Thirteen to Fourteen
Perhaps I'd buttoned the first one wrong.
But no matter how many times I thought it through, I couldn't figure out where exactly things had gone off the rails.
…
My eyes opened.
When I came to, all I could see was an unfamiliar ceiling made of fine, expensive materials.
This was definitely not my home.
I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn't respond—it took effort just to move, and for a moment I wondered if I'd been in some kind of accident and ended up in a hospital.
As that thought crossed my mind, someone opened the door and walked in.
…!
Had they noticed I was awake?
They shut the door again and hurried off somewhere, their footsteps fading behind the closed wood.
At first I thought the person who'd found me had fled in fright, but I soon let that idea go.
Sure, a stranger might panic finding someone lying in their bed—but what would I be doing in someone else's house in this condition? I certainly hadn't walked here on my own. They'd just been startled by my waking up.
Staring at the ceiling and doing nothing was comfortable enough, but boredom set in almost as quickly as the comfort, so I tried to do something—anything.
Move my body, for instance.
…Ah.
Or make a sound with my mouth, something like that.
The voice that came out of my throat was different from what I remembered, but I wasn't surprised. My body was so frail it barely moved—of course my voice would be off too.
Still, I couldn't shake the strange feeling, so I tried again.
Ah.
It was a clear, delicate voice.
I'd barely exhaled the sound, yet it rang out like a bell—crystalline and pure.
For the record, aside from the person who'd just left, I was alone in the room.
Yes. The owner of that voice was none other than me.
It didn't take long to accept the fact. The vibrations traveling from my lips and throat were unmistakable.
But accepting something and wanting to accept it were two entirely different things.
…Fuck.
A coarse swear I rarely used slipped out unfiltered.
Maybe because it wasn't someone else's problem anymore.
With no laughter to be had in this situation, I slowly turned my head to the side, hoping—praying—that what I was thinking was wrong.
What was I trying to confirm?
The hair that had been brushing against my cheek since I woke up?
Or the presence of breasts I could feel every time the sheets shifted?
Or perhaps something that had gone missing between my legs without me noticing?
I looked at all of it and didn't react.
I just forced my uncooperative hand to move and pulled the blanket up.
As if nothing had happened.
As if covering myself slowly would somehow make it true—that nothing had happened.
I was a man.
I had never once thought I wanted to be a woman. Not even once.
There was a web novel a friend had recommended to me once. Unlike the philosophical works that carried deeper meaning, it was written purely for entertainment.
If I had to rate it… yeah, it was pretty fun.
That story shone so brightly it felt almost too hopeful for someone living in the real world, so I tried hard not to pull it from memory. That's why I'm bringing it up now.
Because when the commotion outside drew my attention and I pulled back the covers to look at the world again, a radiant figure was standing before me.
Saintess Iria.
One of the main characters from that novel.
The woman before me looked exactly like the Iria from the story.
No—saying she looked like her wasn't quite right.
The novel had described her in just a few lines: light pink hair, golden eyes, a saintess who smiled kindly at everyone.
That was all. Just a few words. And yet why was I so certain the person standing before me was her?
"Iria."
I called out her name—just three syllables.
I hadn't meant to say it. It just came out.
Her eyes widened. A small commotion rippled through the people standing beside her, which was only to be expected.
Iria stared at my face as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
A smile spread across her lips, but her eyes told a different story.
Tears glistened there, ready to spill at the slightest tremor.
"You… remembered…?"
Her voice trembled with joy.
I didn't need to ask what she meant.
She knew me—or rather, she knew the owner of this body.
The problem was that the way I knew her was nothing like what she was expecting.
I had never met her in person.
I was just someone who had read a few lines about her in a novel.
"No."
So I couldn't say I knew her.
And I'd never even heard of anyone called the Sage or whatever. The memories of being with her didn't exist anywhere in me.
"…I think I only remember your name."
So this was the only thing I could say.
After my words, the room fell silent.
Iria was still smiling.
It was the same expression as before—her eyes curved gently, the smile still lingering at the corners of her mouth.
Only the light in her golden eyes had dimmed.
"Only your name…"
She murmured it very softly.
It sounded like she was trying to confirm something, or perhaps trying to make herself understand what she'd just heard.
"You don't remember the day we first met?"
"Not at all."
"When I was young?"
"I'm sorry…"
"…Even the things you named for me?"
…
With each question, Iria's voice grew quieter.
I couldn't answer. I had no choice.
Telling someone you didn't remember something wasn't difficult. I was just stating facts.
But disappointing the same person over and over with the same truth was something else entirely.
Everything she was asking about was new to me.
But those small questions were probably precious memories for her.
Maybe they'd been the driving force that kept her going. Perhaps they were irreplaceable memories she'd replayed countless times in secret.
But none of that time existed for me.
Because I wasn't originally from here.
"Nothing at all…? You really don't remember anything?"
"…Yes."
This time I answered briefly.
The smile remaining on Iria's lips trembled slightly.
But she didn't cry.
She was a remarkably strong person.
After briefly dismissing the others, Iria spoke to me.
"May I sit?"
"Please, make yourself comfortable."
It wasn't even my room—why should she need to be careful? So I told her to relax.
"'Make yourself comfortable' isn't the same as permission, though…"
"…You may sit."
I might need to adjust my assessment a bit. She was a stickler for details.
As if waiting for my words to finish, Iria finally pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down.
Her movements were excessively careful.
"Do you happen to know where we are?"
I broke the silence first. I had plenty of questions, and I wasn't the type to enjoy being alone with a stranger.
"This is the capital of the Holy Empire. It's the mansion where I reside."
"Do you know why I'm here?"
Iria didn't answer right away.
She clasped her hands over her knees, as if considering where to begin, and fell silent for a moment in thought.
Then, as if she'd sorted everything out, she spoke again.
"After we defeated the Demon King, I tried to find you, Sage-nim."
"Me?"
"Yes. You said you'd be traveling all over the world, so I wanted to see you whenever I had the chance."
The ending I'd read wasn't like that.
In the story, after defeating the Demon King, the hero's party went their separate ways to wherever they needed to be, and the tale drew to a close.
It had been a hopeful ending. Everyone seemed destined for happiness, and it ended cleanly with no epilogue.
So what I was trying to say was—there was no awkward aftermath like this.
"At first, I searched by asking around."
She said it hadn't been easy, but the process hadn't been painful either. She'd searched the entire empire, then the northern snowfields and southern deserts, even crossing the sea to other continents.
I couldn't even imagine how grueling that journey must have been.
"In the end, I found you in an ancient ruin on the Western Continent."
"What was I doing there…?"
Iria didn't answer.
She didn't avoid my gaze, but she didn't look directly at me either. Her golden eyes went out of focus, as if she were looking at some old memory beyond my shoulder.
"When I found you, you were in very bad condition."
She said it slowly.
"You couldn't have made it back on your own."
"So I'm here to receive treatment?"
"Yes."
Her answer came a little late.
"I guess you've done everything you can, then."
She seemed to be hiding something, but at least nothing she'd said so far sounded like a lie.
"That my body regressed to a child's during the recovery process…"
Yes, I can only call it a side effect.
The rest of the sentence—
Oh. So that's why my body became so frail…
But what about…?
"Yes…? A child's age?"
"Yes. If I had to estimate, you're probably around thirteen or fourteen years old."
Fuck this.