It Was Your Mistake — 3
When evening came, Hyungkesuni appeared with an armful of undergarments. Where she had gathered them from, I couldn't say.
Most of them, of course, were kinds I already knew. How could I not? Think how many people's light I have licked since I came to this world.
So I tried on the pieces she had brought, one after another. Unfortunately, almost none of them fit. I worked my way through several, and every one left my chest tight and uncomfortable. At that, Hyungkesuni glanced down at her own chest and let out a small sigh. Then she stepped in beside me and ran her hands over the pure-white dress I was wearing.
She felt the cloth a few times, nicked the hem with a fingernail and worked a thread loose to test the weave, set it back down, and asked me:
"Can't you make them, the way you made the clothes you're wearing?"
Ah. Right. There was that. The clothes I had on now were something I had made myself.
I set the underwear down and pushed myself into myself.
Cracks opened across my skin. Through them I could see a black space, and a dark-violet mist came spilling out. It is a place I must never move in carelessly, so until now I had only watched. This time was different.
I straightened my index finger and tried to slip it in. It would not go all the way. If anything, I felt skin. So it had not truly split, after all.
Still, Hyungkesuni—don't you think it is a bit much to tell me to do this and then flee to the far side of the room the instant the mist starts leaking? Take a lesson from Joanna, who is standing right there, quietly watching.
I looked at Joanna, seated nearby as if none of this were anything unusual, and turned my focus to making clothes.
But far from producing any clothes, the mist only wavered, thin and drifting.
So this was not the way?
I took hold of the underwear. How had I dressed myself before? I drew the memory forward and thought carefully. What mattered was not the solid thing in front of me. I had to look at the difference—at how I had come to be wearing it. It was simply supposed to be here. So why was I trying to make it?
Yes.
I was wearing underwear fitted to my size. And there was underwear in my hand as well.
I understood the method. I was not making something new. It did not mean producing an object out of the mist. I could change worlds the way one changes clothes—into a world where that thing's being there was simply a matter of course.
Then shall I try something else?
There is an object that left my hand a very long time ago, and yet must never be apart from me.
I said that the phone was in my hand.
Crack.
A black fissure spread across my hand, as if glass were breaking.
"What are you doing!"
Hyungkesuni shouted from far away. A deep blue-black light was drawn up into her arms, and around herself she raised a transparent veil.
So she has a barrier, too.
Hyungkesuni, I could let that pass. What stung more was that I could not close my hand around the phone. If I did this properly, I could hold it.
I could hold it this very moment.
Crack.
No. All I can do is grip.
The harder I tried, the wider the crack grew in the empty air above my hand. It was as if some enormous weight were more than the surface could bear, and it was splitting. If I was not careful, this place would shatter like a window struck by a stone.
What a shame.
If I could not hold it, I had to shake it off.
The black lines that had been spreading from my grip began to close, slowly stitching themselves shut as if a wound were healing, and then they vanished. In the end every crack was gone. And of course nothing remained in my hand.
I could not tell whether complex objects were impossible, or whether it was objects that do not exist in this world. And I did not think I ought to try this carelessly again. On the surface the cracks had all disappeared, but through a sensation I could not put into words, I could feel that the place was terribly fragile.
Am I that heavy?
The cold sea certainly is. But that place is a strange space—an endless sea, an infinite night sky, and the stars above them. That is all. Or perhaps there is more, and I simply cannot see it. There are several possibilities. That it is heavy, though—of that I am certain.
I decided I would think about such things once I returned to the sea.
Hyungkesuni was still wrapped in that transparent membrane, watching me with a tense face. I gestured to her.
"I'm done. I can't make complex objects, Hyungkesuni."
"If you're going to do something like that, tell me first."
She let the transparent barrier around her thin and scatter. Blue-black mist lingered in the air afterward.
I could not tell whether she still did not trust me and was keeping herself ready to defend, or whether it was only residue left after the magic. I do not know her heart precisely. But I can read a face.
She came toward me with a thin, crooked grin. Afraid of me—and still, she came. Then she pointed at my body.
"Why don't you put some clothes on first? Are you planning to stand around in your underwear?"
I shook my head.
And I changed into comfortable sleepwear. The clothes Rebecca Rolf used to wear when she wanted to be most at ease.
"Ah……"
A regretful little sound came from beside me. I turned my head and found Joanna looking at my clothes as if the sight pained her.
What was the matter?
Then Hyungkesuni made a noise that was almost a laugh, as if she could not believe what she was seeing. When my gaze and Joanna's both landed on her, she looked at Joanna and spoke.
"Joanna. If you start thinking of Rebecca as something like your own child, you're going to regret it badly later."
A child? I studied Joanna's expression. She did look regretful, but I could see nothing like a mother's feeling.
"I do not regard Lady Rebecca in that way, Lady Hyungkesuni."
See? Joanna says so herself.
Hyungkesuni stared at her.
"If not, then fine. So take this as nothing more than an old woman's fretting. Joanna Smith. Do not forget that this one is an Outer God who has entered a human body."
Hyungkesuni was saying something true. I am inside a human body. I was human once, but I am not human anymore.
Hm?
"An Outer God?"
Me? On what grounds?
I pointed at myself and looked at Hyungkesuni. At my question she flinched, like someone caught doing something she should not.
Then, quietly slipping her gaze away from me, she said:
"I needed a name to call you by. So I named you an Outer God—a god who came from outside this world."
"So that's why you said Outer God? I'm not a god."
Yes. If I had not heard it, that would be one thing. But I did hear it, so I have to deny it.
Because I really am not a god. I make it a rule not to lie. I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent. As a god, I fall short in a great many ways.
"If you say so, then I suppose that's how it is. But since it's come to this, I'll ask. Do you have a god as well?"
She was asking not Rebecca Rolf, but the me inside her. Did I have a god? Once, I did. Back when I was human, I had a religion. Not a feverish faith like the ones people keep in a place like this—an ordinary, common religion—but I believed.
Not anymore.
That vanished inside a scream that made no sound. It melted away into that sea, which was nothing but dark and cold.
So there was only one answer.
"No."
I answered clearly. There is no such thing.
"I see. Well then, there shouldn't be any problem with giving you the title of Outer God."
Wait. How does that follow?
"I'm not a god."
"But if you have no god, then you are something close to one. I am speaking from our understanding, of course. Not from yours."
Then is every atheist a god?
The question circled just behind my lips, but I forced it down. I ought to refrain from speaking like someone who knows how to use wisdom.
At least for now.
But—Outer God.
I can understand the meaning. She is not talking about the gods of madness from the false mythology I know. If anything, the nuance is closer to alien. Not that I am an Englishman in New York.
Alien means stranger.
Then there is nothing I cannot accept. It does grate. The word lays bare a wish to refuse me forever. But what can I do? It is true that I came from outside.
"Or is there a reason you refuse to be called a god?"
At those words, I swallowed what I had been about to say.
Why do I want so badly to argue?
I still don't really know.
Right. Then I have no reason.
"I don't."
"Then that is what we will call you. The Nameless Outer God."
So that is how it is going to be.
But it is better than a curse of a name like Ksaxibal.
I can faintly see why she wants to draw the line.
"Do you dislike Rebecca Rolf?"
"That would be the name of your body. We call you Rebecca for now, but that is a person's name, is it not?"
That is true.
The name of a girl who was kidnapped by the Church of Future Hope and died a violent, wretched death. The name of the body I am using. So it is not my name.
All right. In that case.
If she is going to insist to that extent.
I will accept the name Outer God.
"Yes. That's right. From now on, use that as the word for me, Hyungkesuni."
Hyungkesuni blinked at me, then carefully backed away from where I stood. She retreated while looking at me with a smile spread across her whole face.
Which is another way of saying a face full of fear.
Of course, I have no intention of scattering madness over other people, and no intention of fastening to myself adjectives like indescribable, or not to be named. I do not even know how one would do such a thing in the first place.
I am not smart. To that same degree, my logic is extremely simple.
I need warmth.
"Then, Hyungkesuni. Is there something you'd like to ask of the Outer God in front of you?"
Isn't a thing called a god because there is something you want to ask of it? If not, then no matter how strong it was, you would simply call it a monster.
But Hyungkesuni shook her head.
Hmph.
Fine. That chance has sailed. Then shall I ask Joanna, who happens to be right beside me?
"What about you, Joanna? If I were a god, what wish would you make?"
Joanna considered my question for a moment, then made her wish.
"Please eat a little more. You are eating far too little right now."
Oh. That?
Mmm. Mm. Mmmmm.
"I-I'll try."
If I eat a lot, my stomach feels awful, though……
At my answer, Joanna nodded with a satisfied look. For some reason Hyungkesuni was staring blankly at the two of us, but I was in a bad mood, so I pretended not to notice.
Calling me an Outer God. How could she say something so mean!