Chapter 169 - 2-51
I shook my head instinctively at his claim that I was only waiting for the Louis-sama of this world.
"That's not..."
But despite my panic, my denial sounded weak and lacked confidence. Can I truly say he's wrong?
I had been so focused on the distinction between them that it had clearly caused him pain. The more I realized how different they were, the more I yearned for my Louis-sama. I hadn't considered how that would look to the man standing before me.
"I..."
"I never imagined I could feel this way. The one you wait for, the one you love, isn't me. It's the other me. It's like looking at myself, yet you're always looking through me to see someone else."
"I... I am so sorry for making you feel that way."
As I moved to bow my head, His Highness grabbed both of my shoulders.
"No... Forgive me. I didn't want an apology. Taking my frustration out on you was a pathetic thing to do."
"Your Highness..."
"I'm the one who is running out of time. I want to know you, but I don't have enough time. I don't have enough resolve."
No time. No resolve. Hearing those words, I finally understood what he was trying to tell me. He was trying to face me directly. I had been so focused on Louis-sama returning and His Highness going back to his world that I hadn't seen him at all. I had decided they were different people, but I hadn't tried to truly know him.
"The other me you're waiting for... he's likely the type who would use any means necessary to return to you, no matter the obstacle. Since coming to this world, I've felt the unconscious weight of his obsession with you. I can tell. But if he returns, it means I must go back to my world. And in that world... Rachel, you aren't there."
It was true. I had taken this world for granted, but His Highness's life was still waiting for him in the original world. A world where I had been branded a villainess and killed on the way to the monastery. If he returned and Louis-sama came back here, I would continue living in this world, and my memories of the previous life would likely fade.
But for him, it was different. His world was one where I was already gone. For him, I was a part of the past.
"Until recently, I accepted your absence as a matter of course. Perhaps I have no right to grieve now. But if I return now... I will never be able to speak with you again. I won't see your face, or have tea with you, or have any way to know you. The thought of that is... unbearably painful."
His honest words, filled with regret and anguish, flowed into me, making my chest tighten. He looked at me, yet seemed to be staring at something far beyond. His eyes, as clear as blue sapphires, were always beautiful enough to draw one in. Now, they were clouded with pain.
"Why didn't I cherish you? We had so much time."
Why hadn't he cherished me? Why hadn't he noticed what was important? Those were questions I had asked myself many times after returning to the past. But there was a fundamental difference in our situations. My clock had been wound back, but his had never stopped moving forward.
"I always looked toward the present and the future. I might reflect on the past to use it for the future, but I never once wished to go back and redo it. After all, what's the point in thinking about the impossible?"
That was a very logical, very characteristic way for him to think.
"But I have never wished to go back as much as I do now. Perhaps, by deciding something was worthless, I lost the thing that mattered most to me."
My heart hammered at the words 'the thing that mattered most' as he gazed into my eyes. If I wasn't being conceited, his eyes, his words, and his expression all seemed to say that he was talking about me.