Chapter 129
Chapter 129
So-hee's eyes darted wildly.
"Wait, so...
"What?"
She'd tried to speak, but her thoughts wouldn't settle, so she ended up asking again.
"I'm telling you, the me standing in front of you right now isn't the 'Sara' you know. Strictly speaking, you could say I'm Sara, and she's a different being, but from your point of view, she's probably the one you'd call 'Sara.'"
"Huh...?"
Faced with a 'Sara' who seemed almost deliberately talking in circles, So-hee let out another sound without quite forming words.
At that, Ha-neul passed a hand down her face.
"...To put it simply, Sara has two personalities. The Sara we've been seeing all this time is one, and this one is a different 'Sara.'"
"Oh... ah, so, like split personalities or something? Like in movies and dramas?"
When So-hee finally caught up and asked, 'Sara' and Ha-neul nodded at the same time.
"Then what did you mean by 'this body's original owner'?"
Su-a, who had been listening quietly, asked. 'Sara' answered.
"Exactly what it sounds like. I'm the personality that originally used this body. And the Sara you know came into my body later... no, maybe I should say 'came to exist'? Anyway, she's that kind of kid."
"...Since when?"
At Su-a's follow-up, 'Sara' gave a slight shrug.
"Probably the moment I took the pills."
"......."
Silence filled the room.
"You don't have to make such serious faces. I'm not dead, you know. And now that we're meeting like this, that kind of thing doesn't really matter, does it?"
"No, that's not what's important right now...."
Ha-neul had been holding her head this whole time, and Su-a was deep in thought. So the one who opened her mouth on behalf of the three friends was So-hee.
"I mean, the fact that you did something like that at all is what's weighing on us, so saying 'it doesn't matter' is kind of...."
At So-hee's words, 'Sara' stared at her face, as if she hadn't expected So-hee to say something like that, and spoke.
"I took the pills back then, so you all got to meet her, didn't you? And it's the same for me. I don't regret taking those pills. If I hadn't died once, I wouldn't be able to live the life I have now, and I wouldn't be able to speak properly in front of other people."
So-hee seemed to be struggling to keep up with the widening gap in understanding.
"No, I mean, meeting us is a good thing and all... but you died once? What kind of talk is that?"
"That's also exactly what it sounds like."
But the expression on 'Sara''s face as she said that was cloudier than before. The look of someone who couldn't quite be certain.
"I took the pills... and this body probably died once. Then, during the process of somehow coming back to life, I fell asleep deep in my consciousness, and in the meantime, the 'Sara' you know, the one without my memories, started using my body."
"...So you're saying you've already been resurrected once?"
So-hee already had one hand gripping her head. So much information had flooded in at once, information that defied the natural order of the world, that her thoughts couldn't keep up with her words.
"That's what I think. She thinks so too."
"......."
Silence settled over the room once again. This time, even Ha-neul was looking at 'Sara' with a rather serious expression.
It was less an expression of believing her story, and more one that seemed to ask, 'Is she even in her right mind right now?' And no wonder; it was the kind of story most ordinary people wouldn't believe. The only people who seriously talk about resurrection are probably religious people who sincerely believe in the Bible. And even they wouldn't believe it if you said an ordinary person came back from the dead.
What are you, Jesus?
It wouldn't be strange if someone threw a retort like that at her.
"Seems like no one believes it."
"Well...."
So-hee murmured, sounding troubled.
That was only natural. Everyone here liked Sara. Even if that meant the 'Sara' in front of them, that feeling probably wouldn't change.
But no matter how much you liked someone, you couldn't take everything they said at face value. Even less so when the story involved the supernatural.
Ah, but if you thought about it a little more seriously, the very fact that you'd accidentally seen a girl's underwear after she fell from the sky, that that girl turned out to be the wealthiest teenager in the world and the likely future owner of one of the biggest companies on the planet, and that you were now working for her at 500 million won a year—that alone was fantasy, if anything was.
The kind of fantasy no one would believe unless they experienced it themselves.
But the way human beings worked was this: if you hadn't experienced something personally, you couldn't easily believe a story you thought was 'outrageous.'
"...That day, the hospital test results came back normal, didn't they?"
Ha-neul asked 'Sara.'
That was true. The hospital had said it was normal. If 'Sara' had died and come back to life as Sara, that wasn't something you just evaluate as normal and send home; it was something to report to the academic world.
"Didn't you already know? You heard it from me."
When 'Sara' asked Ha-neul, both Su-a's and So-hee's gazes turned to her at the same time.
"...I did hear it, but I thought you'd fallen into a coma and then woken up."
"Ah, really?"
'Sara' seemed to accept those words as if they were nothing special.
"...May I ask why you thought that?"
Feeling a slightly eerie sensation for the first time toward a 'Sara' who showed little change in expression even while discussing her own death, Ha-neul asked.
"Because of the bruise marks on my back."
'Sara' said.
"When a person dies, blood pools in their back. That shows through the skin as bruise marks. Obviously, that can't happen on a living person with a beating heart. Even if you fall into a coma, that's not the same as being dead, is it?"
"......."
The room fell silent.
'Sara' seemed to be enjoying the situation a little.
"But I've never been abused in that way. Not once. Mother never, ever hit me. She thinks of me more like an extremely fragile jewel—one that would get scratched if handled even slightly wrong. That's why she hid me from other people's eyes and constructed every aspect of my surroundings so that only she could possess me."
'Sara' shrugged once.
"So the only situation in which bruises could appear on my back is that one. I died and came back to life. Though I don't really know how that happened."
And then she turned her head slightly toward the door.
"Isn't that right, Maid?"
"......."
Only then did the three who had been listening to 'Sara' turn their heads toward the door.
The door, which had been very slightly ajar, soon opened with a rattle.
Standing there was Yang Hye-in, her face unmistakably pale.
It was only then that the people in the room realized it was morning. An early hour, before breakfast had even been served.
Yang Hye-in had probably arrived at the door not long after So-hee, ready for her duties, had come upstairs.
The only thing was, she had been hesitating to come in.
"You were the first person to come into this room that day. Go on, tell them. What happened in that room. I'm curious too."
'Sara' spoke with a beaming smile.
"'I' was probably too busy screaming to know."
Silence.
No one could make a single sound.
'Sara''s attitude was as if she were asking about something of no consequence. As if she were simply asking, 'Ah, what happened that day again?'
Even the moment she had given up on her own life, to her, it had been a moment of no consequence.
No, truthfully, to 'Sara,' that event wasn't even her own business in the first place.
If you went by her own words, the Sara everyone here knew had already opened her eyes at that time.
"...I,"
Yang Hye-in clenched her hands tightly.
Her face was still expressionless, but that expressionless face was unsteady.
A face that looked like it could crack at any moment, and through the cracks, a crumbling expression would show.
"I... smelled something."
"Mm."
'Sara' placed a hand on her chin and spoke.
"That makes sense. I've heard the moment of death isn't exactly pretty."
Depending on the person, it's said that some bodies release secretions upon death. As the body's muscles relax, the sphincter naturally loses its strength as well.
The smell Yang Hye-in had caught was probably that kind of smell.
"Still, you did a thorough job handling things. When I came back, they said there wasn't a single trace of smell. You even replaced the bed that very day—"
'Sara,' who had been objectively assessing her own condition at the time, couldn't finish those words.
"—Urk!"
Because something massive had suddenly rushed at her face.
Something big enough to cover her entire face, and soft, probably—
"Sara, I'm sorry...!"
...So-hee's chest, it seemed.
"Wha—?"
'Sara,' who had never expected So-hee to suddenly lunge at her like this, couldn't properly grasp the situation for a moment.
What in the world...?