Black History (1)
I hated the quiet nights. Because the silence always dragged up those shameful memories from that day. If only I could turn back time. If only I could fix it all. That treacherous stillness that forced me to relive those pointless regrets filled me with a hatred so intense it made my skin crawl, and it terrified me.
So whenever the world around me threatened to fall silent, I would scream at the top of my lungs. Anything to keep my own voice from being the only thing ringing in my ears. I laughed brightly. I scrunched up my face so I could turn away from the dark past that inevitably rose behind my eyelids. I wore a mask. All so I could hide my shabby, tear-stained, regret-soaked face from everyone else's eyes.
If you want to help a beggar, give him a few coins. If you want to win a beggar's favor, give him half your money. If you want to kill a beggar, give him everything you own.
It was a saying anyone who grew up in the slums would have heard at least once. I was still young back then and couldn't fully grasp its meaning, but I could at least dimly sense the core of it.
A beggar who received a few coins wouldn't have to starve that day. One who received a larger amount wouldn't have to worry about food for a while. But. A beggar who suddenly received an absurdly large sum would inevitably become a target for other beggars eyeing that money. Before long, he'd be forced to live with a burden heavier than any treasure—an ever-present fear that his throat might be slit at any moment.
Beware of unearned kindness. While there may be malice without reason, there is no kindness without an ulterior motive in this world.
It was a rule—or perhaps a law—of the world that seeped into your bones naturally if you rolled around in the slums long enough. No one had to teach it to you.
That was why, when a group of unfamiliar adults suddenly appeared one day and offered to take my sibling and me into their orphanage, I never let my guard down. In truth, they saw us only as puppets to draw in sympathy and donations. Nothing more than tools to make money.
I wasn't particularly upset about it. At the time, I was just grateful that my frail little brother could sleep under a roof. And they would occasionally give us meals, at least enough to keep us from starving to death. If they planned to use us, then we would simply use them right back. That was what I had thought.
They said they were looking for sponsors—customers, so to speak—who would support poor orphans like us. From what I heard, there were eccentric people in this world who couldn't handle their rotting wealth and threw money at those beneath them. The best targets among them were said to be priests who wanted to flaunt their virtue, couples who had lost a child in an accident, and young nobles who didn't know much about the world.
People who scattered their meager goodwill at random, not out of pure kindness, but to fill some void within themselves. They were the perfect cash cows. That was the logic of the people who had taken us in. They called them "suckers."
To me, who had lived my entire life in poverty, the idea of someone giving away their own things to complete strangers for free was an incomprehensible mystery. Still, having occasionally seen old people tossing tasty bread crumbs to pigeons just to ease their boredom, I could roughly understand it even if I couldn't fully accept it.
But. Finding a rich sucker willing to support both of us siblings turned out to be quite the challenge. If it had just been me, maybe it would have been different. But my little brother, Victim, had always been physically weak. On top of that, after wandering through unsanitary environments without proper food, his health was far from good.
No matter how eccentric and wealthy someone was, they wouldn't go out of their way to buy a broken toy or a sick pet. Even my limited mind could understand that much.
So I stubbornly insisted with everything I had. I wouldn't go unless it was with my brother. I refused to go without him. Even if it meant less food and harsher treatment, I believed the only way to protect my one and only blood relative was to do exactly that.
Whenever they tried to send me off for adoption while leaving my brother behind, I would cause a huge scene and throw violent tantrums to deliberately ruin those attempts. It was probably around that time that the people around me started calling me a "little devil."
It wasn't that difficult. All I had to do was mimic the behavior and speech of the thugs I saw so often in the slums. Since I had managed to feed my brother through nothing but begging in those slums filled with all kinds of dangers, I was confident that no one could match my acting skills.
However, even such temporary measures had their limits. After all, they were nothing more than childish tricks. Looking back now, it's honestly a miracle that they worked for as long as they did.
Before long, my sibling and I were on the verge of being separated. And so. Just as I had always been hopeless when it came to using my head, I found myself completely stuck in that desperate situation with no clear answer in sight.
"Hey! You rotten little brats! Some weirdo finally showed up saying he wants to waste money on you siblings!"
That was my first memory of him.
At the time, I was so happy that I wouldn't have to part with my brother that I didn't realize it. But without a doubt, that single moment became the turning point of my life.
"Isn't he a pervert?"
Looking back now, it was an incredibly reckless and ungrateful thing to say. But back then I was more than just immature—I was a wild child who didn't even possess the basic common sense to show gratitude to someone who had shown me kindness. So I felt not even the slightest guilt for spitting out such vicious words.
"Hiding his identity is one thing, but demanding that we take photos and attach them to every handwritten letter? He's definitely some pervert from a noble family who only gets off on little kids."
"Sister... No matter what, saying something like that about the person who's sponsoring us is a bit..."
"What? Who's going to hear it?"
I can hear you. You absolute disaster from my past.
Lately I'd heard that among the younger crowd in the Capital, people were calling the past they wanted to erase from their lives "black history." In my personal opinion, the black history of my life boasted a level of vividness and depth that couldn't even be compared to that of ordinary people.
Even now, whenever fragments of the things I said back then floated into my mind, the urge to bury my face in a mouse hole surged up so strongly I could barely stand it.
"If he had even the slightest confidence in his appearance, he would've sent a self-introduction too. It even says his gender is unknown. He's obviously some fat old man with no one to talk to, trying to fill his self-esteem this way."
Shut up. Please, just shut up.
"I'll even bet on it! If I'm wrong, I'll speak politely to every single person I meet for the rest of my life!"
"Sister... If you keep talking so recklessly like that, one day you're going to get burned badly..."
They say people grow through failure. And that saying was absolutely true. Because from that day's failure, I personally learned the lesson that words should never be thrown around carelessly.
It was roughly half a year after the mysterious person who sponsored us siblings had first appeared. Rather than feeling grateful toward the benefactor who sent us money every month, I instead found him suspicious because his intentions and identity were unclear.
After all, there was no such thing as kindness without a price in this world. Anyone who couldn't hold their head high in front of orphans—the weakest members of society—couldn't possibly be a decent person. The fact that he demanded photos and letters every month had to mean he was plotting something.
Back then, I never let go of the thread of suspicion I held so tightly, not even for a single moment.
"Listen carefully! Victim! Soon enough, this unidentified pervert bastard is going to suddenly ask you to wear revealing clothes or send nude photos under the excuse of checking your health! You must never agree to those demands! We may be poor, but we still have our pride!"
"Well... If that was what he wanted, wouldn't it have been faster and simpler to just buy a slave with that money? Also, Sister. In that case, you should say 'pride,' not 'gaori'..."
"Th-that's not important right now!"
Now, after years of steady study, I possess both an outstanding body and a brilliant mind. But in my childhood, compared to Victim who was gifted in everything, I was a rather dim-witted older sister. In cruder terms, I was an idiot. Though I'm not anymore.
"Remember this! Victim! There is no such thing as a free favor in this world! He must have something he wants from us, that's why he's doing all this!"
"B-but... No matter what his intentions are, thanks to him, you and I get to live well together... Shouldn't we at least be grateful for that...?"
"What are you saying! That's exactly how those types trick people! Mom and Dad did the same thing! They sweet-talked us like that and then ran away in the end! Am I wrong!?"
"Y-yeah... I understand..."
I vaguely remember feeling quite proud of myself for teaching reality to my naive little brother. While I was harshly scolding my brother, who still chased after dreams, I could fool myself into thinking I had already become an adult.
"Never open your heart to him! Just write the letters well enough to keep him in a good mood and nothing more!"
This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but it was only a few years later that I came to think of giving him my heart, my body—everything I had.