Always a Happy Ending (1)

She had a dream when she was young that she remembered as she didn’t dream that often. It was also her first time to realize that it was a dream in a dream. Vivian looked down at her palm, which became as small as a child, and slowly raised her head. Then she frowned. It was because she remembered vividly this space where she was standing now.

The memories of childhood were mostly blurred as if they were covered by fog, but only the memories of this day were vivid.

It was her birthday. It was hard when they were struggling with debt, but she had a big birthday party that day. Not as much as the aristocratic children of other families, but it was certainly a luxury that did not fit the family’s financial situation.

They called the band and received more than 20 gift boxes, and invited a chef who had worked at the palace at a party. Rather than being very fancy and shiny, she felt as if she was on top of something.

She remembered that she was constantly restless in the feeling of being alone in a place she didn’t know her mother kept holding her hand tenderly.

Mother who took care of this and that in a particularly sweet way.

And that night she drank poison and killed herself. As if she had done her part.

Vivian was the first person to find her mother’s body. The horrors of the day unfolded again in the dream.

Mother with her head on the table. The blood dripped down her helpless fingertips as it soaked the table. A piece of glass that fell on the floor and scattered in a mess. The smell of alcohol in the air, the smell of iron mixed with it.

It was a terrible sight.

She didn’t even move, and similarly Vivian couldn’t move as if she had a nail stuck in her foot. The smell of blood and death was too strong.

She had to run and make sure she was alive, but she couldn’t even dream of it. When the unexpected crisis was just around the corner, all the rational circuits stopped functioning.

Vivian was too young to judge the right circumstances. But she wasn’t young enough not to know death. She realized that she would never see her mother again.

She’s been doing that for half a day. Continue until it’s perfectly imprinted on her mind. If her drunken father hadn’t returned to the mansion, she might have been standing there absentmindedly.

Perhaps the memory of that day will never be forgotten until death. The man, once Count of Matten, held his wife and sobbed. He didn’t even seem to feel pain sitting on the floor on a piece of glass.

Vivian stared at his mother’s face in his arms. An empty shell completely extinguished by the fire of life. That was no longer her mother. At that time, Vivian is more than sad. She couldn’t even breathe properly under the pressure of fear.

I can’t believe I’m dreaming like this now.

It was as if she was in sleep paralysis. What kind of dream is this the day after Aiden confessed to her? She clenched her teeth and gasped for pain.

Did she appear in her dream to scold herself who she had forgotten for a while?

Vivian thought it was not an ‘accident’ that her father died in a carriage accident. She knew the truth, but no matter how drunk one in, they wouldn’t have run into a carriage running from the front.

It was a common story, like Aiden said, that she was eventually abandoned by both parents.

What was a little special was that Vivian, who was left alone, escaped from the chain of suicides and did not kill herself. Maybe it’s because she was still young to give up her own life. Maybe it’s because she’s so sick and tired of not wanting to go near it, let alone assimilate to death.

Anyway, she survived to the end.

Even if the Count title was handed over to her uncle, she grew up under all kinds of abuse, but she ran out of her family’s name and continued to find a way to live even after entering the Imperial Palace. But she somehow survived.

And she met Aiden.

When she thought of Aiden, she felt like she was breathing well. Vivian thought of him and put a faint smile around her mouth without even realizing it.

Aiden said, his deprived childhood was a story that could be anywhere and nothing special, but now Vivian seemed to understand a little bit of what that meant.

Her misfortune was really, really nothing in her life. The people and the situation of the time meant nothing to her.

Vivian found out the really important value that he could cherish and cultivate for life, and met someone more precious than that. Other than that, it didn’t matter.

It’s just a meaningless past.

She felt a little relieved as soon as she realized that.

It was then. Her mother’s eyes, who she thought wouldn’t even move after dying, slowly closed. It was as if the figure had fallen asleep painlessly.

She woke up from the dream with the last scene.

“Ugh.”

Vivian groaned in a subdued voice and pulled herself up. Her whole body was heavy and stiff. She was wiping away the cold sweat on her forehead, and she felt someone staring at her for some reason. She slowly raised her head.