That day was the day my world was shattered.
“I, Madam...”
The nightmare began the moment the butler Wilhelm approached me with a stern face.
The butler’s expression was unusually dark today, so I tilted my head.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s something I need you to check...”
“Check?”
“Yes... I heard a strange sound from the west terrace.”
A strange sound?
I followed the butler, puzzled.
The butler who guided me to the west terrace bowed his head politely and took a step back. It seemed as if he wanted me to check things myself from now on.
‘What on earth could it be?’
I tilted my head and slowly opened the door to the room connected to the west terrace.
...And at the same time, I stopped breathing.
“Hoo, haoo...”
The one crying pitifully over there was my half-sister Elena.
And...
“Shh, shh.”
It was my husband, Lucas, who was holding my younger sister and patting her with affectionate hands.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take responsibility for everything. You and our child.”
Child.
‘Our’ child?
Each letter of the word sounded unfamiliar as if it had been broken down.
Five years had passed since we got married, but my husband and I had no children.
“My son was born healthy! It’s your problem!”
Just because of that fact, I was treated as a useless person in the Marquis family, a worthless woman.
Even though he knew this, Lucas didn’t comfort me, but rather got sick of the word ‘child.’
“I’m not some kind of stallion, and every day you say child, child! Damn it, I’m sick of it!”
“...Honey.”
“This is why I don’t want to come into this damn house! If you had been more accommodating to your mother, she wouldn’t have been pestering us every day about that damn child!”
Lucas whispered in a sweet voice the words he had been so tired of.
“There will be only blessings for our child. I will make sure that happens.”
“Ah, but Lucas!”
Elena poured into my husband’s arms.
“We’re not even married, and now we have a child. My life is over, sob!”
“You’re a good girl, Elena. Listen to me, okay? Let’s overcome this. Everything will be okay if we’re together. Easy...”
“Lucas...!”
Their lips met.
The hot and moist sound resonated clearly.
My husband’s hand caressing Elena’s slender waist and lifting the hem of her dress.
Elena clung to his blatant touch as if she was used to it.
The scenes were too vivid to be a dream, and too cruel.
“Ah, Lucas...”
“Hoo...”
To me, all the sounds in the world were raw materials that could be processed into beautiful melodies.
My belief was that there were no useless sounds in this world that I just didn’t want to hear.
That was it. Until now.
'Enough.'
I covered my ears with my trembling hands.
For the first time, I was afraid of the sound.
I couldn't believe that this wet copulation sound, this raw moan, was coming from between my husband and my sister.
Bang!
My staggering feet caught on the iron doorway and made a loud noise.
"Whoa! Who's there- huh, sis?"
Elena's reddened eyes widened when she found me, like the climax of a play.
The climax of a cheap one-act play filled with absurdity.
I became a loyal member of the stage, comically staggering back.
"...What the hell, Ariana!"
Lucas's eyes twisted viciously as he turned to me.
"The door must have been locked!"
I unconsciously groped my lips at the chilling urging.
"I think I hear a strange sound..."
"Damn it, how long have you been spying on me! Not even a rat, you damn thing!”
Lucas’s angry face rippled unrealistically.
Lucas was a loving husband. He was the first to come to me, who was always alone in my room, playing the piano, and told me that the songs I composed were beautiful.
I was so happy to hear that, so I showed him all the sheet music I had been scribbling on.
“These are really beautiful songs, Ariana. It would be a shame to just listen to them alone. How about you present them?”
Lucas readily promised to invest in the performance.
My older brother Edward, who graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts, arranged my songs, and my younger sister Elena took charge of the songs.
The first recital was shabby. Only a few people who remembered the old fame of the Lopez family, a musical powerhouse, filled the seats with indifferent faces.
However, after each performance, they all gave a standing ovation without exception.
“It seems that Count Lopez has come back to life!”
“These were truly beautiful and original songs. They say talent is inherited from generation to generation! Count Edward Lopez has inherited Count Lopez's talent!”
People praised Edward as if it was a given.
“People are still so closed off that they don’t appreciate women’s art, so let’s continue to release songs under Edward’s name for the time being. Is that okay?”
Every day, people praised how beautiful Edward’s songs were and how angelic Elena’s singing voice was.
My name was nowhere to be found, but it didn’t matter.
I was happy. The opera house my husband built was booming thanks to the success of my songs.
“It’s sold out again today! Ariana, it’s all thanks to you!”
My husband whispered to me every day how happy he was because of the songs I made.
Above all, the name ‘Music Master Lopez’, which my grandfather had worked on all his life, was once again on people’s lips.
However, those dreamlike days didn’t last long.
“We need more songs! Ariana, why does your inspiration only come so occasionally?”
My husband, who was disappointed with my work speed, brought in more composers.
Then he started churning out songs similar to my songs like a factory. They were too similar to the originals, but everyone was excited.
It was around that time that my husband’s homecoming time gradually got later and later, and his eyes started to show annoyance as he looked at me.
“Why are you coming now? A man can be late when he’s doing business!”
“Our opera house singers have a soft and flirty charm... How can you be so stiff even when your husband comes? How can sisters be so different, oh my.”
“Your songs are unnecessarily experimental. Is it because you never studied composition formally? It shows how little you’ve learned. Tsk.”
I thought that if I wrote more beautiful songs and better-selling chords, my husband would embrace me affectionately again.
Indeed, I never studied composition formally, so I studied harder and tried harder. Staying up all night every day, cutting down on my sleep.
In the meantime, he...
‘You were playing with my sister?’
It had to be a dream.
I shut my eyes tightly. If it was a dream, I had to wake up.
As I staggered out of the room, I heard shouts from inside.
“Where are you going! Why don’t you come back here right now?!”
“Lucas, stop! I’ll follow her. Sister, sister!”
Elena ran after me into the dark hallway and grabbed my shoulder.
“Sister, listen to me. You’re misunderstanding!”
Misunderstanding?
When you are so shocked, your mind goes blank.
When I blankly looked back at Elena, Elena quickly continued.
“My brother-in-law and I are not like that... Yes, I will be honest. It was just a mistake made one night!”
“...A mistake?”
“We both drank too much that night. I thought I shouldn’t do this, so I pushed him away several times, but unlike you, he kept saying that it felt too good...!”
A pitiful excuse poured out of my sister’s mouth.
“I should have pushed him away somehow, I’m so sorry. If you tell me to die, I’ll even pretend to die! Sister, but I, I...”
“I should have pushed him away somehow, I’m so sorry. If you tell me to die, I’ll even pretend to die! Sister, but I, I...”
Elena’s doe-like eyes were wet with tears.
“I, I got pregnant with my brother-in-law’s child that one night...”
Giggle, giggle.
It felt like crazy violinists were playing thousands of bows in my head.
I gasped softly at the terrible sense of unreality. It was all just a nightmare.
There was no way that the reality of my sister and husband betraying me at the same time could be real.
At that moment, Elena suddenly grabbed my hand.
“Sister. Please save me.”
Elena furrowed her eyebrows miserably.
Like when she had secretly put on the necklace that was my mother’s keepsake and lost it when she went out to play. Like when she had spilled wine on the sheet music I had been working on for months.
And with that face...
“Can’t you just let the child in my belly be my sister’s?”
She struck the decisive blow that would break me.
“...What?”
“I, I can’t raise this child. I’m a flower in an opera that’s currently in full swing, right? Where’s a flower with a child? If I make a mistake, it’s over for me and my family. You know that, too!”
A flower in an opera that’s currently in full swing.
Elena’s words were true. Elena was currently the most popular singer in the system.
The daily newspapers compared her voice to a siren that charms sailors. Men were crazy about her beautiful voice and angelic figure, and they brought her bouquets and jewels every day.
‘But, Elena.’
I was the one who stayed up all night and composed songs so that her voice could bloom the most beautifully.
“Besides, this isn’t bad news for you either! You’ve been worried for years because you haven’t heard from my brother-in-law or the child. Just take my child. Then the Pedegrins will have an heir, and you won’t have to live like a fool anymore, right?”
Elena sobbed miserably like a puppy that got rained on.
If you distort that pretty face pitifully, there is nothing that cannot be forgiven.
I thought blankly with my creaky head.
'You want me to raise the child you had with my husband?'
It was an absurd request. A thoroughly selfish request that only considered Elena's own safety.
There was only one reason why Elena could make such a shameless request.
"...Since when Elena."
I blankly moved my lips.
"Since when have I been seen as an idiot, not family, to you?"
Although I worried that I was immature and selfish, Elena was family to me.
'But you weren't.'
In your eyes, I was just... an idiot, an idiot, an idiot.
You just thought of me as a fool who would fall for it with just a little bit of words.
"Sister... What do you mean? I explained it all, didn't I? It was just a mistake made one night!"
"...Stop it, Elena."
I shook my head. My whole body trembled with an overwhelming sense of betrayal.
If anyone touched me right now, I felt like I would crumble to pieces.
“I know you’re confused and hurt. I’m really sorry, and I’ll atone for the rest of my life! But you’re not going to listen to me, are you? This is my life at stake! If I fail, you— Sister! Where are you going, Sister!”
I turned around and quickly walked down the dark hallway.
I wanted to throw up the nausea that was welling up in my throat somewhere.
“Ariana! Were you home?”
But someone suddenly appeared and blocked my path again.
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