full of worry.
-are you okay?
-Don't pretend to be worried, it's disgusting.
-...Seeing you say that, it seems okay.
His voice passed through my ears along with the mistakes of the past.
"Ms. Misa, your complexion doesn't look very good. It's raining like this and you don't even have an umbrella…."
-Are you a training bug? It's raining like this, why are you training like this?
-Don't worry about it. It's none of your business.
-still.
-Don't hold the umbrella over me with those dirty hands!
The umbrella I had dropped on the floor at that moment lingers before my eyes.
Ricardo's pitiful expression overlapped with the image of the child in his memory. The child's voice, who had always smiled at him and never said anything unpleasant, overlapped with Ricardo's smile.
At the crossroads I'd been searching for so long, I finally found my way. I learned not only about the child's survival, but who he was, and what his goals were. Yet, I stood silently, unable to say anything.
Michael couldn't look Ricardo straight in the eye.
He was the one who had kicked him out of the academy, where graduating would have given him a high position. He resented his past self for the harsh words he'd spoken to Ricardo.
“Why….”
There were many things I wanted to ask.
How did someone as brilliant as you become Olivia's butler? How did you, who used to show mercy to a irritating orphan, turn into someone who bullies the weak?
There were so many things I wanted to ask.
Mikhail couldn't bring himself to open his mouth.
perhaps.
“Why are you….”
Because it could all have been for my own good. I couldn't dare open my mouth.
"..."
Everything was done cautiously, knowing that it was too late to clear up the accumulated emotional rift.
He wouldn't know. So, he wouldn't have revealed his identity to me. He might have kept it a secret because he didn't want to be an obstacle, or because he didn't want to be remembered as someone who came from a poor family. After all, that kid would have done more than that.
'...'
Things Ricardo had shown me over the years began to come to mind.
An incident where one deliberately loses to oneself in a ranked match.
-What are you doing…! Fight till the end.
-I think you would suit it better than me.
-Are you insulting me?
I saw myself standing outside the Academy fire and smiling brightly.
-Why are you laughing?
-I just thought it was fortunate.
The moment he realized that everything he hated was all for himself, Mikhail felt his heart being torn to pieces.
'You've never said a single nice word to me.'
'I told you I didn't need help from the likes of you.'
Mikhail couldn't raise his head at the fact that he had been silently helping despite his own criticism. His own reflection in the rain was so ugly.
My clenched fist is shaking.
It felt like my fingernails were digging into my skin, but it didn't hurt. My heart ached more than that.
"like that..."
Ricardo, before her eyes, was looking at her. He was looking at the woman named Misa, not the man named 'Michael', with a look of concern in his eyes.
I can't tell what kind of feelings he had.
I wanted to know if you had positive or negative feelings, but I didn't have the courage to ask.
Ricardo kept looking at himself.
Even though his back was soaked by the pouring rain, he was looking at himself with a gentle smile.
"Don't look at me like that."
Because if you knew who I was, you'd hate me.
"Please don't look at me like that."
"I know what I did to you—I treated you cruelly, I kicked you out, I cursed you, I insulted you. Why do you look at me like that?" Mikhail bit his lip and clenched his fist.
My heart feels like it's going to break.
My heart, pounding wildly, seemed to refuse to beat, burdened by guilt. It felt like it was kicking me, saying, "You're not worthy. Think about what you said."
'Right. I know.'
If it had been said by Ricardo's mouth.
If he couldn't stand it and let out his anger, there wouldn't even be this opportunity.
Just looking at that face.
Even smiling like that.
There is no chance to even hear his voice.
Michael looked at Ricardo through the mask of Misa. The sight of Michael as a man would be a nightmare to Ricardo.
Now. This was his true self, and yet it was the one he most longed to see. Yet, Michael was facing Ricardo, disguised as a lie.
I wasn't sure how Ricardo would react if he found out I was Michael. Honestly, I was scared.
And how to treat him.
-Why did you suddenly become kind?
How should I view him?
-Just do your usual. Get out. I don't need the likes of you. Just do that.
I was afraid that I would be hurt by his cold demeanor. After all, what I had done was worse.
He knew that this was a lame excuse, but he was more afraid of being hated by him, so he decided to put on a false front.
Ricardo opened his heavily shut mouth as he looked into Mikhail's trembling eyes.
"Why did you ask me why I looked like that?"
'Snicker' Ricardo said in a low voice, smiling slightly and covering Mikhail's head with the shade of his umbrella.
"How could I just pass by a beautiful woman getting drenched in the rain? I can't do that."
"..."
Ricardo said with a small smile at Michael, who was hesitating to speak.
"Sword. Didn't you say you were learning it?"
"...turn off"
"I'm not in the capital very often... If you come down to Hamel, I'll teach you."
"..."
"Instead, please don't come to our mansion. Instead, please leave a letter. Say, 'Please tell me when and where you will be coming. Please give me some time.'"
Ricardo looked around and said in a playful voice.
"There's a terrifying monster living in our mansion... If you get caught, you die."
Mikhail nodded.
Tears welling up in my eyes.
I nodded with a heavy heart, holding a pit of emotion filled with regret in my arms.
Just having a means of communicating with him was enough. Approaching him under the name Mikhail was unthinkable, so I figured approaching him under the guise of a mask was all I could do.
He knew this wasn't the best option, and it might have been the worst possible choice, but Mikhail couldn't let this opportunity slip away.
"I am…."
"yes."
"Can I really do that?"
"hmm..."
Ricardo smiled as he placed the umbrella in Mikhail's hand.
"It is possible if you give it a little effort."
Ricardo nodded and said goodbye to Mikhail, who was bowing his head behind an umbrella.
"I have a cold."
"..."
"And don't cry."
'ah...'
For a moment, Ricardo's face overlapped with the boy's face in his memory.
Just like that day when he handed over the box he had been carrying on his head on a rainy day.
-Because you're ugly. Don't cry.
"Don't cry because you're getting ugly."
It was the same.
After Ricardo disappeared from the streets.
-dump.
Mikhail sat down on the floor and cried endlessly.
Dropping the umbrella on the street without a care.
"Hehehe... Heh heh heh... Me..."
"Now... turn it off... turn it off... huh."
"Ahhh... I... now... what do I do.."
He beat his chest and burst into tears.
***
Today too, the peaceful Darbab mansion.
"Father."
"...It's okay. Abby will take care of everything."
"My brother also allows it."
"Mom, I'll give you permission too."
Olivia, sitting on the floor, was picking her nose, bearing the weight of her family's expectations.
"Hmm."
Olivia shook her head and spoke calmly.
"No. What if it fails again?"
"Wouldn't it be better to just be demoted? Father, this moment is more precious than that."
"It's okay, I've sent all the employees home. I've also doubled and tripled the barrier, and if anyone comes in, I'll make sure they leave this world without a sound or rumor, so it's okay."
"Mom, I'll help too."
I smiled and stopped the girl from putting her finger to her mouth.
"That's not for eating."
"...no?"
"yes."
"..."
The girl smiled bashfully and nodded.
"Then let's try it."
Desmund was looking forward. He looked at the girl with her arms crossed.
"Eeeeek!!!!"
I was waiting for little Olivia.