A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 28

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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 28.
‘Pick the right ball?’
What on earth was the right ball?
What standard determined which ball was correct?
Carolyn, bewildered, couldn’t find anywhere to look as the balls spun before her eyes in a dizzying display.
Then numbers began to appear in her vision.
[5]
“Huh?”
[4]
“W-wait, hold on…….”
[3]
[2]
‘This is driving me insane!’
[1]
By the time even the counter itself vanished, Carolyn had fallen into complete despair.
‘What is this…….’
And the clown stopped juggling.
So smoothly, so naturally, like water flowing downstream.
The man, who held three balls between the fingers of each hand with no difficulty at all, raised both arms and gazed at Carolyn in a gesture of surrender.
He shook his hands playfully at her, as if mocking her.
‘Ah, so that was it.’
It seemed she hadn’t missed the moment to choose the ball after all.
Numbers one through six.
She had to pick one of the balls held in the man’s hands.
‘Should I pick the one that looks heaviest?’
She wasn’t even sure that was the right criterion.
The problem was that she couldn’t tell where the ball Aiden had acted as if it were the heaviest was now.
‘Besides, that was just an act anyway.’
“…….”
As Carolyn hesitated and wasted time, the clown’s expression turned cold.
With a clearly irritated look, he rolled his eyes dramatically and began making the sound of a ticking clock with his mouth.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
And the sound grew faster and faster.
“I got it, I’ll choose…….”
And so the ball Carolyn picked, biting the bullet through tears, was—
[Failure!]
A dud, as expected.
Aiden shook his head with a pitying expression.
“…….”
The short performance was over.
“I still enjoyed the juggling, though.”
The clown, shrugging at Carolyn’s failure, folded his fingers one by one.
As he did, the balls in his hands vanished one by one into some unknowable place. There was no way to guess where they went.
‘How much has he practiced magic?’
Then he pointed both hands at Carolyn’s hat and his own head.
‘He wants me to put it on him.’
Carolyn obligingly placed the hat on his head.
It seemed rather clumsy, for the clown rolled his eyes upward at the hat and adjusted it himself with his own hands, settling it properly in place.
And just as he’d greeted them before, he bowed deeply and elaborately for the closing salute.
At that moment.
Clatter!
The hat fell off, and the red balls that had been inside it tumbled across the floor with a rolling scatter.
“Wow!”
Carolyn gasped in genuine amazement, covering her mouth.
Making the balls vanish was impressive enough, but when had he put them in there?
“……!”
The clown wore a shocked expression—though this was clearly intentional.
Aiden opened his eyes and mouth wide, scrambled to pick up the hat and balls with flustered urgency, and then dashed off with an absurdly exaggerated run.
It was an ending she’d seen before in a play.
“Goodbye!”
Carolyn applauded until Aiden disappeared into the darkness, vanishing from sight.
Just as the audience had done for the events that unfolded at the Campbell Cruise.
‘I feel like I just watched a play all my own.’
It truly had been a magnificent performance—as if Aiden were a genuine clown.
‘But…….’
What on earth was that mission he’d been given?
* * *
Aiden, who had vanished with the measured gait of a proper clown, reappeared at the dinner table in fresh clothes.
A striped shirt, cotton trousers, and hair unmarred by any hat line—he looked exactly as he always did.
“What have you been doing since tea time, Aiden?” Carolyn asked casually.
His answer, predictably, came without hesitation.
“I took a brief nap. I exerted myself somewhat today, and even after the rest, I find myself a touch fatigued.”
‘That’s not quite it at all.’
Aiden remained blissfully unaware.
He hadn’t taken a nap—he’d been performing a role.
‘He simply has no memory of it. That’s why he believes he was sleeping.’
He thought he’d dozed off, but in that time he’d changed clothes, performed as a clown, and staged an entire show.
Exhaustion was hardly surprising.
“Then let us dine,” he said.
As the meal was about to commence and Carolyn pondered what question she might ask over dinner, the sound of footsteps echoed into the Dining Hall.
‘?’
This hadn’t happened before.
A servant carrying an enormous box walked briskly toward Aiden’s seat.
“Master, the items you had me organize.”
“Ah, yes.”
Aiden set down his fork, as if remembering something he’d forgotten.
He lifted the lid of the great box—nearly as tall as Carolyn’s torso—and peered briefly at its contents. Raising his hand as if to gesture, he stopped himself upon catching sight of Carolyn before him.
“Ah, Miss Carolyn.”
“Yes?”
“The Estate contains rather a great many things, and I’ve been undertaking an inventory. Might you care to examine it? Should anything catch your interest, please do take it.”
At his words, the servant approached her and presented the box.
Even through the slightly open gap, the light caught brilliantly.
Though the Estate’s expensive and refined furnishings were being catalogued, nothing within appeared particularly suited to Carolyn’s tastes. Just as she was about to politely decline—
‘Wait.’
Carolyn noticed a bag moving naturally within her peripheral vision.
‘What’s this?’
Surely it didn’t mean the box itself could fit inside the bag.
It must mean that something inside the box could fit within it.
‘What could it be?’
The bag didn’t accept just anything—like her string, it responded only to objects that might genuinely aid her.
She’d already attempted to place an ordinary pen and notebook inside, only to fail.
“Does something interest you?” Aiden asked again.
Carolyn quickly nodded.
“……Yes. Must I examine it now?”
“No, please enjoy your meal. I’ll have it brought to your room.”
Aiden gestured, and the servant bowed before walking out of the Dining Hall.
Carolyn was intensely curious about what lay inside the box, but she focused on her meal.
The problem, however, was that she’d already used two of her questions. She was contemplating how best to spend her final opportunity.
“The Estate needs organizing, so I’ve been clearing out items from rooms no longer in use.”
“People usually do that in spring, yet you’re doing it in summer.”
“In truth, when Mother was alive, I couldn’t bring myself to organize. She had such deep attachment to the things in this Estate. But now, at last, I can manage it.”
Though Aiden spoke as if it were nothing, whenever Michelle Belota Dearbell’s name arose, Carolyn’s expression grew solemn.
Even if both she and her son were merely game roles, it felt wrong to treat their story lightly.
“I see. Once organized, the Estate will be much tidier.”
“Yes, and I think my own heart will feel somewhat more at peace.”
“Has the sheer volume of things been troubling you?”
His sudden decision to organize the Estate must have had some reason behind it.
‘Could it be connected to what Aiden is feeling?’
Carolyn used her final question.
“Well, to be precise……I believe I’m experiencing things I find quite difficult to understand.”
“What…….”
“As though the Estate were draining the very life from me, I found myself in a prolonged period of such physical exhaustion. That’s when I decided to retire. It felt as if my own body were doing things I couldn’t even comprehend.”
“…….”
Carolyn couldn’t find her words.
The Estate draining his vitality like that. The relentless fatigue.
And the weariness.
Wasn’t it because he never slept properly, performing his character roles without a moment’s rest?
‘He thought he’d taken a nap, but he became the clown Aiden instead.’
And on that rainy night, past midnight, Aiden had been outside in the role of James. Even after Carolyn retreated to her room, he might have continued performing.
‘He’s getting no actual sleep.’
So he’d sensed something amiss in himself, resolved to retire, and had now begun clearing out the Estate.
But the real cause lay elsewhere.
“I’m rambling on with needless talk. In any case, that’s why I felt the need to organize the Estate.”
‘Yet it’s almost as though…….’
A chill crept up the back of Carolyn’s neck.
The letters she’d seen today flickered through her mind.
That multiple letters had arrived at once meant he’d sent multiple letters at once. And judging from the contents of the replies, it seemed he’d reminisced about the past and apologized in those letters.
‘Suddenly settling the past,’
and then he’d begun systematically sorting through the Estate’s possessions, one by one.
‘Organizing his belongings and distributing them among people. This is almost like…….’
like someone preparing for death.

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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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