Cancer Cells Are Life Too
"Mother! Get up already! It's morning!"
"……Yes?"
I awoke from a long sleep to find it was morning. Warm sunlight tickled my cheek. My eyelids trembled weakly, drained from sleeping too long.
"Mother, you've got drool on your cheek."
"Mm. I've shown an embarrassing side."
"Just kidding! Hehe."
"……."
Just moments ago, I'd been napping──or was it a dream? Why was it morning? How many hours had passed?
"How long did I sleep?"
"Who knows? You conked out yesterday afternoon…… about 18 hours? They say beauties are sleepyheads, and it looks like it's true!"
"……."
"I cleaned up the hospital! No emergencies among the visitors, so don't worry. I handled the simple treatments too."
"Ah. Sorry. I should have──."
"It's fine. I'm your daughter and your apprentice, right?"
"Ah, yes. Right…… daughter. Yes."
"You're not backing out just because you said it half-asleep, are you?"
"Absolutely not. I meant it."
"Hehe. Mom. I love you."
I stroked Charlotte's beaming head once, then headed to the bathroom. While washing my face, I stared into the mirror. Gigachad stared back. Still healthy, brimming with vitality, rippling muscles.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
- "You Fucking Asshole, Noasalppi. I'm not your damn alarm clock."
"Sigh…… Didn't you make Charlotte go through unnecessary trouble because of me? You're always nagging me to get up early and stretch, so why this time?"
- "Couldn't steal my granddaughter's joy."
"Pardon?"
- "You Idiot. Not just you shoulders others' pain to feel happy. Helping people isn't just your mighty──father's power."
"……."
- "Think how thrilled that girl was, taking over the work your mother always bore alone. You shouldn't have said sorry—you should've said thanks."
"Then why didn't you butt in back then?"
- "Oh, right. 'Hey, this is when you say thanks'—guiding you kindly from the sidelines wouldn't have been bad. Right, My Daughter?"
Noah glared at Gigachad. Not truly angry—just embarrassed, awkwardly pretending to glare.
"I get it. Words from my own mouth mean something; otherwise, they're empty. I'm her mother……."
- "Yes, ma'am."
"But the more I give that child my heart, the greater her grief when she loses me."
The world's suffering isn't just for me. Anyone who loves suffers. Even if they don't welcome it. All suffering is ultimately for oneself. I realized too late.
"I'll return the suffering I took from others. It wasn't for me."
Being born with a body that feels pain isn't to save yourself. Every doctor knows that. I was a quack. No different from an undertaker handing out the same death notice to everyone, as Gigachad once said. Now was the time to turn it all back. Correct the wrong diagnosis.
"You knew from the start I'd make this choice."
- "Nope."
"Pardon?"
- "How could I predict that? Like I always say, everything I know, you know. Only you decide your future. I can't foresee it or change you."
Noah blankly stared at Gigachad. My inner self. A heart's illness. Something parasitic on the soul, impossible to grasp.
"But I didn't know. That I'd choose this."
- "Yeah. The future's unknowable."
"Even if I told my past self this story, she wouldn't believe it. This happiness…… unimaginable back then."
- "Right. Back then, you were just a coward scared of happiness."
"So how could you say such things to me?"
To Noah's doubt-filled question, Gigachad laughed uproariously, absurdly hearty.
- "Because you wished it."
"Pardon?"
- "The lowliest lump of flesh stood among humans…… You wanted to become a better person."
The first wish. The brain and heart born in some unfortunate girl's womb, their sole prayer to the heavens. She wanted to be human. A better human. Not flesh, but a person.
- "Noasalppi. Aiming high isn't about the goal's greatness. Reaching it doesn't suddenly make you great."
A mere tumor's wish—too grand. She could never become human. A tumor feeding on the world's pain. That was her essence.
- "The journey toward it makes you better."
But failure doesn't mean nothing changed.
- "No path to happiness. Just happiness on the path."
She learned love. Happiness. Favoring someone. Kindness.
- "It's okay to fail. Doubt yourself. Question the goal. Even collapse and give up sometimes."
She dreamed the impossible: save the whole world. But saved many along the way.
- "You'll already be a better person."
She became better. Lived as human, not tumor. Strived to live human. Lived. Has lived. Lives.
"Uh, well, I mean……."
This was truth. Undeniable truth. So joyful. Utterly joyful.
"……."
She cried. No tears flowed. No voice choked. But she cried. Only then did death feel real. Death's terror only truly felt when alive.
"……Truth is, I don't want to lose that child."
I want to live.
"I don't want her to lose me."
I want to live.
"I don't want to weaken. Don't want to die."
I want to live.
"I want to remain this world's tumor forever, devouring its suffering."
I want to live.
"I want to live my whole life with that child."
I want to live.
- "Then do it. Serve without losing your power, swallow pain, take one rest day a week just for her. You decide your life. Not every day needs to be miraculous."
"No. That's not it."
But sometimes, the noblest desire beats survival instinct.
"If I remain the world's tumor…… if I don't abandon devouring suffering…… I'll eventually……."
They call that desire love.
"I'll swallow even that child's suffering."
If tomorrow she fell to a fatal illness. Groaned in pain. Wished for death from this cruel world. Rusted by time, smiling brightly on her deathbed.
I'd feed her this blood full of horrific malignant tumors. Infiltrate cells, promise immortality. Burrow into nerves, steal pain. Scramble her brain for utter bliss alone.
"I know that. You know too."
Noah was certain. Not fate. Not choice. Not purpose. Not prediction. A diagnosis. Incurable disease. Only death escapes it.
"I'll…… swallow that child. And surely destroy the world."
Noah was an excellent doctor. Coldly objective, even examining herself.
"So I must do it now."
She was the Doomsday Button. No one else could stop her doom.
So she had to.
- "No regrets?"
"Probably. Already regretting. But this is my choice."
- "Then farewells in advance. Farewell, My Daughter. An alpha deciding her fate…… won't need this Gigachad anymore."
Noah suddenly recalled first meeting Gigachad. A patient's heart illness. That patient claimed torment by a demon.
"I'll treat you second-to-last."
- "First is fine. Even unseen, I'll be closer than your heart. The truly important thing──."
"Can only be seen with the heart."
- "Good job."
Well, patients' self-diagnoses rarely match. Where's a kind demon like this? Angel, maybe.
"This blocks Noah's doom, right?"
"Yeah. Conditions met, so she'll renounce all powers soon, live a few days…… and die of cancer."
"A disease becoming human…… still hard to believe."
"Just think simple. Cancer cells are alive too, right?"
"Pardon? Is that a saying?"
It was. In my past life's Korea. An immortal line.
"Bitter taste. Dying of illness after all."
"World's like that. Chasing immortality here just leads to misery."
"True enough."
"Canaria, you're not into immortality, huh?"
"Dying buried in gold coins sounds ideal."
"Not bad."
