Roswell was a beautiful bucolic cap

Roswell was a beautiful bucolic capital surrounded by greenery. A city located at the foot of a mountain, surrounded by several high others. Its whole territory was something to be contemplated. However, amongst influential people, Roswell was known for its summerhouses – or, in other words, its holiday’s villas.
In spring, the mountains and rivers overflowing with flowers entertained people’s eyes. In summer, many sought the biggest waterfall, which was a touristic point, to learn about local history. In autumn, everyone’s hearts were struck by the rain of decaying leaves. In winter, the whole scenery was enveloped into silent tranquility. As the transition of the four seasons was very easily distinguishable, it was a land that had more than enough to offer for pleasing the people who visited during the change of periods for sightseeing.
Many villas had been built connected to the mountain-foot city, which consisted of wooden cottages painted in many colors. From the smallest to the biggest lots, the cost of land in the area was quite a large sum, and therefore, having a villa be made there was a proof of wealth in itself.
The city was cramped with shops for tourists. On holidays, the main street interconnected to said shops would be crowded, pleasant tunes playing in the background. With such assortment, no one could make fun of the place, even with it being the countryside. People would usually build villas in the city for the sake of convenience, and anyone who built them anywhere else was viewed as an oddball.
The current season was an autumn of drifting clouds in a tall-looking sky. Away from the mountain foot, located near a lake that was not highly regarded as a sightseeing point, there was a single cottage.
It was a traditional-style house with remarkable traits, as though to express it belonged to a profitable person. But as if it also belonged to an uncaring person, it was in poor condition, with an aspect of abandonment. Beyond the arch-shaped gate colored in washed-out white paint, a garden filled with weeds and nameless flowers could be found, as well as a rotting red brick wall that did not seem like it would be repaired. Roof tiles cracked here and there, looking like they used to be perfectly aligned in the past but had been cruelly pared. Next to the house’s entrance was a swing covered in entangled ivies, seemingly no longer movable. It was a cue there used to be children around, as well as a cue that there were not anymore.
The house’s proprietary was a middle-aged man named Oscar. With said name, he had maintained a career in the writing industry as a playwright. He was a redhead of many habits who wore heavy-lensed, black-rimmed glasses. He was child-faced and a little bent forward, which made him look younger than he really was, and always wore a sweater, as he was sensitive to cold. A completely normal man that did not hint he could become a protagonist in any sort of story.
The house was not Oscar’s villa; it had been built with the genuine desire to spend his life in that place. Not him alone, but also his wife and young daughter. It had enough space for the three of them, yet there was no one other than Oscar living there. The other two had long passed away.
The cause of Oscar’s wife’s death had been illness. Its name was too lengthy, to the point one would give up trying to pronounce it. To put it bluntly, it was the rapid clotting of blood vessels and death by clogging. Moreover, it was hereditary, and his wife had inherited it from her father. As she had become an orphan due to the high mortality rate in her family, he had only come to find out the harsh truth regarding his wife, who had been lonely from her lack of relatives, after she had died.
“She was scared that, if you’d known, you might have not wanted to marry a sick woman, so she kept it a secret.”
The one who had told him so had been her best friend. At her funeral, from the moment he had received such revelation from her, one question had constantly echoed in Oscar’s head.
“Why? Why? Why?”
If she had told him beforehand, no matter how much it cost, together, they could have searched for a cure. They could have spent any amount of the extra money they had in their piled-up savings, regardless of the expenses.
It was glaringly obvious that Oscar’s wife had not married him for gold-digging. He had first met her before becoming a playwright, and their meetings took place in the library he frequently visited, while the one who had first noticed her – the former librarian – had been Oscar himself.
――I thought she was… a beautiful person. The corner of new books she was in charge of was always interesting. While I fell in love with those books, I also fell in love with her.
“Why?” was repeated several hundreds of million times. Anything else had disappeared from his mind.
His wife’s best friend was an auspicious person, and while he had lost his heart with the death of his wife, she energetically took care of him and his sm