TVS 04

Chapter 04…

 Eliana’s “Unfair”

My days are all the same, repeating endlessly.
In the mornings, I receive my meal from Mother, and in the afternoons, I nap and listen to someone read to me.
I thought today would be no different.

The sound of the door opening and closing tells me someone has entered my room.

—It’s not Sasha.

Sasha just finished reading to me and left.
She always leaves quietly once she’s sure I’m asleep.
I’ve been testing this for about a month, so my prediction should be right.
The people who can enter my room are limited.
Even though I’m only the second daughter, I still carry the blood of a duke’s house, so apparently, there are those who might target me.
Security is strict.
So far, only Father, Mother, and Sasha have ever entered.

It’s currently two in the afternoon.
Naturally, my parents are busy with work and wouldn’t come now, and it’s too early for Sasha to return.
That means the person who came is—

“Yurii…”
—Eliana.

It could only be my sister, Eliana.
She approaches me.
Since I can’t imagine she came just to help me sleep, I stop pretending to be asleep.

“Yurii…”

I wait silently, wondering what she wants.
Then—

“Yurii, you’re unfair…”
—Huh?

She said I’m unfair.

“Unfair… Yurii, you’re unfair! Yurii is unfair!”

Eliana kept repeating the word “unfair.”
But to be honest, I can’t think of a single thing I’ve done that would make her say that.
Not at all.
In fact, I’ve only ever met Eliana once—when I was born as Yuliana.
We haven’t seen each other since.
So why does she think I’m unfair?

—All that’s happened is that I was born as her little sister, Yuliana, and she got to pinch my cheeks a bit.

Since I’m still a baby, all I can do now is listen to her and wiggle my hands.
I can’t do anything else.
Maybe my quiet listening (or rather, my inability to do anything but listen) irritated her, because Elly suddenly raised her voice.

“Yurii is Elly’s little sister! But I never said you could take everything from me!”
—Everything of Elly’s…?

What does she mean by that?

“Yurii’s father is Elly’s father! Yurii’s mother is Elly’s mother! So… so don’t take them away from me!”
—Ah, I see.

Now I finally understood.
Eliana’s “unfair” wasn’t anger—it was loneliness, born from jealousy that I was “hogging” our parents, Feeli-mother and Diel-father.

—Now I understand, Eliana.

She probably had no one to talk to about it.
Maybe she thought even if she told our parents, they wouldn’t understand.
So she’s been carrying that painful feeling all by herself.
She must have felt lonely—afraid she didn’t have a place where she belonged.
It must have been like being trapped alone in endless darkness, with no way out.
That kind of suffering, when you can’t tell anyone…
That’s what loneliness is.

—I understand you, Eliana. I truly do.

This isn’t just empty comfort.
It’s because I, too, know what “loneliness” feels like.
The despair of thinking “maybe I’m not loved”—that’s something you never forget.
It’s like a hole suddenly opens up in your heart, and emptiness fills your whole being.
The reason my emotions are so subdued now is because, in my previous life, I died while still “lonely.”

—Hey, Eliana.

Eliana’s loneliness began when Yuliana—when I—was born.
The birth of a new life is supposed to be something joyful.
Eliana knows that. She was happy when Yuliana was born, too.

—But because she loves our parents and her first little sister so much, it hurts all the more.

I understand that feeling very well.

—Eliana, you really are like me.

Like me, who longed for “love,” and was once “lonely.”