Try Begging

Episode 201

[Leon, he who laughs last is the ultimate winner.]

The moment this line came out, Leon furrowed his brow. His father had never said anything like that.

He who laughs last, is the ultimate winner.

Who will have the last laugh when this war ends, where both sides have risked everything? He wondered, not knowing that the woman who was both his enemy and his target in this war was asking the same question in the same space.

[Blow! Blow quickly!]

[Ugh!]

When the scene of that night at Abington Beach came on, both of them closed their eyes. Grace also covered her ears, but instead of stopping the horrible sound, it became clearer. The sound that was ringing in her ears was the sound she had heard that night.

It was a time when I would rather take my hands off my ears than listen to the screams in my head with the sounds from outside.

[father!]

The boy's heartbreaking scream was heard.

When you first saw your father, who had grown cold, did you scream like that? Maybe you came looking for me, who never came no matter how long you waited, and found my body. The moment that thought came to mind, my heart sank.

The moment Eli's face overlapped with the boy's face screaming in front of his father's body, my breath was caught in my throat.

After having a child, I looked at that day with new eyes. The thirteen-year-old boy who seemed like an adult at the time now looked like a child. A child who had suffered an unbearable shock must have become a monster blinded by revenge. And I could understand why that revenge arrow was directed at me.

We were all immature. Adults were even more immature.

The two people who hadn't grown at all since that day were still immature. She wanted to grow, but she didn't know what a mature adult was. So, she ran away again, immaturely, just like that night.

Grace, stop. The boy is gone. The boy you loved is dead.

Who killed him?

I am.... I am not.

As the blue eyes that had once called her a dirty pig stared at her from the darkness, she clenched her teeth. She opened her tightly shut eyes and glared at the back of the man's head.

Why is it that the man is so happy, but I am still suffering from guilt and pity that are not my share?

Don't forget what that monster did to me. Understanding a monster doesn't mean you can forgive it.

[The youngest domestic intelligence officer in our Western Command...]

It was only when the play jumped forward several years and began to tell the story of Leon Winston as an adult that she was finally able to shake off the nagging thoughts. He was easier to hate than a boy.

[Captain Winston, Jim trusts you.]

Grace's face distorted as the King suddenly appeared. The King was portrayed as a long-time supporter and patron of Leon Winston. At this point, it began to look like a propaganda film rather than an entertainment film.

Even characters who did not exist in reality appeared one by one. Not only that, but the events leading up to the Blackburn massacre were almost entirely fictitious.

'Isn't that completely nonsense?'

Grace and Leon held back their laughter as everyone else held back their tears. To the hundreds of people in the theater, the film was a tearful and magnificent drama, but to them alone, it was a comedy.