Chapter 17: I can never let you go

“Marie… Are you okay…?”  

I spoke to her cautiously, keeping my distance for now.  

Asking if she was okay was directed at her current unsettling state.  

But it seemed Marie interpreted it differently.  

With hollow eyes, her cheeks flushed, and a joyful smile spread across her face.  

“You’re worried about me…?”  

And then, one step.  

Thud…  

She approached me, clutching both hands tightly over her chest and nodding.  

“Yeah! I’m okay…! Thanks, you were worried because I didn’t show up at the academy, right…?”  

“Uh, y-yeah…”  

“As expected… Emil, you’re so kind…”  

With a relieved expression, she gently bowed her head.  

“Kind, huh… Isn’t it normal to ask something like that…?”  

Something was off.  

No matter how I thought about it, it wasn’t just me being overly sensitive.  

Was the memory from the first cycle really that traumatic for her?  

“Hey… Emil…”  

While I was observing Marie’s condition, she hesitated for a moment before speaking first.  

“I… I get it now…”  

“Get what…?”  

“The reason why you… can’t accept me.”  

What she was referring to was clearly about the first cycle.  

It seemed she’d recalled those memories and realized that I, too, remembered them.  

“Right? The reason you won’t accept me… the reason you rejected my confession—it’s because of that, isn’t it?”  

“No…?”  

Was she here to confirm it?  

‘I hadn’t planned on telling her originally.’

Still, I’d figured she’d eventually realize it if she recalled the memories.  

By then, our relationship would already be over anyway.  

I hadn’t intended to directly inform Marie, but with her asking so desperately, I had no choice but to answer.  

“Yeah, that’s the reason.”  

At my confirmation, Marie’s face was instantly overtaken by despair.  

Perhaps a part of her had hoped it wasn’t true.  

But there was no helping it.  

It was an unchangeable fact.  

That said, I had no intention of treating the Marie standing before me coldly.  

After all, my goal was simply to pursue her and trigger her memories—nothing more.  

I didn’t have any desire to hold a grudge or pick a fight.  

“Anyway, because of that, I can’t accept your confession. Sorry.”  

Hiding my unease, I gave her a gentle smile.  

I had no more business with her now.  

But then—  

“W-Wait…!!”  

Marie stopped me as I turned to leave, as if she still had something to say.  

What more could she have to tell me?  

When I turned back to her with that question in mind, she took a step closer, her face filled with desperation.  

“Just once… Could you give me one more chance?”  

Tears welled up in her eyes as she pleaded.  

***

“Please…! Just one more chance…! I swear I can only look at you now, Emil…!”  

Marie begged Emil with all her heart.  

As if this were her last opportunity.  

As if crumbling here would mean she could never stand again.  

One step.  

Thud.  

She drew closer to him.  

Unlike before, the distance between them had shrunk considerably—close enough that a slight move would bring them within reach.  

“Marie…”  

Emil’s face showed discomfort at her plea for another chance.  

“No…”  

Her heart began to pound even harder.  

Overwhelmed by a bad feeling, she spoke again before Emil could finish.  

“I mean it…! After having that dream, I’ve reflected so much…! I understand why you rejected me! I know how much it must have hurt you!”  

“Uh…!”  

“I’m sorry… sob, I’m so sorry. You must have been so disappointed in me, right…? You must have hated me so much… sniff, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry…”  

And then another step.  

Tears streaming down her face, she approached Emil.  

Now, they were so close that a mere stretch of the hand would barely connect them.  

But Emil didn’t step back.  

He simply looked at Marie with a pained expression.  

“I… I know I’m beyond redemption… I know you’d never want a girl like me…”  

“But… I’m serious now… Please believe me… I know it’s shameless of me, sob…”  

Marie reached out gently and grabbed Emil’s hand.  

The familiar sensation from their memories flashed through both of their minds.  

“I can’t live without you anymore, Emil…”  

Clutching his hand tightly, as if she’d never let go,  

Marie looked up at him with tear-soaked, hollow eyes.  

Those eyes no longer sparkled with the innocence they once had.  

“So… just once, okay? Give me just one more chance… I’ll only look at you from now on…”  

Forcing a smile as she gazed at him, she desperately tried to return to that happy moment from before.  

Back to when Marie liked Emil, and Emil liked her too—back to that memory.  

But—  

“I’m sorry, Marie.”  

Emil’s heart didn’t waver in the slightest.  

“Why…”  

Her forced smile collapsed into despair in an instant, and Marie spoke in a hollow voice.  

“Why…”  

“Marie…”

“Why…! Why…! No…! Absolutely not…! Sob, I really can’t live without you now…!!”  

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”  

“Just think about it…! I’m not the same person from that time! Right? That Marie betrayed you, but me, I—I didn’t…!”  

Of course, Marie herself knew.  

Even if it wasn’t something she’d done, it was undeniably something she might have done.  

In the same situation, she might have betrayed Emil just the same.  

But—  

In this moment, where she might lose Emil, she clung to a sliver of hope, pleading the outcome that she hadn’t done it.  

“I’m clean…! I haven’t even had my first kiss yet…”  

That one result was all she had left to rely on.  

So, Marie let go of Emil’s hand, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, and spoke to him.  

“It’s my first time… Everything with you would be my first… Sob, so I’ll give all my firsts to you… I’ll belong only to you, Emil…!”  

In her dream, she had betrayed Emil and shared love with Malcolm.  

Marie couldn’t forget the look of shock on Emil’s face when he witnessed it.  

Seeing that expression had tormented her too.  

And if that was the reason he couldn’t accept her, then there was still a chance.  

Because, in reality, her current self was still pure, untouched by anyone.  

“Right? Emil, just give me one more chance… Sob, I—I can do anything you ask…”  

It was cowardly, pathetic even.  

But Marie didn’t care about the means or the methods.  

Even if the only feelings he had for her were base, instinctual desire, she needed even that.  

Clinging tightly to Emil’s body, she pressed her soft frame against him, appealing to him.  

She wanted to become his woman, even if it was like this.  

“I know, Marie.”  

“Huh…?”  

But—  

Despite her desperate struggling, Emil smiled calmly and gently pushed her away from him.  

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”  

Emil’s expression didn’t change at all.  

He didn’t blush with embarrassment or leer at her body.  

He simply looked down at her with a sorrowful face.  

Emil’s hand gently patted her shoulder.  

From that touch, not a trace of affection could be felt.  

“So, it’s not like I rejected your confession because I resent you.”  

“Then…? If you don’t resent me, then accept me…”  

“But I can’t do that.”  

“Why…! Sob, W-We can start over…! Forget everything and begin again…!!”  

“I can’t forget.”  

At Emil’s bitter reply, Marie fell silent for a moment.  

The image she’d been avoiding all this time—  

Emil hanging from the academy’s main building—flickered before her eyes.  

“I know you’re not a bad person. I know you didn’t do anything wrong.”  

“But even so, I can’t forget. You’ve remembered it too, haven’t you, Marie?”  

Just as he said, she knew all too well.  

The pain he’d gone through because of her betrayal.  

The truth she’d been ignoring was brought back to the surface by Emil’s calm words.  

Unable to respond, Marie could only bow her head and let the tears fall.  

As if to comfort her, Emil spoke kindly.  

“It’s okay, Marie. The pain of heartbreak is temporary. It might feel like I’m the only one for you right now, but you’ll definitely find someone else good in time.”  

“…No, that won’t happen…”  

“Don’t be so sure. You know…”  

Emil hesitated for a moment, then smiled faintly and spoke carefully.  

“There’s Malcolm too.”  

“Anyway, in the last life, you loved Malcolm, right? So I’m sure it’ll be fine this time too.”  

Emil’s words were meant as comfort.  

But in a way, they were cruel too.  

Bringing up Malcolm here meant he still saw Marie as Malcolm’s woman.  

“Well, I’ll get going. Head back early… The night air’s cold.”  

With that, Emil left Marie standing there and headed back to the dormitory.  

A familiar pattern.  

Once again, the same outcome.  

She’d been rejected, left standing alone on an empty street.  

It was no different from when she’d confessed before.  

Drip, drip…  

“No, Emil…”  

Marie muttered through her tears, standing abandoned on the road.  

Her voice, calling out to someone no longer there, couldn’t reach him.  

“I’ll never go back to Malcolm…”  

And with hollow eyes, she gave a faint smile.  

“So… it’ll really be okay…”  

Staring blankly at the end of the path where Emil had disappeared,  

she clutched her unyielding heart.  

“Because you’re still the only one for me…”  

Someday, without fail, she would become the woman he loved.