TMIAP Chapter 22

Monica was alarmed.

"Excuse me, are you all right?"

What the man was gripping was a small dogwood tree in the garden. The tree, covered in white blossoms, had apparently not been cultivated long—it was at most half a span taller than Monica's height.

But the man was gripping the tree as if it were his lifeline. The fingertips clutching the tree were white with the force of his grip, and sweat poured like rain from his forehead pressed against the trunk.

"Good heavens!"

Monica rushed to pat his back.

"Are you all right? Breathe."

As if responding to Monica's words, the man gasped and choked. He seemed to have difficulty breathing.

She reflexively wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled. The man, as if his grip on the tree had been a lie, was drawn to Monica and seated on the ground.

Having released him almost like dropping him, Monica forced his upper body down and loosened the cravat at his neck. She unfastened the buttons of his shirt halfway, then thrust her hand inside against the bare skin of his chest and rubbed vigorously.

It was a method she had used on soldiers who couldn't breathe on the battlefield.

"Breathe."

"Can't... breathe..."

"I know you can't breathe, so don't answer and when I count, exhale right away!"

After barking the order, Monica counted.

"One, two. Exhale. Three."

The gasping man gradually followed Monica and regained a measure of stability. Only after the man had exhaled deeply about fifteen times did Monica feel relieved.

She also realized only then that while helping the man regain his breath, she herself had been holding her breath in tension.

'Ah.'

And one more thing. Monica had recognized long ago why the man was like this. It was the type she had seen most often during her service as a nurse.

People who, at any loud sound, assumed it was cannon fire and became startled into tears or couldn't breathe. And Enrique Solivén—the man's family was the kingdom's most ancient lineage, one that had produced many soldiers.

This man, too, must not have escaped the war.

All manner of thoughts raced through Monica's mind.

But instead of voicing those many thoughts, Monica took the hand of the man who had closed his eyes and just begun to breathe, and held it. His fingertips were terribly cold.

With her other hand, she lifted the hem of her dress and wiped the beads of sweat from the man's forehead. It was a new dress, but that didn't matter. Or rather, thinking about it, even this dress had been bought by this man.

...Though he was denying it.

"Get hold of yourself. This is the Mollette estate. Not a battlefield. The war is already over."

She recited fragmentary words like an incantation. As Monica massaged the man's other hand, she suddenly turned her head and met his blue eyes. He seemed to have regained his senses in the meantime.

The man had raised his upper body and was glaring at her, his bright blue eyes brimming with all manner of emotions.

Shame and bewilderment, distress...

The most common emotions of those who had revealed their wounds to an unintended person.

Monica shrugged.

"It's all right. I've seen many people like you, sir. Former military?"

"If you speak of this anywhere, you'll regret it."

It was a truly ungrateful response, but this too was familiar. Moreover, it wasn't particularly frightening.

The man was still being high-handed, but perhaps because she had already seen him trembling in terror. Instead of answering, Monica asked a question.

"Have you ever taken the 'green medicine'?"

The man flinched.

"You have."

Monica sighed involuntarily.

The military gave the 'green medicine' to soldiers who suffered from psychological trauma to the point of becoming combat-ineffective. The hospital at Arvidd had done the same.

But as the war dragged on, the side effects of the 'green medicine' became apparent. More than half the soldiers' symptoms actually worsened.

Wounds that had provided brief solace grew larger and more exaggerated.

Only after an artilleryman seeing hallucinations accidentally dropped a spark in the powder magazine, causing a major accident, was the 'green medicine' banned from both use and preparation.

That was also why Mekal, that doctor who loved his profession too dearly, was curious about the 'green medicine.'

Even at the Arvidd hospital, only some of the nurses knew its formula, but most of those nurses had volunteered for the money alone and had almost nothing to do with medicine.

So after the war ended, the formula for the 'green medicine' was completely buried.

"I've never seen anyone who took that and remained sound..."

Ripples spread through the blue eyes of the man who had been staring blankly at Monica. But Monica, regardless of whether the man was looking at her or not, pulled his wrist toward her and took his pulse.

It was racing wildly.

She suddenly thought of the hospital at Arvidd. The terrible memories of daily lifting soldiers' wrists to take their pulse, giving them medicine, and sometimes pinning down those who became violent.

She murmured as if sighing.

"I won't tell."

It was the moment the rude and arrogant man became an object of pity. However, that didn't mean Monica would carelessly sympathize with him.

Who was she to sympathize with whom? Monica had just been treated like a rat by this man. So, Monica decided to burrow into the man's weakness like a rat.

"But answer one of my questions in return."

The man glared at Monica with glistening eyes. But Monica only shrugged.

"Sir, by any chance are you... no. Quadruplets?"

No answer was necessary. Monica tilted her head. Through the man's sweat-dampened hair, she could see the scar near his right eye more clearly up close. The small scar at the corner of his red lips was the same. Monica knew these scars.

"But I've never seen twins with identical scars in the same places."

Recalling the man's question about what she knew, Monica subdued her long confusion. He was the man she knew. He was lying.

"Garcia, Luis."

Monica slowly named both men.

"Both have scars on their right eyes. Very slight ones, visible only up close..."

"..."

"I thought I was going mad. But I'm not. You have this scar too."

Her finger lightly brushed the man's right eye. The man flinched and turned his head away, but it was too late.

The fear writhing in the man's bright blue eyes had already been caught by Monica long ago.

But instead of persistently digging at that fear, Monica asked dryly and continuously.

"Lord Enrique Solivén."

"..."

"What exactly are you?"

"I have no obligation to answer—"

"You have no obligation, but if you don't answer, I might accidentally speak of the young master of the Solivén family who trembles at fireworks because of war trauma."

At that moment, the man—Enrique's—atmosphere changed completely. Enrique quickly raised his upper body and met her gaze.

Instead of the unclear fear that had filled his bright blue eyes, what took its place was bewilderment, and anger.

'How dare you.'

Monica could clearly understand that meaning as well. It would be stranger if she didn't. It was the same displeasure Monica always commonly witnessed from those of high station.

Even so, Monica had no intention of backing down with a yes, sir. To reveal his most vulnerable state, then expect her to be afraid now?

Monica blinked several times and lifted her dress in front of him. The man flinched, his long lashes trembling.

"How shameless—"

"You made this wound, Garcia."

What Monica indicated was her own knee. Enrique's eyes turned down blankly. Though Mekal had treated it neatly, her knee was wrapped tightly in bandages. Monica raised her hands to show him and continued.

"And this is the dress you bought me, Luis Berfeil."

"What—"

"Moreover, you called me that yesterday afternoon. 'My love.'"

Even as she said this, Monica remained composed. Because she thought this man performing the act of being different people before her was certainly lying. Luis, Garcia. It was laughable.

Enrique Solivén. He was certainly said to be the son of one of the kingdom's most distinguished families.

Among those of high station, there were occasionally some whose heads were mortgaged to romantic novels.

The sort who, born as a nobleman's son, dream of eloping with a woman of low birth, or who wish to make a show of impulsively sharing just occasionally the wealth derived from exploitation.

She didn't want to condemn them. In the former case, she had no desire to meet such people, but in the latter case, even Monica had benefited from them. After all, the nobles who sponsored orphanages could hardly have done so out of innate goodness.

Thus Monica lumped Enrique together with that sort. Though she didn't know what this noble young master might gain by performing the roles of the rake Luis and the barbarian Garcia, he was certainly lying. However—

"Nonsense!"

The man suddenly raised his voice. His bewilderment was evident. Monica frowned and continued.

"It's not a lie. You also said 'my darling Moni-moni.'"

"...Where do you get such impudence..."

This was strange. Enrique Solivén's face behaved as if he'd never heard such things in his life. Monica kept staring into his eyes. It was clearly, truly, the face of someone who didn't know what she had said.

'How can this be?'

Originally she had intended to tell him to stop mocking her. When she first discovered this man's scar near his right eye, Monica had been furious, thinking he had toyed with her by pretending to be three people.

But the more she thought, the stranger it became. It was even more so when she recalled the first time she met Luis, and when she met Garcia again. Those situations weren't ones he could have engineered even if he'd planned them deliberately.

The third time she met Luis, she could perhaps accept it, but the unresolved questions kept mounting.

Why on earth would this man do such things to her?

Monica thought: if this man truly didn't know about all those events, he must be an exceptionally skilled actor.

Could it be that this renowned young master from a distinguished family dreams of being a theater actor? Was he performing different personas for some insignificant person like herself, a passing girl?

That might be possible.

Or at the very least, perhaps he had multiple personalities.