Episode 1. He. (1)
Red.
By the time I realized it, my vision had gone red, staining everything in front of me the color of fresh blood.
It was cold.
And yet it was hot.
Red blood, wet and sticky—soaked into the floor beneath us.
“—Ah!! Stay awa—”
And then I saw your face.
It was twisted beyond recognition, red droplets spilling everywhere.
Ah. Maybe the red was only because my eyes were full of blood.
“Ru…, run….”
I wanted to tell you not to cry, to run.
I wanted to tell you to get away before that murderer looked this way again, to flee while he was still busy stabbing someone else.
But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a mouthful of bloody froth.
My throat burned terribly.
It hadn’t even felt this hot when I’d once gulped down ramen broth in a hurry.
“—Ah, —ah!! Don’t close your eyes—!”
You were getting farther away.
Were you running?
In that blurred field of vision, in that blood-drenched world, the way you kept receding made me think you had understood me and were fleeing from the murderer.
“—!”
It was cold.
And with the thought that this might be the last time, I tried desperately to force out the words while staring at that fading face.
“I lo—”
I couldn’t say it to the end.
What a shame.
I really had loved you.
********
When I opened my eyes again, I was probably about two years old.
If you asked me what that meant, I would have said only that it felt as though I had been reborn into a new body.
I vaguely remembered a comic somewhere that said reincarnation meant you were born with the memories of your previous life intact, able to think just as clearly as before.
Apparently, that had been wrong.
No matter how vividly I retained my past-life memories, it wasn’t as though I could emerge from my mother’s womb already fully conscious.
My mind only truly began to function once I was two years old.
And the people around me were maids, dressed neatly in their maid uniforms.
“—.”
“—.”
Unfamiliar words passed back and forth between them.
My body was tiny, like that of a child, and the women I had never seen before looked at me as though they were my nurses.
And so I remembered it again.
I was… I really had died.
I had wondered what happened after death, but I hadn’t expected to be born again in some place where I knew no one.
And then.
In the end, I wouldn’t get to see you again.
Still, I had died while protecting you, so maybe I should be glad enough for that.
I wished I had at least a photograph, since we would never meet again.
I couldn’t hold on to a single thing.
At that thought, I burst into tears.
“Waaaah…!”
Like a child.
Though saying “like a child” was a bit ridiculous, since I was, in fact, a child right now.
I cried miserably.
“—?!”
“—!”
The maids seemed flustered and hurriedly scooped me up, trying to soothe and comfort me.
Since they had no idea why I was crying, they even held up toys and smiled at me.
They brought food in case I was hungry, and even pulled down my diaper to check whether I needed to be changed.
I was too mentally old to feel embarrassed just because my diaper had been removed.
All I could think about was the fact that I would never see you again, and that was enough to break me.
Even as incomprehensible words flew back and forth around me, my head was filled with nothing but thoughts of you.
I wanted to see you.
I wished I had answered right away when you asked me to marry you.
If I had given you a clear answer back then, maybe we wouldn’t have been torn apart like this.
Come to think of it, that probably was true.
If I had answered sooner, I wouldn’t have gone to that café that day, and I wouldn’t have been stabbed to death by that murderer’s knife.
If I hadn’t hesitated when you asked for my answer, you wouldn’t have run out either.
So maybe this was my own fault after all.
Idiot.
I was a complete idiot.
Even while I sat there blaming myself and crying, the maids kept bustling around, trying to comfort me.
“—!”
“—, —.”
I still couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I could read the concern in their eyes.
And that was the memory of my two-year-old self, reborn in a house somewhere I didn’t know after dying.
It was also the first story they would go on teasing me about even after I grew up.
***
Time passed, and I turned three.
When I had first opened my eyes and come to my senses, I had barely been able to walk at all, but now I could get around rather well.
“Young master, it’s dangerous to run!”
“Yeah. I won’t run.”
By now I could understand at least some of what the maids said. I was still clumsy, but I could manage a short answer here and there.
Unable to resist the worried looks the maids kept throwing my way from behind, I carefully took a step forward.
I climbed the stairs on my tiny legs.
The steps were still a little too high for me, and I found myself making little grunting noises without meaning to.
And whenever that happened, a cautious voice always reached me.
“Young master, wouldn’t it be better if I just carried you…?”
“No.”
My wet nurse, Sion.
She had been the one to hold me in her arms when I had first opened my eyes, doing everything she could to stop my crying.
Then, as now, she watched me anxiously, unable to keep still, but I shook my head with indifference.
For one thing, I was a fully grown adult.
If I thought about my age from my previous life, I was even older than she was.
So I really wished she wouldn’t get this worried over something as trivial as climbing a staircase…
Ah.
My body hit its physical limit and tipped backward, and I was caught and pressed into Sion’s arms as she came up behind me.
“See? I told you the stairs were too much for you.”
A victorious smile spread across Sion’s face.
“…”
I was a little annoyed.
In the end, she carried me to the library.
All the way there, the smile on her face was so bright and untroubled.
“Young master, you’ll behave and read quietly in the library as always, won’t you?”
“As if you even need to ask.”
“You do sneak out once in a while.”
That was only because the library got a little hot and I’d opened the door to step outside for a bit, but neither my wet nurse nor the maids believed me.
“..., I’ll stay put.”
“Yes. Call me if you need anything.”
My wet nurse, Sion, gave me a soft smile and left the library.
And with me left alone, the room gradually fell into silence.
“…”
To break that silence, I walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a single book.
You might ask how a child of three could possibly read a book, but my mind was still that of an adult, so although it took some time, I could at least manage it.
The book I had chosen was, naturally, one about this world.
One year.
That long and short span of time had passed quickly.
And only after that much time had gone by did I finally learn one fact.
First of all, this wasn’t Earth.
I had been suspicious from the start, what with the unfamiliar language and the wooden manor that didn’t suit a modern society, but as time went by, I came to understand it naturally.
If I were to be bold enough to judge, this was a world steeped in the feel of the Middle Ages.
The maids naturally referred to their homeland as an empire whenever they spoke of it.
The Empire of Aion.
The maids said it that way, and so did my wet nurse.
This was the Empire of Aion, they told me, a nation ruled by His Imperial Majesty.
Perhaps I looked cute with my eyes opened wide, because they smiled as they explained it to me.
But.
When I learned that fact, I shamefully burst into tears once more.
To be honest, I had been clinging to the last thread of a hope that had already burned away to ashes.
If I had somehow been reborn on Earth, if I could grow up a little more and then go looking for Korea, if I could meet you again and joke that I’d come back…
Then maybe, however ridiculous it would have been, I could have looked at you and laughed awkwardly.
I had been holding onto even that sliver of hope, and I had no idea how pathetic and pitiful I must have looked.
Of course, my wet nurse still didn’t understand what was wrong, and gently held me while trying to stop my tears.
“…”
In the end, I flung the book far away, as though it had only made my thoughts grow heavier.
In truth, I was too weak to throw it very far, so it only fell a short distance in front of me, but still.
Then I piled up the books scattered on the floor and climbed on top of them.
With awkward movements, I carefully stepped up one book at a time so I wouldn’t fall.
Only then did the window frame reach my chin.
The window had been firmly shut and locked in case anything happened, but I planted my short legs and looked beyond it.
The blue sky came into view first, and above it the sun hung motionless, pouring light down upon the world.
But that wasn’t what I wanted to see.
With a little more effort, I raised my head fully over the sill, and the landscape beyond the manor came into view.
The garden spread out clearly below me thanks to the height of the third floor, and maids were tending to it.
Others were hanging laundry in the sunniest spot, while a stable and its coachman stood in a corner.
Beyond them all stretched the surrounding wall, and at the gate stood armored knights guarding the entrance.
Even that alone was enough to make the difference from my old world painfully obvious, but I was looking beyond it.
At the farthest edge of that strained little field of vision.
Beyond that lay the things that made this world’s medieval nature feel even more real.
The broad expanse of the city emerged faintly in the distance.
The rough shapes of buildings with no trace of cement filled my eyes.
This was a world where I knew no one.
The Empire of Aion.
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