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Love Can’t Be Replaced
[T/N: Hello readers! This chapter was very hard to translate, if there is any mistranslation I seek your forgiveness, thank you and please enjoy ^^]
26. A place to Return
Kyrie deliberately left the capital on foot without taking a carriage. She didn’t have a lot of luggage. She knew she could get the world too if needed, so she didn’t have to hold anything in her hand.
Just like Nathaniel.
Even the luggage she had was shrunk and put in her pocket, and her hands were as light as two feet.
“Please provide your identity.”
The only thing holding her up, was the gatekeeper in charge of the gates, Kyrie took off her robe over her head and showed her face and he saluted her right at her.
“Excuse me.”
“Thank you for your effort.”
Kyrie, who had completely left Cel Arellano, looked at the unfurled path.  She could go anywhere.
“where should I go……”
Kyrie muttered.
She didn’t have the courage to see the sea yet.  So she walked to the west.
Then, when she encountered a very beautiful, beautiful tree, she sat under it without a plan.
Days went by and she’s just sitting there.
She sat in the shade of a tree, watching the sun rise in the sky, the setting sun, the night, the stars, and the moving celestial bodies.  Meanwhile, no one called her. People gave her a long glance, but she ignored it and passed by.
Kyrie smiled and rested her head on a wooden pole. She owes nothing now. Nathaniel had truly taken all her responsibility. Now it has come true.
Kyrie got up again and she walked along the river.  She stopped when she was tired.  When she was hungry, she picked up something and ate. She sang without accompaniment, and she danced because she wanted to dance.  When she was bored, she crossed the river, and climbed up the tree for nothing.  She found out that she was more of a playful person than she thought.
Time passed without meaning to her.
As time passed, the joy finally subsided, and she realised that she was at the bottom.
It was a dreadful and distant loneliness.
Unlike before, Kyrie, who was able to light a bonfire with one of her fingers, sat in the forest off the road and watched the Milky Way flowing in the sky.  She was a little displeased when she remembered the piercing blue eyes, but she let it pass.
Then she remembered Leschaux
〔This is the last one. Kyrie Buchanan.  Decide.  Will you remain human, or will you transcend humans?〕
She did not regret the choice at that time.  Even if she feels a little lonely right now, if she goes back, she will make the same choice.
So, I have to bear the snow and rain that fall on my shoulders.
Nevertheless, since she was also a human being, Kyrie would at times struggle with loneliness, turning her back and seeing her own shadow.
She had no choice but to be born that way.  When she is tired of walking alone, it is a person who inevitably leans under the eaves of other people’s houses.  On a night when the tears do not stop, it is people who openly seek the moonlight.
(T/N: eaves- the part of a roof that meets or overhangs the walls of a building.)
‘Maybe Nathaniel was like that….’
On a night when she didn’t even need a blanket, as she looked at the bonfire, Kyrie couldn’t help but smile.  Now, seeing the redness of the campfire, she was reminded of Nathaniel.
Kyrie was able to get a vague idea of what Nathaniel was, how he might have lived, and why he was born that way.
He was so strong and evil that God had no choice but to let him know of loneliness.  To make him openly look under the eaves of another house, by the moonlit windows.  But he was not born to have it.  When the morning came, he was a man who had no choice but to walk alone again.
The same path was opened to Kyrie, who was now in a similar position to him.  Instead of being responsible for anything, she doesn’t belong anywhere.  The difference was that she had chosen it herself, but Nathaniel had no choice.
“…….”
Whenever the bonfire was extinguished, his back came to mind. With his strong back and his cane, looking at the snowy forest.  When dawn came, she had a hard time erasing the memory, but Kyrie couldn’t understand why it was getting harder and harder.
An aimless journey followed.  Then, when she suddenly woke up, Kyrie saw a familiar mountain.
It was where Bund’s house was.
Kyrie headed towards the mountain as if possessed.  On the road she once walked with him, Kyrie was now alone.  When she saw a small hut through the foliage, she had no choice but to stop.  A small jacaranda tree was planted in the sunny place next to the hut.
Her heart started pounding.
Just then, the door opened and a large furry hair came out.  As soon as he saw Kyrie, he opened his mouth wide and gave her a bright expression.
“Miss Rie!”
Kyrie stopped. How much time had passed by wandering alone, there were wrinkles on Bund’s face that she had never seen before.
“Well……Hello. I stopped by for a while. I don’t know if it’s a nuisance or not.”
“No, haha!  Eve!  Come out and see who has come!”
“Huh?”
Eve squirmed behind Bund’s back and poked her head out. Then, looking at Kyrie, she smiled bashfully and hid behind Bund.
“I think she is shy.”
Kyrie was surprised once more.
“When did she grow so big?”
“It’s been quite some time. Come in!”
Kyrie had a new realization that she had a knack for wasting time with herself.
“Thanks. Then excuse me.”
Kyrie entered Bund’s house. Then Bund looked around.
“Didn’t Mr. Nathaniel come with you?”
“Well…he didn’t, for a number of reasons.”
“Is that so? Please come in.”
Bund didn’t ask any more. He was still very caring. Kyrie smiled and sat in the same seat as before. It was a space that had not changed surprisingly.
“You seem to have given me quite a bit of money, didn’t you have any intention of raising a house?”
“I’m still thinking of moving because of Eve’s studies.  I was hoping you’d come once before, and I’m glad you did.  haha.”
Bund went into the kitchen and started making a rattling noise.  Eve sat down in her place and quietly read a book. Everything was the same as before but there was no Nathaniel, only the season was autumn.
“But I didn’t know you’d come alone. I wonder if it was okay for you to come because the mountain was a bit rugged…….”
“But it wasn’t that hard to come here once.”
“That’s a relief. But I…….”
Bund’s face darkened slightly.  Kyrie casually picked up the teacup that was set out in front of her.
“Are you talking about Nathaniel?”
“Yes. Whatever happened……”
After thinking for a while, Kyrie whispered awkwardly.
“He passed away.”
Bund dropped his glass. Eve, startled by the sound, raised her head, then tilted her head with a blank face.
“Farewell? Star? Handsome brother?”
At Eve’s innocent question, Kyrie smiled tiredly after a long time.
“Yes. He became a star.”
Eve laughed.
“It fits so well……”
“so.”
Kyrie stroked Eve’s hair.  Eve rubbed her head in her hands and smiled again.
“The eyes of my sister……twinkled, twinkled.  I thought she was a star.”
Kyrie’s hand stopped.
Then Bund said to Eve with a benevolent and anxious smile.
“Eve. Can you come in for a second?  I want your sister to use Eve’s bed today, and I think Dad would be very grateful if our Eve spread the mattress.”
“Yes!”
Eve entered the room without a sound.
Inside the cozy hut, silence enveloped the surroundings.  With a puzzled look on his face, Bund picked up a wooden cup that had fallen under the table and fiddled with it. His expression was miserable.
“How come……There’s a reason he looked so sad when he came alone……”
This time, it was Kyrie’s turn to surprise.
“Did Nathaniel come to see you?”
“Yes……It’s probably what you predicted. He told me not to tell you, but……”
“……What did he do?”
“Drank tea and left.”
“Tea?”
Bund nodded his head.
“He said that I and Miss Rie look alike. Very little….Of course, he also told me that comparing me to Miss Rie.”
“……You did a great job listening.”
“And we talked about my wife who passed away.”
Kyrie stopped. She didn’t ask because there was no one to become a wife or a mother in a house with children, but it seems that it was a bereavement.
Bund closed his eyes tightly. His thick tears flowed.
“At that time I thought, what if I miss her but I can’t see her?…. I just thought there was a problem, but how could I…….”
Kyrie was a little confused.  For some reason, her ears seemed to ring.  It felt like something sunk in her chest, not just her ears, were ringing anxiously.
“…..bund.  it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, you must have a harder time than me….”
“No. It’s not like that. The seawater just poured in.”
“Miss Rie…!”
Bund began to weep more.
Kyrie sat blankly in her chair, not even thinking to appease his cry.
Suddenly, the mouth opened naturally.
“My wife happened like that……Didn’t you think of meeting someone else?”
Bund shook his chest.  He had a very terrifying look on his face, trying to hold back his tears.
“I tried, I tried, I tried……”
“Then?”
Even though it was a very stupid question, Bund did not rebuke Kyrie.  Rather, looking at Kyrie’s increasingly dazed face, he only cried louder and louder.
“I couldn’t. How can she be replaced?”
“……No?”
“It’s not possible.”
“Is it really not possible?”
Bund’s wet eyes filled Kyrie’s eyes.
“Can’t you?”
Kyrie fiddled with the teacup.  She now had no idea what she was talking about.  It was as if something other than her brain was speaking instead.  For example, the heart on the inside of the ribs.
“When so much time passes, when someone else appears, when you get drunk on the pleasures of the world…. You might be able to forget it.”
Bund’s face contorted.His overwhelming sadness and sympathy passed by. She looked at him and said once more.
“It could be. Right?”
“Miss Rie, I know I have to say.”
“……”
“But, I don’t know, if you…..”
“I’m fine. Tell me what you think.”
After Bund took a deep breath, he ran his hands across his head from the front. He looked tough.
“……No.  Impossible. There is only one such person in the world.”
“You may find more if you look.”
“No. There is not. My form of love has already been tailored to my wife.”
“Nothing doesn’t change.”
Kyrie said firmly.  These were the words Nathaniel once said and Kyrie denied.
Bund shook her head.
“Everything that is bought changes.  Only death promises immutability……Death takes us to the very edge of our hearts.  We can’t get it back, and my wife took all my heart.”
“No.”