Chapter 167
Chapter 167
Memories of a daily routine are, by their nature, the hardest to recall when you try. Whether you tapped your transit card properly on your commute, whether you really made that transfer... unless something unusual disrupts one of those moments, you go through the motions automatically, without even noticing.
Conversations with friends are the same.
If you share a particularly strange story, or something hilarious or fascinating, that memory might linger for a lifetime.
But those kinds of memories are always limited.
Unless it's a school break, you see and talk to your school friends every day, and those conversations are a mix of the special and the mundane.
The repeated talk gradually gets buried beneath other memories and slowly fades.
...And, I'm sorry to say to Sara—
the memory I'm seeing right now was exactly that kind.
I can't remember exactly when. Judging from the clothes, even within Sara's memory it qualified as fairly 'recent.'
The Sara talking with me was a small, young Sara, but that we were having conversations like this at all was a very recent development.
A newly formed memory of us talking together in this space built from memory.
"Haaah..."
Sara, lying with her head on my lap, let out a deep sigh. The way she did it didn't suit her small frame; she was like a child doing their best to imitate a grown-up's sigh.
It was cute. My past self must have thought so too, because that 'me' stroked Sara's head where it rested on my lap, and the voice asking that question was tinged with a smile.
"What's wrong? Is something bothering you?"
"Nothing. I just want to keep sleeping like this."
"You say sleeping, but you're basically awake."
"Still, I feel refreshed when I get up."
At 'my' words, the past Sara pouted.
Then she suddenly turned her head to look up at 'me' and said,
"Do you hate having me here?"
"...No. I like being with you too."
"Really? For real?"
Was her personality a bit younger because her body was a child's, or was Sara just talking like she always did and it only looked that way because she was so small? Or could she be this open simply because it was me?
As if she desperately needed confirmation, Sara asked me again and again.
"Really. For real."
When I answered with a smile, Sara beamed.
"You mean it? Promise? That we'll be together forever?"
At Sara's innocent expression, I answered with a smile too.
"...Yeah."
I probably tried to mean it.
...Sara and I had already had this conversation so many times that I couldn't tell exactly when this particular memory was from.
Back then, as I answered Sara, I had thought she asked me these questions over and over because she'd had such an anxious childhood. That even if I promised again and again, from the perspective of a Sara with an adoptive mother like hers, it was only natural that she couldn't believe the answer.
...But.
"...Your acting really is terrible."
No, that wasn't it.
Just as I muttered, the smile I'd given Sara while answering was incredibly unsteady.
It wasn't a face that looked like it was about to burst into tears, but...
It was as if I'd hesitated fiercely over that answer, as if saying those words pained me, and only after my expression had shifted several times was I finally able to give Sara that awkward smile.
"Yeah. Though, I was never exactly good at acting to begin with."
I murmur bitterly. There was no one there to listen.
What made Sara uneasy wasn't her surroundings.
It was none other than me.
Even as I answered her, I was lying practically every single day, and at the same time, I couldn't even hide the lie properly.
That's why Sara asked me every day.
If I would stay with her.
If we'd be together forever.
...If I'd stay by her side and protect her.
And, every time,
I couldn't give Sara any certainty.
"..."
But even so.
For Sara, her 'most precious memories' were these conversations with me.
I close my eyes and focus again.
I still hadn't found Sara. I had to find her. There were still things I hadn't been able to say to her.
*
Over and over, again and again, the same kind of memory repeats.
The young Sara met me and offered up all sorts of rambling stories. Things that had happened at school that day. Ordinary days spent with her friends. Getting unfairly called out by a disciplinary committee member, or being forced to listen to stock market talk she had no interest in from Team Leader Han Ga-ram.
How clueless the school teachers had been again today, how unfamiliar students had greeted her again today, and how she'd still managed to memorize a few of their faces.
There were no dark stories.
As if she wanted to set my mind at ease, Sara always told cheerful stories with a smile.
There was no darkness in that smile.
And the conversation always ended with Sara's plea.
Don't leave me.
Stay by my side.
Let's be together forever.
And I always answered her that I would.
Always with a sad smile.
What an idiot I was.
Sara kept talking to me, hoping.
She kept waiting for me to give her a proper answer. To tell her, with a sincere expression, that I also wanted to stay with her.
But I couldn't do that.
...I really was pathetic.
Berating myself over and over, I kept tracing back through Sara's memories.
And then, and then, at last, I stepped into a room.
I called it 'a room,' but in the end it was no different from the room I saw every day.
A room too large for someone to be in alone. The room where Sara spent most of her childhood in loneliness.
...The room where I met Sara every single day.
Inside that room, a Sara who looked just like me now was sitting, curled into herself.
Sitting on the bed, she had her face completely buried in her knees, so I couldn't see her expression.
"..."
Was this Sara the Sara from within her memories?
Or had I finally found the real one?
My heart pounded.
Without a word, I approached her side.
Even when I drew close, Sara said nothing and just kept hugging her knees.
"Sara."
"..."
No response.
Was this Sara also not the Sara I was looking for? Was she just a Sara from Sara's memories?
No, it didn't seem like it.
The room's layout was the layout of the recent room I knew. The structure with two beds and So-hee's clothes rack. Except none of my friends were around.
If this was the recent Sara, my friends should definitely have been here with her.
So this was a place inside the consciousness Sara had manifested.
And the Sara sitting here was the 'Sara' I'd been searching for.
I sat down next to Sara.
The bed was as soft as I remembered. Even when I sat beside her, Sara's body didn't tilt toward me.
"..."
For a while, neither of us said a word.
I didn't ask if she was okay. There was no way Sara could be okay. When I'd come to, Sara had already been abducted by Choi Na-kyung.
So she must have been terrified. From my perspective it was utterly terrifying, so for Sara it must have been truly, horribly frightening.
Sara remained silent for a long time, but I waited patiently.
That was the only thing I could do for her right now.
"...I ruined everything."
After the long silence, those were the first words out of Sara's mouth.
"Ruined?"
I asked back in the gentlest voice I could manage.
"I didn't know what that woman really wanted. I made my own judgments, I cut corners, and in the end I was wrong about everything. Things blew up in a direction completely opposite from what I thought."
"..."
After seriously agonizing over what I should say to Sara, I carefully opened my mouth.
"No, in the end, it all worked out."
"...Really?"
Sara asked back.
Her face lifted slightly. She turned her face a little toward me, and through the gap between her face and knees I could just see her eye. But I still couldn't see her expression well, so I still didn't know what kind of face she was making.
"Really, everyone ended up safe?"
"..."
There was no way I could answer.
Because I hadn't seen the end of it either.
The last thing I remembered was the sight of Yang Hye-in.
The image of Yang Hye-in smashing through the car window, reaching in to place a hand on me, and telling me it was okay.
Maybe the other friends had followed right behind her.
So I could only guess that everything was okay. Of course, if Sara asked for details, there was no way I could answer properly.
"...Sorry. Honestly, I don't really know either."
I had no choice but to say it in a voice mixed with a sigh.
"..."
Sara's face pressed flush against her knees again. The eye I'd glimpsed through the gap disappeared from view.
"But it must have ended well. Some people came to rescue us."
I said it trying to comfort her however I could, but for some reason those words only seemed to make Sara more depressed.
Hearing me, Sara hunched her shoulders and hugged her knees even tighter.
"...I see."
I heard Sara's small murmur.
"..."
What should I say to her now?