Chapter 22
“Maxi, Max, Mac.”
Hearing the sudden string of nicknames, Maximilian turned to meet her gaze. Edith lightly brushed his jaw with the tip of her finger. There was a faintly arrogant air in her gesture.
“Pick one. Which one do you want me to call you?”
“Any of them is fine.”
“After all that thought I put into choosing, that’s what you say?”
He let out a small laugh, as if he couldn’t care less about her slight disappointment.
“I really don’t mind at all.”
Still, when she averted her gaze with a pout, Maximilian slowly lowered his head. Smooch. A feather-light kiss landed reflexively on her closed eyelids. Not only her eyelids, but also the bridge of her nose and her lips. Wherever his lips touched, a soft smile blossomed—not merely because of the kiss, but because of the whispers he slipped in between.
“No matter what you call me…”
“…as long as you’re the one calling.”
Edith’s eyes softened. His large hand gently stroked her flushed cheeks and dimples.
“I like Mac.”
“Yes.”
“Mac.”
“Yes.”
“Mac. Mac. Mac.”
Each repeated call was met with a laugh in his reply.
Mac was definitely the best choice—no matter how many times she called it, it felt this good. Edith let out a contented sigh. At that moment, a sweet breeze drifted from somewhere, rustling her blonde hair before disappearing into the distance.
Maximilian said a few more words, and Edith embraced him, her clear laughter spilling out.
Soaked from the rain, Edith watching the scene suddenly realized—it was a dream.
Once she recognized it as a dream, the moments of giving and receiving love scattered and disappeared like dandelion seeds.
Where the dream departed, rain clouds gathered again. Darkness enveloped the surroundings.
“…Mac.”
No response came.
Edith lifted her heavy eyelids.
With a slight tremor, her vision cleared. Her whole body felt heavy, as if she were stuffed with wet cotton. Just waking up, she was too dull-headed to grasp her surroundings immediately.
A dim gas lamp flickered in the room. It was unfamiliar. Her hazy consciousness began retracing the last memories before she lost it: the rain, the gunshots, and…
Her golden eyes, flickering as she recalled, suddenly widened in realization.
Edith hurriedly sat up in bed. Swoosh. She felt the blanket slide down, pressing against her skin. She didn’t yet realize it was because she wasn’t dressed. She froze, though, when her eyes met a man’s face. The one she thought might only exist in a dream was right there, in front of her.
“…Mac?”
Dark, deep eyes, a straight nose, delicate lips—this was unmistakably Maximilian.
Still, Edith couldn’t move easily. A sensation as if wandering through a desert overtook her. That must be why he felt like a mirage—approach hastily, and he might vanish without a trace.
But he moved first. Rising from his chair, he slowly walked toward the bed. As she met his gaze, Edith’s head gradually tilted downward. She felt the shadow he cast over her.
“Closer.”
“Mac.”
For a moment, their words overlapped.
Edith bit her lip, and he exhaled a long sigh. Fingers curling in inexplicable awkwardness, the next words came from him:
“Rest.”
That was all. The sound of him turning away was so unbelievable that Edith straightened her head.
Why? It’s been three years since they last met—why is that the end?
Before her thoughts could settle, her hand moved on its own. She reached out desperately, clutching the hem of his coat. She couldn’t hold on for long—she realized then that she was in just her undergarments. Seeing the bandages wrapped around her injured arm, she understood he must have removed her clothes to treat her wound. She had been soaked through.
Was it because it had been so long? Even though he had seen her body before, inexplicable embarrassment surged.
For a moment, she worried that letting go of the blanket to cover herself would make him leave—but he didn’t. He turned around, yes, but stayed nearby, returning to his chair.
Facing him again, Edith opened her mouth, then closed it, over and over. What should she say? Her mind was a mess without a starting point. Finally, she managed to ask:
“…What happened?”
“The bullet grazed you. You lost a lot of blood.”
It was an answer to a different question—she had asked about the past three years, but he misunderstood. Edith rephrased her question more clearly.
“No. I mean, what have you been doing all this time? You could have sent me a single message to say you’re alive. How could you do this to me? Were you the one at Capra before? Then why didn’t you say anything?”
Her initially calm voice rose gradually, ending near a shout of frustration. Observing her, he barely moved his eyebrows—a nonchalant expression that drove her even more mad.
“Speak. Say something… anything.”
“Say it clearly.”
His cold voice cut her off. Familiar, yet foreign—Edith lost her words for a moment. It was the same, yet different. Contradictory, but true. Like water and ice: the same composition, different temperature. The emotion in his words, the tone—it was all like that. For a moment she didn’t realize, but she remembered that she and Mac always addressed each other politely.
“…Mac.”
Edith called him once more, her voice trembling almost like a plea. The man in front of her gave a faint smirk. Even that smile—his face, the same but different. Edith bit her lips.
“I don’t know who you think you are.”
“….”
“I don’t know the person you’re talking to. And you don’t either.”
Her eyes wavered. His tone was dry, like coarse sand, yet utterly truthful—which only deepened her confusion.
How could you, with that face, that voice, say that to me…
Her thoughts broke off.
“Then why did you kiss me? If you don’t know me, why touch my lips?”
Edith demanded. No matter how she thought about it, he could only be Maximilian. There could be no one else who spoke like that and looked at her that way.
The man’s lips curved into a smirk. A scoff.
“Do I need a reason?”
“What?”
“Among men and women, is kissing really the only thing one could do without a reason?”
He slowly dropped his gaze down to the flushed woman’s face. His eyes slid along her slender neck, lingering for a moment on the blanket she clutched. When his gaze returned to hers, she blushed faintly, realizing the implication.
The smirk vanished from his face.
“It’s nothing, that’s all.”
Caught up in the moment. Gripped by a strange feeling. Overcome by an inexplicable impulse.
A brief silence followed. The woman, seeming slightly deflated, suddenly remembered something and lifted her head.
“Have you… been like this with anyone else?”
He didn’t know what period she meant. If she referred to the three years he remembered, the answer was no. But before that… perhaps.
After a brief pause, he let out a hollow laugh. It hadn’t happened before, but just recently—under the rain, with a woman he barely knew, like a madman. That was why he laughed. He realized the absurdity of excluding her from the idea of “anyone.”
“Yes.”
Her face immediately contorted.
“Mac!”
The unfamiliar name scraped against his nerves again. She wasn’t feeling pleasant, and as she got up from the bed, she walked toward him. He frowned slightly. Her stance was alarmingly unguarded. She surely knew how he was dressed.
Though she gripped the blanket around her shoulders, he could have removed it if he wanted. Yet she approached casually, invading his personal space.
“You can’t do that.”
Perhaps because of the color, her golden eyes, like sunlight, stared straight at him. Her flushed cheek pressed against him. All of it made Jeckart chuckle involuntarily.
“Why not?”
“Obviously…”
“I already told you, it’s not allowed.”
Jeckart was firm. Though he had no memory, he could never be the name she wanted.
Once, he had even tried to uncover his “lost memories.” Bearing loss was harder than expected. He wanted to find it, to understand.
And soon enough, he did.
…Past memories that weren’t his own.
