Chapter 72: Young Desire

Screech.

The hinges of the cupboard, stained with rust that won’t wipe away, creak.

I reach into the empty space of the time-worn, stained cupboard and feel around, but nothing comes to hand except for a bit of dust.

After rummaging for a while, my hand touches something, and I carefully pull it out.

It was a small, brick-shaped object wrapped in silver plastic.

It’s a carbohydrate block, something I’ve eaten to death, more often called by the derogatory name ‘brick’ than its official one.

Why a single one was left here is a mystery, but in any case, this wasn’t what I was looking for.

“Ah.”

Ah, right.

I threw them all away.

It definitely wasn’t yesterday.

It must have been a few weeks ago.

Deceived by a strange sense of elation, fulfillment, and hope—or perhaps by the impulse of some similarly named emotion that still felt foreign—I threw out all my cigarette packs.

A new life, a new beginning, a normal life and a normal routine.

I think I’ve seen it on TV many times, people declaring a break from their past by throwing away or burning something symbolic.

It’s a memory from a time when my mind was listless and sinking, just staring blankly at the screen, but it has somehow remained.

And I remember that in my case, that symbolic something was cigarettes; the me of a few weeks ago had thought so, and I also recall that surprisingly, there were no problems after throwing them all away.

As the memory surfaces, a sense of reality invades my eyes along with the slow, late-morning sunlight filtering through the blinds, and I fully awaken from my sleep.

A sudden sense of unease washes over me.

It feels like waking up from a long, long dream.

Has this happened before?

I don’t think so.

How long has it been since that day?

I’ve never glanced at the calendar, so even looking at the one hanging on the wall doesn’t help.

It’s definitely been over a month, and maybe even more than two.

Days spent enveloped in a hot, gentle, soft warmth, wrapped in an embrace that warmed a corner of my heart.

I was under the illusion that these days would last forever.

My consciousness, which had been floating buoyantly on the heat generated by the delirium of love, collides with the cold reality that approaches suddenly, without any warning, and is invaded by frigid awareness and sensations.

This cold awareness pulls memories from the abyss of my mind and commands my subconscious to play them back randomly.

Fragments of memory I had forgotten, fragments I had tried to push to the back of my mind.

Death, screams, cigarette smoke, the stench of blood, the Magical Girl Association, someone’s severed head and corpse, pleasure, pleasure, and the desire for murder that brings pleasure.

…And a lovely face.

Even if the heat of love cools, love itself does not.

Thankfully, various unfamiliar emotions that occupied a corner of my mind and were slowly growing seemed to be creating mental space.

My sunken consciousness rides these emotions and floats up again.

Reassured, I close the cupboard and go to the living room.

A bright space illuminated by a yellow halo of light.

The round, worn-out clock on the wall, its hour hand creaking, showed 10:20.

I should have seen her off when she left for work early in the morning, but it’s a shame.

Some days are just like this.

Maybe today was the one day a week she leaves extremely early, so she might have left quietly so as not to wake me.

If so, she’ll be back late.

And tomorrow is her day off, so we’ll be together all day.

[How long are you going to live like this?]

A familiar sound rings in my ear.

It’s a mumble I hear as I sit on the sofa, letting my body drift into meaningless thoughts.

Before me floats a familiar, yet never-familiar shape—a small, dark, ghost-like thing that looks as crude as a cheap Halloween costume, spouting irritating words.

I have no idea where it’s been, but its reappearance after so long, chattering away, is annoying, so I wave my hand.

As if wiping a window.

I open my right palm, place it to my left, and sweep it across the air to the right.

To be precise, it’s a magic that replaces the function of my lost right arm, composed of crimson mana, but

I’m so used to it now that maintaining it and making delicate movements are no problem, so it’s fine to just call it my right arm or right hand without any qualifier.

Anyway, as my right hand moves, the small black figure is soon obscured by my palm, and as the palm sweeps to the far right, the ghost’s form vanishes.

As if it was never there to begin with.

But the most important thing, the chattering sound, only quieted slightly; it didn’t disappear.
Still, it’s something that it’s out of sight, right?

In place of the ghostly figure, a pleasant sight catches my eye.

Three small pots, three small cacti.

Tiny green cacti in fist-sized pots of red, orange, and yellow.

I don’t know where she got them, but she lined them up next to the old CRT TV.

I remember her talking about how they were easy to care for and nice to look at.

When it comes to her words, I’m confident I can remember them all, probably missing only a few characters.

“Hee…”

I giggle and sink into the sofa.

When I touch my face with my left hand, the upturned corners of my lips tickle.

A life filled with the brilliant colors of existence, enveloped in the languid heat of affection, a smile has unknowingly stuck itself to my lips.

That’s why I like and enjoy this time alone.

Because traces of her are all over the room, and I can wait for her to return.

I look back on the past and savor our affection.

The faint scent of lavender, her clear brown eyes, her warm embrace…

Rags, cold chains, handcuffs, iron lumps, a dark room…

I jolt upright and press a hand to my forehead.

This journey back through memory shouldn’t go too far.

All I need are the joyful and fulfilling memories of these past few weeks, these past few months, the memories of these repeating happy days.

So I remember again.

The faint scent of lavender, the three cactus pots, her clear brown eyes, cookies with nuts in them.

Tearing open the silver wrapper, I take a small bite of the pale yellow rectangle.

It has no taste, just a crumbly, dry texture—an emergency ration truly made for survival—but if I chew it while recalling her scent and the taste of the food she made, it becomes a truly rich delicacy.

“Hee, heehee…”

My body melts into the sofa, clinging to it in a warm, languid joy greater than the intoxication of cigarette smoke, greater than the pleasure of murder.

I pull out threads of pitch-black mana and cast them into the air.

The black mana spreads out like tree branches, and I wave my fingers randomly, weaving vertical and horizontal lines as my senses guide me, creating a three-dimensional picture.

What I create with the precise skill developed through countless practice is a picture in the shape of love.

I reach out to the picture, opening my arms to embrace it to my chest.

The picture is drawn not into my heart, but into the black jewel in the center of my chest, leaving behind a delirious warmth.

And so, my consciousness, floating buoyantly in happiness, once again sinks as it confronts a gloomy fear dredged up from the depths of my subconscious, a fear I never wanted to face.

‘If she abandons me, if she gets tired of me, if her affection fades…’

A childish fear.

My heart, floating unstably like a wave, sometimes reveals the bottom where fear and terror have stuck, like the sea at low tide.

That fundamental bottom, which can never be wiped clean no matter how hard I try.

For example, if a trivial argument about chores occurs, if a crack appears in our relationship over a seemingly insignificant mistake.

My brain, idling for the first time in a long while, begins to unfold the most negative and irrational scenarios, which, combined with the unpleasant sensation of cold sweat sticking clammily to the sofa, carves a sense of terror.

The little ghost’s form, which has reappeared at some point, speaks.

[You shouldn’t trust her too much.]

It’s a reckless remark even harder to listen to than the nonsense about not killing people.

It’s followed by worthless remarks, saying that a lot of time has passed, that the Magical Girl Association and the authorities have already settled the chaos and will try to find Sanguine Obsidia again.

With my crimson mana right hand and my flesh-and-blood left hand, I shoot out blades with the intent to kill.

I shake my head to stop my racing thoughts.

I forget Spooky, who has vanished as if it fled, peel the black hair sticking to my cheek with cold sweat, and sink my body into the sofa again.

Then, once again, a warmth that feels endless begins to seep out from deep within my chest.

There haven’t been any problems so far, I love her, and she surely loves me even more.

Surely.

After sprawling out for a while, wrapped in that comfort, I shot to my feet.

Whether I’m standing, moving, or still, the comforting warmth remains.

So, I move my hands and feet, precisely controlling a cloth and water with my mana to finish cleaning the house immaculately.

It’s a thorough cleaning; not even a speck of dust remains when I wipe the corner of a drawer with my finger.

At the end, I don’t forget to give the cacti a little water.

Cleaning.

This too makes me laugh.

Isn’t it a part of a normal life, a peaceful act, a preparation for a loved one?

It also pleases me that creating blades from mana and blood to precisely sever the breath of a fleeing scapegoat is the same as meticulously cleaning with a cloth and water.

Whether the former or the latter, it’s a part of a normal life.

If I touch my lips with my left hand, I can feel the shape of a lovely smile.

The shape of the smile she loves.

This daily life.

This unchanging daily routine, this same life repeating in this precious space, her and my small home, will continue forever.

There’s no need to go far outside, no need to meet anyone else; I just have to drop everything else into the river of oblivion and forget it.

The life I longed for has been achieved, so there’s no reason to feel confused.

Only this one place, only this one person.

It is truly perfect.

So much so that nothing else is needed, that this is more than enough.

***

It’s not enough.

I’m anxious.

It’s insufficient.

A worn-out desk lamp dimly illuminates the desk.

In the center of the desk, a newly cleaned and reassembled K-5 pistol exudes a faint smell of oil, while a revolver and a box of ammunition lay carelessly in the corner.

Even after impulsively acquiring a new weapon, governed by a sudden, vague anxiety, even after placing more ammunition on the desk, the anxiety did not fade or even diminish.

At best, a revolver was replaced by an automatic pistol.

Just as my mind, heart, and confusion remain the same.

Out of frustration, I needlessly pick up and put down the pistol, making only a meaningless clatter.

I know that whether I get a pistol leaked from the military or load it with the latest mana-infused bullets, it can only inflict a certain amount of damage on weak monsters at best.

I know, but I was compelled by an impulse driven by anxiety to do this.

I can take some comfort in the fact that it’s a much better weapon than the revolver I had, and the chance of being killed by a robber or a monster on the street has decreased, but…

I pick up the pistol, assume a firing stance, pretend to shoot, and paint a scene in my mind.

That lovely face looking back at me, the pistol drawn, the trigger pulled.

Below that face, stained with horror, a bullet flies toward the chest of a neat suit, followed by a flying crimson blade.

But that entire scene vanished from my mind in an instant, and I couldn’t even imagine the scene of drawing the pistol.

My killing intent had faded away long ago.

“Haa…”

I sigh and take off my gloves, tossing them aside carelessly.

“This can’t go on.”

Without even knowing what “this” is that can’t go on, I put my weight on the old pipe chair, which screams like scraping metal.

Daily life.

Days filled with a warm glow, repeating softly.

A complacency that has deeply penetrated my whole being, buried in mental and physical pleasures.

A peaceful and happy daily life that has continued for dozens of days, now a habit that dominates my mind.

Unable to escape the dream that is daily life, the dream has penetrated to the deepest core of my soul, forever dyeing its colors white, red, and black.

Unable to bear the weight of time that clings stickily, reason and spirit have sunk to the depths, leaving only a buoyant feeling, an irrational ecstasy.

The grotesquely twisted ego, the young murderer who called her killings ‘art,’ had already been steeped in love, becoming a person who could only hold one other in her heart.

And I, who had been so conflicted, have finally been completely dyed by her, becoming a person who holds only her.

This is like…

“I am Seoa’s…”

I shut my mouth.

Because this is a private space, I didn’t want to let myself hear those words even more.

In the end, I left the pistol where it was, locked the door, and left the room.

Perhaps the me of tomorrow might never return to this small hideout.

I turned my back and walked toward my parked car.

The car was parked beside the building.

Next to it stood a bizarre person.

A large build, a fedora, a thick coat.

His face wasn’t visible, but he was clearly smiling with delight.

The gentleman let out a laugh and bowed deeply, greeting me with an exaggerated and comical gesture.