episode_0055

I hear a ‘tap-duk-duk’ auditory hallucination.

The scene seems cut off to match the sound.

13 times since then.

This was the number of times Deltans who had given up on sleep tried to somehow complete the proof, but the results were disastrous.

‘what… .’

What do you have to prove?

What is the winter this proof talks about and how will it end?

I tried to connect my thoughts, but they didn’t connect.

Not only that, it was unclear whether his eyes were open or closed, and whether he was walking down the street or lying on the floor.

Sabak.

I heard footsteps.

It whines and torments my eardrums.

However, the walking does not stop.

All my perceptions and senses were distorted and I felt a sense of blurring of distinctions.

‘… cold.’

Such thoughts fill my head.

Deltan raised his head and looked around.

It was a place that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

‘… Central City.’

The center of Manhattan, located all the way south from Harlem.

A place where the building lights flash like a different world even late at night.

It was a place where Deltan came a few episodes ago before going to sleep, but left the moment he lay down.

Deltan thought blankly.

‘Coming this far… Is it okay?’

Is it okay to come here if I don’t want to sleep?

I don’t know.

If I was just going to wander around, this place would be much better than East Harlem.

Deltan walked unsteadily.

His face showed fatigue and despair that were too deep to be that of a 7-year-old child.

His complexion was dark, and his cheeks were thin, like those of someone who was about to die.

Still, there were no passersby to help him.

‘… gentile.’

The Deltans were complete strangers.

The moment he confirmed it again, Deltan unconsciously bit his lip.

Thinking suddenly repeats the same question.

‘why… .’

Why did it have to be you?

What they picked, what they threw away, what fell and rolled around in that harlem.

Everything after that.

Did it have to be you?

Sabak.

walking in the snow

The soles of my feet seemed frozen by the cold.

Only then did Deltan realize that he was barefoot.

Still, it didn’t stop.

The Deltan’s steps were now following a clear direction.

‘why… !’

This was the path suggested by my suddenly heated head, even as my whole body was frozen and my senses were distant.

It was a path led by the injustice that arose within.

It was the path that resentment looked at, and the path that anger headed toward.

After passing through the main road of Central Park, to the outskirts, and into a residential area with a series of lights.

‘Why me… .’

He stopped at the end, swallowing the endlessly repeated questions.

dump.

With no strength left to walk any further, I lay down and looked at the upper floor of a building.

Exactly 16th floor.

There was a window through which quite a bit of warm light came through.

‘Why did it have to be me?’

Deltan asked that question.

I tried to lick my lips and spit out a question, but I couldn’t.

A 7-year-old child’s body did not allow such a thing.

“Seu… .”

All that comes out is a cracked and deflated sound.

The eyes were gradually closing.

Even so, the lit window on the 16th floor is clear.

The faces of those inside are clear even after decades have passed.

Deltan once again imagined the people who would be there.

White men and women who look more aristocratic than the nobility of the system.

Men and women who wanted to show off their specialness because they were young, capable, and arrogant.

The man and woman who chose themselves as the scapegoat.

The adoptive parents were supposed to be there.

‘also… .’

Are they fighting?

No, by now they’re probably making up and having sex as if it’s always been that way.

And there would have been no place for him there.

They lived in their own world, and they were just accessories.

‘So you ran away?’

To be honest, I can’t even remember the reason anymore.

It was a life that had never been leisurely enough to think about such things.

However, there was something to admit.

This is what he wanted the day he first ran away to Harlem.

‘I wanted you to come look for me. You guys.’

I wanted you to tell me that I am not your accessory.

I was hoping to prove to you that there was a place just for me.

‘… In the end, he didn’t come.’

Do you know that you are the reason I haven’t left Harlem for four years?

Do you know that you are the reason I stayed in Manhattan despite living such a miserable life?

Deltan continued to ask questions with fixed answers and then burst into laughter.

‘If you knew, you would have looked for me.’

After all, it’s been four years since they couldn’t find me in this narrow Manhattan.

What was rising was self-deprecation.

‘From the moment I left you, I… .’

Meanwhile.

I flinch.

Deltan’s fingertips trembled.

The eyes suddenly opened wide.

“Ah… .”

In the midst of the thought flowing in a daze, Deltan learned something.

What was your winter like?

‘… ‘It was you.’

There was nothing else that needed to be acknowledged and faced.

That wasn’t really what made me suffer that day.

More than being beaten to a pulp by vicious kids.

Even more than being deceived and almost raped by a drug addict.

More than being humiliated by the gang and that damn Verdi who looked down on him like a bug.

What made me sadder than anything else.

It was none other than the fact that he was nothing to his adoptive parents.

Deltan chased the 16th floor of the building with his eyes now blurred by the light.

Then he burst out laughing.

‘That’s cruel.’

It was truly cruel proof.

Isn’t that right?

What kind of bastard’s proof can’t be broken with force or endured with mental strength?

Until I know the answer… .

No, is there any proof in the world that only tortures people until they admit it?

As the Deltan was laughing maniacally like he was about to die, an alarm went off.

At the same time, my mind became slightly dazed.

For a moment, I felt like my body was floating, followed by a feeling of my senses becoming hazy.

For some reason, I felt warmth.

and.

-do not die. Delta Inn

I felt like I heard that voice.

Deltan answered blankly.

“… I won’t die.”

I didn’t come all the way here just to die in a place like this.

Sabak.

Deltan raised his upper body as if struggling.

As the snow fell, the cold began to freeze my wet body.

I grit my teeth and shake it off.

Deltan stood up shakily and looked at the main door of the building.

I messed around with the interface by hand.

And then I took a step.

Sweet.

The moment the door opens.

“… Alex?”

A man and a woman walking out of the hallway called out to Deltan.

Deltan just looked at them.

They are adoptive parents.

The adoptive father was wearing a trench coat over a navy blue suit, and his wool coat was also well-groomed, and his arms were crossed around his adoptive father.

Looking at the smile on his face just moments before, the wool scarf and the wristwatch his adoptive father was wearing, it was clear that he was going out to have fun somewhere.

Deltan laughed.

“Fuck you guys. Do you want to go out even though your child is gone?”

“What… .”

Mo Yang was embarrassed and startled, then his face turned red and he shouted.

“What kind of speech habit is that! You’re so loud… .”

“Do you have affection for scolding?”

Mo Yang’s mouth closes.

My adoptive father frowned and then said that.

“Where did you go?”

“It’s not that I went, it’s that I went. Forever.”

Deltan took a deep breath.

It was definitely warmer inside the building than outside.

I don’t know if my dazed mind just before was valid, or if it was recovery due to the progress of the quest, but my head was a little clearer than before.

Deltan put the resurfaced interface aside.

And said.

“I really hated you guys.”

The four years in Harlem were a period of hatred for them.

Nevertheless, it was a period of foolish waiting.

Those four years were exactly like that.

“4 years, I decided to forget about you after that. I decided to survive somehow and reach a position that you can’t even dream of.”

“Alex… .”

“I changed my name, you bitch.”

I abandoned the name Alex as soon as I became an adult.

In order to somehow survive, to abandon myself who was so weak.

In this way, I went through every moment of my life with a level of difficulty that was twice that of others.

And he was always the winner.

So what happened that day?

It was not a mistake to turn my back on them and suffer such humiliation.

“So I don’t miss you. I won’t hate you and I won’t resent you. I don’t think I’m worth that much to you.”

The adoptive parents’ complexions were filled with doubt.

After all, this is an illusion, and you should be surprised that the child, who was cowering until noon today, is saying something incomprehensible.

It was a pleasant thing.

It was a low feeling, but if you think about it separately, couldn’t you accept it as meaning that you were superior to them?

“Still… .”

Deltan smiled and continued speaking.

“… Yes, I don’t deny that you played a big role in helping me grow up like this.”

The reason they wanted to be so arrogant was them.

Also, the reason they wanted to be perfect was them.

I wanted to be like them, I wanted to be a greater person than them, so I wanted perfection.

“I’ll admit that much.”

Winter was cold.

Four years in Harlem, seven years in a shelter that I found on my own, and also the long years until I reached the top.

Everyone was sick, and what allowed me to endure even though it was so cold and painful was my resentment toward them for ignoring me.

“So let’s end it now.”

Deltan relaxed his body.

And then took a step back.

“I felt like shit when I met him and I will never meet him again in my life. Even if I go back, I won’t be looking for you. I will leave my one remaining regret here.”

chin.

I picked up a rock.

“Now I really plan to become just myself.”

At that moment, a woman with cherry-colored eyes appeared in Deltan’s mind.

My brows furrowed.

‘Why is this coming to mind at this time?’

Out of shape.

My breath comes out in a huff.

Deltan shook off his thoughts and looked at his adoptive parents.

Eventually, I said goodbye to my long, long winter.

“Either live well.”

Eventually, I picked up a rock bigger than my fist and threw it away.

puck!

It hit my adoptive father’s head.

“Evil!”

“Aaaah!”

“Assholes.”

As I said that, an interface came to mind.

A return to reality.

As a Delta person, I couldn’t tell if the place I was returning to was real.

However, one thing was certain.

‘It’s better there than here.’

Deltan grinned.

At the same time, the entire landscape became blurred.

Colors became intertwined, the boundaries between objects became blurred, and soon vision began to turn pitch black.

I feel dizzy.

The senses become distant.

In the midst of this, Deltan suddenly thought.

‘however… .’

What was the voice I heard outside the building just before?

-do not die. Delta Inn

It was a woman’s voice, and it was a truly sad voice.

For a moment, the thought that it was Agnes’s occurred to me, but I quickly erased it.

‘She couldn’t do that.’

‘what? If you were sarcastic and said, ‘Are you going to die?’ I don’t know.

Deltan shook off his thoughts and focused on the sensation of his body floating.

Immediately after, I escaped back to reality.

*

Agnes felt her drowsiness disappear at the sight of the Deltan twitching.

Naturally, my body jumped upright.

“Deltain?”

When I called that, the Deltan’s eyes slowly opened.

He had a tired complexion, covered in sleep.

The golden eyes that seem to have the sun in them become increasingly clear.

He stares at the ceiling for a moment, then rolls over and heads towards Agnes.

“… What is it?”

For some reason, Agnes felt as if all the strength in her whole body was loosened as she heard the subdued voice.

My stomach felt tight, and my breath became a little hot.

Agnes stared blankly at Deltan for a long time, and when he furrowed his brows, she spoke without realizing it.

“… I thought I was failing. You.”

I thought you’d never come back.

I swallowed those words.

Deltan savored Agnes’ words, then burst into laughter and said.

“Do you wear your hair as a decoration?”

It was a tone full of self-love.

“I told you.”

It was a disparaging tone.

“I never fail.”

It showed that Hebron, the Delta, had come full circle.