My Husband Lives Inside a Painting Chapter 24

Camille had clearly not been paying attention to what I was saying. I frowned, but he merely wore a faint smile, as though even that amused him.

“You look so pretty when you’re concentrating, too.”

“……Camille. Pay attention to what I’m saying—”

“But will you be all right going alone? I won’t be able to help you once you’re outside.”

His skill at slipping away before I could even scold him was remarkable.

Still, just as he’d said, I would have to face Pagoda alone outside the painting, and that did concern me.

“I have no choice. Not if I want revenge.”

At my words, spoken as casually as I could manage, Camille fell silent for a while and gazed into my eyes.

Whenever he looked at me like that, I was reminded once again that he wasn’t my husband when he was alive.

There wasn’t a trace of anything that could be called love in those eyes, which were filled with such blatant curiosity and fascination.

“Orb, you must have loved me a lot before you died.”

“……”

“Did you really like me that much? From what I’ve heard, I must have been a pretty boring man aside from my face.”

But something was strange.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought I caught a strange glimmer of jealousy in his eyes.

His question had also come so abruptly that I was at a loss for words. It was only a moment later that I slowly parted my lips.

“……I think I did. Quite a lot.”

“Then why wouldn’t you love me? I look exactly like him.”

“Because Camille wasn’t as promiscuous as you.”

“You don’t know that, do you?”

His eyes seemed to say, All men are the same. They’re all wolves.

I disliked the playful smile on his face, and before I knew it, I was scowling.

“Don’t insult my husband.”

“I’m just stating a fact.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you, Orb.”

Though we claimed to be allies, it felt as though an invisible wall stood between us.

We stared at each other, our gazes locked in a tense standoff, as if we could never understand one another. It was Camille who finally backed down.

“Damn, I can’t stand this jealousy. Still, focus on me for now. I’m your husband, after all.”

“You’re not my husb—”

“Even if it’s a lie, isn’t it better to think of it that way?”

“……”

His words had struck a nerve. I pressed my lips together like a tightly shut clamshell.

Why had I even bothered to argue when I was going to lose so easily? As I gazed regretfully at the flower petals resting in my teacup, a gentle voice, as though trying to soothe me, reached my ears.

“By the way, Orb.”

But what followed was a matter of duty, delivered in a voice so cold it sent a chill down my spine.

“It’s time to pay the price.”

“As I told you, the price of the contract is your soul. And I’ll take a portion of it each time you complete another step of your revenge.”

……Looking back on what he’d said, could it be that Camille had known from the beginning that Gail might not be the culprit?

I wondered if he had simply chosen a different answer for his own amusement, but there was no way for me to know the truth.

So all I could do was stand with him on the hill.

“Now, hold out the hand with the contract’s seal on it.”

“……Like this?”

“That’s right. Now, bear with me for a moment.”

When I nodded, Camille took my hand, closed his eyes, and began quietly chanting something.

Pale white letters seemed to spill from his lips. Before I knew it, something like a long thread was emerging from the center of my chest.

My soul, a mass of white light, coiled in on itself until it formed a sphere. Then it slipped into Camille’s grasp. He swallowed it in one gulp, bringing the ritual to an end.

“Ah…… Wonderful.”

Unlike me, who felt no different, Camille lifted his head in ecstasy after consuming a portion of my soul.

With his eyes closed and his eyelids trembling, he looked as though he’d just eaten something delicious.

“This is it. I can feel strength coursing through my entire body. It’s as if every inch of me is filling with power.”

“……Is it really that delicious?”

“Fantastic.”

The fact that something that had once been part of me was a demon’s idea of the finest delicacy was rather unsettling.

Especially since I’d witnessed it right before my eyes. I felt almost embarrassed, and awkwardly looked away.

“From the perspective of the person who had it taken, it’s a little…… unsettling.”

“Ah, sorry. I wasn’t being very considerate. But it’s my first time eating a soul, too.”

“Your first time?”

Camille nodded as though it were perfectly natural, but I stared at him in confusion.

Then, I was horrified.

“Wait. C-Camille.”

“Hmm?”

“Y-Your head……!”

My gaze fixed on Camille as he blinked his round eyes innocently.

Something pitch-black, like a black bean, was visible among his hair. But wasn’t that strange? There were nothing but flowers here. What was a black bean doing in a place like this?

In other words, that was definitely—

“You have…… horns!”

“……What?”

Two pointed horns had sprouted from his cherry-blossom-colored hair, each about the size of my thumb.

Unable to hide my bewilderment at the sudden sight, I stared at him blankly.

But what was even stranger was Camille’s reaction.

“……”

Camille ran a hand over the horns protruding from his head, and his expression briefly stiffened.

But the moment our eyes met, he put on a perfectly composed face, as though nothing had happened. Then, he spoke calmly.

“Looks like I have a bump.”

“Pardon?”

“Gail must have hit me. No wonder it hurts.”

My fingertip, which had been pointing at his horns, came to a halt in midair, at a loss for where to go in the face of such an absurd excuse.

As though trying to smooth things over with a little charm, Camille leaned his head toward me.

“Ow…… Blow on it for me, will you?”

“……”

But my gaze had long since shifted to his rear.

This time, I saw a tail. Not a fluffy animal’s tail covered in thick fur, but a thin, pitch-black one shaped like an arrow.

“You really are a demon! Now that I look at you, even your ears seem a little pointier.”

“No. I’m your husband.”

“Then what’s that thing growing out of your back?”

“This? It’s my fashion statement.”

‘Say something that makes sense.’

As if he took me for a fool, Camille continued to spout lies without batting an eye.

But the sight of those two horns and that tail was so unmistakable that even a passing child would have shouted, ‘Oh, it’s a demon!’ He could no longer brazenly deny it.

Instead, he changed tactics.

“Orb, hear me out. Everyone has a little demon living inside them, right?”

“……”

“So why not think of it as something similar? You’re raising me, that’s all. Yes. Like a pet.”

‘Now he’s just saying whatever comes to mind.’

I looked at him as though I’d had enough, but the face looking back at me was exactly my type, and the words died in my throat.

This man knew. He knew I was weak to that face.

In the end, I let out a small sigh and spoke.

“……I don’t care whether you’re a demon or anything else. I’ve already decided to go to hell for a love that’s long since ended.”

“Good. That’s the right attitude.”

“But Camille, there’s something I’m curious about now.”

“Hmm?”

“If you really are a demon, why did you possess my painting of all things?”

He’d told me that he’d been wandering aimlessly when he came across the painting I’d made. The moment he touched the canvas, he lost consciousness, and when he woke up, he was here.

But if he was a real demon rather than some ghost, that explanation couldn’t be right.

‘A demon that seduces people and drives them to their deaths wouldn’t lack even that much power.’

I’d merely asked the question that had been nagging at me, but Camille flinched as though I’d hit the nail on the head.

When he finally spoke, after a very long silence, his answer was utterly anticlimactic.

“……Good question.”

 

***

 

A voice calling for Orb came from outside. It belonged to a maid named Romaine.

The distance between the canvas and the cottage was considerable, but within her own painting, Orb was practically a god.

She immediately recognized the voice calling her name and returned to reality.

Left alone, Camille gazed indifferently at the scenery inside the painting, now enveloped in an eerie silence.

“……”

The flower garden, awash in yellow, pink, white, and green, displayed its beauty.

The clear lakeshore in the distance and the refreshing breeze that tossed his hair were no different from before.

And yet, ever since Orb had left, the world inside the painting had somehow lost its vitality. It lay quiet and still, as though it had been preserved in a specimen jar.