Chapter 152: Sunset (35)

"Why, why are you here? Wh-why is your body fine?"

Seeing Seraphina react like someone facing an impossibly awkward situation, as if a dead person had returned, I looked around at the murmuring sounds.

"...Let's move somewhere else first, then talk."

At that, Seraphina also looked around, then blankly nodded.

I thought of a place where the two of us could talk alone without being noticed by anyone.

Seraphina's room or mine wouldn't have been bad, but I didn't feel like going into a room.

Then I recalled the bench where Kyle and I had once sat together, and headed there.

As I walked, I somehow felt a pomegranate taste rising in my mouth.

"How are you here?"

"Did you wish I was dead?"

"It's more that I thought you were dead.

The young head of the house said, at the hospital room door, to never even think of visiting your grave... while looking at me with a face that seemed like she'd kill me."

"...Levina did?"

"You died. Because you died, I thought everything was over."

"So you were walking down the hallway happily, laughing with your friends?"

"...I didn't laugh."

Seraphina bit her lower lip and trembled for a long while.

"I said I didn't laugh."

"You should have laughed. That menace who tormented you horribly for years finally died."

"Hah, did you expect me to weep, blame myself, and grieve because you died?"

"Yeah. I wish everyone would grieve if I died.

I wish they'd be so sad they couldn't live normally without me, that they'd suffer, and struggle.

Because there's not a single person around me who would. Even my fiancée, who I'd grown up with since childhood."

"......."

At that, Seraphina looked at me, then turned her head slightly and spoke.

"We could have just, broken off the engagement. Instead of jumping off."

She was biting her lip so hard that blood began to flow.

How many times have I seen this sight by now.

How many more times do I have to see this face.

And I doubt anything will change just from looking at it like this.

Everything is a mess.

Seraphina, choking on her breath and trembling for a long while, grabbed me by the collar and shoved me into a corner.

"Are you happy that I'm dead? Does it feel refreshing?"

"No."

"You?"

"I don't know."

Seraphina let out a hollow laugh as she spoke.

"You and I are the worst. Who would look at us and think we're fiancés who've been together for over 10 years?"

"At least we don't look like it. Grab me by the collar, catch your breath first, then talk."

"You're completely different from yesterday, huh? You looked like you were about to strangle me to death."

"...I don't remember."

I patted Seraphina on the back.

Then she began to sob slightly.

"If you died, all the problems would disappear.

Because of you, living was painful, because of you, my reputation was a problem, and every time you became the subject of gossip, I suffered, I thought those days would finally be over, and I was starting to feel relieved..."

Seraphina, who had been speaking, began to gag.

Fortunately, it seemed she hadn't eaten anything.

Though a disgusting stench of stomach acid did rise up.

Seraphina lifted her head, wiped her mouth roughly with her sleeve, and continued speaking, one eye twitching violently.

"It's not like it matters that there's no one left to visit, no one who'll turn around when I call their name, no one to share those trivial little stories from childhood that were so small and meaningless anyway."

"It's not meaningless."

"It is meaningless."

"...To you?"

"Yeah, to me, it can't be precious.

Because if it were precious, I wouldn't be able to hate you.

Because I shouldn't have said those things to you yesterday."

Seraphina laughed.

Wearing a bizarrely contorted expression.

"But have I really managed to throw away who I was until now?

What was the me who said she loved you, who said she was happier than anyone else for being engaged to you?

If I deny that, does the current me even exist?

Even if she does, she's nothing.

Thoughts like that filled my head, and then I didn't want to think about anything anymore."

I wondered if I should approach and pat her back again, but the moment I took a single step, Seraphina pushed me away.

"I hate the me who grieves because you died.

I hate the me who loved you, and I hate myself for hating you, I feel like I'm going out of my mind.

And here you are, alive in front of my eyes, so why don't I hate you like I did yesterday?

I resent you, so why do I feel relieved? Why do I feel like I should grab hold of you by any means and keep you by my side?

When I hated you so much just yesterday."

Her pupils swayed side to side, and her breath was short.

Even after inhaling for a long while, holding it, then exhaling, there was no sign of her calming down.

Seraphina was, literally, like a madwoman.

And so, the words she spat out weren't coherent ones either.

She only poured out words that seemed to have gaps here and there, filled with rambling.

"And why do you look so fine now, anyway?

You should be pretending to be fine only in front of me, when I'm not around, you should be making a crazed face, drinking and smoking, hanging out with thugs, and tormenting the people around you, shouldn't you?"

"I've told you several times that I've never done that."

"How can I, how the fuck can I believe you?

How could I believe you, Lavin? If I were rolling around with male whores, acting like an idiot like you, and hanging out with filthy bastards, could you trust me? Could you!?

Everyone, everyone blames you and tears you down, and I'm the only one standing there saying it's not true..."

So, from the beginning.

As long as I didn't die, this was how things between us were bound to turn out. It was natural.

No matter what I did, no matter how I approached her, Seraphina was probably always mad.

Because of me, and because of the people around her who looked at me.

She loved me, and perhaps she thought that every criticism and curse aimed at me was also flying toward her.

It was all getting better.

That damn lingering trace, or whatever it was, whoever it was that sent me back the moment I died, whatever they did, it was all getting better.

"Honestly, even now I find you disgusting and hateful. I wish you had died.

And I wish I could die right along with you.

I'm in love with you. I hate myself for that. I hate you, so I hate myself.

How can I hate someone I love this much?"

As Seraphina averted my gaze and continued speaking to the floor, each time her words began to fill my mind, I felt my surroundings slowly melting away.

Something was disgusting, I felt nauseated, and even dizzy, but I didn't run away.

Because the Seraphina in front of me, spitting out these words at me, was something natural right now.

My mouth began to fill with the taste of pomegranate.

At least now, it doesn't taste musty or disgusting.

"Should I keep being angry like yesterday?

Should I be angry that you fell but didn't die, or should I feel relieved that you're alive?

What face am I supposed to look at you with?"

The bushes that filled the surroundings began to collapse.

And melt away into blackness.

At the same time, Seraphina approached me and firmly grasped my hand.

I somehow felt cold.

Seraphina's hand, which would normally feel lukewarm, felt hot.

"What I said to you wasn't sincere."

The only things left before my eyes were Seraphina, who had come to me and was speaking while firmly holding my hand, and the bench.

"But if it wasn't sincere, how could those words have come out so naturally?"

And then, Seraphina said to herself.

"Lavin, do I not love you?

Was it you who didn't love me?"

Seraphina, continuing to speak to herself, seemed somehow frightening and terrifying.

Because I was seized by the feeling that the person before me wasn't that person.

"That can't be right. I loved you, loved you so much that I couldn't contain my anger.

If that's so, then it wasn't love, perhaps it was possessiveness."

Even though I gave no answer at all, she repeated asking and answering on her own.

"Don't try to define it in words and confine it. Were we truly precious to each other?"

Soon, Seraphina's face also faded away.

Only her voice could be heard, and I didn't particularly want to listen to it.

It came through torn, like a mechanical sound, and yet, one thing was certain, her blue eyes were still fixed on me.

"If that weren't the case, why else could we tear each other down, hit each other, hurl vicious words, and unhesitatingly stab at each other's most painful spots? Because we were angry."

The fading blue light looked at me.

Now even the bench had melted away.

"If they were someone we could treat that lightly, then they weren't actually not precious, were they?"

There was nothing around, yet I felt filled with something.

"Everything was already decided, if you just leave the person in front of you as they are, in the end, you'll make the same choice as yesterday. Yet you, who doesn't hold on, you, who says you love them yet doesn't treat them so preciously, you've probably never truly loved anything.

You merely projected yourself onto the other person and cherished yourself."

Before the sun sets, it still feels like the sunlight is warm, perhaps.

"Wanting to be loved more than anyone, yet unable to convey even a single proper love, a single faith."

"Wanting to be trusted more than anyone, yet unable to convey even a single proper trust, a single emotion."

The sound of footsteps approaching from somewhere could be heard.

Seraphina and someone walking spoke in turns.

Whatever sound rang in my ears, it only felt distant.

When I turned my head, a person was slowly approaching.

"Perhaps it was fine after being born. But as time passes, the empty places can't be filled no matter what."

And as the mechanical voice seemed to fade, when I looked to where Seraphina had been standing, the blue light was slowly extinguishing.

"The two of you don't have different empty places, you have the same parts empty, so neither can fill the other."

I turned my head again toward the sound of footsteps, and standing right before me was the white-haired girl from the room next door.

"You ate the candy, huh. Was it lemon flavor this time too?"

"Pomegranate."

Maybe I should go check the room next door, perhaps I'd find a clue.

I'm probably dreaming, I think.

Before dying, instead of a life flashing before my eyes, I might be having this kind of unpleasant dream.

"Even if you go looking, I won't be there. And do you really think it's a dream?"

The girl from the next room, a child who resembled someone greatly, placed her index finger on my lips and began pressing down firmly.

"You're here, right now."

"......."

"This is how it would have turned out originally.

Who would have known that merely recalling memories of living somewhere, long after growing up, would lead to this. You yourself didn't know either, did you. Right, Lavin?"

A fruity scent rose even from where her index finger touched.

So strongly it felt almost sickening.

"Where were you born, what kind of life did you live, what kind of person did you grow into you.

All I've ever seen was you, already fully grown. Whether your body was a child, a boy, and then a young man."