Chapter 10 - She (5)
I learned to read.
Even so, I learned the new letters slowly, awkwardly, with more than a little hesitation. When I finally managed to read the characters my teacher had scrawled on the paper, I sounded them out one by one: “Empire... ah, Aion....”
“Yes, that’s right. And as you’ve just read, this land belongs to the Empire of Aion. Of course, Penrin Village is practically at the farthest edge of it—a mountain hamlet out in the back of beyond.”
“Empire... Aion.”
“Mm-hm, and the person our dear pupil is so desperately looking for is probably in Aion, too. Aion is the largest nation on this continent, after all.”
I learned the true name of the land I lived in. From Penrin Village to the Empire of Aion; from a child who knew nothing to a child who had learned letters, my world grew wider little by little—truly, only little by little.
It took nearly a month before I could read the letters properly. Even so, that was frighteningly fast.
“No, no matter how smart you are, this is just too fast....”
I learned the language so quickly that even my teacher let out a startled gasp. “Since you’ve learned to read, please teach me magic now—just a little, if you can.”
“I will teach you, yes, but if you push yourself like this, you’ll collapse.”
“I’m fine.”
It didn’t matter. No, rather, I thought I had to strain myself even more urgently. My teacher would be by my side for less than a year—less than half a year, really—so before she left, I had to struggle however I could.
“Pupil, I’m not fine.... If you collapse for no reason, my stay here gets longer, doesn’t it?”
“I won’t collapse.”
“Oh dear.... I felt it from the first moment I met you, but you really are stubborn, aren’t you?”
“...”
Even after that, I simply stared at her face without wavering. And if I were being honest, this wasn’t stubbornness. This was my own selfishness—my stubborn, unyielding refusal to let go of the one who had died because of me, and now the one I was clawing my way through life to find.
So every day, I received my teacher’s lessons. I learned how to sense mana.
“You can’t just breathe absentmindedly. Mana is a mysterious force drifting through the air, and anyone who can’t feel it will never become a mage.”
Even when I drew a breath and let it out again, I focused every ounce of my strength on sensing mana. Day one. Day two. Day three. And when the passing days only left me more frantic, my teacher would stroke my hair and say, “It’s all right. You don’t need to rush. I’m not leaving until you’ve learned enough, so come now—slowly.”
She had noticed how anxious I was about her leaving, and so she promised she wouldn’t go away without warning. When a week had passed, I finally felt mana at last.
I beheld tiny motes of light drifting through the air. “Yes, that’s it. Mm.... You really do keep astonishing me.”
According to her, it normally took at least a month just to sense mana.
Time passed. I felt mana, and I learned magic. Honestly, it was brutally hard. To be so exhausted that I fainted—it made my helpless little body feel even more pathetic. And yet, I struggled harder still. I couldn’t give up. I had to cling to that rope and climb all the way to the top.
The hope of seeing you again was enough to bear the pain.
I drew magic circuits.
“No, no, pupil, if you draw the circuit like that it’ll become a self-destruct spell. Though, if your dream is to be a terrorist bomber, then I suppose that would work.”
“..., I’ll try again.”
Whenever I drew them wrong, my teacher would hug me lightly and speak in a teasing voice. “Honestly, I keep telling you this—you really need to calm your heart a little.”
“..., but.”
“No buts. A mage must always stay calm.”
“Yes....”
“Good. Rest a little, then try again.”
The uneasiness that had been gnawing at me gradually settled in her arms. Maybe she felt sorry for how increasingly frantic and anxious I became as time passed. After all, once she saw me biting at my nails until blood dripped from my fingertips, she grew even gentler than before.
A month. Two months. The time I spent with my teacher only grew longer, and before I knew it, I had begun learning all sorts of things from her besides magic and letters.
I learned history.
She taught me about the history of the Empire of Aion, along with the histories of many other nations. At first, when she said she would teach me history, I told her we didn’t have time for that. But after hearing her out, I changed my mind.
“Pupil, if you want to find someone, shouldn’t you first understand how tiny a world you’re trapped in? Of course, if you truly don’t want to learn, then there’s nothing to be done.”
“Ah... I think I’d like to learn.”
At my answer, she smiled kindly. I always thought this, but she really was a good person.
Another month passed, and with that much time gone, I had begun learning how to survive, too.
“From the way you look now, I feel like you’d run away from home before you even became an adult. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be a good idea to know how to survive alone? Even the nearest village from here would be a month’s walk away.”
Once again, I let her persuade me.
The bond we had formed in early spring passed into summer, then into autumn, and from autumn toward winter. As time flowed on, I prepared myself for parting from her.
And today, on some late-autumn day, the cold wind slipped through the cracks of the shack somewhere between autumn and winter.
I woke early, as I always did, and straightened my blanket. Then I looked around the house. Mother, my eldest brother, and my second brother were already gone.
As winter drew near, I could feel how desperately the three of them wanted to see you—perhaps even more desperately than I did. And then my body began to tremble.
My fingers shook from the bitter cold more intensely than usual, and my head grew a little dizzy. When I touched my forehead, it was alarmingly hot. At that temperature, it had to be a high fever. After months of overworking myself, my body had finally screamed in protest.
Even so, I couldn’t rest just because I was sick. I didn’t have time. I had to endure the pain and keep struggling.
So I quietly got up and trimmed the sprouted potatoes stored in a sack. I boiled water in the old pot and dropped the potatoes in. That would be my lunch today—and Sophia’s lunch, too.
After the potatoes finished cooking, I quietly spoke to Sophia, who was still asleep. “Sophia, I’m going out.”
“Mm.... Ariaaa.... Be careful out there....”
“Mm.”
After exchanging those words, I stepped outside and began walking along the dirt road, swaying unsteadily. The strong wind kept pushing at me, making my head grow even more dizzy. Even as my vision blurred more and more, I still headed for the shack where my teacher was staying.
“Aria, are yo—?”
At the voice beside me, I turned my head for a moment, but I couldn’t see who it was very well. I merely gave a slight nod to show that I was all right, then kept walking.
Thud, thud.
My footsteps sounded weak. I couldn’t tell whether my body was hot or cold. It was clearly blazing as if on fire, and yet whenever the wind blew, it felt as though I were freezing solid.
Following the road, I finally reached the front of my teacher’s shack. All I had to do now was knock on the door and go inside....
Thump.
But....
I heard the sound of something collapsing, and then, slowly, my vision slammed into the floor. Along with a creaking noise, someone’s frantic voice reached me only in pieces, too broken to make out clearly.
“A—, I—, —!”
My body was lifted by someone and carried away with a jolt, and with that thought, I lost consciousness.
Misery that never broke, no matter how hard I struggled. The price of making you die was truly cruel, and painful.
Before I knew it, tears were spilling down my cheeks. When was it? I had definitely collapsed from pain once before. The doctor had called it stress-induced gastritis, or something like that. It was the day I screamed through agony that felt like someone had been stabbing my stomach with an awl, then fainted and was rushed to the emergency room.
And by terrible luck, you had been with me then. I could never forget the way you looked at me as I went down. Your eyes had filled with tears in an instant, and through that frantic trembling, all you could see was me.
When I lost consciousness and lay there in the emergency room bed, I had loved the way your hand kept stroking mine. I had liked the way you gently brushed my cheek with so much affection, the way you massaged my shoulder with such care.
Yes, if I were being honest, it had been terribly hard. I loved you, and I hated my mother for opposing it. My heart had already been leaning entirely toward you, and still my father told me to look at someone else; that made me sad. So every day was stress. My nerves were taut enough that I ended up clutching my stomach and collapsing.
And yet, even then, I still searched only for you. I always wanted to see you. I wanted to see you because it hurt, because I was lonely, because I was upset. And so, feeling that hand stroking me, I called your name. Again and again, I called only your name.
And now, trapped in the body of a five-year-old and moaning miserably, I felt an affection far smaller than that.
The warm hand gripping mine and massaging my body. The chill in the air standing in stark contrast to the gentle voice whispering that I would be all right. Even though I knew it wasn’t you at all, I still murmured your name with old habit.
“Siwoo....”
I called your name. For loving someone this wretched. For not even being able to repay the love you gave me. For not pushing away the girl who had thought only of me until the very end. I was only grateful.
And yet I had ignored your worries and made it so you died like this. Even though I thought I should let you go, I still kept thinking only of you. I was desperately wishing you would never find someone else.
All I could do was apologize.
I opened my eyes.
It was already night, dark and deep. The colder air welcomed me, and with it came the sensation of someone’s gaze upon me. My body ached with a prickling pain, and my head was still dizzy. When I touched the corners of my eyes, the hardened tracks of tears felt rough beneath my fingers.
I had always done nothing but cry. Even after growing older, I still had to shed tears because I couldn’t forget you.
“Pupil.”
My teacher’s voice reached me. Slowly, I turned my gaze toward her and saw her looking at me with an expression full of pity.
“It looks like it’s still hard for you to move forward on your own, so I’ll stay with you a little longer. That seems best.”
“...”
Even though her words were kind, I was still thinking of you.
“Was it Siwoo, then? Is that the person you’re looking for?”
I flinched, my shoulders jerking. Even in that muddled state, I found myself calling your name again, as if it were a habit. I spoke that precious name once more.
Still, I answered. “..., not anymore.”
“Mm, I see.... So it isn’t.”
“..., yes.”
Because that had once been the name of the person I loved, the person I had made die. And because, by now, you were surely living under another name.
So I gave that answer.