Cutting Off the Ear
We had been kissing for a long while.
With our fingers still laced together, we carefully pressed our lips to each other’s, and before we knew it we were nuzzling noses and tumbling about on the sofa, holding each other tight.
Afraid we might slip and fall, I kept my arms locked around her with all my strength and simply held her close for a long time—
"Haah… Loving you might just have been one of the few truly good choices I’ve made in my life."
The way she looked straight at me with such a bright smile, then rested her head against my chest again—was that a gift from God?
A reward for having faithfully followed His will all this time?
What kind of miracle was it that someone so perfect could love me?
What parts of her was I filling? In what ways was I making her heart tremble? Enough that she would say she would leave her own people and stay with me, unable to bear the gazes of others any longer.
But rather than figuring out those reasons, wasn’t it enough simply to do my best in the present so she could be even happier?
"To lavish care and affection without reserve upon the one you love,"
I murmured softly as I held her leaning against me.
To calm my racing heart somehow, I tried to quietly recite the verse I had kept in my heart.
The problem was that she was close enough to hear it clearly.
And the verse I had come to hold in my heart was no longer Cast off your worldly troubles and fill your heart with faith in Him, but the very reason I had come to be called a missionary of love. The moment that had solidified my feelings for her. The problem was that I had spoken that verse aloud in front of her.
Yet she did not simply listen in silence.
Sensing that I had misspoken, she stroked my frozen form, tickling my chest as she looked straight down at me and continued.
"For it is like the care and mercy He has shared with us. Just as He has done, love your spouse and your family."
In a voice pure and lovely beyond measure, she gently offered me those words, then kissed my cheek and smiled with her eyes.
"Is that the verse you’ve come to love?"
Tap, tap—she traced long fingers across my chest with a pleasant little hum, then brought her lips close to my ear.
My heart pounded without cease. Under a pressure that felt ready to burst at any moment, my ears ringing, tears welling until they burned hot—it was as if she were a serpent coiling around my body, flicking her tongue. An inexplicable fear, yet a clear reason for the pleasure, left me holding my breath and focusing only on her voice.
The next words she spoke completely undid me.
"I’ve become the same way ever since I met you."
It felt as if the world had stopped.
The thought that this might be a test from the devil, or some corrupted trickery, filled my mind. Whether the woman before me was truly her. Whether the things coming from her mouth were truly not hallucinations.
In that frozen instant between us, many thoughts flashed past.
And I reached a conclusion.
"…Th-that’s a lie."
It couldn’t be true. No—I couldn’t accept it. If it were true, I felt I might do something to the woman right in front of me then and there.
Even though we weren’t married yet—no, perhaps we would have to do so soon. She who had so casually said she would throw away her profession for our relationship. For my sake. For the sake of someone as short-lived as me. For the sake of someone infinitely inferior to her, she had said she would throw herself into a world she didn’t know—I had to belong to her.
But really, were all these things happening to me truly real?
I didn’t know how long she had lived. But for a novice who had only lived twenty-three years in this world to have felt a similar trembling from the moment we met, to live with a heart like mine that couldn’t drive thoughts of her from my mind for even a day, and for her to say that she had experienced the exact same thing right now as we faced each other—the probability of such a woman standing before me was surely zero.
"Does it sound like a lie?"
Clutching the collar of my clothes lightly, she watched me with blazing golden eyes, and in the end I could only shake my head.
"A priest of the short-lived races, filled with faith, who happened to walk the same path as I. Someone who had preached the iron-hard gospel with an upright heart, yet the moment he met me his face turned bright red and he simply collapsed—curiosity about that human sprang up in me. Everyone else would boast of their wrinkles before me like pupae comparing creases, saying things like ‘I like you,’ or arrogant words like ‘You’ve dared to make me fall in love.’ But you—when the person you held in your heart suddenly drew near, there was not a shred of arrogance to be found. You crumbled with pure surprise and rapture, and that drew my attention. I was a little surprised to hear that the priest of the rumors, said to be stiff and stern, would blush at the mere mention of my name from a certain point—and that he would take a place in the prayer room earlier than I, who had come out at dawn to avoid the bustle of morning, and sincerely, simply pray those verses, asking Him to grant our love. Treating others with a smile, focusing diligently on work. And yet not deliberately seeking me out to trouble me. When we ‘happened’ to meet, freezing up again and flushing bright red. I thought he might be a fool, but that wasn’t it either. When we worked together he focused properly on the work, and knew how to be considerate. Yet he was so clumsy at hiding his feelings that he fidgeted and stamped his feet restlessly. In the end, stammering a confession of love with a face that didn’t even know what he was saying—to that cute short-lived one, the only one of his kind I had ever met in my life, how do you think I felt, unable to help being captivated?"
Her heart pressed against mine was beating without cease. The sunset that had thoroughly dyed the pure white canvas grew even redder, illuminating its surface, and was diligently staining me with that color.
"I told you. I told you over and over. That every part of you, every single part that tried to treat me with sincerity, was so lovable. That I couldn’t stand not doting on you, my unbearably cute short-lived one…"
When our lips met once more, I felt my mind growing hazy.
The happiness that constricted my entire body. The knowledge that someone truly cherished and loved me—and not family, but a complete stranger. An elf of the forest people said to be blessed by God. And among them, the one I thought most beautiful—her. That she had been so desperate to love me—all of it was carved deep into my heart.
How great the happiness it gave me was, I probably couldn’t explain in words. You couldn’t know without experiencing it. Certainly.
Thump thump thump.
At the loud knocking that came from the darkness, I began to rise groggily from my place.
Ending up spending the whole night at her house just like that was truly… ecstatic. Being doted on by the one I loved, pressing our bodies together and sharing stories on the bed—it even made me think it was good that I was alive.
Intoxicated by that sweet warmth, I propped up my aching head with a hand and tried to clear my mind for a moment. Then I realized I was alone on the narrow bed.
"Ugh… Thea?"
Where on earth had she gone so early in the morning? Outside, where the sun hadn’t properly risen yet, a cold blue hue lingered.
Clunk—the sound of the front door opening reached me, and in the end I had no choice but to get up and go look for her.
"Thea—where did you go?"
My half-awake, hazy mind was so unreliable that I even startled at the unexpected volume of my own voice.
Staggering, I braced against the wall and moved my feet. Leaving her bedroom, I saw the chilly living room and the small kitchen. I picked up the bottle and cup I had used yesterday to make honeyed milk, gently dropped them into the wooden tub of water, then turned my gaze to the entrance.
As expected, her shoes and the robe she always wore were gone from their places. Where had she gone? What business did she have so early in the morning that she had hurried away from my side?
I was about to gather my clothes and head out, then looked at what I was wearing and decided there was no need.
"…She said it was a little stuffy."
To have fallen asleep just like that, still in the clothes I’d worn out, lying on the bed with her, holding her, kissing, talking… At least they were medical clothes; if they had been priestly vestments, I wouldn’t have had a word to say even if I were dismissed rather than withdrawing myself.
I brushed the wrinkled clothes with my hand, quickly straightened my appearance, and stepped out at once—only to see three figures standing on the grass tinged with blue light.
They stood solemnly in black robes, their backs to the direction of the rising sun. The still-dark surroundings made their atmosphere even more sinister.
And the one kneeling in their center was the Thea I knew well, the one I had been searching for just moments ago.
She carefully unfastened the robe she wore, folded it neatly, and respectfully offered it to the one standing in the center. The one who received it was saying something to her. From the softly moving lips, and from the way she solemnly accepted it with her head bowed, I felt an inexplicable unease.
Perhaps this was the moment the director had spoken of. Something she had not wanted to tell me. Looking back, she had glossed over it quite vaguely—the things she would have to endure were unfolding right before my eyes, so I gently opened the door and quietly moved my steps toward them.
And that quietness soon had no choice but to turn into a frantic run.
Because I had seen the sharp metal glinting in the faint light of the moon that had not yet set. And because I had seen it approaching her.
"Thea, Thea!!"
In the dawn before the sun could rise, blood flashed and sprayed.