The Stopped Needle of Memory
The words spilling from Olivia's mouth clutched at Yuria's heart.
"You don't know anything."
"You have no idea what Ricardo went through because of you, how much shit that idiot took just for your sake."
Olivia gazed at Yuria coldly, declaring there was no reason for her hatred.
"Do you know why Ricardo heads to the Academy so early in the morning?"
"Did you ever ask why he paces in front of your shoe locker like a puppy desperate to take a shit?"
Olivia stared straight into Yuria's eyes, her words laced with the conviction that Yuria was under a massive delusion.
"You're probably feeling wronged. I get it—it's ridiculous for me to say this, and the situation's bound to lead to misunderstandings... because I told him to do it all."
"So what if you know you're wronged...?"
"Exactly."
Olivia shrugged at Yuria's sharp question.
"It changes nothing."
"..."
"I have no intention of making excuses to you. Even if I said the others egged him on or I got swept up in the mood, it'd just sound pathetic."
"Then why tell me this? Are you saying I should hate you instead of Ricardo? Or that since you pressured him, I shouldn't hate him too much...?"
"I already told you—you don't know anything right now."
Olivia opened her mouth calmly to answer Yuria's question. She brought a hand to her lips and began unraveling the secrets Ricardo had forbidden her from sharing, one by one.
"Graffiti on the desk."
"Thumbtacks in the shoe locker."
"Backbiting. And so on. You think Ricardo did all that, right?"
Yuria said nothing. She just clamped her mouth shut and focused on Olivia's words.
"Yeah. Even if I ordered it, getting that kind of treatment from Ricardo would hurt like betrayal."
"But. But..."
Olivia gave a small laugh.
"That idiot couldn't do something like that."
Thinking of the fool who would never do anything he didn't want to, even if it killed him, Olivia bowed her head. Even she thought Ricardo was too good-hearted.
"That idiot couldn't do it."
"..."
"He's got a wide streak of meddlesomeness but won't take the blame himself. He owns up to things he didn't even do. Slum rat? Hell, I'd believe he came from a monastery. Right?"
Olivia's words cracked something deep inside Yuria. -Crack. A faint fissure spiderwebbed through it, writhing emotions stirring in the split, desperate to break free.
With trembling eyes, Yuria spoke.
"What are you trying to say...?"
"Ricardo never bullied you."
Olivia drew a steady breath and looked up at the moon. The disgustingly bright moon evoked someone's face, souring her mood. He'd told her to keep it secret, but she'd spilled everything. It had been the same back then too— the night jealousy blinded her and she pushed Ricardo with unreasonable demands, the moon had shone just as brightly.
-Don't hang out with Yuria.
-I don't want to.
-Do it because I say so. The others see it badly.
-Am I some kind of celebrity? Sounds good to me.
-You're dodging again.
-Anyway, no. If they've got a problem, tell them to come at me.
Olivia thought of Ricardo, who had defied her orders, and murmured in a low voice.
-Hah.
"You think that idiot would really do whatever I told him?"
She turned to Yuria.
"No. He couldn't."
Not even for me.
"So Ricardo played the villain."
"He picked all the stuff the kids hated, ignored every word I said, cleaned and wiped your desk all by himself—that's how he played the bad guy."
Olivia let out a long sigh.
"There was a point when Ricardo suddenly started acting nasty toward you, right?"
"..."
"After that, your school life got a little better."
"..."
"Any idea why?"
"..."
Don't. Please don't.
Olivia coldly ignored Yuria's inner plea and spoke the harsh truth.
"Think people just changed?"
Olivia shook her head.
"No. That was Ricardo. He deliberately acted cruel to make you look pitiful, just to give you one friend. Turning himself into the bad guy."
Please don't. I'll break.
"No..."
"'Tragic heroine' has a nice ring, doesn't it?"
"No, that's not..."
Don't shake me. I'd finally made up my mind. Why I'd hated Ricardo...
Please...
"Stop."
"It's fun watching a commoner bully another commoner, right? If there's someone more annoying than you, bully them instead. Picking who to hate more."
"Stop it!"
Olivia brushed off Yuria's warning and continued.
"All of that was Ricardo's doing."
Just to make things easier for you.
"Buying chocolate with his meager salary and slipping it into the class desks."
To boost your image.
"All the trash, milk, thumbtacks on your desk—he put them on his own."
Just to look after you.
"Every morning, coming to school early to check if anything happened that day."
Olivia looked Yuria straight in the eye.
"That idiot would never do it."
*
In a tale no one knew, a woman wept before someone's gravestone. The black sword beside it was rusted solid, immovable, surrounded by heaps of lilies.
"It's my fault."
The pink-haired woman knelt before the stone, pounding her chest and caressing it.
"Because of me... you."
Her heartbroken mutterings pleaded endlessly with the silent grave for answers.
-Doubt.
If she could curse herself, she'd cast it on her past self. Doubt everything, never trust—blind faith brings unbearable agony.
-Thank goodness. You're unhurt...
Agony like this. Pain she couldn't share with anyone. She lacked the strength to endure it.
The woman gazed at the gravestone, tears pouring out.
Doubt.
Petty suspicions had made her hate him. And the same had let her approach him without hesitation. If she'd amplified those doubts, she might never have started at all.
Wiping the stone with her tears, the woman wept through the night, praying for one more chance.
A week passed, but Yuria's mood didn't improve. Not even with her father awake. Not even with delicious food.
No sign of it getting better.
Yuria sat with a dark expression, head bowed.
It was strange. What Olivia had said was too strange.
She'd thought the bullying had some mastermind behind it—understood it, accepted it positively. But it all contradicted now.
She tried dismissing it as Olivia's lies, but memories flashing through her mind cast doubt on her denials.
-What are you doing?
-Ah... well.
Ricardo's startled look when they'd bumped into each other at the shoe lockers by chance.
-What the hell are you doing!
-Oh, you're early today?
The scene of Ricardo scribbling graffiti on a desk in the classroom earlier than usual replayed in her head.
Back then, she'd been furious. Everything pointed to Ricardo's guilt.
The class's ostracism, the whispers—it all felt aimed at her, curses upon her. She'd been hypersensitive, terrified. No room to look back at him. No time to watch what he did, who he was with.
She liked him, yet knew nothing about him. Laughably so.
Slowly, the puzzle pieces clicked in her mind.
From the moment friends started appearing in class one by one, Ricardo stopped approaching, his lonely back turned—now she knew why.
As invitations to eat together grew, Ricardo vanished from the cafeteria—now it made sense.
She'd thought he was avoiding her. That he found her uncomfortable, didn't want to eat with her.
But it was all contradiction.
Why avoid me? Why bully me? Why hate me?
If he'd just told her then, things might have changed. Even a hint would have made a difference...
-Miss Yuria, are you happy with life at the Academy now?
-I'd be if you weren't here.
-I see. Good.
Ah.
Now she understood what Ricardo had said when he was expelled from the Academy.
To others, maybe not—but to her, he'd given a gentle farewell. That greeting finally made sense.
It was all because of her.
Late at night, sitting by her father's bedside, Yuria rubbed her eyes at the hot sensation on her cheek.
"Huh...?"
Tears flowed.
"Why is this...?"
She felt so foolish. Doubting Ricardo. The hatred she'd nursed to the end had been misdirected.
Tears poured out.
"Ah... ahhh..."
Rubbing her eyes did nothing.
Amid tears gleaming in the moonlight, the emotion was less regret than guilt, wrenching sobs from her.
This isn't it. This isn't what I wanted.
Yuria swallowed her sorrow and lifted her head. She needed air. A deep breath to clear the ache in her chest.
To hide her tears from her father, she covered her eyes with her hand and dashed to the balcony.
-Creak.
And then.
"Huh?"
"Miss Yuria?"
She met the one person she least wanted to see right now.
"It's chilly out."
The one who always worried for her—encountered at her weakest moment.
And in that instant.
-Crash.
The shell around Yuria's heart began to crumble in earnest.
■■■ Yuria's Jealousy curse begins to writhe.
-The stopped needle of memory begins to move.