To You, Who Will Die Alone in Paradise Chapter 31

Returning to the Elven Forest meant that Kellewen’s time was up. It was obvious the ritual would begin as soon as he returned. The sheep would burn on the altar, and everyone except Dandeleon would be happy.

If that was the path Kellewen had chosen, Dandeleon had no way to stop him.

If so, was this really the end of everything? So meaninglessly, powerlessly, without being able to do a thing…

“…You’ve grown so much.”

For a moment, Dandeleon doubted his own ears.

He slowly raised his gaze and looked straight ahead. From across a single table, the king cast an affectionate gaze upon him.

The dim light illuminated the king’s face. The man there was more wrinkled and looked more tired than Dandeleon remembered.

“You were only ten when you first came to the palace, but now you’re as tall as Apsara.”

The king muttered slowly, as if in a dream. Yes, it must be a dream. This was a terrible nightmare. Dandeleon clenched his teeth. He wanted to know how to escape this dream.

Ten years. The king had turned his back on Dandeleon for a full ten years. He, who couldn’t even be there for his lover’s final moments, was shocked only by the fact of her death and brought a ten-year-old child to the royal palace as if abducting him. He acted as if he couldn’t hear the queen’s screams denouncing his actions, nor the priest’s sermon shouting that he would be divinely punished.

But Dandeleon heard them. The countless voices directed at the king and himself, and at his mother, all flew to Dandeleon and pierced him.

The child, scarred in body and soul, clung to Zellos every night and cried, begging to see his father. He thought that if he could just see his face and plead to be sent back, he would listen. Because he was his father, because he was the man who had loved his mother…

But the king never once came to see Dandeleon.

With no meetings, there were no conversations. In official settings, he behaved as was appropriate, but in private, he didn’t even spare him a glance. If they ran into each other in the halls, he would pretend not to have seen him and leave without a greeting. Each time that happened, cracks would form in Dandeleon’s heart.

His mother was dead, and his father treated him as less than a dead person. That was enough to shatter a young child’s world.

In just a few short years, Dandeleon became a completely different person.

The child who used to cry at the drop of a hat grew into a cynical teenager who was the subject of all sorts of scandals. He did not participate in royal events and frequently snuck out of the palace to indulge in alcohol and gambling. When he was caught trying to take the sons of nobles to an opium den, even the queen broke her long silence and raised her voice, saying he must be kicked out of the royal palace.

But the king ignored even that.

That period of time was ten years.

Dandeleon, now twenty, had neither the energy to cry nor the will to rebel. It had been a long time since he had given up on expectations and optimism. Simply living day by day, averting his eyes from the death that loomed right before him, was difficult enough.

And you’re saying things like that to me now?

“So you do still remember my mother’s name?”

In the end, Dandeleon could only say that.

He was prepared for a teacup to be thrown at his face. He felt it would be more satisfying to be hit instead. But the king didn’t even get angry and replied with a sorrowful expression.

“Of course.”

He could see the king’s hands, resting on his lap, clench tightly.

“She is the only woman I have loved in my entire life. How could I possibly not remember?”

In the ornately decorated room, the king’s voice was surprisingly wretched. His shoulders were hunched, and his wrinkled face was contorted. His raw emotion was laid bare before Dandeleon.

“Your mother was a truly amazing woman. It was as if she wasn’t of this world. Her beauty, her way of thinking that seemed to transcend the world…”

The king paused for a moment as if choked up, then continued.

“She said that loving me was like drinking from a poisoned chalice. And yet, she loved me with all her might, until the very moment she died. How could I not love her?”

Dandeleon sat still like someone under a curse and listened to all those words. He wanted to scream to shut him up, but he couldn’t lift a single finger. The emotions the king was revealing wrapped around Dandeleon, suffocating him.

“I know why you ask that. For I have never been a proper father to you.”

The king…

Charles III, Dandeleon’s father.

“I’m sorry.”

He was quietly shedding tears.

“But when I look at you, I keep remembering the fact that Apsara is gone…”

Charles’s head dropped. He hunched his back and desperately swallowed the sobs that were rising up. He meticulously crushed the sounds welling up inside him and wept silently, his whole body trembling.

It was a very familiar method. Dandeleon had also cried that way in his childhood. Clamping a hand over his own mouth, killing his soul along with the sound.

“I’m sorry, Dandeleon. I am so sorry…”

A wave of disillusionment washed over him.

“I will take my leave now.”

Dandeleon left the office without waiting for permission. The sound of sobbing from behind him clung to him like a hallucination even after he closed the door. As he turned, gritting his teeth, a flash of purple flickered in his vision.

Dandeleon felt dizzy. The sea in the painting overlapped with the sea in his memory. It felt as if he could hear the sound of waves in his ears. The hand that had stroked his head, and the sensation of that touch suddenly disappearing.

“Charles!”

Even that bright, beautiful voice was as vivid as if it were yesterday.

His mother runs. She runs and throws her arms around him. From behind the lovers gazing at each other, Dandeleon remains in the background, observing the two of them.

A smile that looked as if she owned the entire world.

His mother only smiled like that when his father came.

The scene that comes to mind when he thinks of his childhood is the beach at Roallant. A place where blue seawater washes onto the white sand, leaving a stain before disappearing.

Even knowing that the lighthouse purified it, the sea was already a feared entity, so it was rare for other people to visit the beach. Dandeleon’s life revolved quietly around just two people.

Zellos, and his mother.

Dandeleon’s mother, Apsara, was a calm person. She was a woman of few words and didn’t much like to move. Thinking back, it seemed his mother, like Dandeleon, had also been physically weak. Though he didn’t know it well at the time.

Apsara was a person who gave the impression of not being there even when she was right in front of him. Whatever she did, she never seemed to be truly focused on it. Her gaze was also vacant, so even when you made eye contact, you couldn’t tell if she was truly seeing you, or if she was fumbling for something within herself.

That was perhaps the first horror of Dandeleon’s life. The fact that his mother did not truly see him.

Even after giving birth to Dandeleon, Apsara left most of his care to Zellos. She spent most of her days at the beach. Walking barefoot on the sand or standing motionless for hours staring at the horizon was Apsara’s daily routine.

There were times when even she would smile happily. That was when she met her lover.

“Charles!”

Apsara always spotted Charles quickly. As if someone had told her he was coming to her, she would turn her head precisely in his direction, no matter how far away he was.

The moment her eyes landed on Charles, Apsara’s face would fill with a smile of pure joy. She always ran toward Charles. Charles would open his arms to welcome the running Apsara.

Dandeleon was always in the position of watching the two of them.

His father was not someone who came often. Twice a month was lucky, and it was common for him to go two or three months without contact.

To Dandeleon, his father was always a stranger. Charles, too, was so regretful of every second he had with Apsara that he paid little attention to his own child. A certain distance was always maintained between the two, and from then on, it only grew wider.

Dandeleon, who had little interaction with others and was not properly educated, only understood the meaning of a father in a superficial way. He didn’t even know that it wasn’t normal for a father and mother not to live together.

He was just curious. What kind of being was a father that he could draw out a real smile from his mother? What was the secret to filling her empty eyes with joy and breathing life into her wax-white cheeks?

When he asked Zellos, Zellos said with an awkward smile.

“Because Ms. Apsara loves that man.”

Dandeleon thought for a moment, then asked back.

“What about me? Doesn’t Mom love me?”

He tries to recall what Zellos said then, but he can’t remember. It seems like he heard the words, ‘Of course she loves you,’ but it also feels like a memory he added himself after growing up.

Childhood memories fade quickly. They are cut into pieces, severed, and ultimately remain only as fragments. They are nothing but pieces of a puzzle you can’t figure out without taking the time to fit them together.

Still, some pieces are large and clear, and they leave a wound on the hand that grasps them, to be remembered forever. The memory of the day his mother died was like that.

“Leon.”

In spring, the season when life force is at its peak, Apsara was dying without a sound.

Just before her death, she was so withered that it seemed if you touched her, she would disappear, leaving behind only dust. Lying in bed, Apsara spoke with difficulty to her young son.

“I am truly sorry to you.”

Dandeleon held Apsara’s hand and shed fat tears. His mother’s death was too terrifying for a child to bear. He smelled the scent of death on his mother, yet he desperately denied the fact.

“Just hold on a little longer, Mother. Zellos went to see Father. Father will bring a doctor. Then you’ll get all better.”

“He won’t come.”

Apsara said.

Dandeleon was shocked. A deep resignation was embedded in Apsara’s voice. Until then, Dandeleon had believed that while Zellos might not make it in time, his father would come running as soon as he heard the news. The child’s innocent faith was shattered by Apsara’s single phrase.

“He said he was going to become king. Charles abandoned me and chose the throne.”

Dandeleon was too young to understand the situation of Charles, who was a prince at the time. The simple fact that his father had abandoned his mother came as a shock. Dandeleon looked at his mother with a confused expression.

“It’s so strange…”

Apsara’s purple eyes grew moist, and then drip, a clear liquid flowed out.

“That even so, I can’t stop loving him.”

That day, Dandeleon saw his mother’s tears for the first time.

Apsara had almost no emotional highs or lows, except when meeting Charles. It was surprising and frightening that she was showing her emotions in front of him. Apsara had truly grown weak. He could feel her time was coming to an end.

“Leon, take this.”

Apsara raised her body with difficulty and took off her earring. The earring, which had several small amethysts set in a gold ornament to form the shape of a flower, was something Apsara always wore in one ear. She squeezed out her last bit of strength and pressed the earring into Dandeleon’s hand.

“Always keep it with you. And come to the sea as often as you can.”

Dandeleon took the earring and nodded. His vision blurred with tears.

“Leon, I don’t have any regrets.”

Apsara said as she stroked Dandeleon’s head.

“So you, too, should love.”

Dandeleon flinched.

His mother’s hand on his head was so light. His mother was dying by the second.

And yet, it was so strange that his mother spoke of love even in that moment.