179 – Her Memories
“Wow, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been here.”
“……”
“Isn’t that right? Senior? If you are a senior, I think the feeling will be quite new…”
“…It’s noisy.”
As I left the subway station and walked for a few more minutes, I began to see scenes that were quite familiar to me.
The view of the International Hero Academy, I used to see it ad nauseam when I was attending the academy.
“I think it’s true that you’re full of emotions, right?”
“…………”
“Hey, by the way, since we’re doing this, doesn’t it seem like we’re on a school uniform date?”
Because of this, as she said, I was feeling a little sentimental, and Lumia, who was laughing heartily, wondering what was so good, whispered in a low voice.
I feel like I went back to my student days…”
“You’re always a student, right?”
“…Ah.”
When I asked her a question while slightly tilting her head in response to her words, she made a fierce expression for a moment, but then answered by scratching her head.
“Now that I think about it, it was like that…?”
“…Hmm.”
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but this guy’s mental state seems to be quite messed up.
There are many things that are not clear to simply say that he has a dual personality.
‘…Let’s take a look.’
“Uh, uh…? What are you doing, senior?
“…Follow me.”
So, I looked at Lumia with narrowed eyes for a moment, then took her hand and led her to the bench near her.
“…..Yes.”
But as she looked at her with her head down, her face blushing, and answering obediently, for some reason, a corner of her heart began to ache.
‘Am I still far away…?’
I thought my emotions had become numb for a long time, but no matter how different my personality may be, I feel sympathy for a guy who has the body of one of the two main culprits who ruined my life.
No, actually, if I think about it, I don’t think it’s normal right now.
My emotions have been almost completely wiped out over the past few years, so wouldn’t it make sense for them to become richer now that they have come back to life?
“Whoa…”
“…hehehehe.”
Thinking about that, I sighed for a moment and then sat down on the bench with Lumia, who was smiling brightly.
“It’s full of fallen leaves. It’s an autumn outing on a school bench, so it’s quite charming, isn’t it?”
“…Stay still.”
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Then, I carefully reached out to her head, who was still muttering excitedly.
“……Ugh?”
I couldn’t help but frown quietly.
‘What are these memories…’
As soon as she touched her head and lightly used her powers, the memories that started flooding into her mind were truly unusual.
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What is the earliest memory a person can remember in life?
There are differences from person to person, but in general, it is said that memories from approximately 6 to 8 years of age remain as long-term memories.
Of course, since each person’s experience is different, the types of memories stored in the head will also vary considerably.
But at least most people around me used to say that ‘happy memories’ were the oldest memories.
– Mate…!
“It’s not cheap…”
“…Ugh.”
But the earliest memory I could recall was the day I got slapped by my parents for saying I was hungry.
“Why are you crying again? Cry. I’ll kill you if you cry.”
“……..”
The oldest memory means the oldest trauma.
Because of that, from that day on, I became unable to cry in front of people.
Instead, I always put a smile on my face even if I looked bad.
Obsessively, no matter how I feel.
Of course, it was only natural that such bad habits would have a negative impact on the mental growth of childhood.
In my third year of elementary school, I was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
The doctor suspected that it was an acquired condition due to childhood trauma, but to my parents, it was of no concern.
From that very day, I became a monster to them, not even a human anymore.
It was natural for the abuse that had been going on for so long to get even more severe, and then one day when both my parents came home drunk, I felt my life was in danger and ended up running out of the house, leaving behind the yelling.
How long did I walk along the dark streets with no expression on my face?
When I arrived at the alley at the end of the neighborhood, I squatted there and burst into tears again for the first time in years.
I shed tears endlessly and shed tears again and again. How much time has passed?
“…It’s pretty.”
I suddenly looked up at the night sky, and it was so beautiful that it did not fit my situation.
Just like my name ‘Narae’ means wings, I want to become a bird and fly away.
“…Was I a bird in my past life?”
Somehow I felt a little bit of longing, so I couldn’t help but realize how concentrated I was at that time.
“…….”
Of course, there was nothing I could do.
There weren’t many places for a girl who was only 9 years old and suffered from antisocial personality disorder to go out of the house.
I wanted to go to an orphanage, but when my parents went on a vacation and left me there for a while, I couldn’t even do that because I felt how terrible it was.
In the end, all I could do was walk home as slowly as possible, praying to the heavens that my parents were asleep and that they wouldn’t remember what happened the next day.
“…….?”
But as I walked slowly with my head down, when I almost arrived home, I had no choice but to raise my head again with a blank expression on my face.
– Grumbling…
The place that was my home just an hour ago was burning, spewing black smoke high into the sky.
“…Huh?”
Like that, I simultaneously lost the people who threatened my life and the space that protected me from the world.
I found out later that the fire that day was caused by cigarette ashes that my parents, who were drunk, were unable to extinguish.
According to the forensics team, there were signs of struggling here and there in the room, but it was said that the two were unable to leave the house because they were drunk.
Of course, I liked it anyway.
No matter how terribly painful they died, it was none of my business anymore.
The hypocritical gaze of the residents, who whispered that my parents’ death was a punishment for my parents and never actually helped me with what I was going through, was also none of my business.
“…How will I live from now on?”
The only thing that mattered was that all the property my parents, who suffered from severe paranoia, had lost to ashes along with their lives.
“No, why should I live?”
And that question that suddenly popped into my mind.
‘Is it really meaningful to live like this?’
From that day on, ‘Why should I live?’ Became a very important question for me.
In fact, many people who could not find an answer to the reason chose to take their own lives, but I was slightly different.
For some reason, I didn’t feel like I wanted to die.
What drove me that day when I ran away from home was the desire to survive, so in a way, it was only natural.
Fortunately, I applied that aspect quite positively, and developed the ability to hide my anti-social tendencies as if wearing a mask and act almost like an ordinary person.
Thanks to this, contrary to the doctors’ diagnosis that I would be unable to lead a normal social life, I was able to lead a fairly normal life until I entered high school.
Of course, government subsidies were insufficient and there were few part-time jobs that could be done legally, so I was always struggling for money.
However, he still did not touch anything illegal.
It was a timid rebellion against the doctors’ diagnosis, as I thoughtlessly believed my parents, who testified that the cause of my mental illness was a congenital problem.
However, even though I worked very hard in life, there was no answer to the question of ‘why live?’, So my life was always empty.
Life has become so boring that I sometimes think that flying in the sky wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
“Hey, what are you seeing again?”
“Now, wait! That’s…..”
It was one day, as usual, I was sitting at the end of the classroom, looking at the sky and thinking about that.
“That murder game you saw last time? That’s it?”
“Give it back too…”
“…Hmm, let’s see.”
There was a loud noise in the class, so she slightly turned her gaze to the side and saw that a male student, who had been the target of bullying by a group of female students, was having something of her taken away by them.
“What, it’s a comic book.”
At that time, I was in a state of helplessness about everything, so I quietly began to watch this interesting event.
If I think about it now, he was no different from the neighborhood people watching a few years ago, but at least in the society I was forced to understand, such behavior was normal.
– Squeak…
“Ah…..”
So, I was quietly watching the scene where the boy’s comic book was torn by the girls’ hands and ended up going into the trash can.
“Hey, let’s go to the store. Take your wallet.”
“…I don’t have any money.”
“It’s okay, just shut up and follow me…”
“…Uh, huh.”
After that conversation, I quietly watched the group leaving the classroom, and then quietly got up from my seat.
‘…What is a comic book?’
It was because I suddenly became curious about the concept of comic books.
I suffered from an unhappy childhood and constant hardships in life, and since I did not even have a smartphone, I had never experienced games or comics that children of the same age could easily access.
At least there were novels and educational comics in the school library, but I never had the chance to come across these pure entertainment works.
– Rustling…
For this reason, the reason I looked around for a moment and searched the trash can in an empty classroom was purely for learning reasons.
Well, even if that wasn’t the case, I was used to going through trash cans, so it wasn’t particularly embarrassing.
“…Um, this is. What should I say.”
But even back then, I couldn’t even imagine it.
“It’s a pretty interesting title…”
I never thought that the torn comic book I rescued from the trash could become a ray of light in my empty life.
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How much time had passed since I touched Rumia’s head and entered her memories?
“……Huh?”
While listening to her voice echoing in my head as if I were hearing a narration, I followed Lumia’s past, which felt somewhat sad and strange.
“This is…”
At that very moment, I couldn’t help but widen my eyes.
“…It’s me, right?”
The person depicted on the cover of the comic that Rumia rescued from her trash can was none other than me.