Your Eternal Lies - Chapter 79

After Epilogue: Their Summer (1)

* * *

Summer had arrived in Primrose. It was a strange season. The Ian Kerner she knew always wore a coat and a muffler. Even in fliers, he was always enduring winter. It must have been because their winter outfit looked tougher than their summer outfit. It was winter when they first met, and it was winter when Rosen came back to find him…

She had always seen Ian in winter.

It was the first time she spent the summer with Ian. So, whenever she met him watering the garden in thin clothes, sometimes even naked, among the thick greenery, Rosen felt strange as if she was seeing him for the first time.

His face was so handsome, but why didn’t it suit him?

In summer the sky was bluer. Seeing him cleaning a plane buried in fresh grass made her want to beg him to fly to the sky right away.

But he was a pilot who considered safety the most important. After she quietly said that she would like to board an airplane operated by him, she had to listen to his nagging, including dozens of precautions.

As if speaking wasn’t enough, he even made her take a dictation test as a safety rule.

“Stop nagging. Just give me a ride! Why do I need to do all of this?”

“Don’t leave anything out and never stop until you remember it all.”

Rosen threw away her pen and flopped down on the bed. At first, she studied eagerly, but it was harder than she thought. It was also difficult to write letters that she hadn’t gotten used to yet.

“And you have to learn to swim.”

“It’s okay! Just say you don’t want to give me a ride. It would be faster to learn the magic to fly.”

Rosen got out of bed and threw a piece of paper in her tantrum. This sea was full of witches, and she was a witch. If the plane he was piloting crashed, Ian would be the one to worry about, not her.

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

Ian picked Rosen up, sat her down on his lap, and hugged her. He really liked holding her. Some days she came up from behind and clung to his back like a cicada clinging to a tree, and he carried her on his back until she ran out of strength and fell away from him.

“It’s because I’m still anxious.”

“What are you anxious about?”

He barely uttered in a low voice.

“I fear there will be an accident.”

“…”

“It’s not that I would let it happen. You will be safe. But…”

Rosen thought she could understand his feelings even if he didn’t speak at length, so she didn’t press him. She knew he still had nightmares, although the frequency was definitely less. For him, piloting a plane with her on board could be a huge challenge in itself.

“Do you have any desire to give me a ride? You don’t have to push yourself.”

“I am not. I wouldn’t have agreed from the beginning.”

“Really?”

“I want to show you what it feels like to fly.”

He hesitated for a moment, then added.

“It seems that you sometimes feel I am a distant being.”

Rosen remembered what she said to him a long time ago. It seemed that even she had forgotten about it, and the words she had uttered inadvertently stuck quite deeply in his heart.

-No. You’re too far away. You are in the sky.

He remembered those words.

Her heart was broken, and she answered by stroking his face.

“Don’t worry, I won’t die even if I drown in the waters around here. If you fall, I’ll pick you up. You are worrying unnecessarily.”

* * *

On a day in the middle of summer, Rosen came to Primrose again. She was looking forward to her vacation because Ian wanted to see her. The senior witches were quite interested in the handsome boyfriend she met on vacation. After looking at pictures, they kept asking what kind of person he was.

“Huh? The witch is here?”

Rosen arrived at Primrose a little later than Emily and was unloading her luggage on the dock when she heard Tommy’s voice.

Tommy was the son of a fisherman, so he practically lived on the dock. That was why Rosen ran into him almost every time she rode a beast to Primrose. Sometimes they met on the sea. Each time, he was amazed and smiled happily. He waved his hand vigorously at her from their little fishing boat.

“Witch, you have a good beast, but you should try riding my boat, too. I’ll give you a ride. If you’re nervous about riding alone, you can bring a few friends. Maybe the kids from the neighborhood!”

“…Your boat?”

“Well, would you bring the other witch with brown hair? A ship carrying witches will be safe because beasts won’t attack.”

“…”

“Well… I can teach you how to swim if you want,”

Tommy, scratching the back of his head. For some reason, his face looked a little red, which made Rosen feel strange.

‘Don’t tell me…’

‘Should I say I have a husband? But I didn’t marry Ian, and I killed my real husband, so I am not officially married. Then should I say I have a boyfriend?’

Rosen suddenly realized. The boy was too young for such tricks. He looked at least ten years younger than her. She stared at the boy’s face, who had fluffy hair instead of a beard, and shut her mouth.

He just wanted to show off his boat. People here respected witches, and boys his age usually wanted to show off everything. Even thinking of saying ‘I have a lover’ to a child who had no intention of doing that made Rosen feel ashamed.

She moderately accepted Tommy’s offer.

“Even if I drown in the sea, I will not die. So I don’t have to learn to swim.”

“Witch!”

“Sorry, I have to go now. I’ll get on the boat next time.”

“Witch! What is your name?”

Rosen heard Tommy yelling behind her. Emily, who had arrived first, whispered in her ear in a playful voice while helping her carry her luggage.

“Who is he?”

“The kid who works at the dock.”

“Looks like he is interested in you. Sir Kerner will be jealous.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. He is young. He must be at least ten years younger than me?”

Rosen pointed to Tommy’s youthful face proudly. A chubby face that looked sixteen or seventeen. But Emily shook her head.

“Rosen, you are so… You always notice when someone hates you, but you don’t believe that anyone likes you.”

Emily stroked Rosen’s hair.

Rosen looked at Emily. If Emily thought so, maybe it was true. However, even if she thought so in her head, it didn’t reach her heart.

“Even if it were true, Ian wouldn’t do that.”

She replied confidently, wrapping her arm around Emily’s side. Emily needed to be reminded that Ian was a very different person from the d*mned Hindley she was suspicious of. She knew how badly Rosen had been destroyed by that man.

“Everyone is jealous, unless you are at the level of suspicion. Ian Kerner is no exception.”

“A child like that?”

Rosen asked in shock, then shook her head excitedly.

“No. I told him about Tommy before. He’s just a kid who wants to give me a ride. Ian didn’t really care. I also told him that Tommy wanted to be a pilot, and he said he would help me, and asked me to bring him.”

Emily didn’t answer, just smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

***