A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 101

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 101.
Of course, since the one who’d performed the act said so, it had to be true.
‘I can’t believe it.’
Caroline compared the pitiful mechanical android before her eyes with the Ifros from their earlier conversation. Could those innocent eyes truly be hiding such intentions?
The one who did everything Isaha asked, who’d learned Aiden’s secret and then obediently stood watch on the stairs when she told him to? The one who came running like a young animal whenever she offered him the simplest touch, happily basking in it?
‘I should be careful.’
“…Who are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The person you want to meet after putting me to sleep.”
She recalled the day she’d found his diary, when he’d stumbled into her trap.
Resentment and jealousy had surfaced on his doll-like face, and the atmosphere had grown so cold that it tensed her for a moment.
‘But it all passed the moment I did what he asked.’
Thinking back on that, there seemed to be no real need for extreme caution. She’d gather what she could learn while staying by his side, and if she sensed suspicion rising, she’d simply go along with whatever Ifros wanted.
Having made up her mind, Caroline took the hand he extended toward her.
“…Where exactly is this hideout?”
Ifros led her out of the mansion while holding her hand. They passed servants on the first floor and in the garden, but they all vanished quickly into unseen corners with apologies for interrupting the scene.
“We’ll be there soon. But before that—could we take a walk together? It feels like it’s been so long since we’ve had time alone like this.”
“…All right.”
She’d planned to walk with Ifros and glean some hints about where his key was hidden.
Caroline matched her pace to his, hand in hand, as they passed through the garden toward the lakeside behind the mansion.
“Didn’t Isaha want to see me?”
“You saw me yesterday and the day before. You’ll see me tomorrow too. We’re never apart—what more could you want to see?”
While adopting Isaha’s blunt manner of speech, she left no room for his worry. At her words, Ifros smiled with evident pleasure, his cheeks flushing.
“That’s right.”
The lakeside where they walked was profoundly quiet and cool. The wind, grown slightly fiercer with the onset of night, brushed past them both.
Ifros’s brilliant caramel-colored hair fell in disarray, like a puppy’s fur after a bath. At the same moment, his shirt collar turned inward, and Caroline stopped in her tracks.
“Lower your head.”
Beside them came the sound of water lapping against stone. Two figures, clinging to each other like lovers, were reflected on the dark surface of the lake.
Ifros tilted his full crown of hair toward Caroline, and she combed through it with delicate fingers.
She moved the strands to one side, loosened the tangles, and gently teased out his entire head of hair until he returned to his normal appearance from his disheveled state.
“…It feels good when you touch me. I wish it would become Wednesday soon.”
“Now lift your head.”
The hair was done, so now she meant to flip over the collar that had folded inward.
The moment Caroline grasped his collar, she discovered a silver cord hidden beneath it. She understood at once, instinctively.
‘A key.’
After straightening his collar, Caroline grasped the cord around his neck and pulled to draw it out from his shirt. Or rather, she tried to.
If only Ifros hadn’t seized her hand.
Her heart seemed to drop. Ifros stared at her with an emotionless face. Gone were the coquettish gleam in his eyes from moments ago, the happy smile.
“…What is this?”
“I don’t know either. Something I found at the hideout. Does Isaha know about it?”
Caroline’s hand twitched, but Ifros remained unmoved. He covered her hand, almost engulfing it, preventing her from pulling the key free.
“Go ahead and take it out. It’s been inside my body all this time—I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“You seemed to recognize it the moment you saw the cord.”
“I didn’t know you wore jewelry like this.”
“I’ve been wearing it for quite a while now, but it seems you’ve never paid attention.”
Ifros’s expression grew rather melancholy, and he lowered his head. Yet his hand gripping Caroline remained firm.
“I’m interested in your face, not in what you’re wearing.”
“I see. Isaha loves my body, after all.”
Ifros answered calmly to her attempt at damage control. Caroline squeezed her eyes shut. It was like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, but denying it here wouldn’t be like Isaha.
“…Just take it out for now. I won’t touch you.”
“Really?”
“I’ll let go, so you just take it off and show me.”
“All right.”
Ifros, still wearing a somewhat cool expression, released his hand with a look of surprise.
‘He really does know he’s a machine.’
He’d only pressed down hard—she couldn’t move her hand away—yet red marks already bloomed across her skin. As Caroline rubbed her hand to restore circulation, Ifros drew the silver cord from around his neck and lifted it away.
A key with a yellow flower-shaped jewel embedded in it emerged from his chest.
!
Caroline’s eyes widened, and the sensitive mechanical android didn’t miss the expression.
“That’s the look of someone who recognizes the object.”
“…….”
“What is that? What are you asking about?”
Caroline’s mouth fell open.
What could she possibly say? She couldn’t tell him it was the key to a diary you’d written. Ifros didn’t keep a diary.
But if she said it belonged to someone else, he would be consumed with jealousy. Who was this person you wanted to open it for? Who mattered enough that you’d want to read their diary?
“……Treating me like a fool again. You won’t tell me, will you.”
Ifros’s face darkened with resentment and resignation. Isaha had always treated him as nothing more than a machine for physical labor, a body without a mind—and she rarely shared anything important with him.
Because Caroline had hated that side of Isaha in the game, she rushed to deny it.
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it? Tell me. Whose is it, and why do you need it? It seems important—but why?”
Ifros knew how to read human expressions.
Even though he’d been born a machine, Silvia had trained him in the social psychology of human behavior—how to function like a person. He’d just read it on Caroline’s face, the moment she recognized something she knew. Clumsy lies would be useless now.
She decided to be honest instead.
“I need to open it.”
Caroline pulled a diary with a yellow velvet cover from her bag.
“I thought that key might be what opens this book. I wanted to check.”
“Whose diary is that?”
“…….”
Her breath caught.
Aiden’s. How could she possibly explain who Aiden was to Ifros?
“Is it someone Isaha cares for?”
Of course.
Someone she loved beyond merely caring—someone she would stake her own life for, someone whose existence drove her into the game itself.
Caroline should have denied it immediately, but her mind had already admitted the truth.
“Someone she loves. I recognize that look in your eyes.”
And terribly, Ifros read her expression.
“……No.”
“That’s not the way you look at me. Who is that person, really?”
“Ifros. Wait.”
Caroline felt the back of her neck grow cold. The red triangle didn’t appear, but she sensed danger—her instincts screaming it.
The fine hairs on her arms rose.
“Someone you know? Someone you’ve seen before?”
Ifros’s words came faster now. His eyes widened, his lips curled upward—like a doll cursed and grinning. His voice accelerated with each question, each word sharper than the last.
He began backing away, step by step, his elegant fingers holding a key that gleamed pale yellow.
A silver chain swayed in the breeze. Something about the sight unsettled her; Caroline felt panic rising.
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You don’t intend to, you mean.”
“No!”
“Someone you love that I don’t know? A man?”
In that silence—in the space where she didn’t answer—Caroline felt as though lightning had struck. Ifros had finally read her expression completely.
By talking with him, walking beside him, while thinking of another, she had confessed it.
That she loved that person deeply. That he was a man.
She understood, in that moment, that she had committed an irredeemable wound. And at the same moment, Ifros smiled brilliantly.
“You can’t, Isaha. You should forget that person.”
Then he threw the key backward.
Into the dark, fathomless depths of the lake.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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