‘After Madam, now it’s the Duke.’
Deikan, having been summoned to the office, stood stiffly frozen.
“…D-Do you perhaps have something to say?”
“I’m thinking.”
It seemed he did have something he wanted to say.
‘What is it, really?’
What was it that had him making such a frightening face?
As Deikan, already intimidated for no reason, grew pale and felt himself gradually dying amid all kinds of wild imaginings—
“It’s about Aisha. There was something I wanted to ask you, but I was pondering how to put it.”
“…About Her Grace…?”
“I have a personal question, one I can’t ask with Aisha knowing.”
“…What is it?”
Others said their relationship wasn’t good, but he seems quite worried.
The fact that he called him here despite not particularly trusting him meant that it was something serious.
“When Aisha collapsed, she briefly returned to her former self.”
“You mean she did… W-What?! Her former self?”
‘What does that mean?’
“She was very different from the Aisha she is now.”
“…I, I don’t really understand?”
“…Aisha once collapsed before, and after that she completely changed, as if she were a different person. And now, something like that happened again.”
“What?”
‘Something like that happened?’
“Does Madam not know at all?”
“I tried telling her, but she didn’t seem to remember it. She was far too startled for it to be an act.”
“What kind of person was the original Madam?”
“She hated and looked down on me and Jeron. She wanted to die. Every single day.”
“…Is that really true?”
“Yes. Do you know why that was?”
“…After that, did she ever show those symptoms again?”
“It was brief. After she collapsed again, she returned to how she is now.”
Deikan didn’t know what kind of person Aisha had been in the past.
“Um… Your Grace, are you saying that the Madam I know is already a Madam who changed once before?”
“That’s right.”
“Before Madam changed, was there perhaps some major shock or incident she experienced?”
“…Well.”
“If there is something you wish to obtain an answer to from me, you must not hide the truth.”
Not knowing exactly what it was, but sensing that Luzbel was hesitant about something, Deikan spoke firmly. Luzbel, who seemed to deliberate for a moment, issued a warning.
“Telling you the truth isn’t difficult. Whether your neck will still be safe after hearing it is another matter.”
Gulp.
The atmosphere around Luzbel was fundamentally different from when Aisha was present.
The pressure pouring out made Deikan feel as though he could barely breathe, but because of that, he wanted to hear it even more.
If she was having a hard time, if she was in pain, he wanted to help.
It was thanks to her that he found his brother, and she had also stopped Reed’s actions from going further astray…
Deikan loved his profession as a psychological counselor, but he believed even he couldn’t excuse the actions Reed had committed.
The poor condition the villagers were living with also played a part.
The vague thought of taking Reed’s punishment in his place disappeared as he treated them.
Reed was the family he loved, but he had committed a crime.
He was grateful that Reed hadn’t been made to breathe his last immediately. He thought it might have been leniency, in its own way…
Having received such grace, he decided to repay it.
So if Aisha was mentally struggling, he truly wanted to help, no matter what.
Deikan held such a desire in his heart.
“I will not disclose this to anyone. I will stake my life on it.”
Luzbel doubted himself as to whether telling Deikan everything was the right decision.
But seeing the burning look in his eyes, after having been frightened just moments before, he thought it might be better than nothing.
He didn’t place much trust in him, but it seemed Aisha trusted him implicitly.
“Very well.”
After everything was said and done, Deikan, who had been silent for a while, said he would keep an eye on Aisha for the time being.
***
Time passed endlessly, but Deikan couldn’t find any clear reason why Aisha had changed.
If only she were to change once more, perhaps then he would understand.
Because of that, Deikan had been living buried in books.
Since psychology and psychiatry weren’t treated as formal medicine, he searched through every kind of miscellaneous text he could find.
Then, by chance, he discovered a story describing symptoms similar to Aisha’s.
“Oh!”
At the beginning of the book, it was written that the incident had occurred in reality and had been adapted into a novel.
Truth and fiction seemed to be appropriately mixed, but the symptoms were certainly similar.
“…Why didn’t I think of this?”
He had even seen something like it once before.
Like Aisha, the person Deikan had encountered back then had behaved completely differently, as if they were an entirely different person.
People feared such individuals and locked them away.
What if Aisha were a similar case?
Since she had never shown such symptoms in front of Deikan, he couldn’t be certain, but he had his suspicions. Still, Deikan lacked confidence.
He had only seen this type once, and Deikan had failed to treat that man.
The man insisted, resentfully, that there was nothing wrong with him, and he despaired at being treated like a monster.
He relied on Deikan, the only one who understood him, but in the end, he took his own life.
What if, by rashly interfering, Aisha were to abandon her own life just like that man?
At that point, he would have to bear the full force of Luzbel’s anger.
“Ugh.”
Just thinking about it was dreadful, and Deikan shuddered involuntarily. He decided to first report what he had discovered to Luzbel.
“…Dual personality?”
“Yes.”
Luzbel tilted his head to the side, as if hearing it for the first time.
“It is not a common condition.”
“…I see.”
When Deikan showed him the book he had found, Luzbel looked displeased.
Naturally so, since it wasn’t a specialized text but a novel.
With a reluctant expression, he read through a few pages. Once he saw that it truly dealt with a story very similar to Aisha’s symptoms, he ended up finishing the book in one sitting.
“What is this?”
However, after checking the ending, Luzbel trembled with anger.
“It’s a trash book.”
“Well, since it is a story from a long time ago…”
In the book, the person in question is accused of being possessed by a demon and is ultimately burned at the stake.
“As I mentioned, I have named this symptom dual personality. The body is clearly one, but there are two individuals inside it.”
“…”
“The two people were not aware of each other.”
“…Something like this can happen?”
He had entrusted it to Deikan just in case, but there was no way he could easily believe talk of Aisha having a dual personality based on some old novel like this.
“Then what happened to the person you said you saw? Did you cure him?”
“…He died. It was suicide.”
“What?”
“B-But Madam is a different case!”
“Different?”
“Yes! Both the person in this novel and the person I saw had no one who believed them! No matter how much I explained, everyone avoided them, saying they were possessed by a demon. They were completely alone. But Your Grace, you believe Madam, don’t you? If she can be cured, you would be willing to cure her. We just have to find the cause. Why her personality had no choice but to split…!”
“Her personality split… why did that happen…?”
“I still cannot be certain, since I have not seen many cases, but when someone receives an extremely great shock, they try to protect themselves. Sometimes they erase traumatic memories. I believe this symptom may be one of those cases. Instead of erasing memories, the personality itself was split.”
“…Then, the Aisha right now is…”
“It is the one who erased her memories of Your Grace.”
“…Ha!”
Even as he thought it made no sense, it sounded plausible.
Because otherwise, there was no way to explain the Aisha who had changed overnight. In the end, the reason Aisha became like that was…
“Is it all because of me?”
When Aisha lost her memories and became gentle, he had been simply happy.
But once he learned the reason, he found himself nothing but horrifying. Luzbel was unable to say anything for a long while.
“What should I do?”
“Lady Aisha also needs to know about her condition. She has to recognize it in order to be cured. After that, we can approach it carefully…”
“No. Could she live like this for the rest of her life?”
“…Pardon?”
Ridiculously, even in the midst of all this, he wished that Aisha would live like this forever.
Utterly selfishly.
***
He knew what Aisha wanted from him.
She had been bringing up Jeron repeatedly since last time, and the sudden question about his father also seemed to have been asked because she wanted him to get along with Jeron.
But he wasn’t sure he could do it well.
He didn’t think he could act as familiarly as Aisha did.
“Monet.”
“Yes.”
“…What should I do to make Jeron like me?”
“What?”
It was a straightforward question, but Monet reacted as if he had heard something he was never meant to hear. Luzbel repeated it once more, kindly.
“I asked what I should do to make Jeron like me.”
“…I think I am hearing nonsense right now.”
“What did it sound like to you?”
“It sounded like Your Grace was asking how you should make Young Master Jeron like you, but doesn’t that make no sense whatsoever?”
“Was that a question that required common sense?”
“With Your Grace’s personality! Of course it does!”
Luzbel looked at the passionately ranting Monet with an icily cold gaze.
Only then did Monet realize that he had, in fact, heard it correctly, and he could only gape in shock.
“Really…?”
“Really.”
“…Why are you suddenly worrying about something like this?”
Monet asked as if he couldn’t believe it. But Luzbel kept his mouth shut.
It wasn’t a concern entirely born of pure intentions.
He simply thought that if he made even this kind of effort, Aisha might take it as something commendable and continue living as she did now.
Luzbel smiled bitterly.
Because he found himself utterly repulsive.
Even so, he had no choice.
Because he didn’t want to lose Aisha.
“…So, do you have any good ideas?”
Honestly, after hearing Aisha talk last time about his childhood, he had also found himself reconsidering Jeron.
Whether it was truly the case that he had no feelings at all toward Jeron, or whether he had been consciously trying to feel that way.
After thinking deeply about it, he reached a certain conclusion.
That when he looked at Jeron, Luzbel was projecting his own childhood self onto him.
And that was why he had been unable to approach him rashly.
