My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 5

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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 Inside the Painting 005
By the way, Camille was an excellent cook.
“I’d like some potato dishes.”
“Sure. I was craving that too, actually.”
“Today I’m drawn to spaghetti.”
“Easy enough. Just wait a moment.”
“Camille. Do you know what fish-shaped pastries are?”
The house was barely larger than a mouse’s tail and had no kitchen to speak of, yet within minutes Camille could conjure up a respectable meal no matter what I asked for.
“This is it, right? A fish-shaped pastry.”
“……Yes.”
And it was shaped exactly as I’d pictured it in my mind.
“How on earth do you know what a fish-shaped pastry is?”
I’d singled out the pastry by name, but this wasn’t the first—or even the second—time such a question had occurred to me.
Yet whenever I posed similar questions, Camille always gave me the same answer.
“Why does that matter?”
And somehow, I’d found myself agreeing with him.
‘That’s right! He’s got it. What matters is that we’re alive like this.’
I was sitting on a bench beneath the shade of a tree near the house, nibbling off the head of my pastry and admiring the peaceful landscape, when—
Camille approached without warning and gently wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“Does it taste good?”
Unused to such physical closeness, my body stiffened in an instant.
“……Where did you just come from?”
“To the Lake just ahead.”
It made me uncomfortable.
I gently pushed his hands away and changed the subject.
“I was thinking of going to the Lake myself anyway…… what do you say?”
Despite my effort to seem composed, Camille’s sharp eye caught the shift; he simply gazed at me without answering.
For a moment I tensed under his gaze, but then he smiled as though nothing were amiss.
“There’s nothing much to see there. Much better to be by your side.”
“……Is that so?”
“Yes. And in that spirit, there’s something I want to do with you.”
“What is it?”
Camille’s hand moved with startling speed, tilting my chin up as though catching it on a hook.
“This.”
A cold thrill crawled like a serpent down my spine. The moment his face drew near—
My hand moved first.
Bang—
“……Ah.”
Only then did it dawn on me what I’d done.
‘Why…… why did I push Camille away?’
He was my husband, wasn’t he? The one I loved dearly, the reason for my life itself?
As though I’d made some terrible mistake, an inexplicable guilt flooded through me belatedly.
Unable to meet his eyes, I opened my mouth.
“You seem like you’ve changed somehow.”
And I added, as if making excuses.
“You weren’t like this before…….”
A brief silence fell.
It was Camille who broke it.
“Living in a place like this, one has no choice but to change. Inside this painting without you…… it was so lonely.”
“…….”
His words pricked my conscience, and unbidden, my shoulders hunched.
“Even so, a kiss is… a bit much.”
“Why?”
“Well…… because we’ve never done that before.”
But why was I explaining this?
He surely knew that I didn’t enjoy physical affection, that I’d always kept my distance from him. There was no reason he shouldn’t know.
A strange dissonance swept down my spine.
At moments like this, Camille felt like an entirely different person.
“……Ah. Was that the case?”
Yes. Just like now.
Camille’s eyes rolled as he seemed to turn something over in his mind.
“If you’re married, surely they at least sent a wedding night gift……?”
“What are you muttering about?”
“Oh. Nothing at all.”
His expression shifted back to its usual ease in an instant, and he smiled softly before settling himself beside me without ceremony.
After my heartbeat had returned to normal, I spoke to him again.
“Never mind that. Tell me about yourself today.”
“About me?”
“How long have you been inside this painting?”
Camille’s eyes widened in surprise—as though he’d never expected such a question.
But an answer came swiftly.
“At some point, my soul was drifting and scattering, breaking apart bit by bit. I was searching for somewhere to anchor myself when I saw your painting, and the moment I touched it, I lost consciousness.”
“I see…….”
“And when I opened my eyes again, I was already in here.”
I hadn’t expected him to bare the truth like this. Yet his words didn’t sound like a lie.
“But when I first came here, there wasn’t such a sprawling flower field.”
Camille continued without emotion.
“You were filling in the blank spaces, one by one.”
“What?”
Something in those words unsettled me.
“Filling them in? Wait. You don’t mean to say……”
I stammered, my mouth falling open.
“You were watching me paint this whole time?”
“Yes. Your pace with the wine was quite impressive, I must say.”
“Oh……!”
Heavens. I wanted to vanish into a mouse hole right then.
The shame crashed over me like a wave the moment it truly sank in—that he’d witnessed every pathetic moment of my weeping while I painted.
I spun around and gripped my hair in my fists.
The moment my solitary burning died down, Camille abruptly broke the silence.
“Ah, since we’re on the subject, there’s somewhere I need you to come with me.”
“Now?”
“Yes. There’s something you need to help me with.”
His eyes held a quiet light—the look of someone who had never entertained the possibility of refusal.
“Only you can do this, you see.”
For a single moment, an indefinable dread wrapped around my entire body.
Yet I found I could not refuse.
* * *
He led me to the place beneath the Hill, the very spot where I had first fallen into this world.
There, a single Canvas lay covered in white cloth.
In the middle of the windless field, it sat incongruous and alone.
‘……Was this always here?’
The instant a brief question flickered through my mind, Camille yanked back the cover, and the landscape on the Canvas was revealed in one stroke.
“This is……”
The Studio of the Mansion—where I had been painting.
And the figure standing at its center, face stricken with confusion, was none other than……
“……Romaine?”
My maid at the Mansion.
A moment later, Romaine’s eyes trembled faintly, and I watched as she took step after step—vivid upon the Canvas.
At the same time, a voice echoed.
“Madam……where on earth have you gone?”
“……!”
As if two worlds were coexisting with the Canvas between them.
“Someone you know?”
“My maid. But what on earth is this……?”
Unable to finish my sentence, I stepped closer to the Canvas.
I could see the brushstrokes clearly, the texture of the paint distinct.
But just as I was wondering how this was even possible, Camille offered a calm explanation.
“This Canvas is a passage connecting this place to reality. It’s also the entrance through which you and I came.”
“An entrance, you say……?”
“Yes. If you don’t believe me, verify it yourself.”
I hesitated for a moment, then carefully reached my hand toward the canvas.
The instant my fingertips touched the surface, my entire arm was swallowed into the painting as though sucked into a vacuum.
“Ah!”
Startled, I pulled my hand back, and Camille spoke without emotion.
“Be careful. You might actually get pulled in.”
Looking down at my palm, the strange sensation still lingered on my skin.
“Do you… experience the same thing?”
“Me?”
Was it my imagination, or did mockery edge into Camille’s voice as he echoed the question?
“I… no. You’d better see for yourself.”
Camille placed his hand on the canvas exactly as I had done.
But in that moment—
Ping!
His hand snapped backward with a sharp, metallic sound, as though rebounded.
I gasped and found my voice rising without thinking.
“Camille!”
“I’m fine. But… you saw it, didn’t you?”
Camille brushed off his hand as if nothing had happened, then turned his gaze to me.
“Yes. I can’t leave here. I’m trapped inside the painting—your painting.”
My breath caught, and my heart sank.
“What?”
His unexpected words left my mind reeling.
When I first saw him again, I had been overwhelmed simply by the fact that I could see him alive once more.
It occurred to me that perhaps my desperate longing had summoned him back to this place, just as he said.
‘But to think he can’t leave my painting.’
That wasn’t… that wasn’t truly living at all.
“Yes. Which is why—”
Then Camille quietly gripped my shoulder.
“Will you help me escape from inside this painting?”
His voice dropped lower.
“It’s not too late. You can save me.”
In that instant, raw desire flickered and gleamed in Camille’s eyes.
A cold shudder crept up my spine like a serpent, and a tremor I couldn’t suppress forced its way through my lips.
“How could I possibly…?”
“It’s simple.”
Camille smiled—a low, hungry sound.
“Just give me your soul. Yes?”

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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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