Episode 0-b. The One Who Tumbles Down. (5)
My blood was red.
Just... honestly speaking, it carried a slightly murky hue.
Mingled with ash, it couldn't be purely crimson—it flowed in thick, dark, cloudy streaks.
No matter how I tore open my flesh and exposed the insides, letting that murky blood pour out in streams, the color never changed.
If you ask how I know, I'd say it was thanks to the blood droplets that flowed every night, just like tears.
There was definitely ash mixed in my blood.
Gray mana would rise languidly within the trickling blood.
Because of that, no matter what I did, I could never have blood that was a normal bright scarlet or vivid red.
Even with my skin so pale and white, the veins visible beneath weren't blue but a deeper shade.
This, too, made me acutely aware that I was gray.
Perhaps that's why.
Why I struggled so desperately to hide the sight of myself bleeding from others.
Why, as if by some ironclad rule, I only unleashed the pent-up emotions and wailed once night fell.
I didn't want even a trace of the gray to show to those who cared for me.
I just wanted them to see me as an ordinary woman, at least when it came to them.
Time flows on relentlessly.
On a bright, sunny day, birds chirp as they fly overhead.
The empire's peaceful scenery remains almost unchanged despite the passage of time, still serene as ever.
The only change is that Ain is gone.
In this vast city, that's the sole difference—so some might feel nothing has changed at all.
Just one person vanished, after all. Most would carry on with their daily lives without even a moment to grieve the parting.
But I... I thought everything had changed.
It's empty.
Hollow.
I never knew being left alone in a world without him could feel so futile, so heartbreaking.
The emotions that swelled and swelled over three years had grown into something the size of a house—maybe even larger.
Even suppressing them with magic, enduring with the love of those around me, they still seeped out inevitably.
So even now, with the sun high in the midday sky, I had to hide my distorting face.
I had to clasp my trembling hands together to calm them.
I...
"…."
The landscape I gazed at had lost its most important figure, and now it no longer felt beautiful.
Even though as a child, I'd thought this scene shining and lovely a hundred, a thousand times over.
The protagonist who used to take my hand and lead me through it had moved on to the next vista, leaving only drabness to fill the space around me.
My little world of the alley became the grocery shop.
The modest world of the grocery shop expanded into the market street.
But Ain's world grew faster and vaster than I could keep up with, and soon I could no longer find him in the landscapes I'd dreamed of.
Emotions turn sticky and cloying before you know it.
They began to slowly eat away at my world.
So.
The world loses its colors.
The red fades, the blue fades.
Green and purple vanish without a trace.
The brush I dipped to paint the world now only pulls up drab shades.
Just like the gray hair I must hide my whole life, or the gray eyes.
Even things once vibrant blurred into cloudy smears, replaced by murky darkness.
I set down the brush.
Memories.
But they were becoming ugly memories.
A smile.
But it had turned into a smile filled with sorrow.
Warmth.
But that warmth was no longer by my side.
Foolish.
I was foolish to think I could endure after he left, clinging to mere memories, smiles, and the warmth he'd left behind.
The gifts and letters he sent piled up in a box in my small room, but they weren't enough.
Not the gifts, not the letters.
In the end, they only amplified my sadness, my longing.
They ignited damp, insidious flames in every corner of my emotions.
Cruel.
The bracelet.
The bracelet stayed tightly bound, firmly suppressing my greed.
It whispered for me to stay quiet, not to disturb him anymore.
That tiny thing I'd once thought was my hope had become a shackle I'd locked on myself.
Someone might laugh and call me stupid for this.
But could they say that after seeing the emotions I desperately crammed down, plugging them so they wouldn't leak out?
Gloomy and chilling, sunken and shadowy, futile and shrinking.
Did they know how repulsive and oppressive my emotions felt even to me, how they were slowly crumbling?
Only one emotion remained, holding back the sticky morass alone.
An inexplicable feeling that lingered even three years ago when Ain hadn't left yet, and now when I was truly alone.
The emotion that made my heart pound wildly when I thought of Ain, my limbs twitch, my insides churn warmly.
The one that flushed my cheeks, made my eyes tremble, tore at my chest.
That single emotion burned away the clinging ones with a fierce roar, flickering as if it might vanish beyond.
It was the only thing keeping me human.
Night falls before I know it.
Truth be told, nights in my childhood were always a time of rest for me.
No stones thrown by children, no hateful stares from adults.
I imagined the vast black blanket blocking out the light, covering me.
My body might shiver with cold, but I loved staring blankly at the sky above.
Nights came gently, softly embracing me.
But now.
Nights terrify me.
Now, when night comes, I bleed endlessly.
The dark night landscape.
The small room in the darkened grocery shop.
In other words, cruelty amid the calm.
The crimson petals blooming around me are what I always try to hide.
Sadly, on nights when I'm alone, I wail.
Emotions I'd hidden under the tent of happiness burst out the moment silence hits in solitude.
Even if I held them back for a day or two—days—they only swelled larger, pouring down in vast waves.
So I always sought out Ain to wail, slashing my forearms and thighs to let the blood flow.
My body shudders, ash swirls, the air vibrates.
Emotions held all day surge madly only when night and solitude arrive.
The feelings bottled up over three years fester like sewage sludge, reeking foully.
"Ah... Ain."
The nausea from the smile I'd forced to stay a good girl spews out in dry heaves.
"Ah, uh.... Euup…."
The small room fills with gray before long.
The magic that helped control my emotions is cracked and shattered everywhere, whispering that it's reached its limit.
Nails dig into forearms, teeth gnaw lips.
Soon the flesh of my arms is torn away, exposing raw meat, but I can't stop.
What's stabbing my thighs is no longer just nails but a blade, blood fountaining out—yet I endure the pain.
I clawed.
I don't know what it was.
I'm just exerting every effort to stem the outflow of emotions.
I crushed.
I don't even have time to wonder what.
I just feel relief that my emotions eased, even if just a handful.
The ash whips wildly.
It embeds in my skin everywhere, scraping it raw.
No longer confined to arms and thighs.
As Idrin once said.
Now at the limit, it torments and bites my whole body just to make the beast of emotion tilt its head for a moment.
And so.
The process repeats, over and over.
Chunks of flesh splat as they fall, blood patters against the window.
The flowing blood resembles tears, trickling endlessly in poignant repetition.
I squeeze my eyes shut to avoid seeing it, praying only for time to pass.
Night is long, endless—and after realizing I'm alone, it stretches even longer.
Only when the room is drenched in blood, my hands shake uncontrollably, my vision blurs.
Then I can finally feel relief that the pent-up emotions have eased, if only a little.
Scars no longer fade now.
They spread bit by bit, accumulating in places hidden by clothes.
I had to bleed until only a scrap of mana remained at the edge, leaving no spare to heal scars.
And then.
Lying there dazed, I nudge the snow globe delivered to the grocery shop that afternoon.
Smeared with blood, the round orb was dyed red.
But inside the glass dome.
Snowflakes, white as moonlight, swirled.
So.
I stared blankly and grinned.
Even after wailing and spilling blood all this time, I smiled so incongruously.
But.
Lost in the snow globe, time slipped away, and my mana leaked out until none remained.
Panicking, I tried to rise, but pain and surging blood greeted me.
"Ah... no, can't…."
I couldn't stop my mind from clouding, my body slumping limply.
The horror I'd wrought.
The gray dust filling the small room, the splattered blood, the chunks of flesh scattered far away.
I lost consciousness without clearing the traces.
I thought I just wanted them to see me as an ordinary woman.
I didn't want even a trace of gray shown to those who cared for me.
No matter how much they helped and cared for me, my essence was gray in the end.
I didn't want to reveal a scene that would remind them of that fact again.
And then.
In the morning, the door burst open.
"Ah... Asha...!!"
It was Uncle, rushing in calling my name desperately.
Everything's hazy.
Maybe from losing too much blood, my vision clouded, his face indistinct.
"Asha, Asha...! Are you okay?! What is this...!"
He was clearly calling me, but his voice wavered.
I should say I'm fine, but my throat, raw from wailing all night, couldn't form words.
So I just shed tears in silence.
If only.
All this were a dream, just a nightmare.