Yun Ayoung Has Already Gone Mad

"If I'd heard that seven years ago, it would've been nice."

".....What?"

I remember it as seven years ago.

That day. The day we graduated from the Academy.

I had confessed to Ayoung.

"What did you say back then? That you liked the party you were in?"

"....I'm sorry."

"No. I liked our party too."

The day after I confessed, seeing Ayoung at the party had been so damn embarrassing.

Still, I pretended nothing was wrong and muddled through, and eventually we ended up back together anyway.

Maybe neither of us had been all that sincere about it.

Or maybe we'd just deliberately tried not to think about it.

"At this point it's a memory that doesn't even mean anything."

"Then..."

"But Ayoung."

Even if it was a meaningless memory.

There was still a heart left inside it.

"Back then I definitely loved you. I loved you."

"....Sunwoo-nim."

"But not anymore."

"........."

Time had passed.

Far too many years had passed.

So now I could finally say it.

"You're a really good comrade, Ayoung."

".........."

Ayoung lowered her head.

I had no idea what she was thinking.

But as a comrade, I was simply doing what I could for her.

"...Is that."

A stretch of silence.

Ayoung fumbled for the words and continued.

"Is that...because I lost my virginity?"

"That's part of it, yeah."

I didn't deny it.

"Is it because I got pregnant with someone else's child?"

"That's right too."

I didn't deny it.

"Then...if I get rid of the baby in my belly, will you look at me again?"

"No."

I denied that.

"...So I really am just a dirty bitch, then?"

"That's not it."

I denied her words.

"............"

She looked lost.

Tears dripping steadily, Ayoung stared at me.

What was I supposed to say?

There was plenty I wanted to say, but no way to say it without hurting her.

Whatever I said would wound her, and those wounds would come back to me as pure responsibility.

"Ayoung."

If.

Just if.

Even if somehow I...

"We're comrades, right?"

"........."

"The same way you treated me as a comrade, I'm only treating you as a comrade."

"....That's..."

If I'd dated Ayoung, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it would have been different, I suppose.

"That's...that's strange."

Ayoung rejected what I'd said.

Shaking her head, she stretched a hand toward me.

"Is it because we're comrades? Because we're comrades, you came to see me every single day?"

Really with no ulterior motive at all.

Just because we're comrades, you're doing all this for me?

Faced with Ayoung's delusion-soaked words, I nodded and agreed.

"Because you're my precious comrade. For a comrade, nothing's too much."

"It's strange...that is clearly strange!"

Ayoung still refused it.

Or maybe she was accepting it in her own way.

"The unnies—none of the other unnies came! Only you, Sunwoo-nim, came to find me!"

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠party had disbanded.

Everyone had their own things to do,

and in the middle of all that, only I had gone to see Ayoung.

She could get the wrong idea.

But Ayoung. I've been saying it over and over.

"You're a comrade and a friend I care about."

"Even if we're comrades, even if we're friends...!"

"A Spirit Contractor doesn't lie."

"Ugh....!!"

Confusion filled her eyes.

I waited for Ayoung, and she said nothing, only rubbed the belly that had already begun to swell.

"Is it...because of this?"

"Yeah."

"If I get rid of this, will you look at me again?"

"Even if you don't get rid of it, I'll keep looking at you."

"That would be as a comrade, right?"

"Of course. We'll always be good comrades."

"....Uuugh!"

Rip.

She clenched her fists and tore at the blanket.

The gesture of someone who hated what she was hearing. Frustration and a gut that was burning up.

"I don't understand....I, I don't understand. What you want from me, I just...my head can't figure it out...!"

"Well. Maybe you already know."

"I don't know. I don't know, I said!"

"Ayoung."

"──!"

I took Ayoung's face in both hands and lifted it.

The head that had been pointed at the floor the whole time—I brought her eyes level with mine and made her look.

"......Sunwoo-nim."

"Can you see?"

Ayoung.

I know you're going through hell.

But that's all it is.

"..........."

Ayoung stared into my eyes without a word.

The dazed expression slowly twisted.

The face that had looked ready to shatter completely broke apart and melted downward.

Tears soaked it and spilled over in thick drops.

But my face, my expression, remained strangely calm.

Or more precisely...

"Hic...sob....!"

The face of someone who felt sorry that something bad had happened to a comrade, that was about it.

"Huuu....hwaaaaaah....!!"

The expression reflected in Ayoung's eyes

could never be taken for the face of a man who had lost his lover.

A little time later.

Ayoung stared up at the ceiling with both eyes swollen shut.

"Want an apple?"

"....Yes."

Still wet with tears, she took the apple and ate it.

Chewing slowly, she ate what she was given.

"...May I ask a question?"

"Ask as many as you want."

Ayoung forcing herself into formal speech so she wouldn't fall apart again.

I sat in the chair with Seiren cradled in my arms and waited for whatever came next.

"Can we...start over?"

"Interesting proposal."

She wanted to start from the beginning again.

Since the party had already blown up, she wanted to start again even from friendship, she meant.

"But it's impossible, Ayoung."

"...Because I'm a dirty bitch?"

"It's a more fundamental problem than that."

Was it really okay to show her this?

I hesitated a moment, then decided that after coming this far there was nothing left to hold back.

"Can you see this?"

"That is.....ngh, aaaaaah...!!"

Photos.

Pictures of Ayoung and the villain together.

Ayoung's body trembled as she flinched away, trying to push them out of sight,

but—

"Ayoung. You're smiling right now."

"What....?"

The body can't lie.

The experience that had already been branded into her once, the perception, the conditioning—even now that the brainwashing had been stripped away, it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still affecting her.

"Pretty weird, isn't it? The person who treated you so roughly, and you still smile when you see him..."

"N-no...no...I, I've never smiled like that....!"

"Ayoung."

I asked her while still smiling myself.

"Want me to get rid of the baby for you?"

"What?"

"It's a kid you were forced to carry after being raped anyway. A criminal's child with zero love in it."

"That's...th....."

"Don't worry. There's a reason Spirit Contractors are Spirit Contractors. I'll end it painlessly in one go."

"That....ngh...huuuuh...?!"

I slowly raised mana.

Looking ready to do the deed at any second.

"If it's a brat that doesn't even deserve to live, wouldn't it be fine to kill it right now?"

I stretched a hand toward Ayoung's belly.

Waves of mana that looked ready to overflow any second, surging and writhing.

And just as they were about to touch her lower belly—

"Wait a second! E-even so, something like that...."

"Yeah."

Ayoung instinctively raised mana and blocked it.

"That's exactly why."

".....!"

Ayoung flinched hard.

I nodded calmly.

"After the mass pregnancy incident, almost every female student got rid of the baby. The ones who'd been kidnapped right then, too."

There were a few who didn't terminate, but every single one of them was full of regret and still torn up about it to this day.

But—Ayoung wasn't like that.

Within a few days she was already recovering, eating apples, smiling and joking, even comfortable enough to confess.

Why do you think that is?

"...Just because I smile on the outside doesn't mean I'm smiling inside."

"Ayoung. I think I told you this before."

A Spirit Contractor can't lie,

and spirits hate lies most of all.

"Because lies leave stains on a person's soul."

And hypnosis and brainwashing are the same.

"Things that affect the soul directly. Things that make the soul lose its original pure form."

Spirits hate that intensely.

"What...are you even talking about right now...."

"Just. It's late to be saying this now, but."

Why

I

for what reason

"Do you know why I said okay when everyone submitted their withdrawal papers from the party?"

"That's...."

"Because all of you were pure."

"........."

Whether pure about love.

Pure about honor.

Pure about wealth.

Whatever it was, you all wanted to leave the party purely.

"I truly respected the two of them. I could feel that they loved each other and wanted each other purely."

That's why the spirits never said a word all that time.

That's why I could trust them and leave it in their hands too.

Even if—at some point it started to get stained, like the plan had gone wrong.

And Hecate had even given me a warning because of it.

But how can a human being live completely pure all the time?

I just mistook it for a passing tremor, the kind of confusion that comes when you realize you've got a netorare fetish.

In reality it was nothing of the sort. They had been so sincere with each other that even I, a Spirit Contractor, hadn't noticed.

"No...it's not like that! I, I'm not like that...!"

"At first it might have been hypnosis."

When it started.

How it started. I don't know.

But even so, if there's one thing I can still say—

"A few days ago. You remember when I put Seiren in your arms?"

"!,....Yes. I remember....

...Ah....?"

A look like she'd suddenly realized something.

"Hypnosis and brainwashing affect a person's soul, so spirits hate them."

"......Ah."

I repeated what I'd said earlier.

"And."

Spirits hate lies.

Therefore.

"Spirits don't lie either."

"Aaaaaah....!!"

That Ayoung's soul was pure.

That even after being brainwashed, even after being hypnotized, she was still pure.

And what that meant—we both understood far too well.

"Ayoung. Can you see this on the phone screen?"

A photo I'd taken sometime.

In the picture with the villain and the porter ajusshi—

"You were making an expression I'd never seen before."

"Aaaaaaaaah!!!"

Ayoung was wearing an utterly captivating smile.

The smile of a woman in love.

"...Maybe I shouldn't have said it."

Too late now, but.

Leaning against the hospital room door, I quietly let out a breath.

That might have been a little too much.

No.

Maybe what I did was worse than just driving a knife in.

I'd even cut off the last excuse she could have used to run away.

"............"

I quietly placed a hand over my heart.

A heartbeat thumping a little faster than usual.

I hadn't lied.

I just might not have told the whole truth.

And maybe I'd spoken that harshly to Ayoung to hide it....maybe.

"....Tsk."

What the hell had I even been trying to do?

Dragging spirits into it and digging into the insides of a girl who was already suffering enough.

I knew there wasn't a single normal person among Spirit Contractors.

I was the perfect example.

So what else could I do?

Just doing what I could as a comrade, and as the party leader.

Just in case, I sent Hyewon the materials I'd been keeping.

"I don't know if I should call this lucky or not."

In the end this was all just reaping what I'd sown.

With this, had I finished my role as party leader?

Just as I let out another small breath—

—Knock knock.

"...Alright."

The knock from outside the hospital room.

I slowly opened the door and stepped inside.

"...Sunwoo-nim."

Ayoung had the expression of someone who had let something go, and she came toward me with both arms open.

"Ah...."

"Sorry."

I didn't hug her.

Ayoung stared at me blankly.

"...If I had confessed seven years ago, would something have been a little different?"

"Who knows. I wouldn't know."

"It probably would have been different. Like that Harin-ssi, was it? The way she was saved."

".........."

Ayoung ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slowly returned to her seat and sat down.

An exhausted face. An expression that had given up.

One hand was gently stroking the swollen belly the whole time.

"...Want an apple?"

"..........."

The stroking hand stopped.

Her head dropped even lower.

Looking down at the rounded lower belly.

"It's okay now...."