059. Memory (4)
059. Memory (4)
Together with Rinne, whose past-life memories had returned, I retraced what had happened in this mansion ten years ago.
Especially what we had said and done on that final date.
After reconstructing the memories in detail—
I had to admit it.
"...It really was you."
Rinne truly was that girl.
It wasn't as though I'd never suspected it.
Truthfully, I had suspected it from the moment we headed toward the mansion: Rinne was effectively a reincarnation of that girl, built around her transplanted brain.
Otherwise, her First Love Narrative couldn't have triggered Ego Restoration instead of hypnosis.
I had brought her here so she could learn the truth too, and to rule out any other possibilities——
Even so, the shock was real.
Of course it was.
Because that meant Rinne had been my first love.
I couldn't tell whether I felt hollow or annoyed.
Either way, while my mental energy was being drained in real time, Rinne did not comfort me. She snapped at me instead.
"Oppa, don't you have something to say to me?"
"Something to say?"
What was there to say?
I did not even have time to wonder what she meant before Rinne shouted.
"Oppa, how could you forget what happened on that date and just keep living like nothing happened?! You completely changed a girl's life in more ways than one! I had my memories erased, but you were perfectly fine!"
"No, I did remember the broad strokes. It was the details I'd forgotten."
"Even so, Oppa! I told you about The Little Mermaid! You should have realized then!"
Hmm.
Now that she put it that way, I did sound pretty irresponsible.
Still, in my defense, I apparently hadn't understood how serious things were back then well enough to burn them into memory.
Rinne in her past life had been, if anything, even more dramatic and sentimental than she was now.
So I think I had dismissed all the talk about surgery as her making a fuss, assuming her parents would handle everything.
We had been too young, too. Memories from around age ten basically auto-delete themselves.
Even so, I owed her an apology.
"I'm sorry. I was far too insensitive."
"...Hmph."
Rinne snorted hard, looking furious.
The Rinne I knew would have pressed harder and kept complaining from there.
But instead, what Rinne actually did next was—
"I'm sorry too. For forgetting."
She murmured it.
Then, about three seconds later, Rinne jolted in alarm.
Then she recoiled as if she had seen a ghost and said:
"What the hell. Why am I apologizing? It's definitely Oppa's fault!"
"Search me."
Don't ask me.
Rinne shouted at me as I stood there dumbfounded.
"I wasn't asking you, Oppa! More importantly, stop talking to me! Don't even look at me! When I remember that you're looking at me, my heart feels like it's going to burst......!"
"You're the one following my gaze."
"Huh? Since when?"
Look at her even now.
I whipped my head to one side—Hwiik—and her gaze followed as if begging for attention.
Then I whipped it the other way—Hwiik—and it followed again.
Rinne seemed to realize it too. She grabbed her head and shouted.
"Aaagh! Why am I like this! Something's wrong with my head!"
...Euhm.
Her head seemed to be a mess for several reasons.
Probably because the suppressed ego of the "Girl" had reactivated to some extent.
In fact, this wasn't the first time it had happened.
Ever since her self-imposed First Love Narrative partially restored her former ego, Rinne's affection for me had gotten a serious boost.
Still, she had managed to keep it under control with her usual bratty streak.
Now that some of her memories had returned too, however, even a momentary lapse let those feelings spill out.
When I explained that, Rinne panicked and asked:
"How do I cancel this?"
"Not sure."
Maybe it can't be canceled?
"Huh? What do you mean, can't cancel it."
"There has to be something to cancel before you can cancel it."
The fondness and affection Rinne felt for me now were not an illusion created by a skill.
They were her own genuine feelings, merely suppressed for more than ten years.
Narrative Granting had only triggered the restoration of those feelings. Now that the restoration was complete, there was no previous state to return to.
......No, to be precise, this was Rinne's original state.
The original heart of the girl who had liked me.
"Aaagh! Impossible! I can't accept this!"
"Why hate it so much? It's still you."
"It isn't me, okay?! Hong Yeonhwa and I are different people!"
"...Hong Yeonhwa?"
Who was that? Who had such a cute name?
I wasn't clueless enough to actually ask.
"So your old name was Yeonhwa?"
At my question, Rinne slapped a hand over her mouth.
A moment later, she shook her head furiously.
"Who's Yeonhwa. I'm Rinne."
Sure.
So that was how it was.
"Hong Yeonhwa."
I called that name as a test.
In the sweetest voice I could manage.
Not that trying made it objectively pleasant. I would say my voice was neither especially clear nor husky, just an average male voice.
And yet all I did was lower that ordinary voice a little——
"...Uk."
Rinne's face flushed bright red.
As if that weren't enough, she even clutched her own chest with her small hands.
It was amusing, so I called her one more time.
"Hong Yeonhwa. No—Yeonhwa~"
"Wh-what? Don't...!"
"Your name is as pretty as you're, Yeonhwa."
"I said stop it... Heuzmeulreugeu...."
Rinne pleaded with a face that looked ready to bounce with joy.
She wasn't barking at me—she was asking—so there was no reason to keep tormenting her. I stopped calling her Yeonhwa.
Once she had composed herself, Rinne shot me a resentful look, sighed deeply, and said:
"Anyway, I'm not Yeonhwa."
Apparently, separate from wanting to deny her feelings for me, she also wanted to make her own identity clear.
Rinne wanted to define herself as Rinne.
Yeonhwa, by contrast, was simply a "past life" she had become aware of after reincarnating.
And she didn't seem to have fully recovered even that past life.
From what she said, she had recovered only a handful of precious memories, foremost those involving me.
Besides, she had already lived far too long as Rinne.
So Rinne was Rinne. That was how she defined herself.
I'd no desire to interfere with that.
In fact, I was somewhat relieved. If she started calling herself Yeonhwa and tried to live as Yeonhwa now, all sorts of problems would follow.
She might immediately try to leave the military, or decide to abandon the novel she hadn't finished.
I was grateful she had simply declared herself Rinne.
But still.
Still, cutting herself off completely from the years she had lived as Yeonhwa felt...... regrettable.
More than that, it felt cruel.
It would mean forcibly denying and suppressing the heart, memories, and self that were still alive inside Rinne.
"...That is true, though."
Rinne agreed too.
Rinne agreed that simply saying goodbye to Yeonhwa would be too cruel.
Because Rinne had once been Yeonhwa.
Then an idea occurred to me.
"Then do this."
"How?"
"First, you are definitely Rinne."
"That's what you said earlier."
"Let me finish."
I gave Rinne a light chop on the crown.
Then, before she could complain, I said:
"Rinne, who used to be Yeonhwa."
"...Huh?"
"Explain it that way."
If someone asks who you are——
say you're Rinne, who used to be Yeonhwa.
"What difference does adding that qualifier make?"
"Wouldn't it feel different?"
And that was enough.
All this identity business was ultimately about being comfortable with who you were.
Maybe "Rinne, who used to be Yeonhwa" understood what I meant.
"Okay. I'll think of it that way."
Then she gave me a sly grin.
"Now that I've sorted that out, I can finally tease you properly, Oppa."
Why was she so determined to tease me?
As I sighed, Rinne launched into a full-on mockery session.
"Idiot~ Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot. Stupid~ Pathetic Commander~ Dumbass who can't even remember his own first love~ Ahh, that's so satisfying~ Ahahaha!"
"Sure. If you think that'll calm your flaring emotions, tease all you want."
"Hmph. I'm going to do it even without Oppa telling me to."
Rinne said that, then inhaled deeply—Seueup—
as if she were about to unleash a finishing barrage of insults.
"Ah seriously~ a guy like Oppa—"
What monstrous insult was she about to unleash?
I waited with some anticipation.
"I freaking looove you~♥"
...Correction.
Correction. That was Yeonhwa speaking, not Rinne.
But Rinne didn't notice for a while.
"I love youu—♥ I love you so much I could die—love, love, looove you—♥ I love you so much I want to kiss-kiss Oppa agai— Aaaaaang——?!"
There. She finally noticed.
"Fuck, why the hell am I like this!"
"Beats me."
It looked like she would need some time to fully adjust.
So we spent a little longer walking around the mansion until she calmed down, then finally left.
Oh, there was one small incident before we actually left.
Nothing major.
Rinne's parents came to the mansion.
I learned later that they'd moved into central Metropolis but kept the mansion instead of selling it, continuing to maintain it.
The mansion held memories of the daughter whose whereabouts they no longer knew.
The couple were extremely flustered to find us there.
Of course they were. Two strangers were rummaging through their precious mansion.
Before things got worse, I explained everything to them.
Who I was. Who the girl beside me was. Why we had come.
No dramatization. No embellishment.
I couldn't embellish this. They were my soldier's parents, of all people.
I told them everything I knew from beginning to end, leaving nothing out.
At first they seemed unable to believe me, but before long they accepted what had happened.
Then they asked the girl who was still their daughter what she wanted to do.
Rinne answered without a moment's hesitation.
"I want to stay by this person's side."
To stay beside me and live as my soldier.
She wanted to share with others the salvation she herself had received from her commander.
Rinne told her parents that honestly.
I don't remember much of the conversation after that; all of us, myself included, were overwhelmed.
But one thing remains clear in my memory:
what her father told me at the end as he held both my hands.
"Thank you, truly, for saving Yeonhwa and for saving Rinne. Please continue to take good care of our daughter, Commander."
For the first time in a long while, I was glad I had chosen this profession.