Memory Recovery (8)
Memory Recovery (8)
Yesterday, Red Vega heard shocking news.
It was about Han Jae-jung’s past.
A shameful secret he had hidden even during counseling, a process meant to look deep into the inner self.
“So! The bastard was trash who got a superiority complex through his magical-girl girlfriend!”
Despite Pink Deneb’s plea, White Dabih told Red Vega everything she knew about Han Jae-jung.
“...I see. Thank you, Dabih.”
“You may call me Haru-chan! Weaver Girl!”
Red Vega groaned deeply, her mind in turmoil. White Dabih, pleased that she had been helpful, went on in an affectionate tone.
“You be careful too, Weaver Girl! Such psychopaths do not change easily! Through counseling, he will worm his way into your vulnerable heart, put down roots, and then manipulate you!”
“I... was the counselor, though....”
“That is also dangerous! He will use his weakness to arouse your sympathy so he can become more deeply entangled with you!”
“He hasn’t... contacted me even once in days....”
“That is also dangerouuuus!!! It is push and pull! Push and pull! An insidious tactic to make Weaver Girl dependent on him!”
It was a story she could hardly believe.
Han Jae-jung had been the famous Blue Sirius’s boyfriend.
Even back when Red Vega was in elementary school, before she spent much time online, she had known about the incident.
She remembered the TV news covering it from various angles.
Later, once she was well-acquainted with the internet, she had never gone out of her way to look up the scandal.
To Red Vega, who was a fan of most magical girls in the world, Blue Sirius was also someone she adored.
Occasional trolls would bring up ‘that bastard’s’ story, but she mostly ignored it and moved on.
Just as few people deliberately dredge up a likable celebrity’s old scandal, Blue Sirius was a magical girl who enjoyed national goodwill.
The public image of her as a victim was, in fact, so strong that bringing up her past relationship risked becoming secondary victimization, so people were careful about it.
Thus, Red Vega knew the outline of the incident and the existence of ‘that bastard,’ but she did not know the details. The incident was nearly six years old, after all.
She knew about some leaked chat logs and the school-violence record, but she hadn’t known his face or name.
Now, however, the knowledge White Dabih had just shared allowed her to connect Han Jae-jung to the vicious boyfriend from that love affair.
“...Really... Jae-jung did...?”
“Sniff sniff, Weaver Girl has already been gaslighted... It is all right, Weaver Girl! There are plenty of men in the world! With Weaver Girl’s face and status, you can take your pick....”
“That’s not what this is.”
She answered coldly, but White Dabih remained cheerful.
“Weaver Girl! Find a better man! No to violent gaslighting men!!!”
Red Vega could not welcome the scarlet-letter epithets that were now stuck to Han Jae-jung’s name. She could not accept them with satisfaction. She was uncomfortable.
“W-well, he never showed any violent side in front of me... um, sh-showed... a-any....”
Something gave her pause, so she could not deny it outright. Red Vega rubbed her stomach with her hand. It was a habit she had developed from teasing him while he was hospitalized.
“A-anyway, he didn’t show it!”
“Weaver Girl. Even those famous old-world mass murderers were said to be warm to those around them! Ningen have two sides! They can show a face like a devil to someone!”
Red Vega flinched. Her shoulders trembled. The image of him as Watcher rose in her memory.
But she shook her head firmly and denied these temptations.
“All ningen are devils! Akuma wearing angel’s wings! Kyaa, did I not say something rather cool just now?! Boku, kakkoiiii!!!”
If what Han Jae-jung had done was true, then this slander was justified. But if it was false...
Pink Deneb’s agitated reaction told her that something had really happened in that past love affair.
That what the public knew was not the whole truth.
Red Vega made up her mind.
She would remain neutral, at least until Pink Deneb returned today and explained the circumstances.
‘If what he did turns out to be true...’
What should she do? How should she treat him? No, he wasn’t the only problem. Blue Sirius. The kind older sister who had looked after her so much. How could she face her?
‘Deneb-unnie told me not to tell Sirius-unnie...’
She didn’t yet know the full picture, but she could guess why. If a lover with such a complicated history was receiving suicide counseling, it would be confusing.
At the same time, she wondered whether it was morally right not to tell Blue Sirius, the person most deeply involved.
In the end, it was an unanswerable problem.
In times like this, it was easier to just do as she was told.
“Weaver Girl, do not be too sad. You have an irreplaceable soul tomodachi... you have me!”
Red Vega prayed that Pink Deneb would return quickly and explain everything.
And now, she stood here in front of Han Jae-jung.
The reason was simple.
She hadn’t heard a single explanation from Pink Deneb. After fighting consecutive fierce battles, Deneb had needed rest. She had wanted it herself.
She had apologized, saying she was sorry and would tell her later.
The fuel for her curiosity had moved further away. The frustration was unbearable.
So, she had decided to come here, to Han Jae-jung’s house.
She had his address from the counseling questionnaire, after all!
**
“Are you sure your heart has found its home? If so, I’ll go find my own home now.”
“Your actions are not very kind. And they’re stirring up unkind feelings in my heart. Showing up at someone’s house without a word is rude.”
When she tried to come in naturally, I blocked her entry by barring the gap with my arm.
Red Vega tilted her head. She seemed to protest, as if to say, what kind of nonsense is that?
“Given our relationship?”
“Tsk, don’t speak so casually.”
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play it?”
She grabbed the arm I had braced against the wall with both hands and pulled it to her stomach. The faint warmth of her body seeped through the thick fabric of her coat.
“...Really, you won’t let me in?”
I desperately clamped my mouth shut before I could ask how long she planned to milk this. It was my own karma, so I had to take it.
“Really~?”
She moved both hands gripping my arm slightly—up, down, left, right—and then faster. At the same time, she drew her body even closer. Her coat wrinkled under my hands.
When she tried to slip a hand through a gap in the coat, I quickly pulled my arm free.
“Ah-ah. No teasing adults.”
“I’ll be an adult myself in a month, so what.”
“Just because you’re going to die someday doesn’t mean you lie there dead right now. Right now, you’re a brat.”
At those words, Red Vega’s lips curled up into a wide grin.
“Yes. That’s right. Right now, I’m a brat.”
Then, like a villain revealing their true identity in a comic, she chuckled darkly and grabbed the hem of her coat.
“Do you know what’s under this coat?”
“What. A crop top? You must be cold in this weather.”
“No. Are you a pervert, Jae-jung? You didn’t sexually harass Sirius-unnie like that, did you? You shouldn’t have.”
I only said it because I’d seen her walking around with her midriff out in the original work... it’s truly sad that such concern gets treated as simple sexual harassment.
Just as I was swallowing this sadness, Red Vega unbuttoned the top button of her coat. She leaned her upper body forward, pulled the opening apart with her hand, and let me see the clothes she had on underneath.
“...I-I’m wearing my school uniform.”
“Ah, yes. A very wholesome outfit befitting your age.”
What was the point of this.
“If you keep refusing me right now, I’ll take off my coat and cry in front of your door. If you don’t want people seeing you tussling with a high school girl in winter...”
“Come in like a comet.”
I let her inside immediately. People living in a monster-danger zone might all be weirdos, but I didn’t want to be branded an even bigger weirdo by those weirdos.
Even more so, I didn’t want to be branded a pervert.
“Mm... it’s quite... a vintage room! It feels so stable!”
“Just don’t comment on the room.”
“Why. The place I lived in a long time ago was just like this.”
While she was looking around the room, she flinched in surprise at the bloodstains on the floor.
“That, that’s...”
“It’s my blood. Don’t worry about it.”
“Phew, I thought for a second you’d brought home some other magical girl and beaten her up~ I almost got jealous!”
“Why would that make you jealous...”
“Because it means someone else grabbed a weakness on you besides me!”
“You’re revealing your sinister desires more and more openly. You don’t do this to your fellow magical girls, do you? You shouldn’t.”
I threw her earlier sarcasm right back at her.
“For the record, I don’t have tea or anything. Just water, at best...”
“It’s fine! I brought some!”
Red Vega smiled and pulled a packet of powdered cocoa from her bag.
“You’re certainly thorough. Give it here. I’ll have it boiled up in no time.”
As I filled the kettle with water, I glanced sideways at Red Vega. She had started to take off her coat, only to be struck by the unheated cold air and wrap it around herself again.
The sight was so absurd and yet so endearing that I laughed. The uniform I had glimpsed was an ordinary blazer, shirt, and tie.
Seeing a school uniform after so long brought back old memories.
Seol-hwa had been so pretty back then.
I had wanted to stay with her, at least until graduation.
In the end, I got my high school diploma through a qualification exam.
I wanted to trace more memories, but they existed only as scars. As I dreamed of a puzzle with nothing but lines and no picture, grieving and sinking blankly into melancholy, the sound of boiling water came from the kettle.
A piercing whine, like tinnitus.
I mixed the cocoa in a cup and twisted my dry lips open.
“You’re curious about my past? About when I dated Seol-hwa?”
“Huh? Yes, y-yes! That’s right... J-Jae-jung, I heard that, um, you used to torment and abuse Sirius-unnie... that you were a really, really bad guy...”
“You heard that?”
I laughed and placed the cocoa in front of her.
“They described me pretty accurately.”
“Huh... huh?!”
“A guy who ghosted a breakup is a bad guy, isn’t he.”
I placed just hot water in front of myself.
“Then I’ll explain. What really happened.”
**
He calmly revealed the truth behind that love affair.
The measures he had taken for Blue Sirius, who had been hounded by the incident.
The fabricated articles, the disappearance.
In a detached tone, as if reading a book, he recounted the facts in a calm but deep voice. By the time the hour hand moved from 11 to 12, the story had ended.
Red Vega quietly ruminated on the truth he had revealed.
“That must have been... so hard for you.”
“How hard could it have been for me. The ones who had a hard time because a guy like me disappeared—they suffered more.”
She realized the gap between the Han Jae-jung she had seen so far and the past Han Jae-jung she had heard about from others.
From the very beginning, he had been made to look that way. He had been meticulously sculpted so that people would see him and curse him, see him as a bad guy.
The marble of truth had been chiseled, painted, and turned into a gaudy statue as a sleight of hand.
She also realized why this truth had never come to light until now.
If one of the people who knew the truth revealed it, a fabrication controversy would erupt, and the facts would quickly be ascertained.
But the problem lay in why this fabrication had been committed in the first place.
The favoritism controversy surrounding Blue Sirius had been the origin of the entire incident. If she took Han Jae-jung’s side again, it would only rekindle the favoritism controversy and make things harder for her.
It wouldn’t end the pain—it would prolong it.
Moreover, it would nullify his resolve and disgrace both Blue Sirius and Han Jae-jung all over again. It would even focus the public eye back on him, a man who shunned attention, inflicting suffering beyond words.
‘And knowing Sirius-unnie’s personality... she would have thought he was suffering because of her, so she deliberately didn’t go looking for him.’
For a time, she would have wanted to give Han Jae-jung time to manage his pain. She must have thought that one reason he left was that she had made him angry.
“...May I ask one more thing?”
“What is it?”
“Why... didn’t you go back? If you broke up that way, then neither you nor Unnie... could have been at peace.”
For all she knew, Blue Sirius might still be in pain. Red Vega asked carefully.
“Indeed. Why didn’t I.”
His voice had changed slightly. Unlike the placid tone from just before, there was a trace of saltiness, a sorrow like a sea breeze.
“...The time has already gotten away from us. You should have lunch. I should start getting...”
“Ah, yes, yes! You’re right, I know a great place—I’ll take you there!”
“Ah... well...”
Han Jae-jung smiled bitterly.
“I don’t think we can eat together. I have something to do from now on.”
“What do you mean you have something to do—you were sleeping until 11!”
“Yes, you’re right. Actually, I just want to rest. And I haven’t washed yet; if I go out, I’ll need some time to get ready. I’d feel bad making you wait. My body’s soaked in sweat since yesterday. You must be disgusted too, right, Vega? Sorry, I’m a little out of sorts.”
“J-Jae-jung, you don’t smell, probably...? Ah, let me just take a sniff.”
“No, there’s no need to go that far...”
Suddenly, she drew her face close. Han Jae-jung recoiled in alarm.
“I-I smell like sweat too!...Do you want to take a sniff?”
Red Vega grinned, then stepped firmly on his leg with her foot. The foot gradually began to creep up his leg and slyly climb toward his stomach.
“Please, Vega... don’t talk cheap nonsense. Don’t talk bullshit.”
“Why did you correct yourself? And don’t ignore my warm consideration in trying to teach you that everyone has a body odor!”
“That’s not warm consideration; it’s hot sadism. Don’t stick your smelly foot out at me. Hey, move it! Anyway, go have lunch with your colleagues.”
Red Vega was increasingly getting a taste for teasing Han Jae-jung.
“Right now, I want to rest.”
He quietly declined the offer. His tone was gentle, but firm.
Red Vega knew that at times like this, even pressing her stomach to his face wouldn’t make him back down (she had learned this through trial and error during his hospitalization), so she relented, putting on a sulky face as if she had no choice.
“Hmph, it’s a really delicious place. A hidden gem so unknown it doesn’t even show up well in searches. Great atmosphere, great plating.”
“That sounds very enjoyable. Please enjoy it plenty on my behalf.”
“Even if you beg me to take you later, I won’t. The chance is only now.”
“Don’t be so shabby about it. Don’t try to get the pleasure of spending, the pleasure of service, and the pleasure of charity all through me. Just... that way... if you would please leave.”
I gestured gracefully toward the front door. Finally giving up, Baek A-hee heaved a deep sigh and stood.
“Fine. And you said you’ve been bleeding... oh, right, shall I treat you? I’m good at first aid. Come on, come on, take off your shirt.”
“Leave.”
“Yep.”
At the firm declaration, she laughed lightly, then bobbed her head in a bow.
“That must have been hard to talk about, so thank you for telling me. If you ever want to reconcile, call me anytime! No, even if you don’t feel anything in particular, call me!”
“Thinking of it as an extension of counseling, it wasn’t that hard. As for contacting you... I’ll give it serious consideration.”
The truth was, even phone calls caused him stress above a certain threshold. He had a phone phobia. Resolving to tell her if they ever met again, he waved his hand.
The sound of a rusty hinge rattling came, and left alone in the room, he quietly stared somewhere.
It was the Belt, orbiting around him. It was repeatedly transmitting a piece of information into his head.
[Move to the designated location.]
“I know.”
It was a quest.
A quest ordering him to move to the designated location and make contact with someone.
The location was transmitted in the form of a map. A place painted only in black. Land designated as an uninhabitable zone, now abandoned land.
A no-access area. A marginal zone.
Commonly called Dark Matter.
He touched Pink Deneb’s note, which was neatly folded in his pocket.
“I should... call her.”
He needed to give her reassurance that he was safe, peace of mind.
The medium of a phone call still repelled him. Jo Ah-yoon’s shouting voice from yesterday rang in his head.
In the end, he turned on his phone, left a few words of text, and turned it off again.
Talking again would be better done after he’d learned the truth more deeply.
If, as Virgo had said, oblivion itself was madness.
Then the current Han Jae-jung might be the most insane person of all.
Soon after, he washed his body, bandaged his wounds, and put on clean clothes.
It resembled a ritual ablution meant to cleanse impurity.
**
The place was dark even though the sun was up. Tall high-rises had toppled and bridged street to street like overpasses. They cast enormous shadows over everything beneath them.
The Boötes Monster looked up. Shattered windows scattered the sunlight in diffuse reflections, scattering the light like a kaleidoscope.
“When will they come...”
She drew an arc with the fine lips beneath her hood and swung her legs idly, wrapped in a voluminous robe.
“When will the blind little lamb come...”
Humming a cheerful song, she sweetly sublimated this time of waiting.
In one hand, she held a belt buckle, waiting endlessly for someone to arrive.