This Time We Can Be Good Friends
After seeing Sion off, Mia penned a quick letter to Ludwig before diving back into bed.
“Phew, I’m worn out.”
The heavy labour of filling half a page with words had left her exhausted. She stretched her limbs, then sank into her mattress like a limp noodle.
“Sorry to people I’ve made trouble for, huh?” she said to herself as she buried her face in her pillow.
“I guess he has a point. That does feel like something I have to do if I want to die without any regrets. The problem is, I don’t have anyone like that…”
The previous timeline was one thing, but in the current one, Mia’s life has been one of redemption after redemption after redemption. The chef who was supposed to be fired was now happy to be the head chef at the imperial court. She would even thank her father for his service.
Newmoon District, which had previously gone completely neglected until it was too late, was now benefiting from constant reformative efforts. The once-desolate townscape was steadily showing signs of renewed life.
One by one, she’d fixed the mistakes she’d made in her past life. She might have done wrong in the past, but now she had made up for it. So why, then, did Sion’s words gnaw at her conscience?
“Eh, maybe it’s just me. If anything, I likely have to thank a lot more people. There’s Anne and Ludwig… Abel and Sion… Chloe, and Miss Rafina too… And Tiona probably counts—”
She stopped in her tracks as a sudden thought hit her.
These thoughts she was having seemed strangely…foreign.
She was nearing the end of her life, and of all the things that came to mind, thanking all her dear friends was one of them. It happened so easily, like it was just part of who she was. Even Sion, who had always been her worst enemy, was on the list. She was no longer even a little bit angry at him. She felt the same both for Keithwood and Liora. Whatever bad feelings there had been between her and them before were gone.
Well, Dion was still just as scary as ever, but besides that one weird thing, she had become close with everyone else. They’d get along well.
But for some reason, one of those relationships felt a little bit different, like there was still some tension there. A sense of being far away.
They were friends, but they weren’t very good friends.
Tiona… Something didn’t feel right between her and Tiona, and that made it hard for them to get close. A sense of distance. What was it?
The answer came quickly. It came from a memory she hadn’t thought about in a long time. She saw visions and felt ghostly sensations at the same time.
Her palm stung.
A girl looked at her with wide eyes in confusion and shock. There were the grating jeers from her sycophantic entourage, as well as…
“You pauper of a noble! Who do you think you are being chummy with Prince Sion, huh? Learn your place!”
Her own voice was so cruel and full of scorn. It was something she had done in a past life. She had forgotten about it for so long, but now she remembered.
“Ah, yes, I remember now. I need to say I’m sorry for something. I have to apologise to Tiona for what I did to her before.”
In the previous timeline, Mia had seen Tiona and Prince Sion grow closer to each other. Her loneliness and frustration, deepened by Sion’s total disregard for her, had led her to act on her worst impulses.
She’d struck Tiona. Across the face. She could almost still feel the pain in her hand. It was the one thing she hadn’t been able to make up for yet, she realised.
A mistake yet unamended, because…
“That problem went away on its own. I didn’t have to do anything…”
It was an event that has been forgotten.
History ate it up. Because it wasn’t there, she had one sin that her time reset couldn’t wash away because there was nothing left to wash.
Of course, objectively speaking, Tiona was one of the people who’d sent her to the guillotine. One could argue that a slap on the cheek was a payback. At worst, they were even.
It wasn’t about making sense, though. Mia knew that what happened that day had stuck like a thorn in her heart, and no amount of reasoning could get it out. What hurt, hurt.
With her death getting closer, she was quickly running out of things she could do in the time she had left. This wasn’t the time for fragile egos. She had to do something.
“Now that I think about it, I never really became friends with Tiona, and I think that’s because of what happened.”
If her second chance at life had basically made up for that sin, then her avoiding the guillotine should have been a sign that she was no longer angry at Tiona. Mia no longer had bad feelings towards the girl. If anything, Tiona had given Mia a lot of help both in Remno and during the election.
“It wouldn’t have been the least bit surprising if we had become really good friends, but somewhere, somehow, it felt like there was a rift between us. And now that I know why, I need to do something about it because if I don’t, I won’t be able to die in peace.”
She found the answer after a long time. She would never be able to say sorry to the real Tiona, who she had hurt.
If she did that to Tiona now, who doesn’t remember being hit, it would probably just confuse her.
Well, so what if it does? That wasn’t important.
After all, Mia has always put herself first, and her decision to live in the moment makes that even more clear.
Moment-living-me-first didn’t care what other people thought or felt.
She was going to have her way.
“I need to make things right with Tiona for what I did to her. That way, if I do die on the night of the Holy Eve Festival and by some miracle get another chance at life, I will have done the right thing.”
When that happens, I’ll know for sure that we can finally become good friends.”
Mia nodded, and a weight that had been teetering for a long time finally fell into place.
“Well, now that I know, there’s no time to waste.”
The next day, she promptly went to see Tiona, bringing a big box of fancy pastries with her as an apology gift.
Let it be known that she did not do it because she wanted to eat them herself.
