The Frog in the Well (3)
I worried that I might get in serious trouble with the teacher or the security chief for what I had done, but fortunately, nothing like that happened. As if the entire incident had never occurred, the events of that day quietly faded into a hazy memory.
Once we started speaking comfortably, we grew surprisingly close for two people who had gone through something like that. Yeon still acted prickly like a cat. But at the very least, she no longer hurled cruel words at me out of nowhere.
In the classroom, my seat was now right beside hers. When I spoke, she would stare at me intently and listen, occasionally adding small, short responses. I thought that if things continued this way, her personality might actually improve.
However, not everything always flowed smoothly. The other kids in class were all curious about how we had gotten so close. That included my closest friends, Jin-ho and I-na. While I didn’t care what the others thought, I wanted to introduce Yeon to them specifically. After all, they had been the first to approach me kindly, so I believed they would treat her well too.
But the one who rejected the new friends was Yeon herself. She might have stopped spitting venom, but she still behaved arrogantly and haughtily toward the other children. Jin-ho and I-na were no exception. And then she began forcing me not to spend time with my friends.
I hated it when someone tried to control my actions or thoughts. Yet for days on end, Yeon treated me as if I were her personal property. I made my refusal clear several times, but she only grew more stubborn. In the end, I got so angry that I declared we were no longer friends—even though we had only just grown close.
“I’m never going to talk to you again.”
When she heard those words, Yeon’s face filled with shock, as if she were the victim. After that, she didn’t show up at school for three whole days.
I was fed up. Whatever she did now, I didn’t want to care anymore. What stopped me from walking away was the very maid who had once held a knife to my throat.
“…Please help the young lady.”
The maid found me on my way home from school and suddenly bowed deeply. Then she began pleading, saying her master was going to die. She had locked herself in her room and was refusing both water and food. If anyone tried to force their way in, she threatened to kill herself, so they were at a complete loss. After agonizing over it, the maid had come to me because I was the only student her young lady had ever mentioned by name.
She even sobbed that her mistress had an illness, and that she might really die if this continued. I had declared our friendship over because I disliked her personality, but letting her actually die was an entirely different matter. Besides, although the maid didn’t seem to know it, I had a feeling this was all because of our falling out. Still, I kept my mouth shut—I had no desire to get stabbed again.
After much deliberation, I followed the maid to the mansion. Once inside, I climbed the antique staircase and immediately spotted a firmly locked door.
Knock knock.
“…I told you to leave me alone…”
“Hey. It’s me.”
When I knocked, Yeon’s exhausted voice answered.
“Can I come in?”
“…”
“If you don’t answer, I’m just going to enter.”
“…”
There was still no reply. I used the key the maid had given me to unlock the door and stepped inside. The room was far too large and empty for a child to live in alone.
“…Why did you come?”
Yeon was lying on a massive bed in the center of the room. Her voice was so faint it was barely audible. She looked terribly gaunt, as if she truly hadn’t eaten anything for three days. Even I couldn’t help but feel my heart soften at the sight.
“Are you an idiot? Why would you stop eating over something as stupid as ending a friendship?”
“…”
“The maid was worried sick about you. You’re already in poor health, aren’t you? Eat something right now.”
“I… don’t have any strength…”
A thin arm slipped out from under the blanket, lifted slightly, then dropped limply.
“Seriously, you’re impossible.”
“…”
“…Wait here a second.”
I went to the maid and returned with thin porridge and water. Then I sat beside the bed, scooped some porridge onto a spoon, and held it to her lips.
“Open your mouth.”
“…”
“Eat when I give it to you. My arm’s getting tired, so hurry up.”
After a moment of hesitation at my urging, Yeon finally parted her lips just a little.
“…Nom… chew chew…”
The way she accepted every spoonful made her look exactly like a baby bird. The bowl of porridge emptied in no time. It annoyed me a little that she could eat so well yet had refused to do so until now.
Once Yeon seemed to regain a bit of energy, I was finally able to bring up the real reason I had come.
“…I’m canceling the breakup. I said some really harsh things. And I’m sorry for telling you to play with other friends. I didn’t consider that you might hate it.”
“Ah…”
“But you can’t keep ordering me around either. I hate it more than anything when someone tries to tell me what to do. From now on, I’m still going to hang out with my friends. I might even spend more time with them than with you.”
“…”
As Yeon listened, her expression brightened and darkened repeatedly. Then she asked me cautiously.
“…You hate it when I do that?”
“Yes. I hate it.”
“…You hate talking only to me…?”
“Yeah. I really hate it.”
At my firm rejection, her body flinched slightly. It almost looked like she was trembling. After a brief silence, she spoke again.
“…I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
That was the first time I ever heard Yeon apologize to me.
After our second reconciliation, Yeon faithfully kept her word. Even when I spent time with Jin-ho and I-na, she showed no sign of discomfort. She even tried approaching them first to greet them. The sight of her speaking awkwardly and hesitantly was so unlike her usual image that I had to work hard to hold back my laughter.
On top of that, Yeon began asking me questions more and more often. What kind of clothes I liked. What food I liked. What hobbies I liked. What kind of personality I liked. She asked about every little trivial thing. She even asked what length of hair I preferred.
“Why are you asking something like that?”
“…Still.”
“Hey! That’s going way too far even for you…”
“…You said you’d tell me.”
“Huh?”
“You did. You clearly said you’d tell me all sorts of things from now on.”
“That and this are…”
“…Right now, you’re the only person I can ask.”
“…”
Even when I got irritated, Yeon remained stubborn. In the end, I was the one who lost my words. What I had actually meant was that I would help fix her rude personality. It seemed she had interpreted it differently, though.
Still, when I thought about it, showing interest in another person to grow closer didn’t seem like a bad thing. And it was true that she had no one else to ask. So I eventually surrendered to her persistence.
I answered every single question sincerely, eventually handing over nearly all the information about myself. Yeon even showed the effort of carefully writing everything down in a notebook. Seeing that, I too forgot about the past and began treating her with genuine warmth.
Yeon, who had always worn a cold and haughty expression, gradually began showing her emotions more often. We grew even closer, exchanging all kinds of trivial stories. Now she was the one who would talk at length first.
Yeon liked telling me about her life before coming to our village. Through her small mouth, I learned about a world I had never known. Before arriving here, she had lived in the capital, Masada, right in its very center. She described towering multi-layered buildings stacked upon one another, the capital’s defensive walls stretching endlessly beyond the horizon, and the city lights that never dimmed even at dawn. Every time I listened, the scenery unfolded so vividly before my eyes that it felt like I had visited the capital myself.
Her voice was filled with longing and fond memories. But I didn’t only hear dreamlike stories. Her tales were far more realistic than the exaggerated boasts of street peddlers, so whenever she spoke of the demon race in the north or the monsters in uncharted lands, a chill would run down my spine.
I also learned that she truly was the daughter of a mage family. Surprisingly, though, Yeon didn’t seem to like her own family very much.
“Our family has an enormous number of siblings. From what I remember, there were over twenty.”
“Twenty? That’s a lot.”
“There are so many I can’t even remember who’s who. And you know what’s even funnier? There’s only one father, but multiple mothers.”
“That sounds nice. I’m an only child, so I’ve always been a little jealous of people with lots of siblings.”
“What’s nice about it? They fight like wild animals every single day.”
Yeon glanced around nervously before whispering in a small voice.
“Out of all of them, you have to be most careful of my oldest brother. More than ten of us siblings have died in ‘accidents,’ and I bet he killed every single one. He always wears this kind-looking smile, which only makes him more suspicious.”
“No way. Does your father just watch that happen?”
“The family head doesn’t care at all. He always says the one who survives is the strong one. As long as rumors don’t spread outside, he doesn’t pay attention to anything that happens inside.”
“Is it okay for you to tell me this?”
“Of course not. I’m only telling you because it’s you. This is a secret between just the two of us.”
“…”
Yeon always referred to her father as “the family head.” I didn’t need to ask to roughly guess what their relationship was like. I thought to myself that even mages didn’t necessarily live comfortable lives. At the same time, I made a firm resolution never to get involved with dangerous mages.
Still, I was a bit curious why such a noble young lady would come to our insignificant village and willingly endure such hardship. Especially since the only servant attending her was a single maid named Yeo-jin.
Very occasionally, I wondered if Yeon might be lying. But I immediately concluded that although her personality was rather foul, she wasn’t the type to tell such lies. The natural grace that flowed through her gestures and movements couldn’t be faked no matter how hard one tried.
But unless she brought it up first, I had no intention of asking. It might be a sensitive topic she simply didn’t want to discuss. With those kinds of questions buried in my heart, we gradually grew closer.
These days, Yeon preferred walking to and from school with me far more than being attended by her maid. Sometimes she would come to my house, eat the dinner my mother prepared, and then visit so often that the maid had to come drag her back. We watched the village festival together, sneaked out through a hole in the barrier when the adults weren’t looking, and explored an empty mountain keeper’s cabin. In winter we had two-on-two snowball fights with Jin-ho and I-na, and in summer we went to the valley behind the village to play in the water.
Before we knew it, we had become part of each other’s daily lives. Time flew by like an arrow, and the seasons changed several times. Then one day, I finally learned why Yeon had come to our village.
Along with news so shocking I wished I had never heard it.
I had a secret hobby of drawing pictures in secret. But I had forgotten one I had slipped between the pages of a book, and Yeon ended up finding it. I panicked from embarrassment, but her eyes sparkled instead. She asked in a voice full of anticipation if I could draw her too.
I couldn’t bring myself to refuse the request, so after class, I drew her portrait in the empty art room.
“You drew it so well. I’m going to hang it in my room and look at it every single day.”
Yeon was overjoyed when she saw the finished portrait, practically jumping with excitement. Her face was filled with such a bright smile that I wondered if she was even capable of making that expression.
“If you praise it that much, I’ll start thinking I’m actually good.”
It was an average drawing at best, so her reaction only made me feel more embarrassed. But when she heard me, Yeon shook her head vigorously.
“I’m not just praising you. You really did draw it well. In my opinion, you have the qualities of a good mage. An outstanding artistic sense is definitive proof of innate magical talent…”
Yeon realized her slip of the tongue too late and closed her mouth. She must have remembered that I was a complete non-sensitive. The pair of eyes looking at me trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
But I didn’t feel any particular displeasure. I had never cared much about constitutions to begin with, and I knew she hadn’t said it with bad intentions. If anything, I was a little grateful that she had forgotten about it enough to speak so carelessly.
“Ah… that…”
“It’s fine. You can forget sometimes. I don’t really care about it.”
“…I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to…”
“I said it’s okay. You’re making me feel more sorry.”
Only after I reassured her several times did Yeon finally calm down. But it seemed she still had something to say. She stared silently at the portrait I had drawn for her, fidgeting with her fingers.
“…Hey. Actually, there’s something I haven’t told you until now…”
“What is it? If it’s a secret, you don’t have to say it…”
“…No. I didn’t have the courage to say it before… but now I think I have to…”
“…?”
“Umm…”
Her face was clearly filled with hesitation. After a rather long silence, I finally heard the words leave her lips.
“…I… might die within the next few years.”