Wishes
“But even if it’s a wish, what am I supposed to write down?”
A pure white blank sheet of paper lay on the table.
Cecilia seemed fascinated by it, lightly fiddling with the edges while she rolled a pencil in her other hand, and asked me in a voice tinged with curiosity.
“Just write whatever you want to do. Things you’ve always wanted to try in life. The bigger, the better. How about we fill in ten for starters?”
“Ten, right? Got it. Let’s see… the bigger the better, huh…”
She nodded to herself and gave the pencil a sharp flick.
The pencil slid smoothly along her fingers, spun a full circle, and settled right back into place.
I doubted she’d handled writing tools like that very often, yet her dexterity was impressive.
“The bigger the better…?”
Her ideas, though, seemed a little less ready than her hands.
Cecilia tilted her head with a puzzled look, as if a big question mark were floating above her.
“…What exactly do you write for a wish?”
“I already told you—whatever you want to do.”
I gave her roughly the same answer to roughly the same question.
But a repeated answer was never going to satisfy her; she only tilted her head further, looking even more lost.
“Something I want to do… world peace?”
“Isn’t that a bit too big? Well, it’s a nice thought, of course.”
The words slipped out half on reflex.
Cecilia grinned playfully and scrubbed out the half-written “world peac” with the eraser end of her pencil.
She hadn’t been serious, so there was no trace of regret on her face.
“Hmm~. Wishes, huh… I really don’t know.”
“You don’t have anything you want?”
“It’s not that, it’s just…”
Suddenly Cecilia lifted her head and met my eyes.
“If it were you, Eunhyuk, what would you write?”
I rubbed my chin at the question.
Feeling her pure, expectant gaze, I fell into thought for a moment.
“Hmm~ let’s see.”
I dug through my memories.
Wishes… well.
As a modern person I had plenty, but if I had to pick one that came to mind right away…
“Moving to a nicer place? I’ve gotten used to this studio, so it’s not that bad, but it’d be nice if it were a little bigger.”
“Then I’ll write that too♪”
“Hey.”
Before I could even protest, Cecilia’s pencil was already gliding across the paper.
In neat, rounded letters she wrote: Live in a better house!
“What’s next?”
“….”
She beamed with satisfaction, eyes sparkling as if thinking, At this rate I’ll fill ten in no time!
Watching her, I simply reached out.
I stretched my finger toward the question-mark-faced Cecilia and poked her squarely in the forehead.
“Eek.”
“Don’t copy me. Write your wishes. Yours.”
What did this cat think we were doing this for, anyway?
The whole point was to plant some hope for the future in Cecilia, who still found happiness itself unsettling. Scribbling down my wishes instead completely missed the mark.
She pouted and rubbed the spot I’d poked.
“But I can’t think of any.”
Her voice turned a little dejected.
“Eating delicious food until I’m full, sleeping in a soft, cozy bed, wearing pretty, soft clothes…”
“Yeah, things like that. You said you couldn’t think of any—”
“But I’m already enjoying all of those.”
“….”
She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
I found myself glancing around the room.
A fridge stocked with only the bare essentials.
A single bed that felt a touch too narrow.
This studio apartment.
…And at least one high-quality knit cardigan.
Depending on the person, it was a perfectly satisfying life.
Still, somehow…
“…Pretty modest.”
For life’s big wishes, they were rather humble.
I turned back to her.
“You’re allowed to be greedier, you know.”
“That’s the hard part. Being greedy.”
The answer came at once.
She flicked the pencil again, then propped her chin in both hands.
“Rich? Powerful? An amazing mage? Sure, those come to mind. But they don’t feel real. Writing them down wouldn’t mean anything.”
“…You’re right about that.”
I nodded quietly.
A wish with no value, no meaning, and no chance of coming true was nothing but empty air.
Both of us understood that much.
“Hmm.”
“Mmm…”
Side by side, we both rested our chins on our hands and sank into thought.
I never expected a casual suggestion to write down wishes would turn out this difficult.
It caught me a little off guard.
“…Maybe we should change the approach a bit?”
“Hm?”
Cecilia tilted her head at the sudden proposal.
Leaving her like that, I looked again at the words already on the paper.
Live in a better house! written in those round letters.
Earlier I’d scolded her that it was my wish, not hers, but… well.
“Hand me the pencil for a second.”
“Oh, okay.”
I took the pencil from her and pulled the paper closer.
My hand moved across it.
“….”
“?”
Then I looked up at Cecilia, reached out, and gently stroked her forehead and hair.
“Mrrrow.”
She made a cute little sound, though her expression was still puzzled.
“Mm? Why all of a sudden?”
“…No reason. Just felt like it.”
I leisurely enjoyed the soft feel of her hair and skin under my palm.
At first she looked startled, but as the petting continued her face gradually relaxed.
“Mmm…”
A soft purring sound rose from her throat.
She seemed content.
After a while I withdrew my hand.
Leaving behind her soft, lingering “Ah…” of disappointment, I held the paper out to her again—now with extra writing on it.
“How about this?”
“Hm? …Ohhh?”
Her eyes went wide as she read it.
Like I’d said before, Live in a better house! was my wish.
It wasn’t something Cecilia had written purely for herself.
But a thought had struck me.
Did a wish really have to be for her alone?
As long as she was part of the wish—as long as she was one of the people in it—wasn’t that enough?
In other words, what if we rewrote it like this?
“….”
In front of the round letters that said Live in a better house!, a few more words had been added in my slightly angular handwriting.
Live together in a better house!
“….”
Cecilia stared at the words in silence for a moment.
I watched her carefully, then spoke in a cautious voice.
“…What if we write down things we want to do together?”
“I love it…”
Without a single second of hesitation, she answered.
She brought a hand to her mouth, sky-blue eyes sparkling, and nodded vigorously.
“This… is good…”
“Y-yeah.”
“…Snow. Yeah. I want to play in the snow. When it snows in winter, let’s build a snowman together.”
The next adorable declaration tumbled from her small lips.
Smiling, Cecilia set the pencil moving again.
“…Okay.”
“I want to see a play sometime. And, um, this is a bit shameless, but I’d like to eat at a really fancy, nice place… and go to a festival or something.”
“Of course. We’ll do all of it together.”
“…♪”
The soft scratch of pencil on paper filled the room.
Behind her, her tail swayed gently back and forth.
Her ears looked the same as always, yet somehow softer, more relaxed.
Her cheeks had loosened, a faint flush colored them, and her eyes had narrowed with quiet joy.
It was a faint smile, yet one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen.
“I want to find out how much I can drink before I get drunk. And try matching side dishes to different kinds of alcohol.”
“Usually meat goes well with soju. Next time let’s eat it together instead of separately.”
“Okay!”
She answered brightly, face lit up with a full smile.
That soft, happy expression was captivating.
“A long hot-spring trip for just the two of us… I’d like to try that. And after that, I want to talk about books together. Share what we thought after reading, and try experiencing the things we don’t understand. And then, and then…”
Things that would mean nothing if done alone.
Cecilia kept writing wish after wish without pause—until suddenly her pencil stopped dead.
Nine wishes already filled the page.
Of the ten I’d first suggested, only one remained.
“….”
She glanced up at me.
For a single instant her eyes met mine with a look that seemed to be pleading for something.
“Hm?”
“…Mm. Never mind.”
The scratch of the pencil returned.
For a moment the words “In yesterday’s dre” appeared on the paper, but she quickly erased them.
“…Not this one yet.”
Leaving me tilting my head in confusion, she wrote something else.
The tenth and final wish she put down was this:
Find 100 more wishes within a year
“…All done!”
Cecilia announced it in a bright, happy voice.
I smiled and gave her a round of applause.
“Hehe.”
“Well done, Cecilia. Now let’s make them come true one by one… together.”
“Ehehe. Yeah~!”
She bobbed her head up and down energetically.
I picked up the paper and stood.
Then I stuck it to the side of the fridge with a magnet.
“Hmm, hard to see.”
“Is it? I think it’s fine like this.”
“Yeah?”
Because the fridge was small, the paper ended up stuck at a slightly awkward angle.
Still, as Cecilia said, it was decent enough.
For a while the two of us simply stood there looking at it in silence.
A hard-to-describe joy wriggled warmly inside my chest.
“From now on, whenever a new wish comes up, we’ll write it right here. I’ll add mine too.”
“Okay♪”
Cecilia looked just as delighted.
Once more we fell quiet for a moment.
Then, not long after, she let out a soft “Ah.”
“? What’s wrong?”
“Ah~… I, um, completely forgot…”
Twisting the corner of her mouth into an awkward little smile, she pointed at something.
Her finger was aimed at the clock.
And the current time was…
“…8:20?”
School started at 8:40.
…And from here it was more than a thirty-minute walk.
We were going to be late.
“Ceci—!”
“—…!”
Before either of us could even finish shouting, we burst into a frantic scramble.
Morning was over; the day was beginning.
It was time for school.