Guiding the Male Lead out of His Trauma - Chapter 16.2
Even after the carriage had been traveling for quite some time, not a single word was exchanged.
It wasn’t until we were about halfway down the main road of the Central District that Cassiel finally managed to open his mouth.
“…You were right.”
He cleanly admitted that he had been the one to treat me unfairly.
“Well, I don’t really remember what I said.”
“It’s true. I used my own wounds as an excuse not to see anything else.”
His vivid violet eyes wandered aimlessly, like a lost child.
He knew he needed to apologize, but maybe because he didn’t know how, he was rambling.
“If Lai had seen me like that… she probably would’ve grabbed me by the hair and demanded to know what I thought I was doing.”
He probably hadn’t realized that on his own.
‘That must’ve been something Acteon said.’
There was no way I didn’t know who Lai was. It was Claire, Cassiel’s deceased twin.
A family member who had been with him since birth, like another half of himself.
Having lost someone like that, it was only natural he wouldn’t be able to get a grip on his emotions and would lash out at those around him like a hedgehog.
Especially since even the Duke probably only lamented the loss of an S-Class Transcendent, and didn’t really care what state Cassiel was in.
‘Still, just because I hear out his circumstances doesn’t mean I need to let things slide.’
As I waited indifferently for whatever excuse he would offer, Cassiel spoke.
“Who knows, maybe you met her once.”
He thought I’d met Claire Brondearn?
Thinking about it…
‘It’s possible.’
At the beginning of school, I’d been so busy adjusting to a new environment that I hadn’t paid much attention to my surroundings. Maybe we’d brushed past each other then.
After saying even the deceased Claire would find his current self pathetic, Cassiel went silent for a while, as if gauging my reaction to his confession.
Not able to stand the silence any longer, I prompted him to get to the point.
“So, is it really that hard to just say you’re sorry? The preamble’s a bit long, don’t you think?”
“…That’s…”
“I’m not interested in trading every detail about our circumstances. The only reason I got in this carriage with you was because I thought you were going to apologize to me.”
Whatever happened with Claire, it didn’t excuse what Cassiel had done earlier.
He was clearly struggling to just offer a brief, simple apology, instead of circling around the subject.
‘How frustrating.’
At this rate, he’d go on about Claire until we arrived.
If he’d called me over to apologize, he should just say he’s sorry, sincerely, and leave it at that. No need for all this baggage.
I stopped myself from clicking my tongue.
“Sorry…”
Realizing I’d seen right through him, Cassiel hesitated for a long moment before, with difficulty, he managed to speak.
“…I’m sorry.”
“You do know what you’re apologizing for, right?”
“For jumping to conclusions, and… for looking down on you just because you’re B-Class…”
I hadn’t expected him to actually realize it properly, but he was surprisingly quick to self-reflect.
“Well, fine.”
He’d be returning to school soon, and I didn’t want any pointless trouble there.
I still wasn’t completely over it, but for the sake of the future, I decided to accept it.
“But you really ought to be careful about talking so harshly. I’m used to it, so I can let it go, but other people might not.”
At the mention of Prince Isadore, Cassiel’s face turned pale.
“I should probably apologize to him too, for making such a fool of myself in front of him…”
“Yeah, do that.”
Now that I’d received my apology—
“I am curious what kind of person she was, I must admit.”
I decided to probe a bit more about Claire Brondearn.
To be precise, about her Guide, Aren.
‘It was a name Acteon mentioned without thinking. There’s probably at least a slight connection to his trauma.’
Perhaps surprised by my interest, Cassiel looked genuinely taken aback.
But he didn’t ignore my curiosity. Instead, as if ashamed of his earlier pettiness, his pale face flushed bright red.
“Lai not only awakened early… but she was also one of the very few S-Classes. She was a genius, honestly.”
At Estra Military Academy, if a promising talent appeared, they would be made to graduate early and be drafted immediately.
For the Awakened, attending the academy was mandatory, under royal supervision.
But because that power was so coveted, the system was such that they’d be enrolled formally, only to graduate almost right away.
That was how the newly Awakened, barely twenty-year-olds, would be sent to the front.
Cassiel’s twin, Claire Brondearn, was one of them.
“After she started going to war, she was always in pain every time she came home. She suffered from hallucinations and delusions… and couldn’t sleep properly, wandering the halls at night.”
What happens when someone who’s never killed before is forced to take lives just because they have power?
‘Even seasoned soldiers suffer, so how could a civilian, barely trained except for combat, withstand it?’
Cassiel himself probably hadn’t experienced it, but he shuddered at the very custom.
“S-Classes are monsters. With a single gesture, their mana can explode and kill dozens at once, and the more that happens, the more numb to death they become.”
Listening to Cassiel, I finally understood what Claire had suffered from.
“But just because you have monstrous power doesn’t mean you have a monster’s mind. That’s something even guiding can’t fix.”
She had ended her own life, but it was never really by her own hand.
Post-traumatic stress disorder. What people usually call PTSD.
That was what killed Cassiel’s twin.
Claire Brondearn.
That child had been killed by the very people who sent her to war.
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