To Catch a Tiger, Puff Up Its Mane

If you wanted to catch a tiger, you were supposed to puff up its mane until it looked twice as fearsome. I had no idea whether this would actually help, but I fetched a shovel from behind the house anyway and, very pointedly in the man's line of sight, began to dig.

Good exercise, at least. Lovely.

Ten minutes into my wordless digging, the man who had been lying there so obediently finally spoke up.

"You know, Aub, I get the feeling you don't understand just how strong I am, but a rope like this? A little effort and it would come right off."

"Is that so."

"Of course. You tied it all so earnestly that I felt bad for you and decided to lie still."

I kept on digging, whether he meant it or not. Truthfully, it was getting kind of fun — moving my body made me feel oddly refreshed.

When I gave him no reaction at all, the man strained with a grunt.

"Huh. It's not coming off. Hmm. I wonder why."

"Who knows."

"...Um, could you untie me? My arms feel like they're about to pop out of their sockets."

Oh, please.

I tried to let his complaint pass right over my head. But then I remembered how I'd yanked his arms half out of their sockets in my hurry to bind him, and I stole a glance back at him.

"It... it hurts."

Seeing him wince with Camille's face did tug at me, but I steeled myself and answered coldly.

"I don't want to."

"Sorry?"

"I said no."

"..."

His expression froze over in an instant. Wow, so it really was an act! Even as I gaped, the man stared straight through me, as if trying to read my mind. There wasn't a hint of remorse anywhere on that face.

Seeing no other way, I tossed the shovel aside and crouched down in front of him.

"I'll untie the rope. But before I do, there's something we need to get straight first."

"Get straight?"

The man blinked, playing innocent. I held up the bungeoppang mold with the sternest face I could manage.

"Lie to me, and I'll hit you with it again."

That was the precise moment the blank expression on the man's face began to change.

"Wait, Aub. Let's talk this through."

"You remember how much that hurt, right?"

He bit his lip and nodded.

"You don't want to get hit again, do you?"

More nodding.

"Then be honest with me."

"About... what?"

With one cheek pressed to the ground, he swallowed nervously, dry-mouthed and tense — so utterly harmless that it was hard to believe this was the same man who'd had me on the ropes minutes ago. Anyone walking by would have sworn I was the kidnapper threatening him.

But no one else was here. Only the two of us.

I asked.

"You're not my husband, are you?"

"..."

The man clamped his mouth shut like an oyster. When I watched those pale blue eyes dart this way and that, hunting for an exit, I felt a rush of vindication — and beneath it, something far more tangled.

Why is it that I'm the one who asked the question, and yet I'm the one who wants to run before I hear the answer?

As if to give voice to my tangled heart, the wind swept across the flower field with a long, low rush.

"...Does it matter?"

That was his answer. An attempt to dodge, no doubt — and yet his evasiveness only convinced me. This man was not my husband. Never could be.

"..."

My hesitation stretched on. Indignation scorched the back of my neck, but my body had gone stone-stiff and wouldn't move an inch. All that furious shovel-wielding, grave-digging menace — it had been pure bluff. I didn't have the nerve to actually harm a man wearing Camille's skin.

If only I'd never found out. If only I'd played ignorant — maybe I could have rested in peace instead.

Just as that corrosive cynicism came flooding in, the man's body gave a small tremble.

"What's so funny?"

"Sorry. Was I interrupting something?"

Pink hair hung in wild disarray, half veiling his eyes.

"Honestly? I laughed a little because I was enjoying myself."

"..."

"I never dreamed you'd counterattack like this. I had no idea you were capable of trussing me up like a holiday roast."

"So?"

"So — here's the thing. I..."

A faint flush crept across the man's cheeks.

"I think I've fallen for you."

In that instant, my face crumpled entirely on reflex.

"Are you insane?"

But my reaction seemed to delight him all the more. The way he burst out laughing, trembling helplessly in his bindings, was proof enough that the man was not in his right mind.

Having recovered his composure somewhere along the way, he went on, the corners of his eyes folding into something almost beautiful.

"Aub, I'll admit I moved too fast. And I'm sorry I scared you."

Then he gave me a look of genuine, unaffected puzzlement.

"But you — you had nothing left to live for anyway, did you? I proposed what I proposed because I saw and felt things. I'm the sort who tests the ground before I lie down on it."

"..."

"So why did you refuse?"

Some part of me wondered if this was more seduction, another lure — but I couldn't find a single word of rebuttal. Because the truth was, I didn't know either. I had no particular attachment to living. If I vanished from the world tomorrow, not a soul would come looking for me.

So why, then?

His blue eyes met my wavering gaze, and a strange, nameless color began to shimmer in them.

"..."

He studied me quietly, as if working through an intricate puzzle — and then, abruptly, his eyes went round with revelation.

"I've got it."

The next moment, his features softened into a gentle curve.

"You want revenge on the one who killed me, don't you?"

"...I'm sorry, what?"

A sensation like the hair on my head standing on end swept through my brain.

"Yes, that's it. No wonder it felt too easy... A human would have a desire like that buried somewhere, of course you would."

Still wearing that languid smile, he murmured on, half to himself.

"And you, Aub — you wanted to leave a trace of me so badly you painted my portrait with your own hands. Of course you'd want revenge. I understand completely."

"...!"

The man was reading my heart with startling precision.

From the day I learned of his death, through the funeral, all the way to this very moment —

Not once had I ever accepted his death as the truth.

Camille had taken his own life on the very night he'd promised to show me the atelier the next morning. However I turned it over in my mind, it made no sense. I had seen, plain as day, the anticipation brimming on his face as he told me he would show me.

Camille never promised things he couldn't deliver.

So his death could not have been of his own will. Someone else's hand had been laid upon it.

"Then how about this?"

The man flexed his abdomen and hauled his upper body upright by momentum alone. With both legs still bound, he knelt before me — but the eyes gleaming through his disheveled hair held a chill, living sharpness utterly at odds with his position.

"That revenge of yours — I'll help you carry it out."

"What are you—"

"And on the day every last act of vengeance is finished, I take your soul."

His words flowed out smooth and unbroken, as if he regarded the whole situation as nothing more than a round of some casual game.

"Once the purpose is achieved, there's nothing else in your life worth lingering for — isn't that right?"

I could neither easily refute the words nor bring myself to agree with them, and his low, unhurried voice slipped deep into that crack.

"Aub. You don't want to part from me like this, either."

"..."

"You have to clear my name, you know. Won't you?"

At his words, the most vivid of the memories I'd been keeping buried rose up in pieces.

"What's this? A red ribbon?"

"In place of taking your hand, madam. You dislike touching me directly, after all."

Back then, that awkward man — seeing how pathologically I shrank from his touch — had brought out a crimson ribbon to spare me. He tied one end around his own wrist and pressed the loose end into my hand, and when I froze up, flustered, he even tossed out a light joke to put me at ease.

"Ah — I do hope this doesn't look too much like walking a dog. With a lady of such refined bearing, I suppose it might."

"...I'm sorry, what did you just—"

"In that case, why not simply wear it around the neck?"

He held the scarlet ribbon up against his own pale white throat, grinning playfully once more.

I couldn't take my eyes off him then. The slender line of his neck, the prominent ridge of his throat — and the moment that red ribbon brushed against it, I swallowed without meaning to.

"Uh... should I really wear it around my neck?"

"Oh."

By the time my wits caught up with me, my face was burning. Desperate to hide the guilt creeping over me, I rounded on him sharply, as if pinning the blame on Camille.

"Camille, you're going too far with the jokes."

"And yet your eyes were unmistakably sparkling."

"Mine? You must have seen wrong."

I turned my head away with a curt snap — and a moment later, I heard him swallow a laugh.

"If my lady says so, then so it must be."

What kind of face was I making back then?

I remembered standing there with my arms crossed, turned away in apparent anger — and then, despite myself, bursting out laughing. My guard was always like that, dissolving helplessly at a few of Camille's words.

"Aub."

Unannounced, clouds rolled in and shut out the warm sun. Over the ground where a deep shadow settled, a cold current began to pool and spread.

"You'll... make a contract with me, won't you?"

"..."

This, unmistakably, was the whisper of a demon. Without a doubt. Somewhere deep in my chest, another version of me was screaming out a desperate warning. I knew better than anyone that this choice was not a right one.

But the face that surfaced in that moment was Camille's — and the hand I had never managed to hold.

They covered my eyes.

I must atone.

For my own sake — I who had understood love far too late.

As a final apology, offered to a husband already gone.

"...I will."

At that moment, the wind rose.

I looked up, and the man was smiling — a smile more beautiful than any I had ever seen on him.

And, at the same time, a smile so perfect it turned my blood to ice.

"An excellent choice, Aub."