The Boundary of Dreams (5)
"…Hic… Why, why are you doing this… You were clearly fine before… Why on earth… What’s making you like this again…?"
"…Senior?"
"Hic…! Sniff… W-who…?"
Yeon Minha’s body trembled as she lifted her head. Her eyes, drenched in tears, met mine. That once-vibrant face from just yesterday morning showed no trace of its former vitality. Even her usual haughty, aristocratic expression had returned, twisting my mood slightly, yet a quiet sense of satisfaction lingered at her recovery. But this… what exactly was happening?
"You… you…"
With a dazed expression, Yeon Minha merely moved her lips, murmuring softly. Her nails, chewed ragged, continued to gnaw anxiously.
"…Wait a moment…"
Her pupils widened slightly, as if realizing something. She stared at me again with eyes brimming with tears.
"You… could it be…?"
Her gaze held a kind of madness I had never seen before.
"Could it be… you…?"
…An uneasy premonition crept over me.
"That’s it… It’s you. It was you all along…"
"What do you mean…"
"I’m certain. It has to be you. Clearly… you did this…!"
Still sobbing, Yeon Minha staggered to her feet.
"Hic… Give it back… Please…"
Not a shred of reason remained on her unfocused face.
"Please… give me back my dream… Hic… Please…!"
"What nonsense are you spouting? How could I possibly—"
"Don’t lie!!!!"
—Boom!
—Crash!!
With Yeon Minha’s furious scream, the dormitory echoed with the chaotic noise of objects tumbling and shattering.
"Ever since the day you left… the nightmares started again! Hic… What exactly did you do… What did you do to me…! Sob…"
She circled counterclockwise, steadily closing the distance between us. Her strange gait forced me back until I found myself pinned against the wall.
"Hic… Please… give it back…!"
Tears streaming down her face, she approached as if she would cling to me with her entire body. The thought of being trapped in her outstretched hands sent an odd reaction surging through me. Heat rose at the mere idea, and my breath grew short. A crawling sensation, like insects skittering across my skin, already prickled at me. The mask already narrowed my vision; now it felt even tighter.
"Hic… Please…"
Even so, she kept staggering closer.
"Senior. Stop."
"Give it back…!"
Just before her hands could seize me, my fist struck her stomach without conscious thought.
—Thud!
"…Kehk."
Already exhausted, Yeon Minha collapsed sideways from the single blow.
"Haa… haa… heuk…"
I reflexively checked the mask’s fastenings. Only after confirming they held firm could I breathe easier. It took considerable effort to calm the heat rising through my body. Once my ragged breathing steadied and my vision cleared, I finally looked at her. I approached carefully and placed two fingers beneath her nose. Feeling the faint warmth of her intermittent breaths, I exhaled in relief.
"…Haa."
Tears still clung to the corners of her sorrowful eyes. Even if cleanup could wait, I couldn’t leave her sprawled on the floor like this. My gaze drifted to the bedroom door at the top of the second-floor stairs. Out of basic courtesy, I had never entered before, but today there was no choice. I looked back at Yeon Minha, limp on the ground. She looked feather-light; weight wouldn’t be an issue. But… how to carry her?
"…"
After a long hesitation, no better idea came to mind. Why did the bedroom have to be upstairs…? In the end, I slipped one arm beneath her shoulders and the other under her calves, lifting her carefully.
"…Ugh."
A faint warmth met my touch, and an unpleasant sensation immediately crawled up my arms from the contact points. My face twisted reflexively. The last time I had been this close to a woman for this long was when I embraced my sisters before leaving the northeastern garrison. Back then I had struggled to hide my discomfort; at least now, no one was around to notice.
I carried her slowly up the stairs. Soon Yeon Minha’s bedroom door stood before me.
"…"
I paused, wrestling with the decision, though the answer was already clear. I turned the handle and stepped inside. A refined, sweet fragrance filled the air so thickly it made my head ache. Perhaps because she had stayed here so long, her personal scent permeated every corner of the room even more intensely than usual. I turned toward my final destination: the large, plush bed in the center of the room. Moonlight from the wide window beside it bathed the spot in a soft glow. I laid her down gently, straightened the pillow, shook out the blanket, and drew it up to her neck.
"…?"
The fluid sequence of actions left even me bewildered. A regretful sigh escaped my lips at the obvious reason that surfaced. Tending to someone else’s bed… was something I had done countless times before. It had once been second nature.
"Haa…"
After catching my breath, the room’s interior naturally drew my attention. The layout was mostly ordinary, but one feature stood out: an enormous bookshelf occupying an entire wall. Every volume crammed onto its shelves bore heavy signs of use. Though only a fleeting glimpse, it was enough to imagine the life she had lived.
"Hic… I hate this…"
Another murmur reached me. I glanced at the bed. Yeon Minha shook her head, tears still falling. Was she trapped in another nightmare no one else could see? I let out a quiet sigh and released a gentle wave of energy from the cluster near my heart. Being right beside her, even a small amount was sufficient.
"Koo… snore…"
"…"
I had clearly made a grave misjudgment. I had only used the Blockade for three days and been absent for two nights. Yet that brief taste of sweet peace had apparently made her unable to endure her old routine at all…
"…"
When I first accepted the headmaster’s request, I never imagined facing a situation like this. Still, forcing my way into the dormitory had not been a bad decision. If I had only seen her polished exterior from a distance, I would never have understood these vulnerable aspects visible only up close. These defenseless, fragile sides were the very essence of the problem she faced. Confronting that raw truth, what I felt toward her was no longer mere dislike or resentment, but a distinctly human pity and sympathy.
Yet alongside that, the inferiority I had kept hidden behind the mask also rose to the surface.
"…"
As a child, I had learned in school that our country was a republic without class discrimination. But how many people truly believed that? We divided one another by countless standards, and among them, magic stood supreme. Those above people: mages. And above mages: the 27 Magic Families and the Five Founding Families. I had always belonged at the very bottom of that neatly ordered food chain. Swept up in an unreasonable storm like a bolt from the blue, I had survived only by chance, meeting good people. Now I even posed as a recommended student from a prestigious house, but my true nature had not changed. Behind the mask, I remained an orphan with nothing and no notable background. I merely clung to an inexplicable power I had luckily obtained, scraping by. In contrast, Yeon Minha was a mage above mages, the daughter of the Red Fire Yeon family—one of the Five Founding Families, a great and noble house. If I was at the bottom, she stood at the very top. Had the director not forced me into this cradle, I would never have encountered her at such close range. Could a mere orphan truly feel pity and sympathy for someone like her…?
"…Haa."
A sigh escaped me, and a sharp, hollow ache settled in my chest. The reason was surely that I had experienced a very similar situation once before. People learn from their mistakes, or so they say. But why was I about to repeat the same error? An orphan who could barely manage his own future—why was he meddling in someone else’s affairs?
"Koo… koo…"
The sound of peaceful breathing only deepened my doubts.
"Koo…"
Even so, she still seemed pitiful and heartbreaking.
***
Yeon Minha was dreaming. She kept sinking into a pit filled with black, sticky mud. Skeletal arms reached out from all around, pushing her struggling form back into the depths. She cried and screamed, but no one came to help. Only the rattling laughter of the arms echoed from every direction. Just as she resigned herself to being swallowed by the abyss, a single ray of bright light shone upon her. The black walls and skeletons melted away in an instant. The moment she reflexively reached out to her savior—
—Tweet tweet!
"Huh…?"
What she saw was the familiar ceiling of her bedroom, just as always. And her own slender right arm stretched upward. Her vision felt strangely blurred, so she wiped her damp eyes with her fingers. A sharp, throbbing pain began to pulse in her lower abdomen.
"Haa… What…"
Her brow furrowed at the inexplicable pain. As she gently rubbed her sore stomach and struggled to sit up, a low, quiet voice from the doorway startled her awake.
"Have you woken up?"
"…Hic."
A chill ran down her spine. Forcing her unmoving head to turn, she looked toward the source of the voice. What met her eyes was a masked figure leaning against the wall beside the doorframe—perverted, grotesque, masked.
"Y-you, you, you, you—"
She was so flustered she could barely speak, and in the process she bit her own tongue. Instinctively, she checked her body. The realization that she wore only a thin camisole made her mind go blank for a moment. Then the masked student rose and approached her with steady steps.
"G-get away…"
So he was finally showing his true colors. The fact that he would attempt something this shameless in broad daylight, not even at midnight, confirmed he was definitely a perverted deviant. Her tear-filled eyes searched instinctively for something to defend herself with. What her instincts chose—rather than a spirit—was the large, fluffy pillow she had just been hugging. She swung it at him, but the masked boy paid it no mind and closed the distance until he stood right in front of her. It was over. Yeon Minha squeezed her eyes shut.
—Rustle.
But the next sensation was the warm touch of a shawl being draped over her bare shoulders.
—Thud.
And the sound of something settling down. Utterly unexpected, she suppressed her racing heart and cracked her eyes open. The familiar, slightly worn checkered shawl that always covered her shoulders came into view first. Then she looked forward.
"Hi… hic."
She let out a small shriek upon finding the masked man seated on the stool beside the bed, gazing at her.
"…Haa."
"…Hic."
At the sight of him exhaling a deep sigh, she reflexively swallowed a light hiccup.
"Let’s talk."