A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 23

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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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Episode 23.
Carolyn decided to enter Michelle Belotta Deerbell’s room during the less-watched hours of the night.
Wondering where today’s tea time might be held, Carolyn found herself drawn toward the Maze like someone under a spell, consumed by nothing but curiosity about what this place could possibly be.
Then an unfamiliar sound reached her ears.
“?”
A jingling bell sound.
No—a bell ring, rather.
In the moment Carolyn glanced around, the iron gates of the Mansion swung open, and a swift bicycle rolled through the gap.
A bicycle with a cream-colored basket mounted behind.
Its rider—wearing a red and white postal cap, the mark of the post office—dismounted quickly and nimbly.
‘That’s it!’
“Where is the restroom?”
The postman appeared to have had quite an exhausting time.
He seized the approaching servant and asked urgently; the servant, smiling in that peculiar way of theirs, escorted him off.
And so near the sprawling Garden, only Carolyn and……
the bicycle with its basket remained.
‘This is perfect timing!’
[Second. Letters are the only means of communication available to you. They are also your channel for receiving useful information. The servants review all letters arriving at the Mansion, and during this process, letters that might prove helpful are typically discarded. Wait for the postman’s visit and retrieve your letter then.]
Carolyn glanced around, then hurried toward the bicycle.
And opened the basket.
‘There should be a letter from Anna in here.’
Several days had already passed.
Even accounting for the time it took for two letters sent to different places to return, enough time had elapsed.
Carolyn searched the basket with great anticipation.
“Oh!”
She quickly found an envelope with “For Carolyn” written on it.
Puzzled by its bulk, she opened it.
“Wow, what is this?”
A fluffy red yarn ball lay inside.
Perfectly round.
Carolyn opened Anna’s letter right there and read it.
[Hi, Carolyn. How are you? I thought you’d be visiting your parents’ place, but I was surprised to hear you got invited to your favorite actress’s Mansion. Still, I’m glad you’re having a good time.
Actually, I didn’t go to my parents’ place either, and I didn’t go on any trip. I was going to tell you once things became certain, but I missed my chance before break ended—I got a boyfriend!
I met him in an accounting liberal arts class, and time just passed somehow until he confessed on the first day of summer break. We’re attending summer session classes together and going on dates when our schedules match. A few days ago we went to the Plaza, and since I was thinking of you, I bought this red yarn ball to send along. I hope it reaches you safely.
And I want to tell you this too! Every time I have lunch with my boyfriend, he talks about things he learned in his Psychology major classes.
You know how even though I’m a complete novice, it’s so interesting? I can’t major in Psychology, and I wanted to take even a liberal arts course, but registration already closed. I was feeling disappointed about it when his faculty advisor opens short special lectures every Friday afternoon—can you believe it?
Turns out there were others as interested as me. He covers all kinds of topics spanning psychiatry and Psychology, they say. It won’t be extremely technical content, which is actually what I prefer.
Since I’ll be staying there for a month, I’ll send my next letters to that address! If things change, let me know. I’ll be at school until the end of break anyway. So I’m waiting for your reply!
+P.S. Oh, right. Don’t be too sad that I got a boyfriend! You’re still my number one, most precious friend.
Your best friend, Anna Blanche, sending you kisses!]
“A boyfriend!”
I wish I could have met him and congratulated him in person, heard the whole story right beside her.
Setting aside her regret, Carolyn reached into the envelope and lifted out the yarn ball.
“I’m really glad I saw this now.”
Since this Mansion only dealt with letters, anything else would surely have been confiscated.
With that thought, she tried putting it in her pocket, but it was quite bulky and didn’t seem to fit anywhere.
That was when—
“Hm?”
Carolyn noticed her Bag in the corner of her vision moving, as though beckoning her attention.
Once she held the yarn ball, what normally sat in the far right corner had nearly doubled in size.
She hesitantly reached her hand toward the Bag.
“Oh!”
The yarn ball vanished.
And when she touched the Bag, which had quietly shrunk back to its original size, she could see what was inside it.
The scene visible looking down into the open Bag’s interior appeared before her eyes.
“This is completely amazing.”
With that thought, Carolyn began to gather up the letter, then stopped.
She felt an impulse to look through the other letters as well.
“Maybe I can find a clue?”
With that thought, when she opened the basket, Carolyn realized her hunch was right.
In this Mansion, only she and Aiden would receive letters.
And the remaining five or six letters inside were all addressed to Aiden.
Carolyn clutched them in her hand and hurried away to the inner Garden near the Maze, where the Mansion couldn’t see her.
‘I feel like I’m stealing.’
It was just a game anyway, and Aiden had no sense of self, so it was unclear whether he even had a private life to speak of.
She felt both the anxiety of being caught and the guilt of prying into someone else’s things.
‘Maybe it’s because it really is stealing.’
Carolyn tilted her head in confusion and crouched behind a large stone statue.
The senders of the envelopes addressed to Aiden were names she recognized.
“Actors and a director?”
Actors who had performed in various plays with Aiden, and their directors.
Suppressing the awkward feeling of peeking into someone else’s relationships, Carolyn opened the first letter.
[To Aiden.
I received your letter. So retirement is real, you’re really giving up acting. If you reflected on our time together in that play to that extent, you’re not doing any more acting, are you? That’s truly a shame.
You said you were sorry for being so absorbed in Will, for sometimes appearing too bright and sometimes too sinister, like someone with bipolar disorder… but I thought it was wonderful. Where else would you find someone who could immerse themselves in acting that way?
You’re a rare talent, so I hope you’ll come back soon. Because thanks to you and your character-like nature even in daily life, I could also focus on my counterpart role. I’ll be waiting.]
This appeared to be a reply to a letter Aiden had sent first.
‘It seems like it was an apology.’
A letter sent to his former co-star as he reflected on his own behavior before retirement.
And during his acting career, it seemed he had behaved like his character even in his everyday life.
‘He must have thought it crossed a line.’
Carolyn thought this and opened the next letter.
[To Aiden Deerbell.
Do you still play Chess these days?
What I taught you is nearing ten years now. Since you didn’t have any particular hobbies, I wanted to teach you something, but it seems you’re still as busy then as now, which worries me.
I noticed that your attitude toward acting was somewhat different from others. And that attitude made you an actor different from the rest. But it didn’t seem like passion you’d forged by your own will, so it weighed on my mind.
There are many people who make a living without acting as brilliantly as you do. Even I, speaking off the cuff in a way that matched my age at the time, still get by.
You’re capable of walking this path without grinding your daily life into your character roles. And… I don’t intend to ask you to come back to this path. What I really want to say is that I hope you continue living your life without being constrained by the element of acting.
P.S. I’m sorry about your mother. But I hope you find freedom.]
“Hmm.”
Carolyn rubbed her brow.
‘Aiden’s passion for acting wasn’t voluntary?’
What did that mean?
Could it be related to the way he practiced acting without even knowing it himself?
‘Not grinding your daily life into your character roles… that sounds similar to the first letter.’
And what did that last line mean?
That he hoped Aiden would continue living his life without being constrained by the element of acting.
‘Did Aiden know he was going to die soon?’
If acting was the cause of Aiden’s death, why would he have quit and retired?
How could he be suffering from acting even after he’d retired?
It was at that very moment, as Carolyn pressed her forehead and brooded over this, that—
“What are you doing here?”
Carolyn was so startled she bit her tongue.

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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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