The Atelier of Memories

Suicide.

Camille's cause of death could be summed up in a single word — it was that simple.

But it was too simple to believe, even now.

That he had taken his own life. And at the banquet celebrating his own twentieth birthday, no less — his face destroyed beyond recognition, so cruelly.

...Why?

"Ugh..."

Feeling as though I might retch at any moment, I left the place with my face drained bone-white. No one was on the road back to the mansion. The rain still fell in a fine drizzle, and I trudged down the dirt path in my black shoes beneath an umbrella.

Squelch, squelch. The wet, waterlogged sound lodged itself in my ears.

My eyes had grown unbearably dry, and I rubbed them with my sleeve. In that moment, my absentmindedly outstretched foot came down on something, crushing it.

A single white chrysanthemum.

"My lady, when spring comes, we must go see the flowers together."

Camille's voice rose in my memory with painful clarity, as if he were speaking from just behind me.

"They say there's a garden in the Western Territory filled with flowers. A beautiful lake as well, I hear."

I bit my lip. It felt as if something were boiling up inside me.

"...Disgusting."

Those words were probably aimed at myself.

"I want to know more about you, my lady."

"Following on from last time — what is it you're so curious about now?"

"Anything will do. Your hobbies, or even the smallest of things."

"...I like painting. Though I'm not very good at it."

The day I first opened up to him — to the man who always wanted to know about me, I finally told him something about myself.

I'd only brought up such a topic because of a fickle whim. Camille's smile happened to be as bright as sunlight that day. ...That was all. That was the only reason.

From that day on, Camille came to know me inside and out. He was always asking about me, after all.

But me?

Had I ever asked him anything, even once?

'If I'd known this would happen, I should have talked with him so much more.'

A meaningless regret, thought while wandering the cold corridors.

Wandering the mansion with no particular destination, I found a half-open door at the end of a hallway I had never once visited. Through the gap seeped that particular dry smell that lingers only just after construction is finished.

Perhaps it was fate that led me to that room.

"...!"

Inside the small room, where moonlight filtered through, stood an easel and a blank canvas, and atop the table, paints and brushes and a palette were arranged in tidy order.

Suddenly, what Camille had said to me yesterday — when I'd left the banquet hall earlier than everyone else — flashed through my mind.

"Tomorrow, there is something I must show you."

My breath caught in my throat.

"...This. He meant this?"

The very person who'd said those words had blacked them out of memory entirely — but that foolish man, he had gone and...

What was it about that homely woman — prickly, without an ounce of charm, certain that he despised her — that he could have found worth loving?

Only then did I understand the true nature of the emotion that had been tightening around my chest.

"Aah..."

I collapsed where I stood, right there in front of the atelier.

Through my disheveled hair, tears fell, one after another.

"Why? Why did I...!"

'I shouldn't have — not with Camille.'

It was guilt. Guilt toward the one person who had ever loved me.

From the next day onward, I began to paint as though possessed.

"Madam! The second young master has just arrived. He'll be staying with you from now on, so you really ought to at least greet him—"

"Later. I'm busy right now."

"Oh..."

Romaine. My personal maid had been at my door since morning, chattering away without pause.

"B-but they say he's terribly handsome! He spent a long time out at the border territories, they say. This will be my first time meeting him too, but I'm sure there's so much you could learn from him!"

"Then you can go greet him in my place."

"M-me?"

"Yes. Come back and tell me your impressions."

But at my cold response — hardly any different from yesterday's — she let out a small mmph... and closed her mouth. After a moment, she asked, with the sigh of someone giving up:

"Are you planning to stay in the atelier again today?"

At so direct a question, it was my turn to press my lips shut.

"It would do you good to take even a short walk... You've hardly been eating properly lately, you know."

I could feel her persistent gaze boring into my back, but I pretended not to notice and kept my eyes fixed on the canvas.

"Madam..."

There was a reason she was meddling, when she normally never interfered with my affairs. I had shut myself away in this atelier, neither eating nor bathing, for a full week now.

But I could not put down the brush.

'I want to see Camille.'

I couldn't endure it without clutching at my blurring memories. I had to trap his image on the canvas. Only then could I breathe.

Because in this entire mansion, there was not a single portrait of Camille. Not one.

But how could that be?

'Not a single portrait of the Duke's eldest son? How does that make any sense?'

Countless questions rose in my mind, but I couldn't ask Belladonna for the reason, and so I came to my own conclusion alone.

'Then I'll paint it myself. Camille's portrait.'

Once Romaine — who had stood there like a scarecrow for a long while — finally left the atelier, I swallowed the wine straight from the bottle as if I'd been waiting for just this moment.

Glug, glug.

"Ugh... ughhk."

Alcohol on an empty stomach was, truly, the worst. But nothing worked better for washing thoughts away.

"The yellow paint... where did it go."

Squeezing out the paints, choosing the colors — all of it was pure improvisation. Without even registering which colors I was using, I swung my brush across the canvas thoughtlessly.

But don't they say inspiration is born of melancholy?

'Why is this coming out so well?'

And then — how much time had passed?

Crash—!

At the sound of the wine bottle shattering against the floor, I snapped back to myself.

"...!"

My husband's face, smiling — wearing that smile I had always known.

Camille was there, right before my eyes.

I had gone and finished him, after all.

"Aah..."

The brush slipped from my hand.

Then, as if in a trance, I reached toward the painting — and pitched forward.

Bang!

"Ow...!"

My knee throbbed as if bleeding, but my eyes refused to leave the painting. I finally pushed myself up and laid both palms on the canvas.

"C-Camille."

Wet, unfixed paint smeared across my groping palms, but I couldn't have cared less.

"...Why on earth did you die and leave me behind?"

The atelier, drenched in black. Between the flickering candles, my own shadow — kneeling like a condemned criminal — stretched long across the floor.

"Did you really take your own life?"

Camille was still smiling. Standing in the middle of a flower field, gazing down at me.

"Why...? Was it because I was so cruel to you?"

My vision dimmed at the edges, and I bowed my head low. Before long, a voice hoarse beyond recognition echoed through the room.

"I'm sorry..."

How pitiful a sight it must have been — confessing sins to someone already gone. Even knowing full well that the one who ought to hear these words was not here.

"I-I was wrong about everything, so won't you stay by my side? Please?"

Some say that regret is a privilege only humans may possess. But an emotion that only springs into being once something has already been lost beyond recovery — that could hardly be called a privilege at all.

"I beg you."

My voice, buried in the canvas, had already grown so small that even I could not hear it.

"Camille..."

Dong— dong—

Just then, the grandfather clock in the corner of the atelier rang out its chime, announcing the hour.

...Though the hands did not point to the hour at all.

'4:44?'

The moment I checked the time and my shoulders stiffened ever so slightly, a breath of wind stirred from somewhere.

"Aub."

Someone's voice.

"My love. Come this way."

"...!"

Gasping, I shot to my feet. The sudden movement made the world swim before my eyes for a moment.

"Ugh..."

Steadying my swaying body, I looked around the room once more.

But no one was there. Not inside the atelier, nor in the half-open corridor beyond.

"Wh-who's there?"

And then the voice rang out again — this time from far, far closer.

"Who else? Your husband, of course."