The night felt unbearably long for Joseph. The silence was so profound that it seemed as though every sound had been swallowed by the world itself, if not for the ticking of his pocket watch and the occasional hoot of an owl accompanying the night. Those sounds felt far louder than they should have.
Joseph opened his pocket watch and held it closer. He examined it carefully. The watch looked very old, covered in countless fine scratches that suggested it had been used for years. Yet seeing that it still worked perfectly, he was certain that Ciel had taken great care of it. A relevant memory surfaced from Ciel's recollections—the first day he received the watch was on his seventeenth birthday, when his grandfather gave it to him as a gift. His feelings became complicated as he looked at it, as though he—Joseph—had no right to wear something that belonged to Ciel.
Slowly, he closed the pocket watch.
Click.
He glanced toward the upper bunk and saw the young girl sleeping soundly beneath her blanket. Her breathing could be heard clearly in the stillness of the night. Her face seemed marked by the exhaustion of her daily life.
Although Joseph was not Arianna's brother, he could not bring himself to abandon her. His thoughts drifted throughout the night.
"If I've been transferred into this body... then where did the real Ciel go? Has he died?"
The question escaped Joseph's lips despite himself. It was utterly absurd that he had suddenly switched bodies. Yet no matter how hard he thought about it, he would never find an answer. In the end, Joseph could only push the question to the back of his mind.
Without realizing it, he began wandering through the house. The old home carried its own memories within Ciel's mind. He could see fragments of the past—Ciel studying for the first time, Ciel crying before his mother, and the day Arianna was first conceived. All of those memories appeared as blurred and distant images.
He continued exploring the house. His grandfather's room remained firmly locked. His grandfather's robe hung from a wooden stand. The remaining space consisted only of a kitchen and dining area combined into a single room. There was no living room. Any visitor who came to the house would be seated directly at the dining table in the kitchen.
After a while, Joseph returned to the bedroom and noticed Ciel's study desk. It stood facing the window. Dozens of notebooks and books were piled atop it.
Among the stack, a piece of paper caught his attention. It rested on top of books such as State Administrative Systems, Fundamental Economics, and The Relationship Between Politics and National Prosperity. His pupils widened the moment he saw it.
It was Ciel's graduation certificate.
His hands trembled violently as he reached for the paper. It was something he had spent his entire life desperately pursuing, only to have it destroyed by the cruelty of reality. He had once imagined the day he would graduate from a university in London. He imagined graduating alongside his friends, finding a respectable job, living freely, falling in love with the woman he longed for, marrying her, having adorable children, buying a house, and retiring as a happy man. But none of that would ever come true now.
"That's right, he isn't Joseph, the failed man. He is Ciel, the man who completed his studies."
There was a deep bitterness in his words. Realizing that even though he was using Ciel's body, he would never be able to become someone like Ciel.
Slowly, he placed the paper back down and looked at the notebook on the desk. It was a thick notebook filled with scraps of paper containing Ciel's thoughts. Joseph opened it. The handwriting was neat, though occasionally messy and disorganized. Across several pages, Ciel had recorded his thoughts and the research he had conducted on the societies and politics of this world.
Joseph knew that Ciel was an exceptionally intelligent man. A man with the same diligence and mindset Joseph himself had possessed before being expelled from university. He was someone who studied tirelessly through the night in order to improve his family's financial situation—for Michelle, and for Arianna.
"If I hadn't been expelled back then, perhaps... I would have become like this," Joseph thought.
He continued reading the notebook. One page led to another, and then another after that. The deeper Joseph read, the more he fell into himself. He could not suppress the feeling growing inside his heart.
Envy.
Yes, perhaps that was the word that best described his current state.
Joseph slowly closed his eyes, then closed the notebook. The feelings he was experiencing right now were truly repulsive. His feelings of envy toward others' achievements made him feel ashamed. Why did he have to feel this way?
But now, there was nothing he could do. He could only remain silent and accept reality. His eyes looked lifeless as he sat before his wooden desk, gazing at the sky through the window. The moon still felt incredibly close, and the sky looked as dark as the emotions he was experiencing now. Slowly, he raised both hands and covered his face.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The ticking of the pocket watch was still as loud as before. Bathed in the beautiful moonlight, Joseph lowered his hands once more. He glanced toward the edge of the wall. A framed photograph hung there. The picture contained three people he recognized. It was a young Ciel, a young Arianna, and Michelle, who looked far younger than he did now.
Joseph gritted his teeth. His face was filled with deep regret. How could he be envy of Ciel, when he had stolen his body? How could he be envy of a man who was likely already dead? How could he be envy of a man whose family he had stolen from without their knowledge? If Ciel's true soul found out about this, what would he do to Joseph? Would he slap him? Punch him? Kill him?
Those questions lingered in his mind like the final thoughts before death. In the end, he could only let out a quiet laugh.
"Forgive me, Ciel."
Joseph closed his eyes once more. He imagined his old life in London. The day he first entered university, and the days when his family was still whole. He could still picture the university corridors, the laughter he shared with his classmates, and the comforting atmosphere of the classroom. He could still picture his old home and his parents.
His father would return from work as a laborer, while his mother prepared food for Joseph and his father while Joseph buried himself in his books. Usually, they would laugh together and talk like any ordinary family.
Then he remembered the day his father left him forever after dying in war. Rows of nameless graves stood before him, preventing him from knowing which one belonged to his father. Joseph could still see his mother crying hysterically, insisting that her husband was still alive, insisting that he had not died. He could still see her once-bright face becoming dark and filthy as she collapsed helplessly onto the floor. He could still see her lying motionless in her room, blood running down her legs. At the time, she had been pregnant, and he had been about to become an older brother.
He still remembered sinking into depression afterward, and how not a single friend who once laughed alongside him came to see him or show any concern. He could still picture the day he was forced to sell the house his parents had left behind just to survive, leaving him alone in a cramped rented room. He could still see the moment that letter informing him of his expulsion from university shattered him completely.
Joseph could still see himself standing before that antique shop on a cold and silent night. He remembered breaking the shop window and trying to take anything valuable, only to be discovered immediately. He still remembered being arrested by those police officers. Even then, the moon had seemed just as close as it did here.
He remained silent for a while. This time, the memories seemed to blend together with Ciel's. He did not know what to do, but he opened his eyes and looked ahead. He stood and walked toward the full-length mirror.
His slightly curly hair had become perfectly straight. His blue eyes had become black as the night itself. His once-thin body had grown healthier and fuller. His brown hair had become jet black.
He still wondered—was he Ciel? Or was he Joseph August?
"If I accept Ciel's memories and embrace them, will I eventually stop being Joseph?"
No answer came. His reflection remained unchanged. The figure staring back at him still felt unfamiliar, yet at times strangely familiar. Even the name Ciel Grand felt increasingly natural to him.
But that terrified him. A chill crept down his spine. What if he forgot his old life? What if he remembered Ciel and Arianna's childhood more clearly than his own? What if he forgot his mother and remembered Ciel's mother instead? What if, one day, he could no longer tell the difference between Joseph and Ciel?
He did not want that to happen. He was Joseph August, not Ciel Grand. At least for now, that was what he believed.
Joseph looked at the sky once more. The crescent moon hung unnaturally close, just as it had that night. It remained a strange sight, a reminder of how he had ended up here. Everything had begun back then. Perhaps the clue to finding his way home lay there as well.
But Joseph remained silent. Slowly, he murmured, "Is returning to London even worth it?"
Yet for the sake of the memories he held of that city, he still wanted to try. Even that tiny hope was enough to keep him going. After spending the entire night wrestling with countless questions, he finally found a measure of peace.
Joseph slowly climbed onto the lower bunk and lay down with a calmer mind. The long night still felt cold and endless. The moon continued to hang beautifully in the sky as he closed his eyes.
"Ciel, perhaps... we're the same. We're both people who have lost something."
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
His pocket watch continued ticking in the silent night like a lullaby. For now, Joseph did not know the answers to any of these questions. Tonight, he was simply too exhausted to keep thinking about them.