A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 59

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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 59.
“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to feel burdened. It’s just…… it seemed like you always knew exactly what I wanted to say about the plays.”
It was a fair observation. Caroline was his devoted fan, after all.
Yet Caroline faltered, her lips parting in confusion.
‘How does he know I’d understand?’
The daytime Aiden doesn’t remember what Caroline said.
He didn’t even remember her mentioning twice that she was a devoted fan, and hadn’t he forgotten her birthday just hours before yesterday?
And yet he’d remembered throughout their conversation that she knew things about him—he’d acknowledged it several times.
“Well, um…… something like . That scene where Regina and Friedman fly a kite together.”
“Oh, that’s right. You really do know your films.”
“I told you, I’m an enormous fan of yours.”
“Thank you.”
From the way he received the mention of being a fan, he clearly hadn’t registered that she was one.
But then how had he known she’d guess correctly?
“How did you know I’d get it right?”
At Caroline’s question, Aiden swirled his glass thoughtfully, lost in consideration.
“Hmm…… I’m not entirely sure myself. I can’t recall the exact moment when you showed you knew so much about me, but it’s something like trust, I suppose?”
Unable to fully understand it himself, Aiden simply offered a smile.
‘Does he retain fragments of our conversations, even if not perfectly?’
Caroline tilted her head. Aiden then returned to his role and began the tea time discussion.
“Today I’d like to talk about . As you mentioned, I’m personally quite fond of that scene where Regina and Friedman fly a kite together.”
As Aiden spoke while gazing at the lake, a blue tint flickered in his eyes.
Caroline likewise looked out at the same view, his voice as her backdrop.
“Among the romance films I’ve appeared in since becoming an adult, there are three. Which of those three do you think best exemplifies the Romance Genre?”
Another sudden question came at her.
Caroline turned in surprise to face him, yet she knew the answer clearly.
“…….”
“You’re right again. Different viewers might have different opinions, of course, but it seems you feel the same way I do.”
What followed was Aiden’s reasoning—identical to Caroline’s own thoughts.
All three were romance films, each with its own character.
reveals romance in the fact that Will and Jane, who had no human interest in one another, come to love and sacrifice for each other by the film’s end.
And centers its romance on physical intimacy and camaraderie rather than emotional exchange.
is a romance that unfolds between two people who liked each other from childhood, meet again as time passes, and spend considerable time together bickering and clinging to one another.
“The premise itself—childhood friends who parted and reunited—contributes, as do scenes like flying a kite, dancing hand in hand, playfully smearing cream on each other’s faces—they share the most date-like moments of all three films.”
Caroline nodded at his words.
Because of these elements, was decidedly clichéd as a romance film. Perfectly so—right down to Friedman protecting Regina from her ex-husband’s lackeys, fighting them, and meeting his death.
“That’s why playing Friedman was easiest for me, and I found myself empathizing deeply. The love between the two leads flows in a way anyone can understand, so there was no need to strain in the performance. I simply had to immerse myself naturally into the character of Friedman.”
The man finished speaking and lifted his glass, draining it in one motion. Only ice remained on the table before him.
“Was it difficult understanding Friedman? His psychology and such……”
“Well, compared to the other protagonists, he was manageable. There were some twisted aspects to him, but I understood them all. For instance…… he didn’t want to become a violent enforcer like his father, yet that’s exactly what he became, and he suffered for it.”
“Exactly. Regina keeps her distance at first because of that. But Friedman was a different type than his father, wasn’t he?”
“Do you really think so?”
Another unexpected question pulled Caroline’s attention sharply toward him.
What was he getting at?
“Friedman…… even while working as an enforcer, he quietly looked out for people in need. When he was with Regina, he became more timid and thoughtful than expected…… and eventually sacrificed himself for her.”
“But can that truly be called fundamentally different from his father?”
Caroline fell silent.
In the film, Friedman’s father had beaten his son, tormented him, and ruled over countless people with tyrannical cruelty as an enforcer. Young Friedman swore watching him that he would never become like that—so much so that he told the Regina he held hands with constantly.
But he inherited an enforcer’s position he never wanted. Could that really be said to make him identical to his father?
“Friedman’s father may have been tender toward his own wife. Friedman appears to sacrifice for Regina, but he also ended up killing multiple underlings of her ex-husband. What are the chances they were more virtuous than Friedman?”
Those underlings who came to capture Regina as she fled her ex-husband’s violence—the ones Friedman killed—were they truly so different from him?
Caroline had no words.
“Within the film, we may have viewed Friedman kindly because there were so many scenes with Regina. But what if we assume her absence? By the time Friedman reached his father’s age, would he have been so different?”
“……that’s a very Friedman-like question to ask.”
Caroline examined Aiden’s expression closely, trying to discern what he truly wanted to convey.
Even as he spoke as if attacking Friedman, his own face bore an expression of pain.
‘Why?’
Caroline swallowed hard.
While she struggled to understand his intent, Aiden grew increasingly agitated.
“If a parent had a personality disorder and was someone I deeply despised, and as I grew up I seemed, despite my intentions, to be becoming like them…… what would you do? Do you think I could truly become completely different from such parents?”
Can you be certain that if only part of someone resembles another person, the rest makes them a different person entirely?
It was then that Caroline understood what he was trying to say.
‘He’s talking about Michelle.’
By Caroline’s reckoning—perhaps a touch uncharitable, but fair nonetheless—Michelle was not mentally whole.
This was not merely about the decline of her later years, when dementia had taken hold.
It was her financial dependence on others, her reckless trust in a stranger whose name she never knew, her desperate clinging to a man who’d abandoned her, persisting even unto death, and worst of all, how she’d treated her only son as a mere instrument to orchestrate their reunion……
Aiden was concerned about these vulnerabilities in her—or perhaps these flaws.
Or rather, he’d already discerned them.
‘Aiden had to act even though he didn’t love acting, and he’s already aware that he has a personality disorder.’
He believed he and Michelle were fundamentally alike, and from that resemblance, he seemed to draw a sense of worthlessness and self-loathing.
“I found myself deeply sympathizing with Friedman’s position. Of course, different people will show surface differences. But are we truly different in essence?”
Aiden smiled bitterly and poured wine into his empty glass.
“I don’t think we are. Children inevitably come to resemble their parents. No matter how hard we struggle to break free, that mold—we feel it fit us far too perfectly.”

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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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