If You Don't Say It, I Won't Know. (3)
If You Don't Say It, I Won't Know. (3)
"Welcome, Seo-nim. We have been waiting for you."
"Ah, yes..."
An awkward welcome.
Seeing the person bowing respectfully toward him, Seo awkwardly bowed his head back.
He hadn't expected her to actually send someone.
"Rachel-nim is on the top floor. Please follow me."
"Thank you."
He began walking slowly behind the employee dressed in a suit.
Nothing has changed here.
Researchers running around frantically.
Rooms where one couldn't tell what was inside.
And even the elevator soaring high into the sky.
Uuuung-
As he stepped into the elevator, his view rose in an instant along with a feeling of floating.
The scenery outside the glass window of the elevator grew smaller and smaller, soon turning into tiny dots.
Young Seo used to love this view.
Because it felt like holding everything in the world within his eyes.
And because it felt like everyone in the world was looking at him.
"Please have an enjoyable time."
"..."
With those words, the employee took the elevator back down.
Why couldn't he answer those words?
Was it because he thought it wouldn't be an enjoyable time?
Clicking his tongue softly, Seo stared at the door in front of him and slowly caught his breath.
Last time he had kicked that door open to leave, but now he was in the position of going back in.
Ttok-ttok-
[Come in.]
A voice sounded from inside the door.
It was the exact same voice he had heard over the terminal.
Kkiiik-
"..."
"..."
Was this their first meeting in nearly ten years?
The two looked at each other's faces, but neither shared a single word.
Reminiscing.
It took quite a long time for eyes directed at the past to return to the present.
"It's been a while, Rachel-ssi."
"Yes, it has been a while."
"Have you... been well?"
"Perhaps."
It was awkward.
So much so that talking to the employee who had guided him felt far more natural.
Having spent nearly a third of his life cut off from her, it was perhaps only natural.
"So, what is the reason you contacted me?"
"Would you believe me if I said I did it to ask how you were doing?"
"No."
"I figured as much."
Seo let out a dry laugh.
She was always like this.
Whenever he tried to do something family-like, she would cut it off like a blade and look at him—or more accurately, look through him at someone from the past—with eyes soaked in melancholy.
"I heard that Biological Miracle stole a weapon of war from the government."
"I see."
"You were the one who instigated it, right?"
"And what if I did?"
It was a pure question.
Confidence that even if she admitted it, he wouldn't be able to do a thing.
"...Are you planning to start a war?"
"Yes."
There was no change in Rachel's expression.
A completely different reaction from the past when her face would contort at the mere mention of the word 'war'.
A person who seemed as though she would never change had finally changed with time.
And in the worst possible direction.
"And you? Did you come to stop me?"
"I have to stop you. A family member is straying onto the wrong path."
"Family, family... You have been obsessed with the word 'family' ever since you were young."
"If someone out there had done a proper job of being family, that wouldn't have happened."
Sharp words burst from Seo's mouth.
Vivid resentment.
Words that seemed to ask how she could possibly say such a thing.
"...Right. If so, you wouldn't have become a child so starved for familial affection."
"Then why on earth!"
Seo's voice echoed through the room.
Did you leave me neglected even knowing that?
Even while noticing that fact, you didn't give me even a single piece of affection.
What on earth am I to you?
Just what was the reason you took care of me in the first place?
Unspoken words swirled inside his throat.
"Because I am not your family."
"..."
"Becoming your family isn't my role, you see."
It was a truly selfish thing to say.
Did she simply not want to take responsibility?
Or did she hate the very existence of the human named Seo?
"Who on earth do you take me for?"
"Who knows."
"I am me. Seo! Just Seo, who exists with only a name because I didn't receive your last name!"
"Did you want my last name that badly?"
Rachel tilted her head.
Reflected in her purple eyes was Seo, his face contorted.
"That isn't bad."
Saeljjeuk.
The corners of her stiff mouth rose slightly, ever so slightly.
Was what lay within it ridicule? Or if not, joy?
One thing was for certain: the place those words were directed at was not toward Seo himself.
"Did you ever love me at all?"
Unable to contain himself any longer, Seo spat out the words.
An irreversible statement.
Hearing those words, Rachel's eyes wavered.
"...Yes. I still love you even now."
"Then why!"
"Unless you recall it yourself, it is meaningless. It would only cause confusion."
A statement uttered with absolute certainty.
Did she think he wouldn't understand even if she explained?
Seo gritted his teeth.
'Expecting anything from a person like this was my mistake.'
She was someone who had never looked at him for who he was from the very beginning.
Right, as if that would change just because time had passed.
Even so, there was one takeaway.
Cleanly erasing the last remaining lingering affection.
Seo no longer saw Rachel in front of him as family.
He viewed her as an evil that had to be stopped.
"Return the stolen weapon to the government and turn yourself in. If you do that, I will extend as much leniency as possible."
"You've grown into an adult who knows how to make threats. The old you wouldn't have done that."
"The old you didn't try to start a war either."
But you changed.
If so, wouldn't it be okay for me to change as well?
Dark, murky emotions began to surge from within his heart.
No, it was the moment they were about to surge.
'I hope you don't change, Seo-nim.'
Dea's words came to mind.
That voice saying she wished he wouldn't change.
Just remembering the words Dea had said caused his heart to quickly settle down.
"Weapons of war from the era of the Great War are dangerous. You know their danger as well, don't you?"
"Of course I know."
Then why?
Seeing Seo looking flustered, Rachel continued.
"However, I don't think those are words coming from the right person."
"What does that—"
Seo, who was about to answer Rachel's words, suddenly stopped talking.
The meaning behind what the other person was saying.
Because he realized it.
And along with that realization, a sentence was handed down from Rachel's mouth.
"Deus Ex Machina."
"...!"
"Its frame and auxiliary AI are at your house, aren't they?"
"You..."
A chill settled in Rachel's eyes.
Seo knew that look in her eyes.
The look he had seen once, in Biological Miracle's secret laboratory.
The sight of Rachel conducting experiments on living human beings overlapped over her current appearance.
"The most effective way to destroy a weapon from the Great War is with a weapon made during the same Great War."
"Rachel!!"
Seo yelled as if having a fit.
Then, with heavy kung-kung-kung stomps, he reached out his hand toward Rachel.
A rough, forceful hand, different from the hand he had reached out when he was young.
Kung-!!
"Just what on earth are you planning to do!!"
Seo grabbed Rachel by the collar.
Rachel's back hit the glass wall with a loud bang.
"That... has to disappear...!"
Redness bloomed within the purple.
Intense hatred.
It was a rage engraved upon the soul, passed down through an unimaginable stretch of time.
***
[I wonder if Ahjussi Seo is doing well?]
"He'll be doing well, since he's Seo-nim."
Although his solemn expression when leaving the house bothered me a bit, I trusted him.
Because the person named Seo whom I had observed while living together was not someone to yield to such things.
[Ah, speaking of which, I want to hear more of that story from last time!]
"Where were we up to again?"
[You talked up until the day before Dea's precious person's birthday!]
"Ah, right. That's true."
Makina liked listening to my love story.
And the story I was going to tell her today was my favorite moment out of that love story.
'I gave the lily flowers I cultivated myself to my wife as a gift.'
I still vividly remembered the sight of her weeping with joy.
Because it was the best moment of my life, one I couldn't forget, and didn't want to forget.
'Will you marry me, Lily?'
'Yes, yes. I'll, sob, marry you.'
The night sky of my hometown filled with countless stars.
The proposal I made to my wife right as it turned midnight on her birthday.
That day was precisely the day my wife and I became family.
[Woooow... I want to try having a love like that too!]
"You'll be able to do it too, Makina."
[I want to try it right now, Dea!]
"N-no, wouldn't that be a little too early... Ahaha."
I laughed awkwardly at Makina's words.
I wanted to give Makina everything she wanted, but this one was a bit of a stretch, so to speak.
Of course, if it were familial love, I had plenty of confidence to shower her with it.
And I was already in the middle of giving it to her with all my heart and passion.
[What next! Isn't there any story after that!?]
"The story after that..."
At Makina's question, I recalled what came next.
A scene filled entirely with flesh tones.
'No way. There's no way I can tell her this.'
I clamped my mouth shut at the provocative scene that suddenly popped into my head.
And then I covered my face with both hands.
Because looking at Makina, who looked identical to my wife, made it impossible to control my expression.
[Dea. Your ears have turned super red.]
"I, I, I, I know...!"
[Is the next story Dea is going to tell something quite embarrassing?]
"No, well, that's... for now, you see—"
The moment I tried to somehow change the subject at Makina's teasing.
Goosebumps rose.
The human instinct remaining inside the data.
It began screaming at me.
To run away right this instant.
"—Dodge, Makina!!!!"
A shout akin to a scream.
No sooner had it ended than my vision was dyed white.