Asha, who swallowed the sentence she habitually wrote into her mouth, quietly looked down at the back of her hand. The pale back of her hand where blue veins faintly showed. As if it couldn’t even contain the single flickering light above her head……

“Sorry.”

“Huh? You’re going back to your hometown, what’s there to be sorry about? Mr. Magnum will be worried about you too.”

“No, no. That’s not it.”

The man who only shook his head without elaboration closed his eyelids tightly and took a deep breath. As if sucking in all the oxygen remaining in the room.

Perhaps because of that, Asha’s heart became steeper than usual. As if detecting the rigid air before her brain did.

“Asha, I’m really, really sorry to you.”

“For what?”

“I must have been temporarily blinded. I shouldn’t have done that to you. Actually, I never planned to say this for my whole life……”

“So what exactly? Are you trying to make a confession?”

“Letters.”

Carol.

Dear Carol.

“I stole them……”

Do you know what happened to me today?

※※※

“Give them back.”

Her tender chest panted rapidly, unable to adapt to the sudden movement.

When the sweat formed on her nape touched the air, her shoulders trembled. Asha, who wrapped her upper body with only a cream-colored shawl, bit the inside of her mouth tightly and extended her hand.

In contrast, the house owner looked utterly leisurely and relaxed.

“What’s wrong from the morning? You came all the way here, isn’t this almost the first time?”

The purple eyelashes tinged with sleepiness blinked gently. At the brazen attitude, Asha had to briefly reconsider whether the confession she’d heard the previous day was a specific fantasy.

But it was the truth.

“Ah, today’s the day Lucio leaves. Should we see him off together?”

“Give back the letters, Rosette.”

Both Lucio’s confession and Rosette’s misdeeds.

When she emphasized the main point once more, the smoothly raised lips froze as they were. The moment suspicion turned to certainty, Rosette answered softly.

“There aren’t any.”

“…… There aren’t any?”

“They’re probably in some fish’s belly by now. Or some unlucky fisherman picked them up.”

It was a blatant acknowledgment that she’d thrown Asha’s letters into the sea.

Asha, who lost her words at that shameless attitude, blinked for a long time before asking like a groan.

“Why?”

Her blue-green eyes shook pitifully. Like a poor student who had to solve a completely incomprehensible problem, with the feeling of wandering through a book whose cover, contents, and first sentence she knew but couldn’t recall the title.

“Why did you do such a thing?”

Kind, mature, pleasant Rosette.

“You were getting too close with that kid.”

Rosette who used her lover—who would swallow seawater under the blazing sun at her word—to steal letters Carol sent.

“You don’t wear the ribbon I gave you.”

The woman who had grown close to full adulthood muttered calmly while caressing her lips with her thumb.

“You think some kid whose face you don’t even know is more important than me.”

“What does that……”

“You leave first saying you’ll write a letter.”

It was an unimaginable reason.

Asha, who had hesitated at the absurd excuse, raised her voice while adjusting her clear glasses.

“You must have someone you think is more important than me too?”

“I don’t.”

It was a firm denial as if there were no other comparison groups. Asha should be the one receiving an apology, but that certainty was overwhelming enough to make her lose her nerve instead.

“Right now, you threw my letters into the sea for such a childish reason?”

“This is childish? I’m being extremely serious.”

The darkly tanned instep came half a step closer. Hair grown to her waist created that much shadow, and when she tilted her head, a purple curtain was captured in the corner of Asha’s eyes.

“I’ve been extremely serious since I was young.”

“When we were young, you played with Aila.”

“I had to so you’d pay attention.”

“What nonsense…… You’re the popular one.”

It was Asha’s role to watch the girl who fearlessly jumped into the sea. The role of envying a peer born in the same year but as different as her sister, more similar to her sister than herself.

So different that jealousy became laughable, making her nervous at casually given greetings.

Asha remembered the time when Rosette never gave her any attention. The distant answers that came back when she mustered a little courage to speak familiarly.

Memory distortion at this level should make one suspect a pathological condition. While finding a diagnosis for the person she believed was a friend, Rosette muttered as if venting.

“You only look at me a little when I hover around people you like.”

It was truly an aggrieved tone. If heard in a dazed state, it would be convincing enough to make one mistake that Asha herself should take responsibility.

Heartbroken, sorrowful, and exhausted to the limit.

“Do you know how hard I worked to make the fickle you keep paying attention to me?”

“So, what nonsense are you talking about?”

Despite the sharp vocabulary, the tone stained with bewilderment was powerless.

“You get bored with everything easily.”

“Suddenly my……”

“You gave up on embroidery and painting too. You quit right away after touching difficult things briefly.”

Her cheeks heated up at the sudden criticism of her lack of persistence. Long wrinkles formed on her clear forehead, but Rosette continued regardless.

“When things were easy, you said you were bored and didn’t do them. Like the puzzle you used to do. I would have been the same.”

“Puzzle?”

“If you became friends with me easily, then you would have gotten bored like with that puzzle. You wouldn’t have been more curious about me.”

Puzzle.

The puzzle with the kingdom’s map that Rosette’s father brought. The puzzle made for children had large, clear pieces that any child of that age could easily put together.

Asha recalled the hard wooden texture that had wrapped around her hands and the memory of disappointment because it was simpler than expected.

The prettiest and smartest girl on the island was now—constantly—comparing herself to a children’s puzzle. Before Asha could refute anything, long fingers folded.

“That’s why I did it. With Aila, Bash, and Lucio too. When I was with those people……”

A light breeze tickled Rosette’s cheek. She swept back her disheveled hair refreshingly and muttered while biting her lips.

“Because you like Aila, Bash, and Lucio.”

“So what you’re saying is, if you approached me directly, I would get bored, so you dated and became close with people who were somewhat close to me?”

Silence doesn’t always mean agreement, but this time it was certain.

Rosette agreed with Asha’s summary by keeping her mouth shut.

Her tender eyelashes fluttered rapidly. Rosette quietly watched that scene, the sight of a girl more than a span smaller than herself standing there blankly.

“I……”

There were more than one or two questions. Why she wanted to become so close with her, why she used such methods, why she chose to steal her joy at the end of those thoughts.

But Asha asked none of those things, and understood none of those things.

It was Rosette’s circumstances that Asha couldn’t fathom—nor needed to.

How she interpreted the quiet silence, the lips that had maintained a consistently shameless attitude moved half a beat faster.

“That kid, was it Carol? Really sent disgustingly many letters.”

The words that tumbled out frantically like someone who had lost their grip surprisingly hit the core.

“Luce had a hard time. Bringing them secretly without you knowing. Sending them so urgently, he should know when to give up if it doesn’t seem right.”

What she had missed while being angry at the behavior planned by people she had considered friends—until ten hours ago.

“What’s so good about such a persistent kid……”

Carol had never stopped writing letters.

An utterly obvious fact.

Just as Asha had stubbornly sent letters without replies, Carol had sent letters to someone who couldn’t be reached.

Without knowing why.

While enduring letters full of resentment and lamentation instead of proper replies.

Her dizzy head, as if sprayed with multiple perfumes, cleared instantly.

‘What are you going to do now?’

She didn’t know how she’d live from now on, but where she needed to go right now was clear. Cold air filled her lungs completely.

Asha, who took a long breath, concluded her judgment toward Rosette with silence and turned her back. Then, a lukewarm hand grabbed her thin wrist.

“Where, where are you going?”

The pupils of a criminal who hadn’t heard any verdict trembled aimlessly. It was always Asha who was anxious and nervous, but even with the reversed situation, Asha felt no satisfaction or pleasure.

The girl who would become an adult in two months, completely absorbed in one obsession, gently pulled her wrist free and curved her lips.

It was a smile cool enough to make the person left behind shed tears.

“Kasoche!”