Chapter 78: Don’t Leave Me

“Let’s run away.”

She said it so suddenly.

The sound of the TV, which had been warming the languid morning air until just a moment ago, faded away.

It was quite important news, something about the Magical Girl Association resuming its aggressive pursuit of Sanguine Obsidia, and I had been listening intently, but in an instant, it all became meaningless.

Only her voice pierced my ears.

“Let’s run away. Far away, just the two of us.”

“…Where?”

A piece of toast slipped through my fingers and fell onto the plate.

I had woken up feeling extremely hungry, probably from using a lot of energy to regenerate last night’s wounds, but now I had even forgotten my hunger, and only one emotion filled my mind.

Joy.

“Anywhere. I have a place in mind. We can run south and hide, or go all the way to Busan, take a smuggling ship to Japan, and from there, go even further, to another place. We’ll need to prepare, but…”

Yujin said this with a faint smile on her lips, as if looking at a distant place.

No matter how many times I see her, she is beautiful, but when she smiles like this, she is truly breathtakingly beautiful.

It’s a cliché and uncreative expression, but there’s no other way to describe it.

“…Let’s go somewhere we can be alone, just the two of us.”

“Yes.”

I accepted without a second thought.

“Yes…!”

I jumped up, held her hand tightly, and smiled.

I wonder how many times I have expressed joy so intensely, but that doesn’t matter.

The only important thing is that she suggested we go to a place where we can be alone.

A place for just the two of us, a paradise for just the two of us, a world for just the two of us, where there are no magical girls, no government, no police, no strange group called the Apostolic Council, and nothing else.

Since most of the earth is in ruins, there must be a utopia somewhere where there is no one else, and we are the only humans in existence.

“We’ll have to leave this house behind, and we won’t be able to take much with us. We might not be able to live a proper life. We might end up looking more miserable than the vagrants in the ruins.”

“We can live in an abandoned house. I’m sure there are plenty of decent houses. I can get food, so it’ll be fine.”

I’m saying something hopelessly optimistic. No matter where we run, there will be magical girls and monsters.

And even if we go to a place outside the big cities where there are no magical girls or monsters, those places are only places where it’s difficult to get even the basic necessities of life.

There might not even be proper roads, making it difficult to even move.

Globally, most of the world is ruins and wasteland where it’s difficult to get even clean water, let alone basic necessities.

But that, those realistic problems, are not important at all. The only thing that matters is that Yujin wants to go far away, and that she wants to be with only me.

A long time ago, I don’t remember when, probably when I was a child, I heard a story about heaven.

There was a place called the Garden of Eden.

I wonder if there isn’t a place like that left somewhere.

Just the thought of being with her is enough to make any place heaven for me.

“But… will it be okay…? Leaving behind the people at work, and other people…”

So I said that.

The deep-seated, sticky, and ugly desire that has settled within me is stimulated by her lovely words and rears its head.

But the fear, which is a heavier lump than desire, crushes it, so I uttered a gloomy sentence as I always have.

‘I want you to leave them.’

‘I want you to abandon them.’

The people I met when I occasionally followed her to the community support center, the people she takes care of, the staff I encountered at the cafe, the passersby who recognize her face on the street and greet her, and perhaps even the connections I don’t know about, I want you to abandon them all, that’s what I’m hiding.

Just as you are all I have,

I want Ahn Yujin to have only Lee Seoa.

I can’t say it like that, but somehow, this has become my only truth.

***

“Yes, let’s run away.”

I threw down the useless dagger and muttered dejectedly.

The back of the chair creaked.

The black dagger disappeared as if melting into the air.

Seoa hasn’t woken up yet.

It’s not as bad as when she lost her arm before, but she’s deeply asleep, probably from the fatigue of a rather large injury.

But I couldn’t sleep a wink.

It’s not that I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about her.

It’s just that I was confused, and my head ached.

The headache won’t go away. I want to run away. I want to escape.

From what, exactly?

From the magical girls? From the police? From this world?

From Lee Seoa?

Or, from myself, from the contradictions and agony?

I don’t know.

The faint scent of lavender in the room stings my nose.

My expression scrunches up at the scent of the synthetic compound, which is harsh and pungent, not befitting the name lavender.

The scent of the body wash and shampoo I’ve used for a long time, mass-produced and cheap.

It was definitely a familiar part of my daily life, but suddenly it feels strange and awkward, and the strong smell makes my head throb even more.

What am I, Ahn Yujin?

I’m probably not a clumsy murderer who lives on endless self-justification, arrogant and foolish.

I’m also probably not a child who is suffocating in the thick, irresolvable, like a hemostatic bandage covering the skin that is bleeding from being pierced by each other’s thorns, trapped in the mire of love.

I must not be.

So, let’s run away. I don’t need to think about anything, I just need her.

I have to push her away, I have to escape from that feeling. No, no…

Thwack,

I slam the blade of the dagger I’m holding in my hand into the table.

Eventually, the magical girls will find Sanguine Obsidia and come to capture her. Or I know that the moment will come when my black blade will stab someone. Even if that doesn’t happen, there is no end to a life on the run.

Realistically, how far can we run? I can’t even use Seoa’s, Sanguine Obsidia’s, abilities to go with her.

So, let’s run away, believing that there is a place that exists only for the two of us, where no one interferes, no one chases us, and there are no other people.

In a place like that, I’ll be able to direct my gaze, even my own, entirely towards Lee Seoa.

***

The afterglow of the blood-red sky settles on the abandoned railway tracks, covered in the weeds and the sound of insects of summer.

We parked the car somewhere in an empty lot and just walked without thinking, passing by the corpses of fallen trees and civilization, passing by the collections of collapsed buildings, and arrived at an abandoned train station.

First kiss.

That sensation, sweeter than the candy from a faint old memory, happier than the taste of the cookies Yujin gave me.

It wasn’t that long ago, but now, like a distant old memory, the image of that day, the heat, the warmth of her lips, and the pounding of my heart are revived, flowing through my veins from my fingertips and exciting the depths of my mind.

She said we should spend some time before leaving this town where we have lived, and where we first met and learned to love, to cherish the memory in our retinas.

A date after a long time.

I don’t think I’ve been out with her much since I lost my right arm.

But before that, and after that, everything that shines with vivid and bright colors in my memory is filled with her brown eyes, so I know every road I walk with her, and I can name every empty lot, tree, and pile of ruins.

We talked about mundane, everyday things, as we always did, and we rode in her old car, just going where the car took us, where our feet led us, and we arrived here.

I stepped onto the railway track and stood there, just like that moment.

She stood on the railway track, with the setting sun and the first curtain of night at her back, just like that day, in the very place where we first pressed our lips together under the twilight, she stood there like the sound of a heartbeat from that moment.

I hope that the memory of the moment I spoke the words “I love you” to you is as precious to you as it is to me, and that it has the brightest color in your heart.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been here. It’s actually only been a few months, but it feels like a few years have passed.”

The grass, which had grown more lush as the colors of the season deepened, covered the cracked concrete of the platform, but on the railway track that still retained the image of that day, that moment, she said that and approached me.

She approached me lightly, as if playing, and nestled into my arms like a baby bird entering its nest.

With the thick, unseasonable coat that hid the empty space of her right arm draped over her shoulders, she offered her lips just like that day.

The kiss that became our daily routine after that day.

A deep kiss, more precious than our daily routine, shared again in the place where we had our first kiss.

When I pull my lips away, I can see her moist brown eyes trembling. I can see my own black eyes, filled with happiness and warmth, reflected in them.

We hugged each other tightly, pressing our chests together to feel each other’s heartbeats, and kissed again.

The twilight had already set, and a dark night sky with no stars covered us.

That kiss was not as sweet as that day.