A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 83

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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 83.
“What are you talking about.”
Caroline pressed her hand to her forehead.
“You keep trying to put me to sleep, you don’t want me watching you sleep, you get distracted when we’re talking together. There’s something that takes priority over me, isn’t there.”
Ipros was a mechanical doll, but had learned much about human nature from Isaha’s mother, Sylvia—how to read what a person’s expression meant, the psychology behind different conversational styles.
“I noticed someone whose expression grew brighter when thinking of you than when looking at me. Are you planning to put me to sleep and sneak off to meet them?”
“……!”
Caroline’s lips trembled.
She’d thought she was badly misunderstood, but his words fit far too precisely. The real reason her heart was racing was the thought of putting Aiden in Ipros’s form to sleep, then meeting him at three in the morning.
‘But that’s you…….’
Still, she couldn’t say that. Caroline squeezed her eyes shut.
Her body was exhausted from nearly drowning, her condition poor. Her headache seemed to be getting worse.
“Then let’s lie down together. Don’t fall asleep—just watch me sleep. But you have to lie down with me.”
“……Fine, then. I’ll keep watch over you, so we’ll lie down together.”
“Yeah.”
“But I don’t trust you, so let’s hold each other while we sleep.”
Hold each other.
Ipros was demanding physical contact again, and Caroline’s breath caught short. But she knew she couldn’t refuse him now.
When Ipros’s emotions grew sensitive, he switched from calling Isaha, Isaha to calling her “you”—his tone became slightly irritable, and his doll-like face took on a sharp edge.
“……Okay.”
Come here.
Caroline answered wearily and opened her arms. Ipros immediately nestled into her embrace.
The difference in size made it look as though Caroline was pinned beneath him, but using that to her advantage, she slowly pressed him back, limbs interlaced with hers.
The way they’d been facing and holding each other shifted so that the back of Ipros’s head could rest against the pillow.
“……Why does Wednesday feel so far away.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I want to confirm your love…….”
And with his head against the pillow, Ipros closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again.
‘Done.’
That was all she needed. The arms around her, the face—everything was identical, yet within those dulled eyes, Caroline could tell.
“……Aiden?”
The man hearing her voice blinked a few more times, then his eyes rolled toward the source of the sound. Seeing Caroline nestled against him, he
“……Aiden?”
stared blankly for a moment, as if unsure whether he’d fully woken.
“!”
“Ah!”
He lurched upright like he’d been struck by lightning.
What he failed to consider was that Caroline was cradled in his embrace, her body pressed against his with her arms around him as well.
The force of his sudden movement sent Caroline sliding off him, and they both toppled sideways together.
“!”
By the time they came to their senses, their limbs were completely tangled. Caroline found herself looking up at Aiden at three in the morning—staring down at her with a blank expression on Ipros’s face.
“……Ah, um. Wait, why…….”
The flustered man couldn’t get his words out properly, but Caroline understood what he was trying to ask.
“I ran into Ipros. But he hated sleeping alone, so I held him and put him down that way. Then you woke up and this happened. Should we untangle ourselves first?”
As she explained the whole sequence of events, it struck her as funny.
In truth, Caroline was intensely embarrassed and flustered by the fact that she’d been lying pressed against Aiden in Ipros’s form, and that she’d maintained that position even after waking up beside the three-in-the-morning version. But faced with the man before her stammering worse than she was, looking far more distressed, the words came naturally.
“……Yes.”
Aiden bit his lips with a complicated expression, then carefully removed Caroline’s arm from across his chest.
He withdrew his own arm from around her back, and gently took her hand to help her sit up, now that she was completely free to move.
“Thank you.”
Unlike the temperamental Friedman or the fussy Ipros, he was genuinely gentle.
Seeing Caroline smile softly at the thought while looking at him, his expression became complicated.
“?”
And with trembling hands, he reached toward her cheek.
“Ah.”
Pink shimmer from the lip gloss was smudged on his thumb. What had been on his lips must have transferred to her cheek when they were entangled.
The man’s expression grew more troubled, and he began wiping away the makeup. He cleaned his lips with tissues from the nightstand, wiped away the mascara.
“Since you saw me on the morning of the ninth day, it’s only been two days. Have you been well?”
“……Yes. Yesterday I must have been James.”
“That’s right. We met in the Basement yesterday.”
“You met her at the Swimming Pool yesterday, then?”
“That’s right.”
Aiden nodded. It seemed that yesterday, inhabiting James’s body, he’d climbed to the Third Floor, only to awaken again at three in the morning as himself and make his way to the Basement.
And he’d probably tidied up the Machine Room and Swimming Pool.
‘I’d wondered if that was work for the servants to handle.’
Caroline understood why he would do such things himself. It must have been the only way to know who he’d been that day, and what he’d done.
“Oh, Aiden. I have good news.”
Caroline began pulling velvet journals one by one from her bag.
Black, green, red, yellow.
“I’ve collected all four Diary Journals! Now I just need to find Friedman’s. James even got the Key and opened his already.”
“That’s remarkable. And it’s only been two days…….”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“You’re truly wonderful, Caroline.”
The man smiled with genuine admiration. He wore the same form as Ipros, his features unchanged, and yet.
At the difference she saw once more, Caroline clicked her tongue. Unlike Ipros—who seemed childlike and dependent, someone she needed to look after—the three-o’clock Aiden was rather like a tree she could lean against.
So hearing his praise alone was enough to lift her spirits.
“What did James’s Diary say?”
“It contained Aiden’s psychology—how he came to distrust adults after spending his childhood as a child actor. And… I’m not sure if you knew, but James was aware this place is inside a Game.”
“James was aware? You mean he has consciousness?”
Aiden startled just as Caroline had when she first learned this fact.
“James does recognize himself as James, but he remembers seeing the Players here and how the Stages repeated endlessly. So he’d even told me that if I couldn’t deliver my lines properly, I should leave beforehand. But yesterday, when I realized James wasn’t just a simple Character Role, we had a real conversation.”
“That’s truly, genuinely strange. That despite being in the Role of James, he understands…….”
Aiden wore an expression of shock. It made sense, really—he was the only NPC who knew alone that this was a Game, helping the Players.
“But he doesn’t seem to know anything about you. He just thinks that at three o’clock he needs to go to sleep. He doesn’t know that after that, he wakes up as you. Oh, and one more thing—James has fragmentary memories of the other Character Roles.”

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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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