Rosaline let out a hollow laugh.

“……Becoming umbra means living a life no different from the dead, Mother.”

“……”

“Yet you’re telling me to leave easily?”

When Rosaline spoke expressionlessly, her mother’s complexion also turned white like someone afraid of losing a child. Her mother stared at Rosaline for a moment, then suddenly embraced her gently. And whispered in her ear so only her daughter could hear.

“But daughter, at least you won’t die.”

“……”

“Let’s not go shamefully. If you don’t leave, I might read the letters you received from that person here and tell them what you did.”

Sarah pulled away and examined Rosaline’s intentions. Her gaze lingered long on her daughter’s reddened eyes, the corners of her mouth that could only laugh because she couldn’t be sadder anymore, her chapped cheeks.

Her pupils held not just venom but desperation to save Juliet and humiliation at having to ask Rosaline, writhing together.

Lord Capulet broke the tense silence.

“Sarah!!!”

He shouted with a harshly furrowed face, unable to bear this situation. Loud enough to make everyone except Rosaline flinch.

“You can’t be this cruel even if you’re cruel.”

Perhaps unable to say anything to Juliet, he sighed and lowered his voice.

“Everyone except Rosaline, leave. Sarah, you take Juliet to the next room too.”

“……But!!!”

Sarah tried to protest, but Lord Capulet was firm.

“I’m sorry to the priests too, but please step out for a moment.”

Sarah, who’d been stubborn, left the room supporting Juliet, perhaps not wanting to worsen the situation. The room that had become quiet like after a rough downpour swept through held only Rosaline and Lord Capulet.

He stood before the dazed Rosaline and sighed several times. Then, having made some final decision, he took something from his bosom. A yellowed letter.

“Twenty-some years ago, there was a tutor close to Sarah. Shortly after you were born, she left the Capulets after leaving Father Laurence a letter confessing her sin that wasn’t a sin.”

He handed her the letter.

“It’s another truth that might hurt you. Will you read it?”

There was no reason to refuse. Rosaline barely lifted the letter and read.

[Dear Father Laurence. After hearing this confession, please don’t blame Sarah too much.

Sarah told me that unlike herself who had nothing, the days beside Lady Capulet who had everything were lifelong torment. I understood this. If the lady had called me friend instead of treating me as a tutor, I would have trembled at her deception and hypocrisy.

You may not know, but the kind and gentle lady had a talent for making lowly people uncomfortable with that ocean-like harmlessness.

Sarah, in all kinds of deprivation, inferiority, and jealousy, having to even bear a child, must not have been in her right mind. But how could she refuse? She had nowhere to go but the Capulets, and couldn’t refuse her “friend” Beatrice who nominally took her in.

She said it was terrible. Sharing bodies with a man she didn’t love and who didn’t love her. But what strange love—she said she came to love at least the child budding in her belly.

She felt fortunate. Though she couldn’t hear “mother,” the child would grow as the Capulets’ one and only heir without lacking anything.

But before long, Beatrice became pregnant with Juliet. Of course the lady said she’d raise both like her own children, but Sarah wouldn’t hear it. Rather, she lost her reason.

‘Treat my child and that woman’s child equally as her own? Don’t make me laugh, in the end my child will become like me too.’

She must have worried that Rosaline and Juliet’s relationship would become the same as hers and Beatrice. So that friend devised a bold and dangerous plan.

She switched the babies. As you know, newborns with the same hair color are hard to distinguish.

But Father, no matter how much I cherished Sarah over Lady Capulet, I couldn’t just watch her commit a sin. So I reversed what Sarah did on that dark night.

Don’t they say parent and child are natural bonds? I believed that keeping them close would sprout love for her real child. The song Sarah sang to the child in her belly still remains as warmth for me writing this letter.

But as time passed, I realized this was my delusion. Sarah thoroughly ignored Rosaline. Not knowing the truth, she seemed to do her best to hate Rosaline as if denying blood.

Watching Rosaline pained me. Though the child was innocent, Rosaline craved her mother’s love like a criminal. That tiny hand grabbing Sarah’s hem and unable to let go, walking without even making noise  while only watching her mother’s back—it all felt like my fault.

But I didn’t have the courage to confess the truth either. Sarah, who loved Juliet so much, seemed like she’d really go mad.

So please, I hope you’ll consider everything my sin. I ultimately created another tragedy for Sarah.

Since I’m the only sinner, please pity the foolish Sarah. Please cherish Rosaline who’s left alone.]

Right now, Rosaline could ask just one question.

“Does Mother know too?”

“Your mother doesn’t know yet.”

As expected.

“I didn’t plan to tell you this soon either.”

He stroked her tear-swollen cheek.

“Though I’m not qualified to call you this, daughter. I’ve committed a great sin against you. So I won’t tell you to sacrifice yourself.”

Rosaline lifted her eyelids that felt heavy as a thousand pounds to look at her father. Guilt, hypocrisy from silence, pity—all of it was drawn over his face. A face terribly resembling Juliet.

“If I don’t sacrifice myself, what happens to Juliet?”

“This is the Capulets. Do you think we’d listen to weak humans relying on god? Divine illness, nonsense. If possible, I’ll bring physicians even from other countries and certainly cure her.”

He said what she’d wanted Juliet to say. But Rosaline felt no emotion. Lord Capulet was only saying this to vomit out the truth he couldn’t bear alone and lessen his guilt.

If he’d truly cared for Rosaline, he wouldn’t have stayed silent long but told her immediately upon learning the truth.

“Now is the only chance. I’ll give you sufficient money and jewels, so leave. The priests will never overlook this and will try to take you. They’re people who follow god and always collect the price.”

Rosaline laughed again at the absurd and outrageous situation. She had no strength left to cry and could only laugh. Though laughing didn’t stop the tears.

Even if she ran to her mother right now and poured out that the daughter she’d denied her whole life was actually her real child, the past wouldn’t change. Moreover, she’d tried to change the past because of Juliet’s death in the first place. But if Juliet died, could Rosaline live happily?

Ah, my beloved Juliet. Though I was your true sister, I wasn’t close to you. Whom should I resent?

In your life without tragedy, I’m merely a one-line supporting character.

My tragedy is Romeo. If he hadn’t awakened in me eyes to see truth, if I’d fallen into the honey-sweet delusion of not being alone, it wouldn’t be this painful.

“Leave with me. Cast off everything that torments you, leave those who say you’re nothing, and live with me.”

His earnest, desperate expression naturally came to mind. Perhaps he was the only one who’d said what she wanted to hear—at that thought, laughter squeezed out again.

“No matter what, whatever happens, you must come to me, Rosaline.”

Rosaline loved Romeo.

Despite this fresh realization, Rosaline couldn’t choose him. Freedom gained at the cost of Juliet’s death wouldn’t last long. She’d live a life of fleeing forever, and Romeo with her would naturally be endangered too.

There was an answer where no one got hurt. There was no reason not to choose it.

“I’ll become the offering.”

She whispered with reddened eyes, barely gathering her breath.

“But before I leave, there’s someone I must meet. Just… give me a little time.”

Rosaline left the annex garden, cutting through the early morning air. Thinking Romeo would be waiting blankly at the temple, she’d planned to go there. But the moment she opened the back gate, she encountered Romeo leaning against the wall.

“Romeo.”

The moment she called his name, reckless longing surged up. Romeo slowly lifting his head looked haggard at a glance. Pitiful. She wanted to embrace and comfort him, whisper in his ear that it was alright.

“You didn’t come, so I came myself. You must have had a lot to pack.”

Impatience and anger he couldn’t hide showed from him. Romeo treated her like someone carrying much luggage, though he clearly knew both her hands were empty. He grabbed and pulled her wrist, but Rosaline resisted with strength.

“Let’s go. It’s not too late even now.”

Romeo tried to take her without asking more. When she let out a faint m*an as if her arm would dislocate from the strong pull, even that strength vanished.

“What are you trying to do, Rosaline? You agreed to leave with me.”

When he spoke like laughing, Rosaline felt a sharp impulse. She wanted to confess her love to him right now. But the words she could say were set.

“Miss Juliet is ill.”

“So?”

“She asked me to stay.”

He let out a hollow laugh. He stood and laughed like that with a colder, more wounded face than ever. Meanwhile, as the strength in his hand holding Rosaline slackened slightly, Rosaline quickly escaped from him. He looked at his empty hand then furrowed his brow fiercely. His glistening gaze pierced her like a blade.