Chapter 144: Children Who Had to Grow Up (10) (Part 2)

My ten-year-old sister was hanging a rag doll from a tree. She tied a rope to a lone tree, made a noose, and placed the rag doll’s head inside. Then she let go.

*Snap-*

“On the day I reunited with you, I had to apologize to you.”

Tears flow from the doll’s thread-sewn eyes.

“For ruining your life, for sacrificing you to my selfishness, for building my happiness on your misfortune.”

Again, my Sister ties a rope to a tree. This time, the noose is big enough for a human head.

“But I didn’t.”

From the light I held close to my chest, my 27-year-old sister walks out. With tired eyes, she willingly places her head inside the noose.

*Snap-*

“Because you had lost much more than I had imagined? Well, that was true at first.”

Again, a rope is tied to the tree. This time, it’s my 22-year-old sister who walks out. With empty eyes, she willingly hangs herself.

*Crack-*

“But after the shock wore off, I changed my mind. If you lost something, then I just had to give you that much in return. I was even happy to do so.”

This time, it’s my 18-year-old sister. With eyes mad with anger, she threw herself into the noose.

*Snap-*

“It was when I found you among those mercenaries, that my heart truly broke. When I saw you laughing and joking with them.”

The fragments of her I had gathered hang themselves one by one.

“When I realized you had become happy without me.”

*Snap, crack,* the sound of necks breaking.

“Until that moment, I thought that just as I was without you, you would be unhappy without me. I believed that just as I was incomplete without you, you would be incomplete without me.”

The sound of my sister erasing herself.

“It’s a rather disgusting delusion, isn’t it?”

By now, all the fragments I had collected were hanging from the tree. Only one sister remained.

“Even more disgusting is that only then did I become scared. That you might not accept my apology. No, that you surely wouldn’t accept it.”

My sister from the cottage,

The ten-year-old, dirty and lowly girl who was nothing but a thief.

She steps onto a chair.

“Because you, who had become happy, you who now had other options besides me, would never forgive me who survived through your sacrifice.”

Her small feet shake the chair.

“So I tried to find other ways to atone… But it seems I messed that up too, didn’t I?”

My ten-year-old sister sheds tears with a precarious smile.

“I’m sorry, Rem. It might be too late, but I’m really sorry.”

And then, my sister kicks away the chair.

“I didn’t want to be the cause of your misfortune until the very end.”

*Snap-*

…And so, the last sister breathed her last. All the sisters, in that way, by their own hands…

“Phew, I think I’ve listened enough.”

I sighed and brushed past my sister’s corpse. Approaching the tree where she had hung herself, I kicked it with all my might.

*Crack-!*

“H-Hiek-!”

Along with a terrified sound, there’s the sound of something crashing inside the tree. I bent down and peered inside the hollowed-out tree trunk.

“H-how…”

And there, hidden inside, was the girl I had been searching for.

The one I first met and loved.

The 9-year-old, short-haired, pitifully skinny girl.

She tries to squeeze herself deeper into the tree hollow.

“Uh, uh? D-Don’t come in…”

“Do you know why I willingly entered your shattered soul?”

“Re, Rem…! Y-You shouldn’t come in here…!”

Ignoring my sister’s protests, I squeezed myself inside and sat down next to her. Of course, ‘sat’ isn’t the right word, I had to contort and fold my body. I was no longer a child.

But because of that, there are words I can finally say now.

“Because I’m pissed off, recalling old memories.”

“Pi-pissed off…?”

“Because you’re always like this, Sister.”

I didn’t bother to hide my disgusted expression.

“Every time we played hide-and-seek at the orphanage, you’d hide in the most bizarre places, and then when no one could find you, you’d get all sulky and depressed.”

“I-I didn’t get sulky!”

“But you still wanted to be found, didn’t you. So, do you know how much I struggled back then…”

I sighed, remembering the hardships of those times. But that didn’t mean I was done complaining.

“And it’s exactly the same this time. You’re practically screaming for me to follow you with that look on your face, yet you go to places like snowy mountains, demon castles… even into your soul this time. Really, sister, can’t you at least consider the feelings of your little brother who chases after you?”

“Th-this time it’s different…! I, I really…”

“Then what was all that theatrics for.”

I look straight into my little sister’s eyes.

“Why arrange our story like a fairy tale. Scatter fragments of yourself in the fog, and even put on a suicide show at the end as if begging to be stopped.”

As much as my sister knows me, I know my sister too. That’s a fact she keeps forgetting.

“The thing is, you wanted me to find you.”

My sister’s eyes tremble. Then she lowers her head and curls up her body. It doesn’t take long for her to nod obediently.

“…You’re right. That’s why, all the more reason you should leave me behind.”

However, it looked as though she hadn’t fully grasped my words.

“I ruined your life. I took away everything you should have had. I hurt you because of my selfish desire to be with you…”

Alright, that’s enough trying to persuade with words.

“Yeah, let’s leave it at that.”

“Mmmph…!”

I covered my sister’s mouth with my hand and searched the bosom of my clothes, where I kept her fragments. Of course, I wasn’t trying to take out her fragments. After all, all of her fragments had already hung themselves.

What I wanted to take out was something that had been in the pocket of my bosom all along.

Honestly, it’s not exactly pretty. It’s small, and its light has faded with time. It’s just an antique that I’ve kept for a damn long time.

But even then, I bring it in front of my sister’s eyes.

“Look inside, Sister.”

My sister naturally tried not to look. She closes her eyes tightly, full of fear

A gesture that showed she was absolutely determined not to look.

I sighed and said in a deliberately sullen tone.

“You’ve said your piece, but you’re not even giving me a chance. Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”

“…!”

Her body trembles. Finally, with a tearful face, she opens her eyes. And then, she sees what’s reflected in it.

Three days after leaving the village.

It was a day when a spring drizzle fell.

Rem was huddled in a dirty alley, getting rained on.

He looked utterly miserable.

His lips were blue, and blood was flowing from the infected wound on his wrist. He looked like he might catch a cold, or worse, another infection.

But Rem didn’t try to find shelter from the rain. Even though there was a usable wooden plank next to him, he doesn’t even glance at it.

Rem intended to die like that.

It was the worst possible way to commit suicide, but he had no other choice. With his stump wrists, even taking his own life was difficult.

Rem just waited quietly for death to come.

It was then.

By some strange coincidence, A piece of bread fell with a plop from a passing carriage that splashed water. Right in front of the boy’s eyes.

Of course, even seeing the bread, the boy didn’t think about eating it. He merely watched as the bread slowly dissolve in the rain.

Then, suddenly, he chuckled.

It was because of a memory that suddenly came to mind.

When he and Amy had fought over how to fairly divide a water-soaked loaf of bread.

In the end, the bread, torn into pieces and squashed, fell into the mud and became inedible.

The hollow yet clear laugh from that moment.

Rem remembered it and laughed, he laughed and laughed,

Until he finally burst into tears.

It was at that moment that ‘it’ was born.

Of course, its birth didn’t bring about any dramatic change. It simply made Rem shove the water-soaked bread into his mouth and crawl under the wooden plank.

And even in the future, it didn’t particularly make Rem any happier, or any less miserable.

Rem’s life continued its usual difficult path. He was often unhappy and rarely happy. He cried a lot and laughed rarely.

Sometimes, he was so happy that he forgot about it. Sometimes, he had strayed so far from his path that he denied it out of guilt.

But it was always there within Rem.

Until now, this moment when Rem is reunited with Amy again.

Again, It’s not exactly pretty. Nor is it something grand or impressive enough to brag about. It’s so insignificant that even mentioning it feels strange.

But I couldn’t let it go.

Even when I tried to give up, I just couldn’t.

Even after realizing I had no right to, I couldn’t throw it away.

Something I kept folded in my bosom, in a corner of my heart.

Now, facing my sister.

That, which had been nothing but a wish, becomes a trembling voice.

“I… missed you.”

Damn it, I wanted to be strong until the end.

But my vision blurs. Even though I gritted my teeth, an ugly sound leaks out

“I really… really missed you.”

That was all.

18 years of frustration, longing, resentment, pain, wounds, and memories. And at the end of it all, the one wish that remained unerasable.

Since when, I wonder, the inside of the tree no longer feels cramped. My eye level, now much lower, has to look up at my sister.

My sister looks down at my younger self with eyes full of tears.

“Sister… didn’t you miss me?”

My sister’s face contorts. She shakes her head as if fighting something.

“…But, I, I have so many things I did wrong to you, so many things I’m sorry for, and I haven’t given you anything, really nothing. Someone like me has no right… but still…!”

But in the end, she can’t help but be a child in front of me.

“How could I not have missed you…!”

My sister bursts into tears and hugs me. She holds me tightly and sobs loudly.

Of course, the right thing to do here would be to comfort her. That would be the mature thing to do.

But I, too, can’t help but be a child in front of her.

I couldn’t hold back the rising tears and ended up sobbing just like her.

***

In the end, becoming an adult means being alone. Because life is closer to tragedy than comedy.

The time to stand alone inevitably comes, and to prepare for that, we stuff ourselves with iron. Otherwise, we’ll fall.

But no matter how much iron we stuff into our bodies, can our bodies turn into iron.

In the end, our bodies remain soft. Easily wounded, often in pain, and sensitive. A part of us will always remain a child.

And merely because of that, we live leaning on others. Touching our soft parts together, we stagger along.

Because we ultimately yearn to be children.

Because we want to reveal our weaknesses and be healed.

Because in the moment we press our soft parts against another, we can be children again, not adults.

And so, the children who had to grow up too soon became children once more, at least to each other.