You May Call Me Sister
Canna swallowed a groan deep inside. She barely managed to lift her heavy eyelids.
How many days has it been?
Now that she had regained consciousness, roughly three days must have passed. It was precisely the kind of poison that only caused pain for that long.
Ugh, it was stronger than I expected. I didn’t think it would hurt this much.
But.
Canna smirked. Seeing Kallen dozing in the chair beside the bed with his arms crossed, it seemed the poison had performed its role perfectly.
At that moment, perhaps sensing her movement, Kallen’s head snapped up.
“Are you awake?”
“……”
“Can you hear my voice? Please, say something.”
“Cough, cough.”
Kallen’s face drained of color.
“Just a moment. Please wait just a moment. I’ll summon the physician.”
The physician who soon arrived declared that Canna had made a full recovery.
“However, there may be lingering aftereffects, so you must focus on restoring your strength for the time being.”
The look of relief on Kallen’s face at those words was almost comical. Canna barely held back a sneer.
I didn’t expect it to work this well.
Standing in the rain after taking the poison had been the right choice.
It’s a poison without permanent aftereffects. A few days of suffering and I’ll be perfectly fine.
Though she had endured several miserable days, it had been worth it. Every last ounce of Kallen’s guilt and sympathy had been resurrected.
“Are you feeling alright?”
Kallen entered carrying the medicinal tonic himself.
“Please take your medicine.”
“Thank you.”
Canna drank it with a frail motion.
Blech. It’s bitter.
Had it shown on her face? Kallen offered her a small candy.
What is this?
A surge of revulsion swept through her. She had no desire to accept candy from Kallen of all people…
I want to slap his hand away, send the candy flying to the floor, and scream that I don’t need this kind of thing!
But refusing his kindness now would be the act of a fool. Canna crafted a grateful expression and accepted the candy. She slipped it into her mouth and rolled it across her tongue.
Strawberry flavor.
How utterly predictable.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
He lingered afterward, circling the room as though he had something to say. Canna already knew what it would be, yet she tilted her head in feigned ignorance.
After a long moment, Kallen spoke as if steeling himself.
“I’m sorry.”
Just as she had predicted. Still, Canna widened her eyes in apparent surprise.
“You’ve suffered all this because of me.”
“No. I’m the one who should apologize.”
Canna smiled with calculated melancholy and lowered her head.
“I realize I’ve been too cruel to you all this time. I only ever spoke harsh words and treated you coldly. So it’s only natural that you would turn away from me…”
“That isn’t true.”
Kallen cut her off urgently.
“It isn’t. Please don’t say such things. It was all the result of my own narrow-mindedness.”
So he did understand. Fortunately, his capacity for self-reflection was remarkably sharp.
“There is something I have been desperate to tell you once you woke.”
Kallen approached the bedside. He knelt on the floor.
Was it to meet her gaze at eye level, or…
To kneel and confess his sins?
“I was wrong.”
Kallen’s voice trembled faintly.
“This recent matter, and everything from our childhood as well.”
Even the tips of his fingers twitched with minute spasms.
“I regret it with all my heart.”
“……”
“I do not dare ask for your forgiveness. I only wish to atone for my sins.”
Kallen Addis.
The second son of the Addis family, once its designated successor. The man renowned as a cold-blooded figure who resembled Alexandro perfectly.
“Please punish me. I will gladly accept anything you choose to inflict.”
He was kneeling before her, begging to be punished.
He’s sincere.
If Canna slapped his cheek, he would accept it without resistance. If she spat on him, he would endure it in silence.
He would probably even bear the sting of a whip across that flawless back without uttering a single cry.
Well, that might feel somewhat refreshing, at least.
The sight filled her with both satisfaction and contempt.
She had achieved her objective, so of course she was pleased, yet that was all it amounted to.
She had no interest in Kallen’s repentance. Had this been the Canna of even a short while ago, such words would have been nothing but tiresome. They would have irritated her.
Punish you?
No.
Canna whispered inwardly.
If I punish you, you’ll simply receive the chance to pay for your crimes.
The memories of the past. She had lived while forgetting them, but she had not truly forgotten.
I tried to kill myself back then, Kallen.
At fourteen, exhausted by her family’s harassment and cold indifference, Canna had resolved to die. She had concocted the poison herself and swallowed it.
Because dying had seemed sweeter than continuing to live.
Though she had failed to die.
How could someone like that possibly forgive Kallen?
Yet she felt no desire to burn with hatred, either.
To Kallen she wished to give neither forgiveness nor punishment, not even a single grain of hatred. The very time spent remembering him in anger felt like a waste.
Therefore Kallen was simply nothing. Nothing at all.
Now, well, he had risen in value to that of a chess piece, but once his usefulness ran out she intended to discard him without hesitation.
For the moment, however, it was time to smile.
To her he was not a person. He was a tool to be used. A tool to be thrown away mercilessly once exhausted. If he became necessary again later, she could always recycle him.
“Kallen.”
At her call, Kallen lifted his head with dogged loyalty. That desperate gaze. She almost wanted to display his handsome face to the entire world.
Kallen Addis begging on his knees—how entertaining it would be if everyone could witness it.
“You remember when I told you not to call me Sister, don’t you?”
“…Yes.”
“You may call me Sister.”
“Pardon?”
“I said you may call me Sister.”
Kallen stared at her in silence. Amusingly, his lips were trembling.
What? Don’t tell me he’s actually moved?
How pathetic. Nevertheless, Canna delivered an even more pathetic line.
“I’ve been thinking about many things lately.”
Wearing a sorrowful expression, she recited the speech she had prepared.
The incident in which Prince Cassil had nearly killed her.
That facing the brink of death had changed her perspective.
And then, naturally, the importance of family and so on and so forth, blah blah blah.
“That moment when Prince Cassil was about to loose an arrow at me.”
Canna deliberately paused and adopted an embarrassed look.
“I thought of you.”
Kallen seemed to have lost the ability to speak. His face wore the expression of someone beholding a miracle.
“The words you once said to me… that I only had you, that I should rely on you. Those words came back to me.”
Not in the slightest. Not even a speck. Until the idea of selling perfume had occurred to her, she had not spared a single thought for Kallen.
“You were right. In the end, I only have you, Kallen.”
Ugh. This line was difficult. It made her tongue feel like it was rotting. A crisis had arrived, but Canna concentrated on the next line.
Tears, tears! Just one drop is fine, so please come out!
Finally, a single tear slipped free. She angled her head so Kallen could see it clearly and released a sob.
“Sob. It was truly terrifying.”
“Sister…”
Kallen’s voice shook.
When she glanced down, she saw that even his fingertips were trembling now. He appeared completely absorbed in the performance.
“Sob… sob sob.”
Canna covered her face with both hands.
Her quivering shoulders looked so fragile.
Like a pitiful flower on the verge of scattering. Kallen unconsciously reached toward her trembling shoulder, only to withdraw his hand at the last moment.
He clenched his fist tightly. Once again, self-loathing tore him apart.
My poor sister.
How pitiable. How heartbreaking.
“Kallen, you were right.”
Still sobbing, Canna seized Kallen’s hand.
“I only have you, Kallen. You’re the only one who cares about me. Isn’t that true?”
Kallen gazed at the hand gripping his, then covered the back of it with his other palm.
“Yes.”
For some reason the heavy weight of it made Canna flinch. For an instant she nearly pulled away by reflex, but—
“You are correct, Sister.”
Kallen pressed down gently yet firmly on the back of her hand, as though refusing to let her escape now.
“You have me, Sister.”
Kallen looked up at her. His eyes burned with blind, fervent devotion.
“So please set your heart at ease now.”
So use me. That was how it sounded to Canna’s ears.
It was a truly beautiful line.