Chapter 40
“Thank you.”
With a labored breath, Bianca managed to part her lips in gratitude.
Three years after reclaiming her emotions, Bianca had finally come to understand suffering and pain. She now recognized that her past was filled with nothing but hurt.
A cursed child who was born from the death of her mother.
Because of this, Bianca was ostracized in Hadenharts and ultimately used for a politically motivated marriage.
The experiences she endured at such a young age were marred entirely by pain.
“When I had no emotions, I didn’t realize it, but those events were truly torturous. So honestly, I didn’t care about my family. I felt it was perfectly fine for a family that had only brought me pain to fall apart.”
As she spoke, the corners of her mouth began to slowly rise.
“But that day, the words my sister said while hiding me… those words have stuck with me.”
In that moment, blood oozed from Bianca’s lips.
Kraush hesitated, but she continued speaking despite the dripping blood, as if this was a story that only she could tell.
“I… I didn’t understand what my sister meant when she said, ‘I hate you, yet I don’t hate you. What I truly despise is my hatred for you. You’re not someone to be hated.’”
An expression of confusing emotions.
Just like how one cannot define a person with a single word, emotions also cannot be simplified.
Emotions are filled with contradictions. While it may seem like you loathe someone infinitely, a part of you still embraces them.
Emotions cannot be expressed as just one feeling.
“I didn’t grasp the meaning of her words until I regained my feelings. I also didn’t understand how hard it is to divide emotions. I suppose it must have been the same for my sister.”
Jenika hated Bianca.
Yet, at the same time, she hated herself for hating her.
As a child who had lost her mother, Jenika found Bianca to be her only outlet for those emotions.
Even knowing that Bianca was not at fault, Jenika could not shake that vague hatred.
And so, she came to despise herself intensely.
That’s why, in the end, she confessed that truth to Bianca:
“I hate you, yet I don’t hate you.
What I detest is my hatred for you.
You’re not someone to be hated.”
And within that contradiction, she chose to protect Bianca that day, sacrificing herself instead.
“Emotions have clearly been a source of pain for me.”
A world filled with agony.
Yet, unlike the grayness she saw when devoid of emotions, this world, despite its pain, had given her the drive to push forward for the first time.
Perhaps that drive would be called the burning desire for vengeance.
“But even so, the most excruciating thing was this curse.”
Tears streamed down her face, following the curve of her lips.
“Kraush.”
Kraush looked at Bianca.
“I feel more free now than I did when I was cursed.”
Kraush couldn’t fully grasp Bianca’s words, as he had not lived the same life she had.
Bianca’s eye doll curse had already been consumed by another curse of Kraush’s, making it nonexistent.
Thus, he couldn’t understand what it meant to lack emotions.
“So I wonder, if I had understood my feelings a bit sooner, would I have had more conversations with my sister? Would I have grieved for the death of my mother, whom I never got to see, alongside my brother and father, making an effort to move on from that sorrow?”
Bianca hadn’t understood emotions.
So, she had defined Jenika’s feelings toward her simply as hatred.
“It’s impossible to know. Truly, I know nothing. I was a doll pressed down by my emotions back then. And yet, the fact that I can have such thoughts now is because I possess emotions.”
Amid her crumbling smile, she slowly closed her eyes.
“Though, I guess it’s different in this case.”
She took a deep breath.
“I could’ve perhaps gotten along a bit better with you, Kraush, as an engaged couple…”
As those words left her lips, her speech came to an end.
With her cascading tears, Bianca’s eyes gradually began to shut.
Seeing this, Kraush opened his mouth.
“…Bianca.”
Yet, there was no response.
That was Bianca’s last moment.
Tears flowed down her closed eyes, falling onto her frozen legs.
Kraush slowly took a step forward.
He then pulled a dagger from his pocket.
Chop, clink-
With the dagger, he broke through the ice that was constraining her body.
Even though his hands experienced pain from the biting cold, he paid it no mind.
After quite a while of breaking the ice, Bianca collapsed into Kraush’s arms.
He carried her lifeless body and laid her down on the bed in the room.
Silence enveloped the space.
Kraush, having slumped down in front of her, quietly closed his eyes.
“…This world is rotten.”
He realized anew just how wretched this damned world was.
The Bianca from his memories was now gone.
In her place stood the current Bianca.
The Bianca from that day when he had hoped she could live well.
That memory of Bianca remained intact.
Thus, Kraush kept her close.
He owed her a life.
So he would do for her what he had failed to do before.
As he had promised at the end of her life, he would stay with her, to strive to get along better together.
And their relationship, as she had said, was certainly different now.
Kraush thought they got along quite well, just as she had mentioned.
“My emotions at home were never needed.”
Bianca’s voice echoed softly.
It sounded young, almost childlike compared to how she had sounded back then.
“But standing next to you, Kraush, it’s different.”
Being beside Kraush prompted Bianca to change gradually.
As curiosity about emotions grew, she felt a sense of peace at his side.
No one hated her, and she had someone who treated her warmly.
That’s what home felt like.
A place where you could sleep comfortably without fear of tomorrow.
For Bianca, home was right next to Kraush.
“When I’m with you, it’s agonizing that my face and heart don’t move.”
When he smiled, she wanted to smile along.
When he was sad, she wanted to cry with him.
When he was angry, she wanted to get angry with him, too.
But she could not.
Her curse wouldn’t allow her to feel.
“When I was with other people, I thought not having emotions was fine.”
Pain was the only thing emotions brought; it was far better not to have them at all.
“But when I’m with you, Kraush, I want to feel emotions.”
Yet, it was just that one person.
“In front of you, I want to get mad and cry and laugh for you.”
Still, she fervently shook her head.
“But I don’t want you to lose your emotions. I don’t want to see you become like me. If you don’t smile, then I don’t want to smile either.”
Such conflicted thoughts.
But Bianca felt there was no other way to voice them.
That was why, holding onto Kraush’s hand, she slowly lowered her head.
She was very aware that her contradictions were unsolvable issues.
“Don’t worry.”
At that moment, Kraush’s voice caused Bianca’s shoulders to flinch.
“The curse won’t affect those who are not the target. Even if I take on your curse, my emotions won’t disappear. I’m an expert when it comes to curses; you can trust me.”
There was no way someone like him would fall to a mere eye doll curse.
He had already overcome and mastered countless stronger curses.
As Kraush spoke, Bianca slowly raised her head.
Her expressionless face was now painfully close to bursting with emotions.
It was okay to be selfish.
Kraush was someone who even accepted that selfishness.
Then,
“Kraush, please.”
At that moment,
At least for this moment,
She wanted her expressionless face to disappear,
To thank him for saving her with a smile,
To express her anger at the thought of him getting hurt because of her,
And to weep for being sorry for what had happened to him.
An eye doll.
It was undeniably a curse that stripped away emotion.
But in reality, the eye doll curse was more about suppression than erasure.
It was a curse that nearly crushed emotions until they were barely felt.
Hence, people believed that Bianca had no emotions.
But in this moment, her emotions were overflowing.
“Please restore my emotions.”
Bianca’s plea was complete.
Kraush raised the hand that Bianca had held.
“You don’t even have to ask.”
Bianca’s image shone before Kraush.
With her white hair and perpetually expressionless face.
Despite her young age, her striking looks only seemed to highlight her emotionless expression further.
A memory washed over him.
The day he first met Bianca, even the twisted Kraush had thought that girl would be beautiful if she smiled.
Yet, in the end, Kraush never got to witness Bianca’s smile.
He only saw her reach the end engulfed in deep sorrow.
“Well then, what about this? If I obtain emotions and feel them myself, won’t I find out what’s more painful?”
The Bianca who sought emotions to understand suffering now felt like a distant memory.
Yet, now there was only the Bianca who sought emotions to understand happiness.
That was the future he could give to her through his regression.
Kraush pulled back his black hood, revealing Bianca’s eye dial.
“I intended to do this from the start.”
[ I will become Bianca’s ‘most precious person’. ]
The last dial.
[ Target Condition ]
[ ‘Kraush Valheim’ ]
Clunk—
The dial was already open.
Drip— plop—
In that instant, Bianca’s teardrops began to flow from her eyes.
These tears weren’t falling due to something in her eyes but rather the sadness spilling over.
It was as if a faucet had burst, and they continued to overflow.
Bianca’s face was slowly transforming with tears.
Having lived a lifetime with a blank face, this felt awkward, but she made one thing clear.
“I’m s-sorry, Kraush. I’m sorry because of me. I’m sorry. What about your arm? What should we do?”
In the distant future, she wished that she wouldn’t have to cry anymore.
Today, she wished to shed all the tears she had stored up her entire life.
“You can cry all the tears you weren’t able to shed before, right here.”
Bianca buried her face into Kraush’s small embrace.
Kraush quietly wrapped his arms around Bianca’s head.
That warmth was the most comfortable feeling she had ever experienced.
For the first time, the girl let out her cries into the world.
A cry that should have been celebrated by everyone.
And from within the warmth of one person, it resonated deeply.
