If you don't love me, I will die. - Chapter 74

The scene shimmered like a dream.

I gazed absently at the waves of colors dancing before my eyes, slowly drifting along with the flow of consciousness.

My earliest memory was of arriving in this world.

I saw myself inhabiting Edward’s body, clueless and immature.
The body still retained a youthful appearance.
I chuckled softly at the difference from the dark-circled appearance I now had.

Only now could I laugh about it, but how bewildered I must have been back then.

Then, the next memory came to me.

Ania.
Ania Brontë.

It was the memory of our first encounter at the Brontë Manor.

Ania wasn’t much different from now, but she looked younger in my memory.
I could see myself, too.
I was shyly smiling.

It was amusing.
I thought I hid it well, but did I have that expression from the beginning?

Perhaps I fell in love with her from the moment we first met.

Memories of our marriage, the harvest festival at the Brontë estate…
Then, the sad memories quickly passed by.

My memories, alternating between shining golden light and pitch-black darkness like the sun, returned to the memory of the day I reunited with Ania.

We were tormented but happy.
We wanted to meet again but thought we shouldn’t.

The troubling times we went through passed by.

Me saying harsh words to Ania.
Ania struggling to correct misunderstandings to restore my broken trust.

Seeing her made my heart ache as if it would burst.

I felt I could never atone for whatever forgiveness I sought.

Only after I knew did everything become clear.

I saw the courage in her, carrying a heart on the verge of breaking as she came to find me.

Her outer beauty, which I used to only regard her for, faded away, revealing only her strong and upright heart.

Then, a sudden question arose:
What happened in the original?

These events occurred because I intervened in this world.

Why did Ania reject Edward?
Why didn’t she love him?

As I pondered these questions, my consciousness floated and drifted through memories.

Ania falling from the window.
Their date.
Shooting stars falling from the sky…

Simultaneously, I was transported back to a dark sky where shooting stars rained down into a distant past.

Ania stood right beside me.
A ten-year-old girl.

Even in her sparkling eyes, shooting stars fell.

“Edward.”

Ania spoke.

“Don’t leave, okay?”

I realized that the sparkling eyes I saw were teary.
As she looked at me, a single tear fell from her eyes, like morning dew on a window.

I tried to speak, but words failed me.

“I can’t, Ania.”
“Why?”
“Because of my father’s will.”

My father’s will.
I contemplated the meaning of those words.

Brontë and Radner were business partners in the past, but they eventually went their separate ways.

So, Edward, who had been living on Brontë land following William Radner, had to return to the Radner estate.

Although it was just a half-day journey by carriage, it must have felt distant to the young couple.

“Let’s live here together.”

Edward chuckled at Ania’s words.

“Really?”
“Yeah.”

Though her eyes were moist, Edward turned away with a bitter smile.

“How nice it would be if I could.”

Edward was a scion of a noble family, portrayed as if he was drawn in a painting.

A child who had never rebelled in his life.

Resisting his father’s will was unthinkable in Edward’s world.

“That’s fine. You can just ignore it.”
“He will make sure I return.”
“Then I will make sure he will not.”

I chuckled inwardly.

Even in her childhood, Ania remained the same.
She was a strong child who could unfold her own will without being bound by the world.

“Shooting stars.”

Edward pointed to the sky then.
One by one, stars began to fall like pouring rain.

Ania also looked up at the distant sky.
They leaned against each other on a small bench, gazing endlessly at the sky.
Staying close as if they were striving to remember the warmth they would never feel again.

But time passes.
It changes everything.
Like the falling stars, their end was an inevitable event.

“I don’t want to part.”

Ania, looking at the falling stars, burst into tears and buried her head in Edward’s chest.
Edward silently held her head in his arms, stroking her golden hair.

“We’ll meet again.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah.”

I heard Edward’s inner thoughts.
As his mother had said before she passed away, if you wish earnestly, anything can come true.
Edward believed so.

At that time, Edward didn’t know.
How many trials would try to tear them apart,
And whether they would overcome them and reaffirm their love.

Edward took a deep breath and forced a smile.

“Ania. How about… this?”
“Yeah?”

Ania, her face a mess from tears, asked.

“I promise…”

Promise.

Upon hearing that word, my consciousness swirled.

What could it have been?
The promise that the two of them made that I can’t remember.

“What promise?”
“That we’ll meet again someday.”
“Someday?”
“Yeah.”

We’ll meet again someday.
This might not be the entire promise.

I listened intently again.

“When we become adults. Let’s meet again when we can be independent from our families.”
“Adults!”

Ania laughed brightly.

“How long do we have to wait to become adults?”
“You’re ten, and I’m twelve… so, ten years.”
“Ten years?”

Ten years was a long time.
It would feel long to adults.
But for Ania, who was only ten, it was overwhelming.

Ania started crying again.

“It’s too long.”
“It’s okay. We could meet before the ten years pass.”

It was true.

In the aristocratic society, a world intertwined like a spider’s web, no law said the son of a viscount and the daughter of a duke couldn’t meet.
They could meet at social events or gatherings in the capital.

But…

They didn’t meet.
The next time they would meet was at the Duke Bronte’s estate ten years later.

Was there a reason for it?
Or was it just a coincidence?

“Really?”
“Yeah. Let’s promise every time we meet. Let’s promise to meet again when we become adults.”

Edward swallowed hard.

The 12-year-old boy’s heartbeat incessantly,
His cheeks turned red,
And his lips twisted slightly.

“And…”

Edward held Ania’s shoulders.

“Let’s get married.”

The boy’s flushed cheeks caught Ania’s eye.
And instinctively, she could feel hers do the same.

Their promise.
The promise that Ania had so desperately hoped to remember was their marriage.

Finally, the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together.

Ania’s sudden proposal of marriage to Edward, whom she hadn’t been around much.

It wasn’t sudden at all.

Indeed, she was trying to keep her promise to Edward just before turning twenty.

But Edward had completely forgotten about that promise.

No, maybe he hadn’t forgotten.

It’s just that the man who made the promise had disappeared from this world, and I had filled that void.

At that moment, my heart sank as if it dropped.
The dreadful fact that the person Ania loved wasn’t me came back to me once again.

“Marriage…”
“Let’s get married, for sure.”
“Okay!”

Ania laughed brightly.

“We’ll have the wedding in a beautiful garden. A garden full of golden flowers.”
“Just imagining it is wonderful.”
“It’s a promise.”
“For sure.”

My consciousness began to drift away from Edward.

The young Edward, twelve, and Ania, ten, gradually drifted apart, and the world became blurry.

The end of my memories was reached there.
And my consciousness began to return to reality as if being pulled up from deep slumber.

As my hazy mind began to return…

Something particularly dark loomed in the distance more than any other memory.

Hovering like a black sphere, it rapidly rose with my consciousness.

I reached out my hand towards that memory.

Suddenly, darkness began to flood in.

“Even if you kill me, I’ll love you forever.”

Edward’s voice.
It sounded like a dying declaration.

“But still, I won’t love you.”

And a woman’s voice.

It was hard to recognize because it was completely different from her usual tone, but I instinctively knew who it was.

‘Why…’

That was a line from the original script.

Why was it in my memory?