My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 42

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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 042
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As the day dimmed, we settled on a bench in front of the Fountain.
Kamiyou, sunk deep into the backrest and savoring a drowsy languor, suddenly spoke as if something had occurred to him.
“I don’t understand why all my so-called friends are like that.”
“Like what?”
“They’re like some criminal syndicate. One attempted murder, another’s a deviant, and the third is…….”
He swallowed the rest, but I didn’t need to hear it to know what he was about to say.
It wasn’t wrong. Objectively speaking, everyone around Kamiyou was thoroughly out of their mind.
“Do I really have such poor judgment of character?”
“I don’t know…… but I never thought you truly considered them friends.”
“Why not?”
“Because I couldn’t believe Kamiyou would ever open his heart sincerely to people like that.”
…….
It was a conclusion I’d reached after considerable deliberation, and it seemed to catch him off guard.
His lips moved soundlessly before he spoke, almost to himself.
“……Aub. Your faith in your husband runs remarkably deep.”
“Does it seem that way?”
“Yes. How could you fall in love like that in just a year?”
The question left me momentarily speechless.
It was the same question I’d asked myself. How could one fall in love in merely a year?
I couldn’t define this feeling—me, who’d never believed in love, now vowing revenge for a dead husband.
It seemed I’d already crossed some threshold beyond what could be called love, and perhaps this was an illness.
“I’m a little jealous. It seems like you’re thinking of another man even now.”
“……Are you finally dropping the pretense of being my husband?”
In response to my question, Kamiyou offered only a faint smile.
With his gaze cast toward the Sky stained crimson by sunset, he was collecting his thoughts when he suddenly picked up the conversation that had dropped.
“But I have no intention of changing this appearance. I rather like how I look now.”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied with it.”
“……Actually, sometimes I dislike it.”
“Why?”
“That’s a secret.”
……?
I stared at his profile with bewilderment, but he maintained his silence.
We lingered on the bench for some time.
Ordinarily, the worlds I painted had a blurred sense of time, but this one, born from the festival that would open today, was exceptional—time moved through it.
As the sun sank beyond the mountains and lanterns kindled one by one throughout the Plaza, I rose from my seat.
“Kamiyou, you mentioned you’d done Flight Practice before, didn’t you?”
“Hmm?”
“Can you fly while carrying one person?”
“Well…… one person should be fine.”
Kamiyou nodded absently.
I seized the moment and offered my next words.
“Then carry me up to that Hill.”
“Up to that Hill? But Aub, I’d have to touch you for that.”
“It’ll only be for a moment, so come on.”
“Ah, understood.”
Kamiyou, unable to resist my urging, finally moved.
First, he returned all the people around us to dust once more. As he withdrew the power he’d spread to animate them, the horns and tail he’d hidden sprouted forth again.
Then his strong arms lifted my body in one swift motion.
“Forgive the liberty, my lady.”
Nestled in his embrace, his chiseled face drew so near it filled my vision.
“I’m taking off. Close your eyes if you’re frightened.”
……Yes.
With a tender smile, he kicked off the ground and soared.
I’d kept my eyes squeezed shut against the tension, but the cool breeze brushing my cheek caused my eyelids to lift unconsciously.
The vista of the Watercolor World viewed from the Sky was achingly beautiful, like a dream.
“The view from above really is more splendid.”
…….
We soon arrived atop the small Hill, drifting through the empty air. Kamiyou set me down with care.
Kamiyou seemed to assume that I had chosen this place to admire the festival’s panorama.
“Come, sit here beside me, Aub.”
“You… carried a handkerchief with you?”
“Of course. Any gentleman ought to keep one at hand at all times.”
He settled onto the grass first, then lightly patted the spot beside him with his palm.
I sat down next to him, separated by barely a span’s distance, and looked out toward the Plaza below the Hill.
‘Well then, it’s about time to begin.’
I had not brought him up the Hill on a mere whim to admire the scenery.
‘Right. He said this world follows my imagination.’
Recalling Kamiyou’s words, I began counting silently in my mind.
‘…Three, two, one.’
And as the final count ended, a single firework tore through the silence, launching skyward.
It climbed through the darkness, hung silent for a moment as if catching its breath, then burst with a loud crack, scattering round light across the night sky.
Whistle—boom!
Whistle—kaboom!
“…!”
Red and blue, sometimes golden radiance bloomed into brilliant flowers across the night sky, layering upon one another.
When the scattered fragments faded, another flower burst into full bloom before I could even feel the loss.
“That’s…”
Kamiyou’s gaze remained transfixed on the Sky, unable to look away. I opened my lips to speak to him.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? They say this is the grand finale of tonight’s Spring Flower Festival.”
“Fireworks…?”
“Yes. Though it might be far more beautiful than this in reality. It’s a little different, you see.”
I had never experienced fireworks in this world myself. So the scene I had recreated depended entirely on memories from my past life.
“When I was very young, my father beat me and cast me out into the night. By chance, I saw fireworks then. I’d only heard about them before—it was my first time seeing them with my own eyes.”
“…”
“But they were so beautiful. I forgot the pain, and I remember standing there, utterly entranced.”
It remained vivid enough in my memory—one of the few happy moments from my past life.
“So I wanted to see this with you, at least this once. Because to me, it holds such meaning.”
After a long silence, Kamiyou turned his head to look at me.
His usual ease had vanished; his wavering eyes held a complex emotion that was difficult to name.
“Aub. What am I supposed to say at a time like this?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what your husband would have said in a moment like this.”
It was too transparent in his eyes to dismiss as a joke.
I hesitated for a moment, then let a bitter smile cross my lips.
“…I don’t know either. I’ve never been to a place like this with him.”
“Then why, exactly…?”
Kamiyou murmured, his face clouded with deeper confusion.
I looked at him quietly for a moment, then answered with calm composure.
“I told you. This is a personal request, separate from our Contract.”
“…”
“I simply wanted to show you the fireworks. Not because you’re wearing my husband’s shell.”
Even amid the chaos of the festival that had stretched on for days, my thoughts kept turning to Kamiyou.
Not my departed husband, but Kamiyou the Demon who dwelt within my Painting.
“Though we are bound by Contract, we are each other’s sole precious existence. So when I thought this might be our last moment… I wanted to leave behind a moment like this.”
“…”
“Well, it turned out it wasn’t our last after all. I suppose I should call that fortunate.”
He was a Demon who hungered for my soul, yet also the savior who had held fast to my life as it flickered away.
And so this was my secret gift, prepared for him alone.
“It’s pointless. I never asked for it.”
“I know. But isn’t it beautiful?”
“…”
I answered his gruff reply flatly, then lifted my gaze to the Sky with a lightened expression.
Boom—boom—
Our quiet world, home to only us two, bloomed bright as day, then sank back into darkness.
In that rhythm, new flowers endless bloomed and faded across the Sky.
“…”
Suddenly curious about Kamiyou’s quiet expression, I turned my head.
But before my gaze could reach him, he quickly looked away—as if he had been drinking in not the fireworks, but me.
“Kamiyou?”
After all the effort I’d put into preparing, he wasn’t going to look at it?
I turned around and tapped his shoulder lightly. Perhaps because I’d been held by him once before, the distance between us had evaporated—my touch carried no hesitation.
That was when it happened.
“……Don’t look.”
“What?”
Don’t look at what? Drawn in by words I couldn’t understand, I found myself leaning forward toward him without thinking.
……And then I saw it. His face, flushed far deeper than the fireworks embroidering the night sky.
“Your face right now, it’s—ah!”
I’d let the words slip out carelessly, and in doing so, I’d read his feelings. I gasped and pulled my hand away.
“I told you not to look!”
“Oh, no, I—”
……Why all of a sudden?
The heat lingering on his face seemed to transfer wholly to mine, and my own cheeks began to burn.
My hands fluttered uselessly, and I could only stammer out awkward words.
“I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean—I wasn’t thinking—”
“……You’re too much.”
“What?”
“You’re too much, you know.”
He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, burying his face in the space between, speaking gruffly before falling silent.
In the quiet that settled between us, only the sound of the fireworks scattered hollowly through the air.
Perhaps that was the first time.
“……Aub, you really are a strange woman.”
The first time he spoke to me—seeing him not as the subject of my regrets, but as someone entirely separate.

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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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