episode_0124

It was a common story.

The story of a girl who lived her entire life in darkness, seeing light for the first time, but becoming scared by the unfamiliar comfort and running away.

It was a paradox of misfortune.

Even while shedding tears, saying they don’t want to be unhappy, in the end, they return to the most familiar misfortune.

Because in a wandering life, that sorrow was the only thing that became a home.

A life trapped in its own patterns.

The girl in front of me was no different.

“So you were here, Neria.”

“You…?”

Silver hair fluttering in the fierce wind.

Starlight shimmering around her.

Cheeks with blood and tears trickling down, and a large wound on her right face.

Her clear eyes stared blankly in this direction.

“I’m not too late.”

I said, as if responding to that gaze.

I realized the girl had disappeared and chased after her, but at least I could stop her before things escalated to the worst.

From the palm that had hastily covered the dagger, the sound of flesh burning leaked out.

The iron’s temperature, fully imbued with starlight.

Even so, she met my eyes without any sign of pain.

“Do you know how worried I was?”

The girl made a complicated expression at my teasing scolding.

Her lips, holding silence for a moment, soon murmured with a hoarse voice.

“…So you chased me. Even through this terrible blizzard.”

“Because I promised to take responsibility.”

“Right…”

You are that kind of person.

The girl gave a resigned smile with a strange atmosphere.

Her calm voice instead revealed resignation.

“That’s why I left you.”

Because you were too good of a person.

The warmth and kindness you casually offered, your devotion to become a home beyond misfortune, were too much and too heavy for a mere monster from the bottom.

Because this cursed fate seemed like it would hurt even you.

I decided to leave your side on my own accord.

“This is my choice.”

“Neria.”

“Still, the time I spent with you was enjoyable. So much so that I unknowingly felt a deeper thirst… But it’s over now.”

The futile dream shattered into pieces.

A smile still lingered on her lips.

The girl seemed to have made a decision while wandering in the blizzard.

Her faint warmth declared its end towards me.

“Listen. I have one last request.”

Her silver eyes especially lacked vitality.

She was a flower on the verge of breaking.

“Kill me.”

It was a plea for death.

Her expression, showing even a hint of relief, was crumbling fleetingly.

The starlight spread around became increasingly vivid.

“I’m tired now.”

The girl didn’t want to become a monster.

She didn’t want to hurt others, nor did she want to tremble in loneliness and darkness forever.

The choice she ultimately made was, once again, an escape to misfortune.

Towards the most familiar home.

“So that I don’t become a monster, before that happens… kill me with your own hands.”

“……”

“If it’s you, I don’t think I’ll regret it.”

I couldn’t give any answer.

Tears flowing down along the wounds.

Because I felt crushed by that atmosphere.

Perhaps interpreting my prolonged silence as acceptance, the girl slowly moved the dagger they were holding together.

The still-hot blade was aimed at her delicate neck.

She didn’t apply any force.

As if.

She was asking me to stab her.

It was truly malicious.

“My body will soon go berserk. I tried my best to suppress it, but now I can feel my reason fading.”

*Flare!*

Was it as if those words became a signal?

Her condition truly began to worsen.

The light surrounding her glowed all at once, and the power originating from the stars began to spew forth one by one.

As the landscape was gradually covered in high heat, even the weather faded.

Her eyes gently closed, as if to emphasize.

“If you don’t kill me… this entire area will be swept away by starlight.”

Warning words.

Meaning that if she wasn’t killed here, more people would die.

As if to prove her words, the light’s resistance intensified.

Flashes of light surged like thousands of thorns, piercing into my skin.

The pain of my flesh burning in real time was not pleasant.

I bowed my head.

“Please.”

A fervent wish echoing in my ears.

Chewing over the texture felt from her words, I recalled myself.

It was the time I had spent with the girl.

-Why… are you doing this much for me?

I quietly recalled that question.

At the time, I had vaguely glossed over it, but this time, I had to conclude that question.

Even as I became increasingly covered in blood, I continued my contemplation.

As if reflecting on myself.

‘Why… is this?’

Why had I dedicated myself so much?

The other person was merely an extra.

And a seed of disaster that would completely burn one-tenth of the continent in the future.

What was the reason for bestowing peace upon such a monster?

‘Well.’

Perhaps.

Because the sensation of caring for another person was too long ago.

Because that faint warmth was especially poignant.

She was clearly a girl who had nothing in common with my younger sister, but whenever I dealt with her, the mourning I had left in the depths of my memory surfaced.

In a single withered flower lived a heart that I couldn’t bring myself to burn.

I smiled faintly.

‘I, you.’

That child in you.

Or perhaps I saw myself superimposed.

Completely abandoned by the world, despairing at unintentional misfortune, desperately trying to live nonetheless, but facing merciless unreasonableness too brutal for childish will, love fleetingly lost, having nowhere to lean on, we, whose very words that formed us had shattered, leaving only me behind in that winter, the snow, the breath, the farewell, and like you now, there were children trembling in the cold.

That’s why I couldn’t pass by a monster like you.

Even though you were a seed of disaster, I couldn’t kill you.

Because I thought every single scar remaining on that being resembled us.

I wished that we, back then, could have been completely happy.

‘A personal desire.’

The devotion I offered was based on such selfishness.

It was hypocritical compassion, carried out by prioritizing myself over others, because the reflection of myself beyond the mirror kept bothering me.

I didn’t feel ashamed of it.

I merely wanted it to be absolution for supporting your pain.

I wished you wouldn’t hate the self reflected in the mirror.

I wished you wouldn’t resign from your life, which resembled mine, and would continue to breathe that fragile breath.

Though it was a somewhat selfish desire.

Even so, I.

“Neria.”

I wanted you to live.

“I told you it would be alright.”

I released the hand holding the dagger.

The silver blade falling to the floor.

At the same time, giving her no chance to react, I opened my arms and embraced her frail body.

The violent starlight raged, as if intending to swallow us whole.

Even so, I didn’t let go.

‘Just as I tamed you… you also tamed me.’

The responsibility of taming isn’t borne by just one side.

Since we formed a relationship together.

We must strive without placing one above the other in that regard.

Therefore, I did not allow your escape.

Because just as I took responsibility for you from misfortune, you also had a duty to take responsibility for me from loneliness.

Holding onto her faint breath, I slowly let a lie permeate.

It was the fulfillment of responsibility.

“It’s alright if you don’t hurt anymore.”

Being cut, pierced, burned.

Responsibility is painful.

If there’s a reason I didn’t turn my back on this pitiful girl.

It was simply.

“Let’s go home together.”

To the hurting you.

With the desire to offer comfort.

***

“Please.”

The girl was waiting for death.

The very end of a life finally reached.

There was no regret in the choice she had made.

Because this was the best for everyone.

A story where even monsters find happiness, it was clear that such a fate couldn’t be found no matter how much one searched.

Her gently closed eyelids blocked her tear-blurred vision.

‘It’s all over.’

It had been a painful time.

But.

At least for the end, it felt like she could close her eyes peacefully.

Because there was someone to tie that knot.

-I have come to pick you up.

The boy who had first taught her warmth in her life.

This was an undeservedly good ending.

The heat lingering near her neck proved the dagger’s presence.

Once that sharpness completely pierced this breath, rest would come to this wretched life.

Tears flowed down.

‘Still… it’s a little scary.’

Her shoulders stiffened involuntarily.

She calmed her heart.

Even as all sorts of emotions mingled, the stars intensified their light.

Fear, freedom, resentment, tranquility, liberation… As she replayed all these words, waiting for the coming end.

Something enveloped the girl’s body.

*Wrap!*

“I told you it would be alright.”

Lukewarm body temperature.

In her reflexively open eyes, the image of the boy embracing her was reflected.

He was holding the burning starlight.

“Let’s go home together.”

At the continuing voice, the girl snapped back to reality.

The landscape being dyed by starlight in real time.

The monster desperately tried to pull the body clinging to her away.

Because at this rate, both of them would clearly burn up.

“What are you doing! Let go, now…!”

She had asked for death.

Not for a double suicide.

Leaving his side had been a decision made because she wished him not to be hurt, so what meaning would it have if they burned up so senselessly?

The girl struggled to push away that comfortable embrace.

But it was no use.

“You’ll get caught up too! Do you want to die with me?!”

“Shh.”

However.

Despite her desperate cries, the boy merely smiled.

He should clearly be in pain, but his expression was serene.

Darkness shimmered on his lightly flicking finger.

*Click!*

“Focus.”

Shadows slowly enveloped the surroundings.

The pitch-black that fell like a curtain gradually obscured the brilliant starlight.

The rampaging power regained a calm flow.

An unfamiliar sensation felt at this point.

“…Ah.”

The girl stopped struggling and stood still.

It felt different from the usual treatment.

The violence gradually subsiding.

It wasn’t just a feeling of being suppressed; that vast power was being refined at a rapid pace.

The boy was interpreting the starlight in real time.

*Subside…*

The formula he deployed quickly permeated the starlight, neutralizing it.

The boy murmured with a weary voice.

“Fortunately… I found it. A way to seal that starlight.”

Although it took three months, it’s fortunate that I wasn’t too late.

The light gradually faded and then completely extinguished.

The rampaging flow also returned.

No… ‘returned’ wasn’t enough.

It vanished.

The power that had been with her her whole life was no longer felt.

It had been arbitrarily sealed.

“Im-impossible… What in the world, h-how…?”

The girl showed a confused reaction.

It was truly a miraculous situation, but the snake merely smiled mischievously as usual.

The embrace, still close to each other, was warm.

“Because I’m by your side.”

Words he had promised a few days ago.

A promise to protect her.

The boy whispered into her ear.

It was the moment the curses of the past were unraveling.

“From now on, there will be no loneliness, no pain, no misfortune for you.”

“……”

“I will make it so.”

A voice completely vowing his life.

Like a lie.

And like a miracle.

The boy came.

“So… won’t you come back?”

To embrace the lonely monster.

“To our home.”

“…Ugh.”

The words she had so desperately wanted to hear.

Anyone would do.

A single word of permission, saying it was okay to remain in this world, even with a fate born of such a curse.

A single word that gifted a home to her lonely self.

*Sob…*

The girl couldn’t stop the tears that poured out.

Hot tears scattered drop by drop.

The meaning of those tears was no longer resignation or despair.

Only pure white ecstasy overflowed.

-Why was I born?

After seeing the light of the world.

The winter of life that had continued for nearly 20 years. It was the first spring that arrived in such a season.

Even the blizzard that seemed eternal had finally ceased.

Transparent dew dropped steadily.

The girl embraced the boy’s body.

“It’s warm… *sob*, so w-warm…”

Warmth.

Warmth.

Cozy comfort.

How long had she yearned for those words?

How great had that thirst been?

As if quenching a long thirst, the girl buried her face in his wide embrace.

Childlike sobs completely filled the empty snowfield.

*Ugh, sob…*

“You’ve endured so much.”

Only the fallen dagger of denial was visible on the floor.

A single dagger of denial containing the past.

Beside that dagger, a single flower suddenly bloomed.

It seemed to signal that the long winter had ended.

What winter left behind for them.

Spring.

A single flower that bloomed from its awakening.

Even withered hearts sprouted anew, and all that pain blossomed like petals.

We.

Could live through the seasons to come.

Promising pure white hope.

And so.

Towards the future.