Ch.124Winter’s Legacy (6)

It was a common story.

A girl who had lived her entire life in darkness saw light for the first time, but unfamiliar with the comfort, she became frightened and ran away.

It was a paradox of misfortune.

While shedding tears about not wanting to be unhappy, in the end, one returns to the most familiar unhappiness.

Because in a wandering life, that sorrow alone had become home.

A life that remains in life.

The girl before me was the same.

“So this is where you were, Neria.”

“You…?”

Silver hair fluttering in the biting wind.

Starlight rippling around.

Cheeks with blood and tears dripping, and a large wound on the right side of her face.

Her transparent eyes stared blankly at me.

“I’m not too late.”

I respond as if answering her gaze.

Realizing the girl had disappeared, I chased after her, and at least I could stop her before things reached their worst.

From my palm that hastily covered the dagger comes the sound of flesh cooking.

The temperature of metal fully containing starlight.

Despite this, I meet her eyes without showing any sign of pain.

“Do you know how worried I was?”

The girl makes a complicated expression at my glib reproach.

Her lips, momentarily silent, soon mutter with a hoarse voice.

“…So you followed me after all. Even through this terrible blizzard.”

“I promised I would take responsibility.”

“That’s right…”

You’re that kind of person.

The girl smiles with a strange atmosphere, as if she’s reached enlightenment.

Her calm voice reveals resignation instead.

“That’s why I left you.”

Because you’re too good a person.

The warmth and kindness you casually offered, your dedication to become a home beyond misfortune, was too much and overwhelming for a mere monster from the bottom.

Because I was afraid this cursed fate would hurt you too.

I decided to leave your side by my own steps.

“This is my choice.”

“Neria.”

“Still, I enjoyed the time we spent together. So much that I unknowingly became thirsty for more… but now it’s over.”

The futile dream shatters into pieces.

A smile still lingering on her lips.

The girl seemed to have made some decision while wandering through the blizzard.

The faint warmth makes its final declaration toward me.

“Hey. I have one last request.”

There is no vitality in her silver eyes.

She was a flower on the verge of breaking.

“Kill me.”

It was a prayer for suicide.

Her expression, showing even a hint of relief, was crumbling ephemerally.

The starlight spread around becomes increasingly vivid.

“I’m tired now.”

The girl didn’t want to become a monster.

She didn’t want to hurt others, nor did she want to tremble in loneliness and darkness forever.

In the end, her choice was once again an escape into unhappiness.

Toward the most familiar home.

“Kill me with your hands, before I become a monster… before that happens.”

“……”

“If it’s you, I think I won’t regret it.”

I couldn’t give any answer.

Tears flowing along her wounds.

I felt crushed by the atmosphere.

Perhaps taking my silence as acceptance, the girl slowly moves the dagger we were holding together.

The still-hot blade soon aimed at her delicate neck.

She didn’t apply force.

As if.

Asking me to do the stabbing.

It was truly wicked.

“My body will soon go berserk. I tried to suppress it as much as possible, but now I can feel my reason gradually fading.”

Whoosh-!

Was that statement a signal?

Her condition worsens dramatically.

The light surrounding us all flares up at once, beginning to release power originating from the stars.

The scenery becomes gradually enveloped in high heat, even the weather fading.

She closes her eyes gently, as if to emphasize.

“If you don’t kill me… this entire area will be swept away by starlight.”

A warning.

Meaning that if I don’t kill her here, more people will die.

As if to prove this, the light’s resistance intensifies.

The flash strikes with thousands of thorns, piercing into my skin.

The pain of flesh cooking in real-time was not pleasant.

I bow my head.

“Please.”

A wish echoing in my ears.

Chewing on the texture felt from her words, I reflect on myself.

The time I had spent with the girl.

-Why… are you doing so much for me?

I quietly recall that question.

At the time, I evaded with an ambiguous answer, but now I needed to reach a conclusion to that question.

Despite becoming increasingly bloodied, I continued my contemplation.

As if looking back at myself.

‘Why…’

Why did I dedicate myself so much?

The other person was merely an extra.

One who would become the seed of calamity that would completely burn a tenth of the continent in the future.

What was the reason for offering comfort to such a monster?

‘Well.’

Perhaps.

Because the sensation of caring for another had been so long forgotten.

Because that faint body temperature was particularly poignant.

Though the girl didn’t resemble my sister in any way, whenever I faced her, the mourning I had left in the recesses of my memory surfaced.

In one withering flower lives a heart I couldn’t bring myself to burn.

I smile vaguely.

‘I saw in you.’

I might have overlapped that child in you.

Or perhaps myself.

Thoroughly abandoned by the world, despairing in unintended misfortune, yet struggling to live, but facing merciless unfairness too harsh to endure with mere youthful spirit, losing love so futilely, with nowhere to rely on, we ultimately even lost the words that made us who we were, so only I could remain in that winter, snow, breath, farewell, and like you now, there were children trembling in the cold.

That’s why I couldn’t pass by you, a monster.

I couldn’t kill you despite being a seed of calamity.

Because I thought every scar remaining on that being resembled us.

I wished for the us of that time to be completely happy.

‘A personal desire.’

The dedication I offered was based on such selfishness.

Because the self reflected in the mirror kept bothering me, it was hypocritical mercy carried out by prioritizing myself over others.

I didn’t feel ashamed of that.

I just wanted to be an absolution in supporting your pain.

I hoped you wouldn’t hate yourself reflected in the mirror.

I hoped that you, resembling me, wouldn’t resign to your life, and would continue to breathe that fragile breath.

Though it’s somewhat selfish.

Even so, I.

“Neria.”

I wanted you to live.

“I told you I would be fine.”

I release my hand holding the dagger.

The silver blade falls to the ground.

Simultaneously, before she can react, I spread my arms and embrace her fragile body.

The violent starlight rages as if to devour us.

Still, I don’t let go.

‘Just as I tamed you… you also tamed me.’

The responsibility of taming is not borne by one side alone.

Since we formed a relationship together.

There should be no hierarchy in the effort required.

Therefore, I did not permit your escape.

Just as I took responsibility for you from unhappiness, you too had the duty to take responsibility for me from loneliness.

I held onto that faint breath and slowly let the lie seep in.

It was the fulfillment of responsibility.

“You don’t have to be in pain anymore.”

Cut, stabbed, burned.

Responsibility is painful.

Yet the reason I don’t turn my back on this pitiful girl.

Simply.

“Let’s go home together.”

To you who are in pain.

With a heart wanting to offer comfort.

***

“Please.”

The girl was waiting for death.

The end of life finally reached.

There was no regret in the choice she had made.

This was the best for everyone.

A story where even a monster becomes happy, surely wouldn’t exist in any fate.

Her tightly closed eyelids block her tear-blurred vision.

‘It’s all over.’

It had been a painful time.

But.

It seemed like she could close her eyes peacefully at the end.

Because there was someone to tie that knot.

-I’ve come to get you.

The boy who had shown her warmth for the first time in her life.

This was more than enough of an ending.

The heat lingering near her neck proves the dagger’s existence.

When that sharpness completely pierces this breath, peace would come to this wretched life.

Tears flow down.

‘Still… I’m a little scared after all.’

Her shoulders stiffen involuntarily.

She calms her mind.

Amidst the mixture of all emotions, the star adds to its light.

Fear, freedom, resentment, tranquility, liberation… while recalling all these words and waiting for the subsequent ending.

Something covers the girl’s body.

Whoosh-!

“I told you I would be fine.”

A lukewarm body temperature.

In her reflexively opened eyes, she sees the image of the boy embracing her.

He was holding the burning starlight.

“Let’s go home together.”

At the continuing voice, the girl comes to her senses.

The scenery being dyed by starlight in real-time.

The monster desperately tried to detach the body clinging to her.

It was clear that at this rate, both would be incinerated.

“What are you doing! Get away…!”

I asked for death.

Not for a joint suicide.

The reason she left was because she wanted him not to get hurt, so what meaning was there in burning so meaninglessly?

The girl pushes away that cozy embrace with all her might.

But it’s useless.

“You’ll be caught up too! Do you want to die together?!”

“Shh.”

But.

Despite her desperate cries, the boy simply smiled.

Though it must surely hurt, his expression was serene.

Darkness ripples in his lightly flicking finger.

Snap-!

“Please focus.”

Shadows creeping around them.

The pitch-black draping like a curtain gradually covers the brilliant starlight.

The rampaging power regains a calm flow.

A sense of dissonance felt at this point.

“…Ah.”

The girl stops struggling and stands in place.

It felt different from the usual treatment.

The gradually subsiding violence.

Not simply a feeling of being suppressed, but rapidly refining that vast power.

The boy was interpreting the starlight in real-time.

Swish…

The formula he deployed quickly permeates the starlight, neutralizing it.

The boy mutters with a tiring voice.

“Fortunately… I found it. A way to seal that starlight.”

Although it took three months, I’m glad it wasn’t too late.

The light gradually subsides and eventually goes out completely.

The rampaging flow also returned.

No… saying it merely returned was insufficient.

It disappeared.

The power that had been with her all her life was no longer felt.

He had sealed it arbitrarily.

“Im, impossible… how, h-how…?”

The girl shows a confused reaction.

Though it was truly an unbelievable situation, the snake just smiled mischievously as usual.

The embrace still close to each other was warm.

“Because I’m staying by your side.”

Words promised a few days ago.

A promise to protect.

The boy whispers in her ear.

It was the moment of breaking the curse that had persisted.

“From now on, you won’t experience any loneliness, pain, or unhappiness.”

“……”

“I will make it so.”

A voice wholly pledging his life.

Like a lie.

And like a miracle.

The boy came.

“So… won’t you return?”

To embrace a lonely monster.

“To our home.”

“…Ugh.”

Words she had so longed to hear.

Anyone would do.

Even with such a cursed fate, a word of permission that it was okay to remain in this world.

A word that gifts a home to her solitary self.

“Hng…”

The girl couldn’t stop the tears pouring out.

Hot tears scattering drop by drop.

The meaning of those tears was no longer resignation or despair.

Only joy dyed in pure white was overflowing.

-Why was I born?

After seeing the light of the world.

The winter of life that had continued for nearly 20 years. It was the first spring that came to such a season.

Even the blizzard that seemed eternal had stopped.

Transparent dewdrops fall drip by drip.

The girl embraces the boy’s body in return.

“It’s warm… hic, it’s, warm…”

Warmth.

Heat.

Coziness.

How much had she longed for these words?

How much had she thirsted for them?

As if quenching a long thirst, the girl buried her face in his broad embrace.

Her childlike crying fills the empty snowfield completely.

“Ugh, huu…”

“You’ve worked hard all this time.”

Only a fallen name is visible on the ground.

A dagger containing the past, a negation.

Beside such a dagger, suddenly a flower has bloomed.

As if announcing that the long winter had ended.

What winter left for them.

Spring.

It was a single flower bloomed from its beginning.

Even withered hearts sprouting again, and all that pain blossoming like petals.

We.

Can live through the seasons ahead.

Promising pure white hope.

Like that.

Toward the future.