A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 44

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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 44.
Carolyn could form a hypothesis.
Four rooms, four colors.
Each room would be assigned a character.
Just as there were rooms based on stage sets, those rooms would serve as places where the corresponding characters slept or rested.
‘And the notebooks would be yellow, green, and blue.’
The blue one would belong to Friedmann.
‘It’s not certain, but… couldn’t the yellow one be Ipros?’
Carolyn scribbled her thoughts in the margins of her notebook.
By visiting the room that mimicked the set of the play where each character appeared and finding the notebook, she could determine the color assigned to that character.
But then……
‘So where is Aiden’s room?’
Carolyn bit her lip.
In a mansion, the master’s room was always kept in a place no one could easily reach.
It had to remain undisturbed.
But could it really be hidden so thoroughly?
“You needn’t worry. It’s not as though you’d ever have reason to wander there by accident.”
By accident—there was no chance of that.
‘He’s hidden it so I can’t find it.’
Not only was it concealed, but she could tell that entering that room would be difficult.
‘That’s why I couldn’t find Aiden.’
Carolyn closed her notebook.
Aiden Dearbell had vanished on the third floor.
He had surely headed to his room, and there must be a passage on the third floor leading to it.
‘I’ll have to go back and look.’
She waited, eating the refreshments the servant had brought and left behind.
Carolyn waited for the clock to strike twelve.
* * *
“Well then, sleep well, Carolyn Augustine.”
“Yes, see you tomorrow!”
After hurrying out her reply, Carolyn rose from her seat.
After waiting a little longer.
She stepped into the darkened corridor.
In her hand was a bell she’d taken from her bag.
If any servant drew near, she would signal herself with it.
‘It’s on the third floor anyway.’
Should she happen to meet a servant on the third floor at some critical moment.
Her plan was to slip into one of the rooms on the east side of the third floor, close the door firmly, and wait until morning.
And so Carolyn arrived on the third floor, lantern and bell in hand.
Michelle’s room was still locked.
And the rooms to the east……
‘Huh?’
Carolyn noticed that the door to the third room—the blue one—stood open.
‘Didn’t I make sure to close them all?’
Tilting her head in confusion.
Carolyn leaned her face into the doorway and peered inside.
‘Huh?’
Now that she looked closely, the position of the blue room’s door was slightly different.
All the room doors were placed at regular intervals.
And in the other rooms, the doors were centered.
But when this door was open, the blue room’s entrance wasn’t centered—it was positioned slightly to the left.
‘What is this?’
Carolyn was still tilting her head in puzzlement.
“I’m here.”
“!”
At the sudden voice behind her, Carolyn clutched her chest.
And she spun around, trembling.
Ipros stood before her.
Aiden, transformed into a strikingly attractive male doll with fuller lashes and glistening lips.
Carolyn stumbled backward in shock.
Yet Ipros approached her with bold, sweeping strides,
“!”
and swept her into his arms.
‘?’
Carolyn stumbled, flustered, and quickly gripped his shoulders.
“Where—where are you taking me?”
“To the bed.”
“?”
Aiden, now wearing Ipros’s form, glanced toward the room behind Carolyn with his eyes.
His voice was so matter-of-fact, so warm.
Carolyn, by contrast, pressed urgently against his shoulders.
“Wait, hold on. Ipros—”
‘I’m going to lose it!’
“You know we always do this every Wednesday night.”
“!”
“Today you’re carrying me like this, and you’re not even angry. You claim you hate the height difference, yet here you are.”
As though pleased by every inch of contact, Ipros pulled Carolyn flush against him.
Carolyn’s face blazed crimson in an instant. To be cradled in Aiden’s arms like this.
But that wasn’t the only reason.
She was in crisis—dire crisis.
Ipros and the heroine Isa Ha were written to sleep together every Wednesday night.
Not the sort of thing with delicate, clasped hands.
The Character Setting dictated they were intimate in body.
It stemmed from Ipros’s belief that physical closeness was love.
The memory of Isa Ha’s mechanic mother crafting him piece by careful piece.
For Ipros, that memory was encoded as the happy confirmation of his existence.
‘She was screwing bolts and turning a driver, but… for Ipros, it was romance.’
And so Ipros had come to believe his contact with Isa Ha—the last human left to him—was love itself.
So he had grown uncomfortable with any distance between their bodies.
‘His most frequent line was probably just “please hold my hand.”‘
Understanding the situation, Carolyn felt her mind spinning with embarrassment.
Every Wednesday night, the two of them spent time like this.
Rather than deny that fact…
“Ipros, today is Tuesday.”
Carolyn had finally found her way out.
“…Oh.”
The man holding her gently let his lashes flutter, his expression falling into disappointment.
Sad green eyes fixed on her face.
That forlorn look tugged at her, and before she knew it, Carolyn was stroking his cheek.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow, then.”
“…Yes. Understood.”
And Aiden, obedient as a well-trained creature, nuzzled against her hand.
He laid his hand over hers, then interlaced their fingers before pressing his lips softly to the inside of her wrist.
“Tomorrow, but… I wish it were now…”
Smack. Smack.
Lip gloss transferred, and warm lips touched and withdrew in a maddening tickle.
Carolyn shivered in response.
‘My heart is racing like mad.’
There was something magnetic about a man so utterly absorbed in his role.
This couldn’t continue.
‘Get your head straight.’
He knows nothing. He’s simply lost in his performance.
You can’t exploit someone moving because of love for Isa Ha—love that belongs to the Role, to the Character Setting.
Because it isn’t for Carolyn.
‘Pull yourself together. Now.’
Like someone dunking their head into a lake that tastes impossibly sweet.
Watching Aiden continue to kiss her hand, Carolyn felt panic rising.
Snap!
She yanked her hand away, and Ipros drew in a sharp, startled breath.
‘Ah.’
Carolyn sensed the crisis unfolding.
She couldn’t treat Ipros this way.
He mistook affection for love, reading meaning into every cool gesture from Isa Ha.
Because he was lonely.
Because he carried the deficiency of being a machine incapable of true humanity.
……
His angelic face darkened with shadow.
On top of learning it was Tuesday, he’d clearly been hurt again.
!
Tears began to gather in his green eyes.
It was only a role, an act, but Carolyn felt as though her chest were being torn open.
It was difficult to watch Aiden cry.
Even if it was only performance.
“Ipros.”
“I really thought today was Wednesday. Isa Ha’s attitude made me confused too. Some of it is her fault.”
He whimpered with hurt, his voice small.
Carolyn gently patted the chest of the lonely mechanical man.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So… will you let me kiss you?”
?
A kiss.
Carolyn’s body went rigid with shock.
A kiss? Impossible.
But if she reacted too strongly now, she had no idea how Ipros might twist things.
He was a machine with no social sense whatsoever, and the only thing he possessed was an obsessive attachment to Isa Ha.
She hesitated, searching for words, and in that moment swallowed hard.
His thumb brushed gently along her neck.
Aiden tilted his head and invaded the space between her parted lips.

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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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