Chapter 142
Chapter 142
...Did you really think I wouldn't notice?
I looked up at him and thought.
He looked exactly like me, but the reason I'd clothed him in that appearance was because otherwise, I would've had trouble looking him in the eye.
A dazzling mass of light.
The person who quite literally reshaped the direction of my life.
...I feel a little guilty saying this, but I had already been reading his thoughts.
Or maybe I should feel guilty toward my friends, too, since I told them similar lies.
Just as he could read my memories, I could access his to some degree.
And with all the time that had passed, I'd had plenty of opportunity to wander through his memories. Just as he is doing now.
I can't say every memory was a happy one.
But I can't say they were all bad, either.
Some were sad. Some were gloomy. Some were a struggle.
But some were full of laughter, full of joy, full of delight.
Unlike my own monotonous memories, his were vivid and sprawling. I couldn't see all of them, but...
Looking at them, I felt like I understood why he felt the way he did about me.
Unlike me, with my selfish, twisted nature, he was a kind and earnest person.
And because he was that kind of person, he was probably trying to give me my life back.
...But I don't want that.
No, I don't mean I hate my life. The life I used to despise and loathe—he turned it into something I would never want to lose.
But I don't want him to leave that life.
Ha-neul, So-hee, Su-a—everyone who helps me. I know they're the people who make up my life.
But the person who wove all of them into my life—that's him.
If he's gone, my life would lose so much meaning.
Because the greatest presence in my life now, the thread holding it all together—that's you, Sara. Without you, I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to go on living.
So you can't.
Don't go.
Stay here with me for a long, long time.
Please.
That was what I thought.
"......."
When I pressed a little closer to his side and wrapped my arms around his, he let his arm relax slightly and accepted my touch. Even though this was only a flimsy memory, a fantasy no different from a dream, his body was warm. Big enough for me to lean on.
Being like this calmed my heart. Made me feel like I could do anything.
Did he feel that way, too?
"...Actually, there's something I'm curious about."
After a long silence like that, he suddenly spoke up as if something had just occurred to him.
"Hmm?"
At my response, he fiddled with his collar and asked.
"About this."
Specifically, he was touching the fabric at the collar.
He was wearing a shirt, but it looked nothing like something you'd wear every day. Honestly, if anyone wore this nowadays, people would ask if it was cosplay. It had these old-fashioned, ornate trimmings.
It wasn't women's clothing. If anything, it was what a man would wear.
There was lace scattered here and there, and at the neck, a long piece of fabric, too long to tell if it was lace or a scarf, hung fluttering. In contrast, the pants were plain black with no embellishment.
The kind of outfit that comes to mind when you hear the word 'Renaissance.'
The sort of thing a male lead in a foreign movie or drama set in that era might wear, with a few buttons undone.
"This, uh, medieval... no, Renaissance era? Isn't this what people wore back then?"
At that question, my face flushed hot.
To be perfectly honest, I'd dressed him like that entirely to suit my own tastes.
"Um...."
When I didn't answer, he thought for a moment, then—
"Wait, did you take this from that novel you wrote a long time ago?"
—casually dropped a bombshell.
He asked it carefully, tentatively, but in an instant, everything in my head went blank.
"Ah, wait...!"
The moment my mind went white, the room began to go white as well.
He grabbed my shoulders and said,
"Hold on, snap out of it!"
"Huhh...?"
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, and I just barely managed to reel my scattering sanity back in.
When I came to my senses, everything except the bed we were sitting on had already turned into a state of nothingness—pure void.
Well, even if the whiteness had reached us, I don't think it would have harmed him...
But it's a relief anyway. The mood almost got ruined—
—no, it did get ruined.
"Th-that, that...."
I almost asked, You read it? but I realized that would be a profoundly stupid question.
Of course he would have read it. He's probably already read my will, too.
...But that's the problem. My will wasn't that embarrassing. It only had the things I wanted to say to Mother, and I was completely sincere in every word.
The novel in the same drawer, though—that's another story.
...Something I'd longed for all my life.
Or to put it another way, a novel where I'd recklessly written out impossible fantasies.
Actually, could you even call it a novel?
And even though I could tolerate the later parts well enough, looking back now, the beginning was full of expressions so cringeworthy they make me curl up.
No matter how isolated my life was, I could still feel the embarrassment of letting someone see something like that. Compared to the books I'd read... no, to be precise, it wasn't even in the same category.
"Ummm...."
Looking at my extremely flustered face, he let out a thoughtful hum.
He hadn't expected me to be this embarrassed.
"Hey, I don't think you need to be that embarrassed about it. No one besides me has probably ever read it."
"...Really?"
None of my friends had brought up that novel, so that was a relief.
But this person had gone all this time without saying a single word about it before asking.
"Uh... probably?"
And sure enough, the answer was impossibly vague.
I clutched my head. Seeing me like that, he looked even more flustered and patted my back as he spoke.
"L-look, it's fine. How many people ever even finish writing a whole novel? You actually completed one, so you don't need to be so ashamed. You got a lot better in the later parts, too."
"Ah, hrrghh...."
At those words, I shuddered with embarrassment.
Which meant he'd read the beginning, too.
...Why did I keep that part around? If I'd thought it was badly written, I should have just scrapped it. I should have torn it up and thrown it out long ago.
But the later parts... the completed novel; I couldn't bring myself to throw that away.
Even if it might look like nothing special to anyone else, it was a story my younger self had built with her own hands. If you asked me to name something I'd 'properly finished' in my whole life, that's the only thing.
So I couldn't just discard it.
...No, to be more accurate, I never once imagined anyone else might read it.
That's right. I was so used to living alone that I hadn't even thought about it when I brought my friends home.
Should I ask them not to read it, even now?
No, what if that just makes them more curious?
No, worse—what if I hear something like, "Ah... sorry, I already read it..."
"Um... what I mean is,"
After patting my hunched back for a while, he spoke again, still cautious.
"You don't have to be that embarrassed. It's not like the whole world has read it. And I'll say it again—finishing a story is never easy. So many people just keep writing the beginning over and over and then give up. The fact that you could write all the way to the end, like you did—that's impressive."
"...Really?"
I looked up at him carefully and asked again. He smiled brightly and nodded.
"Really."
"So, have you ever done something like this?"
I asked, as if clinging to the question.
"Uh... well, I mean..."
He hesitated, then clapped his hands together.
"Ah, right. When I was young, I bought a ton of plastic model kits and never finished building them? So I guess I never completed anything big, either..."
"That's different."
I cut him off.
"What about writing? Or comics? Have you ever written fantasies or anything like that in a notebook?"
"Uh, ummm...."
He couldn't quite answer.
"...."
I stared up at him pointedly.
Oh-ho.
So, he 'couldn't quite answer.'
In other words, he couldn't say 'no.'
"You did."
When I said that, his body jolted.
"Uh, ah, ah, yeah!"
He hastily turned his head away and said,
"Isn't it almost morning? We're about to wake up soon, so—"
"Don't give me that. You know I set an alarm before bed."
I straightened up and thrust my face close to his.
"Show me yours, too."
"Uh...."
"Show me. It's not fair. You getting to see mine, and that's it."
"Ah, well, it's not like I brought the notebook with me when I came here..."
I could read your memories, you know.
...Well, no reason to reveal that right now.
"Then tell me. I won't tell anyone."
When I rephrased my demand, he closed his eyes and wrestled with it for a long moment, then finally let out a deep sigh.
"Fine, okay...."
"Heehee."
I threw myself at him and lay down with my head in his lap.
"...So basically...."
He began hesitantly.
And just like that, another secret joined the ones we shared.