#One
Mu is selfish.
“Unfortunately, the next 10 years are the limit.”
Black hair that resembles his father.
Purple eyes that resemble their mother.
Born as the only daughter of a commoner family in a territory unknown to the Solar Empire, Mew was given a harsh fate by a priest who watched her unstable birth.
It was said to be a chronic disease of unknown cause.
He said that he was born small and weak by nature, and his weak body would not be able to handle the abundant energy of the air outside this world.
That was the end of the explanation. The priest of the sun, who came from the capital, didn’t tell Mu’s parents more… …
By the time he was ten, he had only one memory of going outside the yard fence.
Even then, out of fear, Mew’s father took the young Mew to the village, and there, when Mew lost consciousness and collapsed, he rushed home with Mew carrying Mew.
The room with one window was the only resting place and activity area for Mew, and of course, admission to the academy was impossible.
He spent most of his day in bed, and the last time he had direct sunlight on his skin was when he was three years old.
Mu had no friends his age.
Occasionally, out of the window, he saw children of his age climbing trees or running around the pond, smiling and laughing, but Mu had no particular admiration for him.
Although he had never experienced having fun playing with his friends, he did not feel it was necessary because of that.
For Mew, the world was only a small room, and Mew was accepting her fate at such a young age.
The back of the parents who go out of the house day and night to slow the progression of a chronic disease of unknown cause, and their fragile bodies that make them dizzy dozens of times a day. The supremely weak body that is always pickled by weak energy and trembles without strength… …
I was thinking, what on earth can you laugh at when you and these lively people get along with each other?
Because it was.
For the young Mew, there was only one way to see outside the unknown world.
At some point, Mew started reading books.
The text was attractive.
The story was interesting.
A book I received as a present for Mew’s 6th birthday.
Mew read the book more than six times a day, from start to finish, without leaving a single word, and even in a dream he replayed its contents.
As such, the fantasy that the book shows to Mew was very beautiful.
A faint smile came to Mew’s lips as she read the funny story that made her laugh. It was Mew who had never laughed out loud since she was born, but she was able to learn that joy is only through books.
On the other hand, there were times when he sighed in the blanket without saying a word. Even if it was a complicated story that young Mew could not understand, he could sympathize with the emotions of the characters, such as sadness.
Seeing the lines depicting a man crying sadly as he hugged her after losing the lover he had promised to marry, Mew cried so readily that his parents ran away from his sleep late at night.
Mew’s parents must have known that Mew’s expression brightened up a bit since he started reading the book.
Every day, every month, every year.
Mu’s room was slowly stained with the smell of paper.
I got a personal bookshelf, and it was full in three months, so I ended up buying another one.
At a time when the children of Mew’s age were too busy to learn the alphabet because they were busy playing outside, Mew already had amazing language skills at the level of the high school of the academy. Although the intelligence level of Wonchong Mu was above average, it was a wonderful thing, let alone that.
When Mew was just over nine years old, the number of books that Mew had read since the age of six was well over a thousand.
However, it was not possible to put all those books on the bookshelf, so the books that had been read were sold back to the market by Mew’s parents.
Mew wanted to keep all the books he had read in his room if possible, but he quickly gave up because he knew it was an impossible wish.
Among the books of different authors, fields, and genres, Mew showed the greatest curiosity, and most of the books I read with interest were romance novels. So, it is a story about the love of a man and a woman.
Was it that Mew was also a girl?
Even if I couldn’t understand everything about adult love, somehow I wanted to read it over and over again.
When the characters recite strange lines under the starry night, Mew suddenly devoured on the bed, but on the other hand, the strange tickling was quite addictive, and he never took his eyes off the letters on the paper until he fell asleep while reading.
However, since he had never had a proper conversation with his peers or met a boy of the same age in his life, Mew did not yet understand the feeling of excitement for the opposite s*x. Because of this, the adjective “handsome,” which is often expressed in novels, also did not touch my heart.
but.
He seemed to understand why people like people.
Relationships that are as small as a speck of dust between people build up one after another, spend countless nights in the same space, and sometimes experience conflicts, but in the end, there was nothing more precious than the relationship they had built up, so in the end, all the conflicts were resolved and the truth It was a journey to find happiness.
I thought it was beautiful.
That was the only emotion that Mew could feel in the romance novel, and at the same time made Mew, who had never longed for the world outside the window, harbor a tiny spark of hope… … They were precious memories.
… … like that.
In fact, Mew did not move from his seat, but the colors of the leaves visible outside the narrow and small rectangular window changed colorfully.
Seasons, time passed.
While reading the book, Mew vaguely felt that the good times when it was good to be lost in ego and thought about nothing, and the happy moments that seemed to last forever, were running towards the end.
Coughs mixed with blood became more frequent.
The dizziness, which had only been a brief moment of dizziness, turned into intermittent fainting, to the point of losing consciousness in a moment without realizing it.
If he was not covered with a thick blanket, he would immediately feel chills and tremble in his body and shoulders.
Turning the pages of a book I really liked was hard at times. My fingers didn’t listen to me. For some reason, she couldn’t stand it, and whenever that happened, Mew burst into tears like silver beads.
Mu’s condition.
From day to day it got worse and worse.
The drug was no longer useful.
As soon as it was confirmed that they only vomit what they ate even if they were forcibly fed, and that they did not receive anything from the body, Mu’s parents called for a new priest.
There was no medicine for Mu.
The priest simply prayed and then returned.
Because.
When did Mu’s parents stop going to work until late at night, and they stayed by Mu’s side.
Mew smiled helplessly in front of them.
Mom and Dad worked harder than anyone.
It must have been very difficult to take care of her young and frail daughter, but their undisputed devotion was of great help to Mew.
Even my grandfather, who occasionally came to my house, was extremely fond of my granddaughter, whom I had never seen before.
The books I’ve read so far have been very interesting, and the piece of cake I ate once a year from time to time was also delicious enough to melt my tongue.
So I was happy enough, Mew thought.
So, the year Mew turned ten.
The day when the ten-year winding winds up by the priest stops.
… … Mew, for the first time, thought that he did not want to die.
It seems that it was difficult to even see clearly ahead.
The terrible pain that seemed to dig through his whole body with thick, sharp thorns tormented Mew’s body and mind without taking a rest for a day.
Breathing became more and more rapid, a heavy sigh leaked out of the perforated lungs. It was a more unpleasant noise than the sound of scraping metal.
Mew did not stop at the level of waking up from sleep, but woke up with a severe seizure and shed tears from the pain that followed each time.
Mew’s parents no longer slept in the bedroom. When Mew no longer had the strength to scream and could only make a hoarse moan from her throat, she carefully embraced the young Mew’s body and wept as if praying.
Everyone in the room knew.
After this night, Mew dies.
… … Mew cried more than ever.
I thought, crying.
rather.
I wish I hadn’t read the book.
You’ll be content to lie on your bed and look out the window, being a living corpse as you’ve always been.
If that was the case, why would you yearn for the outside world?
… … It wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
I didn’t even feel any shame.
It was so painful and sad, Mew creaked and cried, unable to even feel the warmth of her parents’ hands holding her tightly.
… … like that.
dawn twilight rises
The dark night was over.
Mu’s movements became too slow.
No more moaning in pain, just lying with a thick blanket up to his neck and breathing slowly, very slowly.
Mew’s eyes looking up at the ceiling were blurry.
Many illusions dazzled Mew’s vision.
It was a scene from a romance novel, an impressive passage of an autumn season poem, and a fragment of a precious memory that I had only gone out for once in the old days.
Even when thoughts are intermittently interrupted.
Mew prayed earnestly in her heart.
… … I want to live.
There are so many things I haven’t done yet.
I want to do everything I want to do.
At least once, I want to live my own life.
When you realize that there are so many joys, happiness, and things that I didn’t enjoy, you wouldn’t want to die. There’s no way you can close your eyes comfortably and be satisfied here… …
I want to live like an ordinary girl.
No, you don’t have to be normal. Rather, I don’t want to. more special. Unlike others. I wanted to live a wonderful life like a novel. I didn’t like the miserable life of not being able to get out of bed anymore.
I want to go out on my own feet and live my own life.
If I had known it would be like this, if I had known that I would die in vain, if I had known from the beginning that it would hurt so much, it would have been better to go outside several times. Why did I come to think that I wanted to see the beautiful scenery outside the window with my own two eyes only when I was close to death?
The only thing Mu saw and heard was books.
Even now, near death, Mew recalled the lines and scenes he had seen in several novels in an instant.
Just like when a man who held the corpse of his wife swept away by the waves of war and cried tears of rain in his arms, wept bitterly in the rain.
Just like the heart of a parent who has no choice but to watch the fate of their daughter by the side of Mew, like when a woman bows her head eagerly with her hands together not wanting to let the man she love go away.
Just like when an old man who was left alone, with a strong determination to fight a war that he could never win, watching his country, who he devoted his whole life to, was on the verge of destruction… …
to me.
In the hope that a miracle will happen.
With an endlessly selfish heart, wishing that something that could never happen would happen to you.
wishing,
wish at the same time.
I don’t want to die.
I want to live.
… … Help me. please.
Please.
please save me
Even if you don’t have anything to give right now, you’ll pay for it later.
So please
please don’t kill me
God———
… … For Mu now, there is no memory of what happened that night.
the next morning.
After waking up her parents who had fallen asleep from crying, Mew left the house on her own.