My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 2

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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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My Husband Lives in a Painting 002
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Suicide.
Kamiyou’s cause of death could be summed up in just two words.
But it was so simple that I still couldn’t believe it.
He’d taken his own life. On his twentieth birthday, no less—at his own birthday celebration, his face so destroyed that it was beyond recognition, so brutally.
……Why?
“Ugh…….”
Feeling as though I might retch at any moment, I stumbled away from the scene, my face drained of all color.
The path back to the Mansion was empty. The rain still fell in a soft patter, and I made my way along the muddy ground, my black shoes treading carefully beneath my umbrella.
Splash, splash. The wet sound lingered in my ears.
Then my eyes began to sting unbearably, and I rubbed them with my sleeve. It was then that my foot, carelessly placed, trampled something.
A single White Chrysanthemum.
“My lady. When spring arrives, shall we go flower viewing together?”
Kamiyou’s voice surfaced with piercing clarity—as if he were speaking from directly behind me.
“There’s a hillside full of blossoms in the Western Estate, I’m told. They say there’s a lovely lake as well.”
I bit down on my lip. Something churned inside me.
“……It’s repugnant.”
The words were directed at myself, I think.
“I wish to know you better.”
“After last time, what else could you possibly be curious about?”
“Anything will do. Even trivial things—your hobbies, for instance.”
“……I enjoy Painting. Though I’m not particularly skilled at it.”
The day I finally opened up to him, to someone who’d always been eager to know more about me.
I’d shared that tidbit on nothing more than a passing whim. That day, Kamiyou’s smile had been as bright as sunlight. ……Simply that.
After that, Kamiyou came to know me thoroughly. He was always asking about me, after all.
But I?
Had I ever once asked him anything?
‘I wish I’d told him more. I wish I’d listened.’
A meaningless Regret, born as I wandered the cold corridors.
As I drifted aimlessly through the Mansion, I discovered a half-open door at the end of a hallway I’d never ventured down before.
Through the gap, there emerged a peculiar dryness—the kind of scent left only in the aftermath of renovation.
Perhaps reaching that room was fate.
“……!”
In the small room, where moonlight seeped through, an Easel and blank Canvas sat waiting, and atop a table lay Paint, brushes, and a Palette, all arranged with care.
Suddenly, I remembered what Kamiyou had said to me yesterday when I’d left the celebration early—before the others.
“Tomorrow, there’s something I absolutely must show you.”
In that instant, my breath caught.
“……Was this what you meant to show me?”
The very person who’d said those words had apparently forgotten them completely, but that fool of a man—what was he thinking?
Rough-mannered, without a shred of charm, believing I despised him—what could he possibly have seen in such an unprepossessing woman?
Only then did I recognize the true nature of the emotion that had been constricting my chest.
“Ah…….”
I sank down in front of the Art Studio, unable to stand.
Between my disheveled hair, tears fell one by one.
“Why, why do I……!”
‘I should never have let this happen with Kamiyou.’
It was guilt—a debt owed to the only person who had ever loved me.
* * *
From the next day onward, I began to paint as if possessed.
“My lady! The second young master has just arrived. He’s someone you’ll be living with from now on, so shouldn’t you at least offer your greetings—”
“I’ll do it later. I’m busy now.”
“Ah…….”
Romaine.
My personal lady’s maid had come to me every morning, talking incessantly without pause.
“B-but he’s so impressive! They say he spent a long time in the Borderland. It’s my first time meeting him, but surely there’s much I could learn from him.”
“Then why don’t you go meet him in my stead.”
“M-me?”
“Yes. Go and come back with your impressions.”
But when I continued to respond with cold indifference, unchanged from the day before, she fell silent with only a small, defeated sound.
After a moment, she asked with a sigh as if surrendering.
“Are you planning to stay in the Art Studio again today?”
At the direct question, my lips pressed shut instead.
“Even a short walk would do you good. You haven’t been eating properly lately.”
I felt her persistent gaze from behind, but I kept my eyes fixed on the Canvas, pretending not to notice.
“Madam….”
She who ordinarily never meddled in my work had her reasons for pressing the matter now. It had already been a week since I’d locked myself away in this Art Studio, neither eating nor washing.
But I could not set down the brush.
‘I need to see Kamiyou.’
I couldn’t endure it without clinging to the fading memory. I had to capture his image on Canvas. Only then could I breathe.
Because there was not a single Portrait of Kamiyou in this Mansion.
But how could that be?
‘Not a single Portrait of the eldest son of Ortega—it made no sense.’
Though countless questions arose, I couldn’t ask Belladonna the reason, so I drew my own conclusion.
‘I’ll paint it myself. Kamiyou’s Portrait.’
After Romaine, who had been standing like a stone statue for some time, left the Art Studio, I drank down the Wine Bottle as if I’d been waiting for her to go.
Gulp, gulp.
“Ugh… blech.”
Pouring liquor into an empty stomach was pure agony. But there was nothing better for dispersing thought.
“Where was the yellow Paint….”
Squeezing out the Paint, choosing the colors—all of it was improvisation.
Without even being conscious of what hues I used, I wielded the brush mindlessly across the Canvas.
But they do say inspiration springs from melancholy?
‘Why is it coming so easily?’
And how much time had passed?
Crash!
With the sound of the Wine Bottle shattering against the floor, I snapped to attention.
“…!”
My husband’s face, wearing that familiar smile, that same laugh I’d always known.
Kamiyou was before my eyes.
I had finally, at last, brought him to completion.
“Ah….”
The brush fell from my hands.
And as if possessed, I reached toward the painting before pitching forward onto my face.
Thud!
“Ow….”
Pain throbbed in my knees as blood began to seep, yet my eyes never left the painting.
I barely managed to push myself up, placing both hands on the Canvas.
“K-Kamiyou.”
Wet Paint smudged onto my trembling palms, but I couldn’t have cared less.
“Why… why did you leave me and die?”
The Art Studio lay pitch black.
Between the wavering candlelight, my shadow stretched long across the floor, kneeling like a condemned soul.
“Did you really take your own life?”
Kamiyou still smiled. Standing in the center of a flower garden, looking down at me.
“Why…? Did I treat you so badly?”
As my vision blurred, I bowed my head deeply.
Soon a voice—hoarse and ragged—filled the room.
“I’m sorry….”
How hollow it was to confess Regret to someone already gone.
Even knowing that the one who needed to hear these words was no longer here.
“I was wrong—all of it was wrong. Can’t you just… stay with me? Please?”
Someone once said—
That Regret was a privilege only humans could possess.
But before something irretrievable, such an emotion couldn’t possibly be called a privilege.
“Please.”
My voice, buried in the painting, had already grown so small I could no longer hear it myself.
“Kamiyou….”
Ding— ding—
Just then, the Wall Clock sitting in the corner of the Art Studio chimed the hour.
……The hour hand wasn’t pointing at the exact hour.
‘Four forty-four?’
The moment I checked the time, my shoulders stiffened slightly, and a breeze brushed past from nowhere.
“Aub.”
Someone’s soft voice.
“My love. Come here.”
“……!”
I swallowed my breath and shot to my feet. The sudden movement made my vision swim for a moment.
“Ugh…….”
Steadying my unsteady frame, I looked around again.
But no one was there. Not in the Art Studio, not in the half-open hallway.
“Who—who are you?”
Then the voice rang out again, this time much closer.
“Who else? Your husband, of course.”

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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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