Chapter 205. I’m Doomed (1)
Translator: Lili
Weekly Chapter 3/7
A beautiful ‘Mini Cat’. A figure who captured everyone’s gaze.
However, Mini Cat was not bound by anything. Shushu had thought countless times that Mini Cat was immoral, self-centered, and had a bad personality, but on the other hand, those traits seemed remarkable. After meeting Mini Cat, Shushu started imagining countless scenarios with the phrase ‘If it were Mini Cat…’
If it had been Mini Cat, she would have caught Elma even if her hat had been blown off. She wouldn’t have cried while futilely trying to match her genius mother’s studies. She wouldn’t have been unable to leave a mother who ignored her after her father’s death.
And so, Shushu was mesmerized. The kindness extended by someone selfish, who expected nothing of her, was so sweet that it was impossible to shake off—like candy offered after bitter medicine.
“…I’ll tell you something useful.”
It was just before Shushu fully fell asleep. The hand that was gently tidying her messy hair whispered softly.
“If you don’t want to hurt yourself, don’t rely on anyone. Make sure you don’t forget it.”
“…”
“Then it won’t hurt.”
No response came. Perhaps she had already fallen asleep. Henriad didn’t mind either way. He hadn’t spoken expecting an answer from Shushu. In truth, he had never expected anything. That’s how he survived.
The realization of watching a child crumble into a snowflake wasn’t exclusive to the Snow Queen or the young man. It also struck the child who remained untransformed.
“Svetnia, Bellim…”
Henriad hummed the last song the Snow Queen sang while recalling his siblings’ names, almost like a lullaby. The eerie yet sorrowful rhythm forced Shushu, just on the edge of sleep, to speak.
“… Did you do the same?”
The humming stopped. Though Shushu had her eyes completely shut, she felt anxious even in her drowsy state. There was one more question she wanted to ask.
“Yes.”
Thankfully, Henriad answered before she completely lost consciousness, allowing Shushu to ask what she wanted most.
“… Even now?”
This time, a longer silence followed. In the end, Shushu fell asleep before receiving a reply. The quiet breathing filled the dark house. Henriad, who had been staring into space, rose and moved to the door. Before closing it, he offered an answer too faint for the deeply sleeping Shushu to hear.
“…Yes.”
But the voice that came out sounded unfamiliar.
Rolling the sound on his tongue, Henriad closed the door and disappeared.
***
When Shushu was in middle school, listening to the radio before bed became a trend among her peers. They placed small radios by their pillows, falling asleep to the soothing voices and songs. Of course, by late at night, the content of these broadcasts often became unsuitable for children. Still, most were asleep by then, so it was rarely an issue.
Occasionally, though, a child would wake in the middle of the night and hear such a program. Shushu had experienced this a few times. One memorable story from 3 a.m. involved a drunken man who mistook his wife for her twin sister and ended up in bed with her. The radio host, horrified, exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, no, really, what?!” in a trembling voice, which stuck in Shushu’s memory.
The smell of something delicious woke Shushu. Slowly opening her eyes, she grabbed her splitting headache and groaned before glancing under her bed. There lay a pair of slippers, much larger than her own.
Shushu slowly picked one up. They were men’s slippers, a pair she had unwrapped and gifted to the owner of this guest room where she now lay.
‘Oh my goodness, no, really, what?’
Placing the slipper down, Shushu stared at the ceiling. The shocked voice from the past radio broadcast echoed like a hallucination. Mistaking the twin sister for the wife…
Shushu thought of wine and apple cider. The white mug. The memory of crying miserably in drunken despair. And then, vivid images of events that were far from simple drunken antics began to surface.
***
‘I’m doomed.’
Unfortunately for Shushu, she didn’t have the luck of forgetting what had happened while drunk. Even if she had, it wouldn’t have spared her. What she had done wasn’t just embarrassing—it ranked among the top three worst mistakes one could make while drunk.
‘What should I do…?’
Her hands trembled as she clutched them tightly. She wanted to go back to sleep. Or have someone knock her unconscious. She couldn’t summon the courage to open the door and face the room’s rightful owner.
To make matters worse, the blurry fragments of memory were becoming painfully vivid. Remembering how she had mistaken Henriad for the Mini Cat of her dreams and clung to him made her want to strangle herself. She had made the first move—there was no room for excuses.
Shushu swallowed hard, her lips pressed together.
She should’ve fainted back then. Or, better yet, bashed her head against the bathroom wall. The thought brought no comfort as she sat motionless in bed, the pain in her body fading into the background as the sheer weight of mental anguish took precedence.