The declaration came surprisingly easily. Perry, who had been sitting as if she had a fishbone stuck in her throat, stood up as if entranced. Her eyes, which hadn’t slept for about two days, were red as if inflamed.

“How?”

Only one person was there to catch the staggering Perry. The fellow actor who had been exchanging lines with her in the agency’s rehearsal room. Bria Sol elegantly crossed her arms and pointed out.

“Do you even know where Yuan Bellium is?”

“That’s……”

“Of course not. The hospital address hasn’t been disclosed.”

Have I ever mentioned that name? Perry wondered, but the thought didn’t linger. Whether or not Bria Sol knew the identity of her pen pal didn’t matter now that she had decided what to do. However, the other person seemed to have a different opinion.

“How will you get there? Even if you reach Radam, how will you find him in that vast land?”

“Still—”

“Let me be blunt, what difference would it make if you went?”

Her monotone voice was sharp. Before Perry could open her mouth, Bria Sol added pointedly.

“What kind of relationship do you have with him?”

What kind of relationship, her mechanically moving legs stopped abruptly. All sorts of emotions filled and swept through her previously frozen eyes repeatedly. Deep teeth marks appeared on her pale lips.

Perry inevitably recalled the past white night. The evening when rain fell incessantly, the fierce raindrops and distantly echoing voice, the unkind man who maintained his position despite her desperate questioning.

She had pushed him for the answer she wanted. She shouted angrily that he would regret it. Perry didn’t think she had done anything wrong. Regardless of his intentions, the man had deceived Perry—though Perry had never been deceived from the beginning—and never revealed his deepest truth.

Idiot, fool, smarty-pants.

‘It’s raining heavily.’

The earnest request to walk her home clung to Perry’s ears. As did the image of him not even grabbing her sleeve, let alone her wrist, unable to properly close the distance.

“What kind of relationship we have…… I don’t know myself.”

I probably wouldn’t know even if I met him, Perry bit the inside of her cheek and self-deprecated. She couldn’t be confident that the perverse man would speak as Perry wished. Still,

Even so.

“I want to see him.”

Her thin eyelashes trembled finely.

“I just…… just feel like I have to.”

“So now the play doesn’t matter anymore?”

“How could it not…!”

Her shocked rebuttal sounded like a devotee hearing blasphemy. Perry, who had incurred the unpleasant suspicion, emphasized with furrowed brows.

“I’ll be back before it starts. I am……”

Her breath caught despite trying to recite the unvarnished truth. Her black eyes, which had been turbulent like encountering a storm, calmed with the completion of her sentence.

“……an actor.”

Her short nails dug into her palm. My one and only actor, even when Perry didn’t believe in herself, one person always called her that.

“Do you know how to book a plane ticket?”

Bria, who had been silently listening to Perry’s determination, brought her back to reality.

“Do you know how to get to the airport?”

“……No.”

“Even if you knew the hospital, you might be turned away as an outsider.”

“That’s,”

“Do you still want to go?”

Though each question left her speechless, this one was certain. The light brown head moved up and down quickly. The purple eyes narrowed sleepily.

“Passport?”

“I, I have one.”

Her neatly groomed eyebrows rose as if surprised.

With just a passport, the rest is easy, Bria Sol muttered indifferently and proceeded with all the arrangements efficiently.

Before she knew it, Perry was sitting in the passenger seat of a car heading to Priton Airport. Surprisingly, the person behind the wheel was Bria Sol.

“I didn’t know you drove yourself.”

“I learned in a fit of anger after being criticized by a reviewer. It’s convenient.”

The road from Roju to Priton wasn’t particularly congested. The driver skillfully adjusted her speed and casually asked.

“When did you get your passport? Most people don’t bother.”

“A friend said I might need it someday.”

I never imagined it would be used like this, when filling out the application, it was merely going along with the friend’s suggestion. That she might travel abroad for performances if she became a great actor…… The man showed an extremely one-sided and biased belief when it came to Perry’s acting career.

He was that way with actor Perry Humble. But.

“I pretended otherwise, but I was scared.”

Words she would never normally say. Perry, who hadn’t slept for days, fidgeted with her hangnail and muttered incoherently.

“What if the reason he won’t tell me he likes me is…… not because he’s a coward, not because of other circumstances, but because he truly doesn’t like me.”

Though she had turned a blind eye, this secret anxiety had always accompanied Perry. By conventional standards, Perry wasn’t a “likeable woman.”

“As you know, I’m nothing special outside of being an actor.”

The person Yuan Bellium supported was actor Perry Humble. That’s how it began.

“My face is just average, I’m not rich, I’m not exceptionally kind.”

She doesn’t consider herself as inadequate as the people who raised her lamented. However…… when compared to the person she liked, Perry occasionally felt a faint sense of inferiority.

“Maybe all my thoughts now are just delusions, and he really doesn’t like me—”

“Ha.”

It was too vivid to be misheard. Bria Sol, who let out a small snort, threw an unexpected question before Perry could guess her intention.

“Perry, do you know what I think of you?”

“Well. Um, we’re fairly close, aren’t we?”

“No, I hate you.”

Her voice was as monotone as if introducing her name and age.

“I’ve never hated anyone as much as you in my life.”

“What? No, but all this time……”

Perry instinctively counted the favors she had received from Bria Sol. Using her influence to change roles in workshops, lending earrings, recommending her to the agency…… As the count exceeded ten fingers, deep confusion clouded her black eyes.

“Are we not going to the airport right now?”

“No, we are going to the airport? Didn’t you see the sign just now—oh, I guess you couldn’t see it.”

“Was it a lie that you reserved a ticket to Radam?”

“No.”

“That you know where Yuan is?”

“No. Oh, there’s a note with the address written on it in my bag, so take it.”

Finding the address scrawled on a torn piece of paper, Perry became even more confused.

“Then what is……”

“Did you think I was doing this because I like you?”

“Weren’t you?”

Some people whispered that Bria Sol might have impure motives toward Perry. Perry had insisted that wasn’t the case—but in any case, the famous actor’s attitude toward Perry had been distinctive.

“I hate you. I hate you more because you can’t even guess why.”

Perry touched her earlobe with its slight indentation. It was once the place where earrings decorated with diamonds and opals hung. Bria hadn’t taken back her earrings that day. She had casually handed over the expensive jewelry, telling Perry to use them temporarily until she got suitable earrings.

What happened to the matching necklace, Perry stared intently at her long bare neck. The driver who confessed to hating Perry continued speaking without looking at her.

“When I first saw you, do you know how miserable I felt?”

“Why on earth?”

“Because you were too amazing.”

The sentences she uttered almost without moving her lips resembled a monologue.

“You were too good for me to look away.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember 「Pirouette」?”

The production where Perry Humble first shared the stage with Bria Sol. It was also when Perry’s name began to be properly recognized in the theater world.

“Perry’s character ‘Raga Young’ says that. My talent is merely—”

“The audacity to pretend not to see this radiance.”

The tone pronouncing dialogue from nearly a year ago was elegant. Bria Sol didn’t scold her junior for finishing the line but quietly confessed.

“I thought it was funny that you got that role of all things. I’m the genius ballerina, and you’re the talented student who hits a wall of talent and becomes frustrated……”

“What about it?”

“Because you’re the genius.”

It was an excessive joke. Perry instinctively tried to object, but Bria Sol was faster.

“Look, as you know, I’ve seen a great many scripts. If I include those I’ve reviewed, it must be over three hundred.”

“Yes……”

“But the only role I truly understood was ‘Raga Young.'”

The ill-fated supporting character who passionately covets the protagonist’s radiance but never obtains it.

It wasn’t a character one would expect someone who graced magazine covers with each new production to identify with. Perry couldn’t shake her doubts as she replied.

“That sounds exactly like you’re jealous of me.”

“Because it’s true.”

“But why? Bria, you’re amazing. The most famous in the kingdom, and also—”

“Still relying on my mother’s influence?”