episode_0011

We wordlessly held each other’s hands.

Her touch, a chilling cold that seemed to grasp my soul, was more mysterious than unpleasant.

Spin, spin, spin.

As Rie spun as if performing in a musical, my toes dug into the dirt floor, drawing circles.

The faster she spun, the warmer the smile on Rie’s lips, faintly visible beyond her fluttering veil.

“How did you know it was me?”

“When Ms. Erica is present, if someone calls you ‘Rie-nim,’ you have a fit… But you didn’t react at all.”

“No wonder, something felt missing.”

Rie didn’t retort like a novice, but accepted my answer.

Just as I started to feel dizzy, Rie stopped spinning. Supporting my reeling back, she whispered to me in a sincere voice.

“Don’t go.”

For an Outer God trying to deceive me, envelop the city with her extensions, and ensnare me, her voice was unnecessarily pure.

I wanted to nod, if only my heart would let me.

A land guaranteed not with milk and honey, but with fish and safety – who would want to leave such a place of their own accord?

But I couldn’t.

My soul, my heart, already cried out for the world outside the city; I had to escape Leruye, if only for my own sake.

“I simply cannot understand your hearts. Can you really throw yourselves into predetermined ruin just by having a heart?”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you want to just live comfortably, associating with those who desire you?”

“With Outer Gods who seek to destroy Ms. Erica’s world?”

“Ah, Yuseong. Don’t be so confined by the framework of being human. Haven’t you already learned that not all humans are on your side…?”

“…Rie.”

Rie spread her arms wide as if knowing everything, and whispered to me with a compassionate, mother-like smile.

“Even the parents who bore them abandon their children. In that respect, we are no different.”

“Are you an orphan too, Rie?”

“Abandoned within this vast miniature garden – the universe, then dimensions beyond, then even further – we are guilty of nothing but surviving by finding our own way to live.”

“…”

“And why do you insist on leaving for an adventure when there is a place for you right beside me?”

“That’s a bit repulsive.”

I understood Ms. Erica’s words; even those words were repulsive.

To know everything about me, yet to utter such words while feigning innocence, feigning ignorance.

I know. I know that you read my thoughts, that you know my past… and that you’ve never trusted me.

And you’re reading my mind right now, aren’t you?

“No, I…”

Another lie.

“I hate lies the most. My parents always had lies on their lips too.”

“Yuseong, I for your sake…”

“That too was among the lies I heard. ‘I abandoned you for your own good’.”

“I knew, but, but we-”

“Yet, you’re still lying to me.”

“It’s unavoidable!”

Rie suddenly appeared before me and forcefully seized my hand as I tried to pull away.

Then, everything in this world… everything that constituted her flowed into me.

Beyond my automatically closed eyes, blazing flames dispersed, white dust bloomed into flowers, and then pitch-black darkness welcomed me.

The darkness divided, forming tens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of thoughts and minds, which naturally seeped into me.

I felt various selves, each holding diverse thoughts and ideologies. Rie had lived a life like a surging wave.

In other words, it was conveyed that to her, having lived a life swept away like a wave, the inflow of my information was so natural that she hadn’t been able to be considerate towards me.

Anyone who knew such immense information would go mad, yet I was perfectly sane.

In truth, I already knew why she liked my crude drawings, and why Naia and Ms. Erica weren’t as moved as Rie was.

Rie knew why.

“Because you’re already insane.”

“Did I appear like your family just because I was insane?”

“I wanted to become Yuseong’s family.”

Why?

“Your talent, your heart, your warmth, everything… I just wanted all of you!”

Her greedy heart flowed into me naturally.

An insatiable hunger that saw no end, no matter how much it was filled.

How many lives must be consumed, how many futures digested, for that hunger to disappear?

Of course, I understand. Anyone walking an endless path would eventually go mad.

“Your drawings make me forget my hunger. That heart of yours, thinking solely of me, and the warmth embedded in your drawings, completely satisfy me…!”

Her desperate voice contained not an inch of falsehood.

I felt her sincerity, and it terrified me. Because even that sincerity could be a lie.

“I was born without knowing satisfaction. The satisfaction you give me… it was utterly enchanting and sweet.”

Leruye, all her thoughts seeped into me.

No one in my entire life had yearned for me as she did.

Even the parents who bore me abandoned me and ran away.

Nowhere in society could I feel a sense of belonging. I lived quietly, like a mere cog, but aware of my abandoned life, I found no enjoyment or satisfaction.

I worked diligently, so I had enough money. Thus, I holed myself up in a dingy room, merely waiting for the day I would die.

Those who brought me into this world denied me, so I thought there was no need for me to affirm myself either.

Then one day, a novel I stumbled upon on a site I happened to browse, and its latest chapter I happened to click, introduced me to the feeling of satisfaction.

Why would they try to live in such a mad world? It would be better to just give up. Why would they resist beings they couldn’t possibly defeat, and ignite a spark of defiance?

Their lives, fundamentally celebrating all life and resisting with fate held high in their hands, were a lamp, a lighthouse, and an idol to me.

A life I yearned for, not just in fiction.

Into such a life, I had entered.

“I yearn for you too.”

Leruye, with her fingers intertwined with mine, listened intently to my story while pulling me deeper into the abyss.

“Even if I try to infiltrate and live among you as countless ‘selves’, everyone hates us, I know – that we are fundamentally different… I cannot understand anything else.”

“That’s right.”

“It must be repulsive, frightening, but… but you’re different, aren’t you? You understand me, don’t you? You want to know me, don’t you?”

I affirmed her questions with a smile.

“Now I know what to fix, what to set right! I understand you. By understanding you, I can understand them too, right? You are a pathway, a companion, an ally, and hope… It must be funny for me to speak of hope, but…”

Ah, so this is what was repulsive.

Leruye’s crimson eyes, which had been tracing an arc, were hidden by her black veil.

She exploited my yearning, burrowing into the faint crevices of my heart.

Manipulating, mocking, and digging in so wretchedly, yet not even knowing it was wrong – that was the being she was.

“This” being, which existed since primordial times, before humans, before planets, had lived that way.

“No, really… I…”

As I released our intertwined hands, the thoughts, stubbornness, and phantoms that had been flowing in quieted, and the world became still.

I don’t know what the sensation of going mad is, but I no longer wanted to know.

To expend my heart on such things, the life I yearned for was simply too beautiful.

Trampling the rolling broom, I turned my back, abandoned Leruye, and ran through the world.

I leaped over plazas, stepped on buildings.

-Swoosh!

I passed an easel covered with cloth, grabbed my notebook, pen, and books from the room, and ran forward without looking back.

I lay flat on a building, slid down, then climbed up the ground.

As I trampled the sky and found my footing, mountain-high walls appeared as mere dots, and the city transformed into a speck.

“Yuseong!”

She called out to me.

Having decided to shed her lies, she took off her brimmed hat and cast aside her veil, finally revealing her true form.

The city… no, the kingdom of Leruye, was swallowed by a colossal shadow.

Leruye, which had been resting on a tongue. The floor, always damp even when swept with a broom, was entirely due to her saliva.

The entity who had laid the kingdom in the deep sea, let out bubbling water droplets, yearning for me.

[Don’t go.]

[There was not an iota of falsehood. I need you. Only you can quell this endless thirst. Your heart, your expression, they move me!]

“Then that’s a relief.”

Others would be satisfied, too, surely. If only that were the case, I could protect it.

Let’s protect this place, which the one who invited me strives to protect.

Let us join their journey.

If I grasp this opportunity, I, who was once a reader, can become one with those I yearned for.

[Why do you try to imitate, even while crushing your own existence? Aren’t you fundamentally closer to us? Humans… Ha, why cling to a shell-like origin, that’s what I’m saying!]

That’s right. As Leruye said, I am fundamentally closer to her.

That’s why you know, don’t you? It’s just the starting point of the stories we’ve shared so far.

To become closer to those I yearn for, I will gladly let you go.

Something grabbed my hand as I ascended, trampling the sky, and pulled me up.

The ‘she’ and ‘not-she’ entities that constituted Leruye and devoured intruders were kindly letting me out of this place.

-Snap.

But a single, unusually alien tentacle gripped my ankle and dragged me downwards.

Just as I was about to be swept away by the force attempting to hurl me into the sunken Leruye on the floor, Leruye, who had raised her colossal body and approached, recoiled in horror.

[What is that?]

“It’s one of the gifts I prepared.”

I looked at the drawing I had completed on the ground. To my eyes, it was just a large ship.

But the scribble, infused with my heart, became what she feared most in her eyes, and it charged towards her.

I don’t know how it appears in her eyes; that’s entirely up to her.

But thanks to Rie, who had seeped into me, I caught a glimpse: it collided with a massive steamship charging forcefully towards her, and immediately sank into the deep sea.

I do feel sorry, it bothers me that I peeked into her diary and showed her something she disliked.

[I don’t dislike it that much.]

The sea parted.

The steamship, navigating the deep sea, fired its massive cannons, sending tentacles reaching out to me.

The cliff that had been pulling me collapsed, and my body tilted backward.

[At first, it was just unfamiliar, so I was surprised, but now I’ve grown accustomed to it. In that respect, Yuseong, you truly are human.]

[Did you think only humans could adapt? I know what this is now too, chuckles, how adorable.]

Sticky black tentacles coiled around my feet. If I were pulled like this, wouldn’t I be drawn to her, who had become one with the steamship?

“Rie.”

[What?]

“Thank you, Rie.”

A name holds power.

The ancient deity who had devoured indigenous gods and mimicked their habits, confronted me, wearing a skin.

‘She’, who had faced me, trusted me, protected me, and helped me, had now gained a single name, Rie, and was helping me with the power derived from it.

The tentacles wrapped around my feet loosened due to shorter tentacles.

I truly want to reunite with you.

Rie, having shed her false mask, took my hand and pulled me onto the cliff.

Behind me, the deep, dark abyss welcomed me, but before me, Rie, who had shed her false mask, gazed at me with a poignant smile.

If we had been together, perhaps we would have stayed in a room like this.

Rie, with her back to the chillingly cold room, let go of my tightly held hand and pushed my back.

Upon hearing the hollow scream, blood flowed from my ears and my chest throbbed.

More than unpleasant or repulsive, it was simply sad.

If only we had never met.

The feeling of taking light away from a blind person who had just seen it for the first time.

Thank you for cherishing me so much.

And thank you for pushing me forward.

I know it was you who stopped me, and also you who let me go.

But I want to leave this place and explore a wider world.

Only a better future awaits me, I suppose.

Thanks to you, I can break through the world and move forward.

Farewell, Leruye.

-Splish.

My water-soaked body tumbled onto the ground.

My heart pounded as I gazed at the infinitely sprawling forest.

I might not meet anyone, and I could just die a dog’s death in this foreign land.

But… whatever happens, it’s my choice.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Buy a painting.”

I waved my old canvas, but the neatly dressed gentleman snorted and walked past me.

Every time I sneezed, my overgrown beard went into my mouth and tickled my nose.

When I set down the canvas I was holding, the vivid sunlight that had been obscured pierced my eyes.

“…I should have just stayed.”

Of course, that’s a joke!

In the deep, dark abyss.

Leruye waited only for the day when the stars would align and the planets would form a queue to draw her kingdom out of this place.

It is empty and desolate.

I walked through the empty city. His traces, the floor where his drawings remained, are still just as they were.

He told me we would meet again. Then, surely, that day will come.

-Creak…

I entered the house, filled with his scent.

Today, on a whim, I came to look for the gift he left behind.

I hadn’t gone near it because I couldn’t bear to see it…

When I removed the white cloth covered in dust, a pitch-black canvas gazed back at me.

“Pfft…”

I’m clearly looking at the gift he left, but I don’t know what’s there.

I feel his heart and his love is conveyed, but I cannot tell what was drawn.

I must have been consumed by madness, for now, I cannot see his drawings.

But I will cherish this drawing for my entire life.

When we reunite, I truly want to ask him.

Was your encounter with me a happy one? Was it enjoyable enough, even just a little, to make you want to give up the life you yearned for?

I sincerely hope it was, because it was for me too.

Water flowed down Leruye’s lower jaw, gathered at her chin, then dripped, drip, drip, wetting the dry wooden floor.

Is it hunger, or sorrow?

But she knew she was one step closer to the life she yearned for.