Memory Recovery (4)
Memory Recovery (4)
To be naked in front of another person. It is an act that demands considerable resolve.
From the ancient days when Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden until now, human beings have carried the shame of baring their bodies before others.
To reveal one’s body purely as it is, without any lie or deception.
Shedding the cloth that wraps and defends you goes beyond mere undressing and touches upon the abandonment of authority.
An act of casting off one’s pride, anxiety, and rationalizations meant to protect the ego, stripping away one’s own authority in order to share everything with another person.
It cannot happen without considerable trust.
They were sworn siblings who cherished each other like true siblings, like family. Han Jae-jung’s declaration just now was simultaneously a statement of how much he trusted Jo Ah-yoon, and a declaration asking her to trust him just as much.
“...Oppa.”
But it wasn’t without an ulterior motive.
“So... you know.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d really like it if you didn’t bullshit me....”
Jo Ah-yoon laid her own hand over his and murmured wistfully.
“Jae-jung oppa, don’t try to casually slip the amnesia thing past me. I still haven’t accepted that.”
“...Yeah.”
“And I’m curious about how you’re connected to monsters—I wasn’t suspecting that you’ve gone through monsterization. I never said a single word like that. Don’t muddy the point.”
“....”
Han Jae-jung, every last intention seen through in an instant, laughed without a word.
“Jae-jung oppa....”
The affectionate look in her eyes was gradually sharpening. The mood was not one where jokes would land.
“...What do you mean you lost your memory.”
The pressure of the hand she had placed over Han Jae-jung’s slowly began to increase. The hand that had been beneath hers flipped over, palm up, and seized hers in return.
It felt like the warmth of a bird brooding an egg and the chill of a chain at the same time.
“Lost your memory... what do you. What kind of bullshit... you called me Ah-yoon. Senior, too! You talked like you knew us! When you ran off before, saying you didn’t know me, it seemed like you were lying... like it was a lie... everything....”
Jo Ah-yoon was confused.
She knew he was bad at lying. Especially when telling serious lies, he always looked clumsy. But the way he had spoken just now had been endlessly sincere.
He was speaking words that sounded infinitely like a lie as if they were the truth.
Whether what he had just said was true or false, a joke or serious, words meant simply to evade her or words meant to face her.
There was no way at all to know.
She remembered him sleeping rough on a bench beneath the park before. He hadn’t offered any explanation, but that sight was worth a hundred words in letting her guess at his hardship.
At the same time, it let her know just how little he wanted to be involved with her. It meant he would rather sleep outside on a late autumn day than lean on someone he knew.
What was the right path for his sake? She still didn’t really know. She didn’t even know if it was the kind of thing a person could reach an answer for.
She couldn’t even tell if his words right now were meant simply to push her away, or if they were part of a process of growing closer.
Jo Ah-yoon asked as if clinging to him.
“Is it b-because you don’t want to see me...?”
She knew it was an ugly thing to ask. But this one thing, at least, she wanted certainty about.
Han Jae-jung swallowed a sigh and opened his mouth.
“Ah-yoon, I told you. I don’t dislike you. But I don’t know you as well as you know me. That’s why I acted that way. I was embarrassed—embarrassed to act like I knew you when I barely know you. It felt like fraud....”
He shifted his gaze to their joined hands. Her grip had loosened, as if what he had just said had settled her a little.
“...Unfortunately, the amnesia is real.”
“...!”
He heard her breath catch. Ah-yoon’s lips trembled faintly as she asked a new question.
“Then... maybe... by getting tangled up with a monster...?”
“...Probably.”
Bam!
The desk shook again. Jo Ah-yoon’s fist slammed down onto it, sending the various ornaments around the room teetering precariously.
“Those fucking bastards...!”
She made no effort to hide her fury. She bared her teeth, letting the hostility toward monsters she had been building all this time pour out unchecked.
“It’s him, isn’t it—the Big Dipper guy? You ended up like this because you got mixed up with him?”
“....”
Paradoxically, through this truth, the hypothesis that Han Jae-jung had undergone monsterization resurfaced in Jo Ah-yoon’s mind.
“...How exactly did you get mixed up. Huh?”
It had been a possibility that was growing fainter.
That monster’s act of violence against Baek A-hee was the sort of low, vile act that Han Jae-jung would never commit.
And when she had seen him at the hospital before, he had clearly seemed to know Jo Ah-yoon. Because of that, she had jumped to conclusions and felt certain that Han Jae-jung’s memory was fully intact.
But now the doubt had returned. Thanks to his words.
“What exactly is your relationship with him? What kind of relationship makes you end up in that state?!”
A monster’s amnesia erases precisely and only human memories. Interpersonal relationships, past memories, or dreams.
It was similar to Han Jae-jung’s case.
But at the same time, there had been no reported cases of a monster who had lost their memories ever recovering them.
Except for the corruption of a magical girl.
That one, extremely rare case.
Actually, even calling it monsterization in that instance was ambiguous.
Regardless, it was a hypothesis that didn’t apply to Han Jae-jung in the first place.
“...Did you forget this too?”
“Yeah.”
“Hoo....”
Jo Ah-yoon removed one of the hands holding his and moved it to her forehead. A headache was setting in.
‘Just what the hell has this oppa been doing all this time....’
It was absurd.
Their reunion after so long had been a homeless man sleeping rough, the next had been in a hospital, and the new one had been on the hospital rooftop. And on top of all that, it turned out he was actually an amnesiac.
When she thought about how he had really forgotten their memories together, tears threatened to come. Was this how a daughter felt, looking at a mother with dementia?
“You really don’t remember the things we did together?”
“Yeah... most of it....”
“You forgot back when I was in middle school? And all the times we went out and had fun? And all those times we dated?”
“That last one’s bullshit.”
“It’s not like you don’t know everything... what the hell...?”
Still, the fact that he didn’t have no recognition at all was some small comfort.
She swallowed the resentment welling up inside her and forced herself to think coldly.
“Oppa, I’m really sorry for doubting you, but... I’ve got a naturally anxious streak. I’d like some kind of certainty.”
He had definitely gotten involved with a monster.
But had the nature of that involvement been simply as a victim? Or....
Jo Ah-yoon moved her fingers, brushing up along his palm as if tickling him, until she reached his fingertips. She interlaced her fingers between his and squeezed tightly. She linked their fingers together.
She lowered the hand that had been at her forehead and fixed her gaze on him. At the corners of her eyes, still visibly reddened from crying, the faint sheen of tears began to gather again.
“Th-that....”
The declaration that he could confidently show her his naked body meant that he possessed a body with nothing to hide. It was strange. If he had undergone monsterization, there ought to be traces of it.
Maybe his declaration just now had been nothing but a trick. A strategy to project confidence by assuming she would refuse.
Maybe beneath those clothes, there really was a shameful secret lying there that he couldn’t show.
Such thoughts came to her.
“Just 5 minutes... no, 5 minutes is too much... 3 minutes! No... even 1 minute would be fine....”
The trembling at the tips of her laced fingers was so strong that it transmitted to Han Jae-jung as well. Shame had turned her face red, and there were even tears. Ignoring that shame, Jo Ah-yoon, after much hesitation, finished her sentence.
“Let me see you naked.”
A slow silence drifted through the apartment.
What broke the silence was Han Jae-jung’s scoff. A short laugh escaped him, and after a moment’s thought, he opened his mouth.
“...No.”
“Ah, whyyy?!”
Jo Ah-yoon immediately argued back.
“Where did all that bravado from a few minutes ago go—saying you’d show me!”
“On second thought, it’s a little embarrassing. Besides, getting naked because someone asked me to—that makes me look like a lunatic.”
“Stripping on your own makes you even more of a lunatic! Stop jabbering and take them off!”
She tightened her grip on their laced fingers even more. It was no longer an affectionate touch; it had become an interrogation technique.
“Can’t you do this one favor for your darling little sister?”
“I don’t think I can feel very darling right now.”
“Oppa, you trust me, right?”
“I trust you. But you’re the one who doesn’t trust me!”
“You said you’d strip just a second ago! Just take them off! Off, goddammit!!!”
The act of baring one’s naked body demands considerable resolve and trust. The resolve he’d had until just a moment ago evaporated the instant he gave it a second thought.
The reason was simple.
Because he had realized what lay beneath his clothes. Scars that even the restorative power of starlight had not yet fully healed lay there. They were wounds he had no particular desire to show.
Jo Ah-yoon stood up, pulling their laced hands. Han Jae-jung, caught off guard, was dragged forward. His body tipped forward and collapsed onto the table. Without missing the opening, she pushed him down onto the floor. A plush doll she had quickly thrown to the floor cushioned the impact.
Jo Ah-yoon straddled him where he had fallen.
“Did you really think a normal person could win against a magical girl?”
“Just what exactly did our Ah-yoon grow up watching to pull this crap....”
“Obviously, I grew up watching my oppa. Compared to back then, you’ve gotten a bit bigger too, oppa.”
“Yeah, more muscle. Ah-yoon, I’m heavy, so how about you get off me now?”
“No.”
Slowly, she lowered her hand and gripped the hem of his top.
“This is my right to confirm, just like you said earlier. I’m only exercising that right.”
She wasn’t wrong. Han Jae-jung closed his eyes, regretting his slip of the tongue.
Moreover, Jo Ah-yoon’s suspicion had only been amplified by Han Jae-jung’s resistance just now. Her hesitation was gone. A curse-laced rebuke came from her mascot, asking if she’d gone insane, but she ignored it.
“There’s nothing to see—”
She slowly pushed his top upward. The instant her hand stopped, it was because of the starkly different color of the skin that came into view.
In that moment, her jewel flashed. She would likely hear a voice too. Startled, her body froze.
“...Ah.”
Not missing the chance while she was stunned, Han Jae-jung grabbed Jo Ah-yoon by the waist, lifted her body, and set her down to the side. Only then was he able to escape her perverse clutches.
“A dispatch alert?”
“Uh, uhh... y-yeah, well.”
“Then go.”
“Oppa, those scars just now, what?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
He straightened his clothes and grinned sheepishly.
“Scars I’ve had for a long time.”
“....”
No, they weren’t. The urge to say that never materialized and sank quietly inside her. She didn’t know what kind of hardship he’d gone through in all the years she hadn’t seen him, but.
Jo Ah-yoon was certain that whatever that suffering had been, it had probably exceeded anything she could imagine.
When she tried to move her hand toward the place where she had just seen the scars, his hand caught hers. Startled, she looked up.
“Ah... um....”
Han Jae-jung smiled as if asking her not to ask anything. At that smile, Jo Ah-yoon couldn’t say a word.
“Hurry up and go.”
An unending stream of support requests rang out from her jewel, and the still afternoon sunlight pierced through the window, pouring down onto them. The slightly red-tinged sunlight announced that evening was drawing near.
“Th-then, stay right here, don’t go anywhere els... no, that sounds weird.”
She scrambled to her feet and dashed toward her room. When she came bustling back breathlessly, a memo was in her hand.
“Hah... hah... this... is my number, okay? It hasn’t changed since before, but... I thought you might have forgotten.”
She placed the memo with her number onto his hand, then laid her own hand over his once more.
“Call me when you miss me. No, just be sure to! Call... got it? My personal wish is that you call me the moment my shift ends, and....”
Trailing off, she whirled around, her face reddened either by her own emotions or the sunset, and ran toward the window.
A strong gust of wind swept through the room, and then she was a bird, crossing the sky.
Han Jae-jung stared blankly at her departure, then abruptly came to his senses and stood up.
“She’s still such a scatterbrain....”
He closed the window she had flung wide open for her exit.
And only a few minutes later, the sound of the front door closing echoed through the empty apartment.
**
It had been a dizzying day. Han Jae-jung reflected on it that way.
A disorienting day in which ties from his past had all come crashing in at once.
As he walked along the street, he quietly looked down at the phone number on the memo. The fact that the number looked familiar made it sink in that she really had kept the same number all those years.
He’d heard that magical girls changed their numbers often because they got leaked so frequently, but hers had been the same for years. Ever since she was a kid. She’d grown a bit taller, but the number hadn’t changed.
Probably, so he could reach her.
If she changed it, Han Jae-jung would be in trouble if he ever tried to contact her.
A bitter taste lingered in his mouth.
‘You crazy bastard. What the hell were you doing that you never once called....’
Cursing his past self, he walked the evening streets. It was a fair distance to his house, looking to be a long journey.
Against the backlight of the gradually reddening sky, a lone meteor traced a sharp, curving line. Like ripples blooming on a pond, it dimly parted the clouds and drew a red streak.
That streak was gradually drawing closer in his direction.
“Crazy bitch.”
Kwaaaaang!
The road where the meteor struck split apart with a violent crack. For several seconds, rapid vibrations shook the area—shattering windows and cracking the walls—and then a woman walked out from within the rising smoke.
On closer inspection, calling her a human woman was a bit of a stretch.
Purple wings spread wide, parting the smoke.
“Was that about me? Oh my~ Not a bad introduction.”
“Seeing as you’re happy to get insulted, I guess your tastes are pretty obvious.”
“Hyah, you know how to say stuff like that too?”
Han Jae-jung checked the surroundings for any Crimson-Winged Crows. Fortunately, there were none. If she had been suspicious enough to go that far, she might as well have planted one. He sighed at Pink Deneb’s soft heart. She had probably ultimately given up, bothered by the idea of acting like a stalker.
Relieved by that, Han Jae-jung moved his hand toward his Belt.
“It’s been a while, Virgo.”
“It has~ Has it been a month?”
“It hasn’t been a month yet.”
“Hm? Hasn’t it? It feels like it might have been~”
Virgo grinned and asked.
“So, have you felt like heading toward the destruction of the world together with me yet?”
“Transform.”
It wasn’t worth listening to.
[ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATION.]
[THE BIG DIPPER.]
[ORIGIN.]
A power half-complete—possessing an origin, but no memory.
Listening to the name of a constellation not yet fully formed, Han Jae-jung stepped forward.