A Curse to Some (2)

"Now you look a bit more like a proper villain…, don't you?"

Eileen wore an innocent smile, as if pleased by the sight of me, now half-blind with one eye gone.

"Dean always has to look like a villain…. Otherwise I'd be no better than…."

Startled by the voice that had slipped out of her unconsciously, Eileen clamped her mouth shut and shot furtive glances at me.

In those eyes, the contempt with which she'd regarded me as a murderer only moments ago had vanished, leaving nothing but pity behind.

"Don't you dare look at me like that!!"

The moment her emotions were laid completely bare before me, Eileen slapped me across the cheek.

My head whipped to the side, and the frost-frozen socket of my eye cracked slightly, blood seeping through the fissures.

When she noticed the stark white frost slowly staining a deep red, her shoulders trembled.

For a while she repeated the strange ritual of gingerly bringing her shaking hand toward the wound, flinching, and snatching it away, before finally cooling the area around my eye with frost to stop the bleeding again.

The way Eileen looked at me was warped in some fundamental way—like a small child raising a chick bought in front of the school gates, ruthless without hesitation when causing it pain, yet grieving the instant death drew near.

It felt as though her confusion over just what sort of gaze one was supposed to direct at a being called Dean was bleeding into me as well.

"You… crazy… bitch."

The perfect word to describe Eileen came to me, and I spat it out without thinking.

"…What?"

I rolled my right eye, still miraculously intact, and glared at her.

My ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠focus sharpened sluggishly, and my gaze met hers.

"I said you're a crazy bitch…."

In case she hadn't heard, I forced strength into my rasping throat and made sure the words reached her.

"……."

What must Eileen have thought, being called insane by an insane person?

Judging by the way her shoulders and eyes trembled at the same time, it was clearly more than she could laugh off.

"Shut up…! I said shut up!!"

The moment her half-made dagger drove toward my throat in her mounting fury—

"…."

It stopped dead, right before the blade could bite into my skin.

A single bead of blood welled up where the cold steel had barely grazed my throat.

"…Why won't you kill me?"

I asked why she'd stopped, tension threaded through me at the chill radiating from the dagger.

"You used to kill me at the drop of a hat. Something not working anymore?"

I lifted my hand gently and stroked her cheek.

Like a lover might, with tenderness.

Then, letting my hand drift slowly downward, I softly clasped the hand gripping the dagger.

"Stab down. Hard."

At the same time I yanked her hand with all my strength, trying to drive the dagger into my own throat—an attempted suicide—but her grip tightened, and my attempt dissolved into nothing.

"…No."

Eileen uttered words utterly mismatched to the moment as she yanked my arm away.

Fragile as I was, I couldn't offer even a token resistance; my body was hauled upright, and her face drew close enough that I could feel her breath.

"…!"

Eyes that wouldn't quite focus.

Long lashes so sharp they looked like they'd sting if they pricked you.

Perhaps from all her inner torment, her lips had gone pale and dark circles shadowed her eyes—but even that only lent Eileen a decadent, ruined beauty.

Just as I was losing myself in that beauty, beautiful enough to make me forget the fact that she had murdered me—

"…Dean, you're not allowed to die. You have to live and pay for your sins."

—her sharp declaration cut through.

"Die, and you'll just vanish off somewhere, won't you?"

As piercing as her voice, her judgment cut straight to the bone.

Eileen had known all along that I was provoking her in hopes of dying, and she stared at the frost-frozen socket of my left eye, crusted with blood.

Under that steady, unwavering gaze, I felt terror and an excitement I couldn't put into words.

The breathless precipice of a life not yet stolen by a predator.

The same electric thrill one only feels watching a horror film.

And then, in the very instant Eileen's lips drew near—

I had started to close my eyes before belatedly coming to my senses and jerking my face backward.

"!!!"

As the distance opened up, Eileen, who had been staring at me in a daze, belatedly registered what she'd been about to do and shoved me away in a panic.

I couldn't understand why Eileen had tried to kiss a person she ought to have despised at every moment.

It was the stuff of a rom-com, and yet, paradoxically, the two of us had each killed the other.

"You… you're insane, Eileen."

Flustered by her sudden action, I tried to berate her and tripped over my own tongue.

"…."

She sent me an unreadable look—impossible to guess what emotion, if any, lay behind it—then slid off my stomach and silently began cleaning up the porridge that had spilled lifelessly across the floor.

Wiping away the traces of it, she retched over and over again.

Once the porridge was entirely cleared away, she carried the bowl out of the hut, refilled it, and came back.

"…Hup."

At the same time, as if to show me, she scooped up a spoonful with the wooden spoon, put it in her own mouth, and swallowed.

See? No poison or anything. That was plainly the meaning of the gesture.

Eileen walked over softly, perched on the edge of the bed, scooped up a spoonful of porridge, and held it to my lips.

"Eat."

"……."

"Please."

But I kept my mouth clamped shut, absolutely refusing the porridge.

It wasn't a question of whether it was poisoned or not.

Who would want to eat porridge made by the murderer who had butchered them so cruelly?

Just knowing that an ordinary, harmless food had passed through her hands—even the sweet aroma rising from the bowl did nothing to whet my appetite. It only made nausea claw its way up my throat.

"I said eat!!"

As if she despised the sight of herself spoon-feeding me, Eileen's hand trembled violently as she bore down on me.

Instinctive fear at that voice loosened my lips, and—

the porridge, neither hot nor cold, forced its way into my mouth.

How long had it been since I'd had proper food? A dull ache resonating through my entire jaw set my parched salivary glands surging back to life.

Only then did I realize just how starved I had been.

Tears leaked from my eyes without my noticing, and I could no longer bring myself to refuse the porridge Eileen offered me.

I was immortal—but only after dying. Not before.

I was no being who could survive on nothing, abstaining from all food and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drink.

…I was merely one who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠returned from death.

In that single, pitiful act of finally getting food into my stomach, I felt, down to my bones, how small and wretched an existence I was.

"…You did well."

By the time the bowl had scraped empty from my endless, baby-bird feeding, Eileen wiped the porridge from the corner of my mouth with her thumb and soothed me gently.

I wanted to spit curses at her on the spot for it, but following the old maxim that the calm before the storm is the most terrifying thing of all, I didn't let out a single word.

She could act like a lunatic one moment and so normal the next—I felt like I was living beside a time bomb with no idea when it would go off.

Setting the bowl on the floor, Eileen climbed onto the bed, lay down on top of me, and began fiddling with the area around my eye.

Her pale blue bob draped down messily, drawing a curtain across our faces.

The subtle distance that lingered between two people who did not love each other showed no sign of closing any further.

"…I don't know anymore."

Then, as she quietly held my gaze, Eileen's lips quivered.

Her voice was so faint that even at this distance, I would have missed it if I weren't straining to listen.

"You…. I don't know if you're really a bad person."

Eileen seemed to feel some great doubt about the very existence I was.

"Dean…, are you really that murderer I knew?"

The Dean she had known was a killer who slaughtered people without hesitation.

The Dean of now was nothing more than a helpless, fragile human being.

Someone with an utterly different personality, no less.

Could the Dean of the past and the Dean of now truly be called the same person?

My face was reflected in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her eyes, pale as a snowfield bleached white by the sun.

"Even if I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

I answered her question carelessly.

"We were never the kind of people who could share things like that in the first place, were we?"

"……."

The me you see is nothing more than an ornament that must never change, like a parrot in a cage.

We were a master and a parrot, trading words that never reached each other.

And so I—

crunch—

—ground down on my own tongue.

I worked my molars at the base of it again and again until the tip was well and thoroughly shredded.

"Wait! Stop!!"

Before Eileen, who had noticed the self-mutilation, could intervene, I shoved my hand into my mouth, seized my wounded tongue, and tore it free.

My eyes rolled back at the sick, ripping sensation and the pain that felt like my brain was being wrenched out through my skull, but I forced myself to stay conscious.

Yet even after all that agony, despair settled over me at the realization that the torn piece of my tongue was not all that large.

At this size…, it should stop with a bit of heavy bleeding.

I pushed away Eileen, who was frantically trying to stop the bleeding, and flung the hunk of my own tongue at her.

"Aggaodima…."

I meant to tell her to stay away, but with my tongue no longer doing its job, only garbled sounds came out.

Same thing happened with Carmen, if I recall.

"Ptui."

I spat out the bloody taste spreading through my mouth, and then drove my finger straight into my left eye.

"Gghk…. Aaaghh!!"

It was agony.

But if I couldn't kill myself by biting through my tongue, then in the end there was only one way left.

Shattering the frozen ice of Eileen's making in my eye socket, I pushed my finger deeper—somewhere nothing foreign should ever enter.

"Hahk… gghaaahk!!"

When I pressed my finger against the thin bone I could feel at the back, the moment it gave way with a sickening crack, an excruciating pain began, as if something that must never be opened had been pried wide.

I'm going to die.

If it goes on like this, I'll die for certain.

"No… no, no, no!!"

Only when the end was nearly upon her did Eileen come back to herself, frantically icing my eye and freezing my tongue in a desperate bid at emergency treatment—but—

the fuse of my life had already been lit, blazing furiously toward death.

…I should never attempt suicide like this again.

Far too painful, and not remotely efficient.

"…See you, Eileen."

The parade of memories my convulsing brain conjured up was no comfort to me at all.