Your Regrets Are Late

“Charelize.”

As soon as he saw the photo, the tears he had been holding back flowed. He used magic and headed to Charelize’s tomb.

[Charelize Elze Roxana von Marsetta.

Little Duchess of Duke Marsetta.

She sleeps here.]

He recited on his knees as if he were falling in front of her tomb.

“I can’t forget you. The fact that I went along and said everything was okay was just a consolation for something I couldn’t bear.”

“…”

“Actually, I still can’t believe it. That you’re dead and that you’re no longer with me. It all seems like a lie.”

Even if he did this, there was no way Charelize would come back since she was already dead. There was no use in regretting this much. If Charelize could live in exchange for taking his life, he would have given it without hesitation.

Arensis, who had been in front of her tomb for a while, returned after sunset and tried drugs for the first time.

“Are you out of your mind! These days, you’ve been acting like a sane person and feeling relieved, Arensis. Forget the little duchess. I will find you a good lady.”

“Older Sister, no one can replace Charelize.”

Crown Princess Casilla couldn’t break Arensis’s will when she looked into his straight eyes, so she just narrowed her brows. “Live like that your whole life. The little duchess must be very pleased.” She was looking at Arensis sitting on the bed, then left angrily.

“Lize, I miss you so much.” Feeling dazed by drugs, Arensis swallowed his longing for Charelize.

Since the day Charelize died, she had never appeared in his dreams. He was tired of sleeping. So he helped Crown Princess Casilla to keep her mind busy.

Afterward, Arensis deliberately went to Charelize’s tomb and smoked a cigar. Charelize hated it when someone smoked cigars. So, he thought she would come to his dream if he did something she didn’t like.

“Scold me. Tell me to get my act together. Why don’t you show up in my dreams? Do you hate me that much?”

“…”

“I resent you. I hate you who died first. But more than that, I hate myself for making you die.”

Arensis cried for a long time. Even the next day, not the day after, Charelize did not appear in Arensis’s dream.

* * *

It was a few years later. Charelize’s birthday is back again. He was used to her birthdays without her. But that day, he was having a more difficult time than usual.

Charelize, who hadn’t shown up no matter how much he begged, appeared in his dream for the first time. It was the day when Arensis made up his mind to die.

“Lillian Marsetta and Delphir Radiasa are both dead. Duke Marsetta handed over his position to the collateral family and disappeared. Is that why you came into my dream?”

“…”

“You only get what you want when you already die. Congratulations. It will be just a name, but you didn’t know it. You became the head of the Marsetta family you loved so much.”

Instead of handing over the title to the collateral family, Duke Marsetta gave one request. The little duchess who died a long time ago should be crowned as the duchess. The collateral family kept the promise and re-engraved the name ‘Duchess Marsetta’ on Charelize’s tombstone. Arensis couldn’t hide his bitter smile when he heard the news.

“Have you met Lari?”

While conveying the news so far, he wanted to ask her a question.

Charelize, who stood silently without saying anything, shed tears. Then she got angry, like a living person. Even though he knew it was a dream, he couldn’t distinguish it from reality. He loved it. It felt so real that he didn’t want to wake up.

Charelize opened her mouth and whispered. “Don’t die. Arensis.”

“…Huh?”

“Please live a long life. Don’t come to me. Live your life.”

He wanted to stay in that space forever with Charelize. In the end, his will broke off with those words. As if that was all there was to say, like a person who has no more regrets, Charelize left. After that, she never came again.

Arensis changed his mind. He lived hard day by day, but when she came to his dream, he thought, ‘Have I lived a good life so far?’ Nevertheless, that was the last time I met with Charelize.

With a sad feeling that day, he went to clean up her tomb. Then he burst into laughter when he saw the small blooming forget-me-nots. He felt it even more absurd as he knew the language flower of forget-me-not.

Long ago, it was Charelize who told him the meaning of that flower.

“Don’t forget. Don’t forget you even if you don’t appear in my dreams?”

“…”

“I’ve never forgotten you.”

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him as he was venting his resentment.

“Lize, were you reborn as a flower?”

“…”

“Yes. You can’t really meet me anymore. This is why you don’t appear in my dreams anymore. You can’t live like before, touch me, or even tell me you love me.”

He told her not to worry about anything in her next life, to listen only to good words, and to make good relationships. It seemed like it was okay for her to live like a flower like this. Because being born again could be painful, even if he got rid of her worries. Even if she said good things by her side and even if she only made good relationships.

Charelize wanted to quit everything. It was better for her to never be born in the first place. He still remembers it vividly. The sight of her gasping for breath. So he consoled himself, saying this wasn’t bad either.

The season changed again, and Charelize’s birthday came back.

“You know, Lize. I haven’t spent only one or two birthdays without you, so why am I so lonely?”

“…”

“I miss you more today.”

Arensis, who had been guarding Charelize’s tomb all day, went to the flower garden.

The day he first met Charelize. It was to remember for the last time the first time she told him that it was okay to stay alive and that it wasn’t his fault.

“Foolish thing.”

“…Who are you?”

There was a bright light. He asked who it was, but he knew it instinctively. The head of the Edelise clan. His mother’s biological father. It was his maternal grandfather.

“How can you always give up your life so easily? Is everything easy for you!”

There was no time to rejoice at his first meeting with his maternal grandfather. Arensis held the vial in his hand tightly so as not to let it go.

“The day my mother died, you didn’t show up until the end. Why are you doing this?”

“Arensis.”

“Did you covet the Edelise’s ability that I was born with? But what should I do about this? I have already used that ability.”

He used up all of my abilities to erase the memory of Charelize. So Arensis assumed that his disappointed maternal grandfather would soon turn around. But his maternal grandfather broke his expectations and whispered something to him.

“I will send you to the past. To the time when your companion was alive.”

“…What?”

“Arensis.”

The wind blew out of nowhere.

“This time, please be happy.”

His eyes closed because of the wind and then opened again.

“Yesterday, where did you go?”

There was Casilla, who was very angry with her arms crossed. Before she became the crown princess, she was unfamiliar with her younger brother.

Arensis urgently asked Casilla to see if her maternal grandfather really sent her to the past. “Older Sister, what day was yesterday?”

“What nonsense are you talking about? What day was yesterday? It’s your coming-of-age ceremony.”

“In 1517…?”

“Yes. You’re trying to change the conversation again. I’m not going to let you go this time.”

Arensis suddenly used magic to detect Charelize’s location. He was so excited that he went straight there.

“Arensis! The imperial palace is not a place to use magic carelessly!”

“I’m sorry, Older Sister! I’ll hear your nagging later!”

“Hey, that guy!”

The sound of Casilla grabbing the back of her neck grew distant.

It was a villa owned by Charelize’s mother that Charelize was located in.

“Don’t let anyone else come.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“We will surely protect it even if we risk our lives.”

He was too selfish.

“Your Highness! How could you do this? I will do it.”

“If I can’t even make a place for my mother with my own hands, what’s the point?”

“Oh my… Your Highness…”

“I want to be alone for a while.”

“…I understand, Your Highness.”

He was so happy to see Charelize alive.

“If you want to save your life, you better show up now.”

Even if she still doesn’t remember him. Still, he was happy. The world looked different from when he had no hope.

“I didn’t mean to spy. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

It was okay if she didn’t remember him.

“This is my mother’s villa. You wouldn’t have been able to come here because of the knights. So, who did you get in?”

“That’s…”

She didn’t think he could use magic to get in, so he hesitated.

“Light blue… hair?”

Charelize’s eyes fell on his hair. He was startled and tried to cover his hair, but it was no use.

“What is your name… Sir?”

He didn’t know how far she remembered. So, he closed his mouth as he didn’t know what to say. Tears came to his eyes. At that moment, Charelize’s legs wobbled.

“Where, where does it hurt…”

Charelize’s eyelids closed in an instant. She fell down on the grass, just like the day she gasped for breath and died.

“No. No. Lize. Please… Please wake up. You can’t die. Lize…”

He couldn’t lose her like this again.

“Lize, I love you.”

“…”

“It’s okay if you don’t remember me. Just stay alive. That’s all.”

That was all he wanted from her.