This Delusional Voice Keeps Telling Me I’m a Villain

…I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t the father I’d always seen. There was a man who was impossibly beautiful. I didn’t know if it was really my father. As soon as he realised that his face had changed—no, reverted to its original state—he fell to his knees, covered his face with his hands and screamed. 

“STOP!!! DON’T LOOK!! DON’T LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!”  

Half-crazed, Father repeatedly screamed not to look at him while covering his face.

Urschel-sama looked at Father and said, “I was wondering if Lord Felipe had taken the magic dust too since he looks so different now from the way he looked originally. In Lord Felipe’s case, I suppose it was mostly the shock of being made a laughing stock by Lady Nermie that gave him a complex about his appearance. He must’ve thought that if he was an ugly man from the start, it didn’t matter if he was disgraced… Is that why you changed your appearance and took the drug? …You’re such a beautiful person, but Lady Nermie is a fool that she didn’t see it…”   

When I heard the words of Urschel-sama, I looked down. Just because of Father’s personal grudge… or I could say, this was due to Mother’s arrogance in the first place that my life was nearly ruined. 

What if. If it hadn’t been for the help of Urschel, I would have had to open my body to strangers. For a debt that didn’t really exist, I would have been worked and abused no matter how humiliating or miserable it would make my life be… My life would have been so dark.  

From the beginning… Mother and Father have never loved me. Does that mean… it’s the same with Didi too? 

The reason I went along with Urschel-sama was that I wanted to get back at my father for setting me up, but I also wanted to be sure. I thought he might love me a little bit. I was hoping that he didn’t want to do it but had no choice due to some extenuating circumstances that led him to set me up like that.  

It was nothing but my wishful thinking. The truth was a far cry from that. From the very beginning, I was… 

“Oh yes. Aiden, I have someone to introduce to you, is this a good time?” Urschel-sama suddenly asked me. 

Huh? Someone to introduce to me? Like, now? Right now, when Mother and Father are crying and screaming? I couldn’t fathom it at all. 

“Do-Does it have to be now?”

“Yes, it has to be now. Because, Aiden, your problems are not over yet.”

“?”

When I was very confused and wondering, Urschel-sama shouted to the door of the parlour.

“You can enter now.”

And the one who came in was…

“I’m sorry, Aiden!”

It was Didi.

As soon as Didi came into the room, he bowed his head towards me. But the Didi I remembered was always nicely dressed, but here… No matter how I saw him… He looked like a slave.  

“Aiden… I, I’ve been deceiving you….”

Didi was crying. He must have been crying every day for a long time. His face was red and swollen, and the marks of his tears were searing to the sight. 

“….I’m not really your friend. The Viscount ordered me to be one. Well, I couldn’t have been your friend in the first place… I’m a slave, as you can see… I was never meant to be next to you, Aiden at all… I don’t have any good looks or voice or anything. I was left out at the black market and was picked up by the Viscount. I was ordered to win you over, so I approached you under a false identity—I’m a bad guy. 

Sorry… I’m sorry… Aiden. The Viscount told me that if I disobeyed his orders, he would send me back to the black market immediately… So I got scared and did that to Aiden… I knew Aiden would be miserable, yet I…!” 

Didi couldn’t stop the tears from falling from his eyes. Under his eyes, there were terrible dark circles and his cheeks were gaunt. He must have been suffering for days and days. 

“Aiden, I’ve deceived you and hid the fact that I was a slave in order to become your friend… I’ve always wished I could have been your friend forever, but I ended up driving you to misery just to save my own ass… No matter how many times I apologize, it will never be forgiven… I… I… like you no matter what you look like, and being with you has always saved my soul, but instead… I, I’ve hurt you.”

It was as if his body couldn’t stop shaking. Didi’s body was so emaciated that it looked like it was about to break. His bones were discernible even under those clothes. I was sure that for days and days… he had suffered in deep regret, without even eating. 

Urschel-sama spoke to me, “You know, he was kept captive in the basement of this estate. He had food, clothing and shelter, but the cell he was confined in was so small, it was more like a doghouse than a prison.” 

“Huh?”

Then my face turned pale as Urschel-sama continued. 

“The only time they let him out of the cell was when he was going to see you. That’s also the only time he was free to go out. But the rest of the time when he’s not meeting you, he is locked up in the cell, all by himself, with no light and nothing to keep him warm. No one in the house felt sorry for him or even tried to help him. He lived like a tool only to be used when necessary…

….But, he says his life is a lot better than when he was on the black market in Natcheil. Here, no one laughs at him because he has no good looks or anything… No one hurts him or torture him or violates him because he is a worthless slave that no one wants… He said his current life is a blessed one, you know?”

Those words—those shocking facts—overwhelmed me with emotions that I couldn’t think straight. I was washed over by so many emotions beyond what words can describe that I wanted to cry.

“Hey, Aiden, I’m leaving it to you to decide what to do with Didi. It’s up to you to decide how you want to handle him.”

If I had to describe my feelings in one word, I would say I regretted it. I had resented him without knowing anything about him; my friend. I would rather not have hated him blindly, as my father did… I should’ve checked more into it, checked more properly and not to get fooled by the pretence… 

…I should’ve talked more to him, understood him a wee bit more.

As friends, we should have cried, agonized and suffered together. We should have overthrown and defeated Father together…

…Because I, I like Didi.