Unpleasant memories

“I’ll try.”
At Selene’s reply, Theron’s eyes widened slightly.
“Really?”
“Because it might help my piano playing.”
But at the words that immediately followed, his widened eyes turned listless.
“Of course…”
Still, as promised, Selene laughed several times while they were at the zoo.
It wasn’t so much that she tried, but that she felt comfortable in Theron’s presence, and a smile naturally formed.
And every time, Theron would capture Selene’s precious smile as if to engrave it in his eyes, not missing a single one.
It was a small but special day for the two of them, who were visiting the zoo for the first time.
So much so that if they were to hear about the Dallas Zoo someday in the future, they could say they had a good memory there.
But unfortunately, not only good memories were engraved for the two of them.
Because a crack in a perfect day always comes unexpectedly, like a natural disaster or an accident.
Just as they were about to leave the zoo, an incident occurred that would make Selene’s facial muscles be used not for smiling, but for frowning mercilessly.
It started with the sound of a child crying nearby.
“Waaaaah!”
Selene’s head turned.
There, she saw a crying child and a mother comforting the child.
“Why did  Dad leave already! I was looking forward to today so much!”
“Oh, honey, Dad had something urgent to do, so he couldn’t help it.”
“But he promised it was my birthday! That we would spend the whole day together as a family!”
“I told you not to throw a tantrum. What can we do when Dad has to earn money? In the first place, the reason we can come to a zoo like this is because Dad works hard even on days like today.”
The difference of opinion between the child who was sad because her father had left midway and the mother who was trying to comfort her child realistically did not seem to be narrowing.
Theron, who was watching the situation, muttered unconsciously.
“He’s still a child, so he’s immature. He doesn’t know how important it is to support a family.”
Theron’s lightly thrown opinion got stuck in Selene’s ear.
Should she have just let it go?
If someone else had said that, she would have let it go without hesitation, but the reason she couldn’t was probably because it was Theron.
Selene didn’t like the way Theron dismissed the child’s sadness.
Finally, the voice that had been stuck in her throat came out.
“It’s important for a child to live with memories of special days like today. It’s also an age when they need a parent who will be by their side more than money.”
At Selene’s rebuttal, Theron turned his head.
Theron also had one eyebrow slightly raised, as if he couldn’t understand Selene.
“Well. Does a memory fill a hungry stomach? The reason you can say you need a parent more than money at that age is because you’ve never starved, Miss Selene.”
Theron’s example was somewhat extreme.
That child was not starving, nor did he look poor.
Selene’s brow gradually furrowed, as she had no intention of arguing about right and wrong in earnest.
“The loneliness of a child who grew up alone without a parent’s love is sometimes as painful as starving. When everyone else is talking about their memories with their family, and you have nothing to say. Furthermore, the sadness of not being able to be with your loving family even if you want to is a pain that only that child has to endure.”
As she rebutted, Selene also became extreme.
That child clearly had a parent by his side and didn’t seem to be unloved, but Selene was already projecting the cowering child in her memory onto that child.
“So, you’re saying it’s better to have a parent by your side even if they can’t act like a parent because they’re poor, Miss Selene? While starving together?”
“It might be okay if there’s a parent’s love. Because it gives you the strength to endure that time.”
“I didn’t know you had such a great romantic disposition, Miss Selene.”
“Why are you being sarcastic?”
Normally, Theron would have come to his senses and bowed his head by now, but he seemed particularly on edge about this topic.
“That’s because you’re talking carelessly about poverty without knowing it, Miss Selene. Poverty is not something that someone who grew up in a warm and comfortable greenhouse like you can pretend to know about.”
“And you have the right to, Mr. Theron?”
“More than enough. Because there will be no one who knows the horror of poverty better than me. Poverty turns even a normal person into a monster. Miserable, violent, and cruel. I assure you, it’s a horror you can never imagine.”
Theron’s eyes shone darkly, as if to contain that horror.
He was so serious that it was hard to believe it was an argument that had started from the sight of a family they had watched from afar.
However, Selene also couldn’t back down at this point.
Because he was also talking carelessly without knowing what her life was like.
“The bitter loneliness of being cornered as a child is also the same. It’s so painful to have no one to rejoice with even when there’s something so joyful you could fly, and to have no one to be angry with even when there’s something so infuriating you could hit the ground with your bare fists. Others might see it as crazy, but the person themselves would cling to a piano that doesn’t give any answer, just to live.”
At the end of her words, Selene’s breathing had become ragged.
It had been so long since she had spoken so excitedly that she felt out of breath.
“…”
‘What other rebuttal will he make?’
Selene belatedly checked Theron’s reaction, but he, who had been tensing his eyebrows as if ready to lash out, looked a little surprised.
At that sight, Selene also came to her senses belatedly.
‘This wasn’t something to talk about to this extent.’
Theron seemed to have realized that fact as well, as his lips parted.
“I…”
“I think it’s better if we stop talking for today. I think we’re both being emotional right now.”
Selene, with a throbbing headache, cut off Theron’s words first.
Theron did not take his eyes off Selene, as if checking her reaction, but did not speak as she had suggested.
Until they walked out of the zoo, until they got in the car and he safely dropped her off at the ducal estate.
Thud.
Theron, who had stopped the car in front of the main gate, got out of the car and kissed the back of Selene’s hand without forgetting.
“I’ll send a letter…”
However, as evening approached, a silent atmosphere still flowed between the two, like the cold air that had settled down.
“Be careful on your way.”
Selene gave a short farewell and turned her back, walking into the ducal estate.

Ding, ding.
A series of wrong notes flowed from the piano.
Selene, with her eyes cast down, stopped her fingers on the keyboard and stopped playing.
The reason why the piece that had been played so incredibly well just a few days ago was suddenly not going well.
Selene knew the reason that was disturbing her practice without even having to look for it.
It was probably because of Theron Cox.
More precisely, it was because of the light argument with Theron at the zoo.
Selene looked at the cloudy sky today and had to wonder why that argument was messing with her mood so much.
Was it because it had ruined her first outing in a long time?
Or was it because Theron had insisted his opinion was right without knowing her life?
Because of that, she couldn’t remember the cute appearance of the mole well?
In fact, it was all of the above.
Selene, unlike herself, had been excited about her outing that day and had spent a satisfying day until she fought with Theron.
But after seeing the crying child, it was completely overturned.
Theron had criticized her.
That she was pretending to know about poverty without knowing it.
But it was the same for Theron.
He had treated her like a flower in a greenhouse without knowing her life.
Suddenly, an unpleasant memory surfaced.
Selene had no hobby of ruminating on her unhappy and gloomy past, but once she was caught in that old memory, she was tormented all day.
Because the atmosphere of the mansion right after her parents passed away, the unpleasant temperature and humidity, the image of the silent corridor still came to her vividly.

When she was young, whenever she felt such gloom, she would cling to the piano to escape from the black hand that was chasing her.
Although she didn’t know the poverty Theron Cox had talked about because she hadn’t experienced it, she was sure it was a painful memory that she couldn’t carelessly talk about what was better.
And Theron Cox had talked carelessly without knowing that.
Because of that, Selene had to spend several days in an irritated state, wasting her practice time.
On top of that, the husband in ‘The Age of Love and Romance’ who had forgotten his wife while making money reminded her of Theron Cox, which made her feel even more down.
Selene glared at the paper with the original sonnet written on it, next to the sheet music.
‘I didn’t like this husband from the beginning.’
The wife who couldn’t say a word to her husband even as she was dying was also frustrating, but if she had to choose the more despicable one, it was undoubtedly the husband who had been soaked in materialism and had only made excuses to his dying wife at the last minute.
However, funnily enough, Selene’s seemingly eternal anger gradually faded over time.
As the saying goes, “time is the best medicine,” and as the sporadic unpleasant feelings subsided and she calmed down, she began to see the situation of that day more objectively.
Like the pained look in Theron Cox’s eyes as he winced, or the dejected expression of the mother trying to soothe her crying child after the father had left.
Perhaps that’s why, Selene suddenly found herself mulling over what he had said.

“Because there will be no one who knows the horror of poverty better than me.”