Reunion? (2)
Anais is a holy knight.
Take away the training, and her life held nothing but three things — meals, prayer, and sleep. An immaculate, untainted existence. A single pure blossom raised inside a cage. Until she came of age and stepped beyond the Holy Kingdom for the first time, she was a hothouse saintess who truly knew nothing at all.
"Would she even do something like this?"
One corner of an inn room, cut off from the outside by a lock. No window — a single lantern for light — and a quiet so complete that every breath came through clear. Clothes soaked through with cold sweat clung, sticky, to skin. Orange light thrown behind her as backlight left nothing but a silhouette, and the lines of her body stood out all the sharper for the shadow draped over them. It was a situation that had no choice but to run thick with sexual tension.
Yura swallowed — a small, audible gulp — and waited for an answer.
"……"
Right. I could tell well enough that this wasn't Anais. The audacity alone was proof enough, but to me it was only uncomfortable. Irritating.
She thinks if she pulls this, I'll just grab her and hold on.
I'd be lying if I said it didn't turn me on. Anais's looks really were exceptional. But it had been a long time since I'd looked at that same woman like a stone, and I couldn't stand a woman who did whatever she pleased. The other way around, too — if I really had been her lover, shouldn't she at least know what I hated? Which was why the words came out with a thorn in them.
"What are you trying to pull? You think your lover comes back just because you do this?"
Kissing me like before, sleeping with me — would that bring the memories back? Yura, though, didn't seem to care.
"…Watch closely."
She held out one hand.
"Hoooo……"
Then she pinched her middle finger to her thumb and blew a breath across them. It was a gesture I couldn't begin to make sense of—
Thwack!
…A flick to the forehead.
"Ow!! Ah, that stings…… what are you doing?"
A sharp, biting pain bloomed across my forehead.
"You asked if Anais would do something like this."
"Hsss. What even…"
Whether she'd failed to hold back or not, it genuinely stung. Why I'd been hit was one thing. What this even was, was another. But before I could get my mouth open, she pinched my nose shut — the way a little kid grabs a cat and kneads it. That merciless hand thoroughly ravaged my face.
"Wh-what are you do—doing, ngh—"
"And this? Hm?"
With my nose blocked, my voice came out nasal and pathetic. I was just about to shake her off out of sheer disbelief when her face rushed in again.
"Hey, hey! Don't— ugh!"
I expected another kiss. What she went for was the nape of my neck.
"Haap…"
The moment I registered something soft and hot, it turned into a sharp pain. She'd left tooth marks, maybe. It hurt quite a bit. When her face found its place again, it was flushed.
"Tell me. …Did that bitch ever do this, too?"
The sheer unpredictability of it knocked the sense clean out of me. This woman, seriously… she was going to break me like this?
"…Gotta say, that is some seriously unhinged shit."
"Language…! Watch your mouth!"
Yura's palm flew straight at my mouth. I genuinely could not believe this.
"Hey. You're the one who just said bitch."
"Th-that's……!"
Caught dead to rights, Yura flushed red.
"Heh. Funny girl, this one."
Smack!
Another dainty little slap came flying in answer to my quip. The deflating absurdity of it hit my funny bone dead on.
"Pfft…!"
"Snrk…! Ahaha!"
We broke at the same time, small bursts of laughter, and my wariness eased a little because of it. Only then did I see it — the wetness that had gathered in Yura's eyes the whole time she was pulling that childish bit. I thought I knew what she was trying to say, too. Less drawing a line between herself and Anais than showing me the self inside. It wasn't that I was used to this, or that any memory was coming back… but if I'd had a lover, it felt like she'd be allowed to tease me like this.
Yeah. Some of it seemed to have reached me.
"So this is what we were. Us."
"……Yeah."
I understood that she and I really had been together. But was being lovers only that much of a thing? From the circumstances, I had to figure Yura had come looking for me. The odds didn't work if I tried to say she'd been dragged in for no reason, the way I had. Honestly, I didn't know how I was supposed to take any of it. The me of now had neither the memory nor the experience of having liked anyone.
I spoke to her where she still sat astride me.
"What's my name?"
"Yeonwoo. Lim Yeonwoo."
"Lim Yeonwoo……"
It felt less like my name than a name she had given me.
"Lim Yeonwoo, Lim Yeonwoo…"
That strange sensation kept making me say it again. To think I'd hear a name I myself had forgotten from someone else's mouth. How many loops… no. How long had it been?
Yura knew more about me than I did. My name. My past. I was only now learning I'd been a more childish bastard than I'd thought — because this farce, to me, was pretty damn funny.
"Sorry I forgot. I should have kept it safe."
The reunion she'd wanted could never come to her whole. Even so, you gave my name back to me.
"And… thank you. For coming to find me."
I was grateful. I just couldn't get out what was supposed to come after. Bead-like drops gathered at the corners of Yura's eyes—
"Hhk. Hn…hk!! Hnnk…!"
—and she brought that face down and buried it in my chest.
"Hnnnngh…!! Eeeee—! Waaaaaah!!!"
…I can't breathe.
"Snff. Hic."
Still on the bed. I sorted through my thoughts while my chest went on catching everything Yura was crying out of herself.
"This is the first time I've cried."
"…The first?"
"Since you disappeared, oppa. The first time I've cried. ……So just let me be a little spoiled."
She said. And what was I supposed to do with that. I just hadn't known that crying would mean all day. A good long while had passed, so it was easing bit by bit, but still.
"You done crying?"
A shake of the head. Yura turned hers from side to side and burrowed into my chest like a drill. The clothes that had been soaked in cold sweat had long since dried, except for the patch where her face was buried. The sealed room had gone so muggy I hesitated to breathe. Any minute now, I was sure, these clothes were going to start smelling sour. Fortunately, that body scent of hers — something not unlike lilies — was pulling duty as a diffuser.
"Cry like this and people usually tire themselves out and fall asleep, don't they?"
Yura only flinched. No answer at all. With her face buried in me as I lay there stiff, all I could see was the crown of her head. And somehow… it looked a little cute.
"Get up. Let's talk."
"……No. I want to stay like this."
"Then just listen."
I brought out the rest of what I hadn't managed to finish while Yura sobbed.
"I'm grateful you came, but…"
I could accept her. Here, though, the problem got complicated.
"I'm looking for a way to escape. I have been, this whole time."
Yura, quiet until then, lifted only her head a little and met my eyes.
Ah. Right.
"You don't happen to know a way out of here, do you?"
"Ah… no."
"So you're trapped, too."
Of course she was. It wasn't as if I'd spent all this time only idling around, wrecking endings. On the other hand, there seemed to be a separate way to come in at will. That, I could research in time, using Yura as a reference.
"Sorry…"
"It's fine. Anyway, that's why I'm buying time. You knew I was caught in a loop, right?"
At first I'd mistaken her for Anais, but Yura had come looking ahead of time — at the very moment I came to inhabit Lux.
"Yeah. I know you're a regressor, oppa. That's how I was able to come here."
"How do you mean, thanks to that?"
"The time you rewind is… kind of complicated. I don't know exactly either. The closest I can put it is that there's a huge gap between this and the time where we used to live?"
"There is?"
"Anyway, if it hadn't been for the regression, this novel would have closed for good. Before I even got in."
"…Lucky, then."
Coming back to the point, I brought up the subject that mattered most. The condition that let me keep this loop going — and the reason I kept gutting the ending.
"You and I. More precisely, Anais's role, I suppose."
I couldn't lock in the rest of my life while giving up on escape.
"…What?"
Yura shot upright as she said it.
"Why?! I don't want that. Why can't we?"
"I told you. I can't quit regressing until I find a way out. If the ending is fulfilled, I can't go back until I die — no. Not even after I'm dead."
"I'm here now. What if you try and it doesn't work? What are you going to do if you can't find it?"
She was trying to get that worked-up color back.
"Don't raise your voice. Hear me all the way through. We've got time. So…"
I didn't know whether putting the happy ending off would hold as anything more than a refusal made of words, but for now there was no other way. A way to keep moving forward without wounding her. If she wanted to get me back, she had to trust me.
"I don't know how long it'll take. Wait until I find the way out."
"What does that even mean…"
"It means I won't give you my heart before then."
Was there a more maddening vow between a man and a woman? The classic stall — we're just casually seeing each other until I pass the civil service exam. Normally it ended one of two ways. Someone crossed the line, or someone turned and walked away. But I meant it. For someone whose regression count sat at roughly (I don't keep track), there was no such thing as giving up.
"…And if I don't want to?"
"Try me that way. I won't even hold your hand."
"……"
Inside, she might think it was childish. But you know what? I'm the type who, once I say I'll do something—
"…Let go of this hand."
"And if I don't?"
"Haah… seriously."
"Pfft."
If it were up to me, I wanted to pay back that forehead flick from earlier, but I figured it would only hurt my finger, so I let it go. Turns out one of the passives hanging off Divine Power is damage reflection, too.
"You were just pinned under me a second ago, and now you're going on about holding hands or not. You know you're completely ridiculous, oppa?"
This, I needed to nail down. I thought I knew what she was standing on, running wild like this.
"Of all people — why did you pick Anais?"
Anais's Divine Power was the polar opposite of magic, which meant it was a setup that already gave me more than enough trouble.
"She's the heroine, isn't she?"
"Did you chicken out? Afraid you'd get in over your head?"
"No. Just…… she's pretty."
"Looks like a completely different reason to me."
"I-it is not."
"You're going to throw your weight around because you've got Divine Power."
"What are you even saying…! So what if I throw my weight around! A girl this pretty likes you, oppa. You don't like it?"
Judging by the way she was going, there did seem to be enough trust stacked up that she'd respect me… Let's not forget. I forgot her.
"Don't go using Divine Power on me whenever you feel like it. You'll get that nose of yours broken."
"My nose is small and pretty, though."
Yura pointed at it with both hands, putting on a cute act.
"Not even slightly. Pretty sure a coin would fit up those nostrils."
"Where are you even looking…!"
Whether she'd gotten her energy back or not, Yura rose from the bed with mischief all over her, and at the same time my body was granted its freedom. The two eyes glaring at me, playful and mean, were still bloodshot. Over a face gone a little puffy hung a bright, clear smile.
"For now… I'll see how you do, oppa."
"Haa…"
That endlessly dopey face felt anything but reliable. Really — how had a girl like this found her way here?