A Depressed Kendo Player Possesses a Reckless Aristocrat

Side Story – A Star’s Mother

To my beloved children.

My children.

Forever, I love you both.

When the world pushes you away, when sorrow weighs you down, remember this.

That mother is always by your side…

Even if one day my body breaks and turns into a handful of ash and disappears.

Even if I draw my last feeble breath and rise as a star in the night sky before you.

Mother’s love will always,

Shine upon you, and whisper encouragement.

Ryden, and Ariel.

Please don’t forget.

I will always remain by your side.

{A Mother’s Memoir}

-Philippa, Final Record-

*

The red sunset melts beyond the horizon.

A time when a black curtain is drawn over the sky.

As always, the encroaching night, with its full grasp of winter’s chill, painted the world with a chilling coldness.

Moonlight, steeped in the darkness, cradled all things in its compassionate embrace.

Falling dew sings the serenity of dawn.

Even the swaying mist vanishes, leaving a sacred silence in my ears, a night-time scene.

I stood on my room’s terrace, quietly observing it all.

-Whooosh…

The blowing wind playfully strokes my hair.

I pushed my slightly disheveled hair back, and let out a breath.

“Haah… it’s still pretty cold.”

The breath escaping from my lips vanished like broken waves on the wind.

Even though we were passing through winter and slowly heading towards spring, the temperature at night remained unchanged.

I rubbed my freezing hands briskly and looked up at the sky.

The view, where countless stars were densely packed in the black sky, was dark but not bleak.

Gazing at the small but brilliantly shining fragments of platinum light, I felt a strange emotion swell in my chest.

It was because I suddenly thought of my mother.

“Mother…”

When a person dies, they become a star, melting into the nightscape.

Those stars that rise like that shine down for those they loved in their past lives, lighting their paths.

It was the most famous legend and superstition in the empire.

I had to slowly savor the resonance of the word, ‘star.’

“…Mother, you must be somewhere up there too.”

I mumbled, slightly biting my lip.

That small whisper dissipated forlornly, unheard by anyone.

-Come here, Raiden.

-Mommy’s here! Stop crying now, that’s enough!

-Good boy, our son… how can you be so adorable!

The voice of the past echoed in my ear.

That warm and comforting voice paradoxically made my heart ache.

I have to forget it now.

I have to overcome the pain and get back up.

Even after vowing and repeating it hundreds of times, this sorrow and pain were not something I could push away.

Perhaps I’ll have to live with these emotions for the rest of my life.

In sorrow at losing you.

In despair at surviving in your place.

In longing, that I can never see you again.

With my vision dyed blue as I face the world, shedding tears before the stars of the night sky.

I will whisper my un-deliverable greetings into the wind.

“There are still so many things I haven’t said to you, Mother… I wanted to tell you I love you, more than anything…”

I mumbled, wiping my eyes which were burning with tears.

Within my blurred vision, the wave of stars that still filled the night sky was reflected.

Melting within those countless stars, were the memories of times past.

The wide swell of the Milky Way, the love and loneliness once held in my heart.

The small constellations, the poems of longing quietly murmured.

And, in that sea of quiet starlight, my mother, who must be watching over me.

Her starlight, which now remained as a lump in my heart, was illuminating me.

As if whispering encouragement to me.

And whispering love.

-Forever, I love you all.

-Mom will always be on your side…

One star that I love.

One star that loves me.

One starlight that made me, a coward, no longer fear the night.

It was the signpost of my life, the compass of the world.

“…I miss you.”

Ah, Mother.

My dear Mother.

When this cold winter passes and spring comes to my star,

like blue grass sprouting on the grave,

can the flower language of happiness bloom even on the hill that buried loss and lack?

Even in my heart, weary and fallen from misfortune and sadness,

can a rose of crimson color, the same as your hair, bloom?

“I need an answer… your answer…”

A tired mutter.

Naturally, all that returned was the silence of winter.

I covered my face with both hands.

And then, collapsing as if falling, I released the sobs I had been holding back.

“Ugh, ugh… hugh…”

There was no one around.

Only the quiet starlight was silently shining on me.

In the tranquil embrace of that starlight, I had to vomit my tears alone for a while.

.

.

.

After crying for a long time, when my tears were beginning to subside,

the sound of a door creaking came from the terrace, along with someone’s voice.

“Oppa! What are you doing out here? You called me to your room and then….”

I frantically wiped the remaining moisture from my eyes and turned around, forcing an awkward smile.

“You’re here?”

There stood Ariel, still in her pajamas.

She looked bewildered at my pathetic figure standing on the winter terrace.

I shrugged it off, as if it were nothing.

“Just… watching the stars.”

“Stars in this freezing weather… What if you catch a cold? You’re so lightly dressed…”

“I appreciate the concern, but I’m not that fragile that a bit of fresh air will knock me down…?”

She’s been treating me like I’m a delicate, breakable glass bead lately.

Even after having my gut pierced by a Changui’s attack, I came back like a steel man.

I chuckled softly and gestured toward the crimson girl.

“The sky is clear today, the stars are really visible. Come here too.”

Ariel grumbled, seemingly annoyed at my nonchalant reaction, but she eventually came and stood next to me.

We stood side by side, gazing at the night sky.

The wind swept past our cheeks, playfully caressing our hair.

Each time, the strands of black and red hair rippling softly came into view.

The familiar scent of a person grazed my nose, adding a touch of warmth to the chilly night.

I was silently savoring the moment, drifting into it, when Ariel, who had been looking at me, nudged my side.

“Oppa.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you… cry?”

“……”

Without answering, I slowly turned my head, meeting her gaze.

Transparent yet intense crimson.

Nostalgic, with an undercurrent of longing.

Those red eyes…

I smiled faintly, meeting that look, so much like my mother’s.

“Did it show?”

“Yeah… Your eyes are really red.”

“……”

My stomach churned.

My throat tightened.

Like a lump of hot dough was plastered there.

“Oppa, are you okay…?”

-Ryden, are you alright…?

A phantom of the past overlaid Ariel’s image.

Red hair.

Red eyes.

And a voice filled with concern for me.

I was struck again by how beautifully Ariel had grown.

My sister, having matured into an adult as lovely as our mother, stirred something deep within me.

Even after losing our mother and enduring a childhood where her brother, myself, had turned crooked and offered no support.

Ariel had bloomed, like a rose fiercely flourishing in barren ground.

I felt both pride and guilt at the sight of her.

“Oppa, why are you so out of it…? You’re not feeling well, are you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Lies.”

“I’m serious.”

Ariel puffed her cheeks out, demanding the truth.

I gently stroked her head a few times.

And then, to divert her attention, I presented something I was holding in my other hand before her eyes.

“Huh…? What is this, Oppa?”

“It’s something I always wanted to show you.”

“Always?”

“Yeah… I kept putting it off, but it feels like the right time now.”

“So was that why you called me to your room today?”

“Yeah…”

“Hmm… a book? No, a notebook, maybe?”

-Motherly Note-

(A Mother’s Manuscript)

Ariel stared at the notebook in my hand for a moment, then recoiled, shuddering.

She must have noticed our mother’s name etched on the cover.

Her crimson eyes were trembling slightly.

“Oppa… Th-this…”

“Shhh.”

I cut off Ariel’s shocked words.

She had many questions, but it was better for her to see it directly, than have it explained.

I quietly turned the page of the notebook.

*Shhh, shhh…*

I turned it, one page at a time, slowly.

So that Ariel, standing next to me, could fully see the writing within.

The quiet sound of paper turning filled the space between Ariel and me.

Around the midpoint of the notebook, Ariel began to cry.

She seemed to be biting her lip tightly, trying to hold back tears, but it didn’t seem easy.

I continued to move my hand.

“Ugh…”

“……”

As the pages turned.

As our mother’s story continued.

The sobbing beside me grew clearer.

And along with that weeping, a thin sheen began to form in my own eyes.

*Shhh, shhh…*

When the notebook reached its end, when we got to the last page.

I, with trembling hand, poured mana onto that paper.

Then, without fail, a recording of a familiar voice flowed from the notebook.

*《Static… crackle…》*

*《My children… forever, I love you.》*

*《When the world pushes you away, when sorrow crushes you, remember.》*

*《That Mom is always by your side…》*

To that warm voice.

A hot, searing line was finally drawn down my cheek as well.

Roughly wiping away the dampness around my eyes, I swallowed down the nausea of grief, and through my blurry vision, I saw red eyes looking up at me.

“……”

“……”

Our gazes met.

Deep emotions, tangled questions, a bitter longing, all intertwined and mixed in our eyes.

We stood there, with that clumsy knot of winter between us.

Heavy silence.

Ariel was the first to break it.

“……A diary, it is. The one mother wrote.”

I nodded in response, saying nothing.

“Where did you find it…?”

“In mother’s study… On the last bookshelf, where the servants’ hands rarely reached.”

“I see……”

Ariel’s voice trembled, as if trying to suppress another surge of tears.

I quietly reached out and brushed away the droplets clinging to her eyes.

In response, Ariel yielded to my touch, rubbing her cheek against my palm.

I had to bite my lip for a moment at the feel of her tears against my fingertips.

“Oppa. When… when did you find this…?”

“……About a month after mother passed.”

“Why didn’t you show me? All this time….”

I paused at that question.

My heart beat, rattling like the alarm of a broken clockwork.

I felt the cracks slowly appearing in my tightly held expression.

In that moment.

I wished the moonlight illuminating me wasn’t so bright.

I wished the surrounding darkness was enough to conceal us.

Because, if not, my pitiful collapse would be laid bare before Ariel.

“……I’m sorry, Ariel.”

I apologized in a weak voice.

It was a single word laden with countless meanings and emotions.

“I was afraid.”

I was afraid.

That you would hate me.

“If you ever read this diary, that you’d hate me, the one who lived in place of mother…”

The one who lived, having traded mother’s life.

That you’d hate me, this ugly, disgusting filicidal monster.

“Because mother died because of me. I felt like everyone would hate me…”

My foolish past self was such a coward.

Wishing everyone would scorn me and leave.

Yet at the same time, wishing they wouldn’t hate me.

A contradictory yearning, a jumble of loss and deficiency, that’s what existed back then.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Ariel…”

“Oppa…”

I claw at my own head.

Tears running down my cheeks fall to the floor, drop by drop.

Ariel, watching me like that, also burst into tears and hugged me.

“It’s okay, Oppa. It’ll be okay…”

“Ugh… I’m sorry, *sob*… I’m sorry…”

“No one, *hic*… hates you. So, we, *sob*… we’ll be okay.”

It was the bitter licking of wounds by beasts who had lost their mother.

Touching wounds that couldn’t reach with each other’s hands, we stood beneath the night sky.

With a wound festering so badly it had finally rotted in our hearts.

“We’ll be okay. So… let’s not be in pain anymore, Oppa.”

Until the day we die.

Looking at that night sky, unable to shed even a shred of shame.

And tormented enough to scream at the slightest breeze rustling the leaves.

We had to live.

With hearts that sing of the stars.

With a heart that loved all things dying.

We had to love and care for each other.

For the woman with the red hair,

who will stand at the end point, when my path ends someday.

I had to live.

I had to face things without running.

“Let’s stay strong, Oppa. So that when we meet Mom later, she won’t be sad seeing us.”

“Yeah….”

“It’s a promise.”

A night where the stars brushed against the wind.

In this winter filled with snow, we quietly linked our pinky fingers.

A letter carefully folded, holding snowflakes.

To the country where you are, where it doesn’t snow.

Someday, I vowed, I’d deliver that white envelope with dignity.

That’s how we spent the winter night.