11. Pink Saint (9)
“You mean I can’t love myself?”
Elia asked back as if she didn’t understand.
No wonder she didn’t understand. Her love for God means that she loves all things in the world equally. Naturally, the saint herself was included in all things.
Even otherwise, in the doctrine of the Church of Eden, all love fundamentally starts from self-love. It made no sense for her to have no self-love as she stood at the pinnacle of the Order of Eden.
But Siwoo shook his head resolutely.
“Okay. Oh, should I change the expression a little? To put it simply… “The priorities for ‘human Elia’ are different.”
Elia opened her eyes wide at Siu’s words. Because her life, which she had lived her whole life, was pierced by his one word.
If Elia has contemplation, Siu has discussions with her original novel and with herself in another world. Siwoo cut off the pre-arranged words in his chat window little by little.
“I called you human not just because your abilities are limited. “You also have hobbies and things you personally like.”
“What I like… ?”
“Huh. For example, when you talk to me about the Church of Eden. “You looked happier then than I’ve ever seen you.”
“Was I that bad?”
“Clearly. It was very noticeable even on the outside. However, when Yooyoung was with us, we never talked about the Church of Eden. “Because Yooyoung is bored with that story.”
If Elia really loved herself and Yooyoung equally, she had no reason to stop talking about her.
However, the fact that Elia changed the topic of the conversation on her own and intentionally said things that Yooyoung would find interesting, and the fact that Elia did not enjoy it as much as before, means that her priorities are different.
It’s as if parents love their first and second children equally, but seem to care for the second child more.
In Elia’s mind, she herself was eternally the first.
Of course, Elia also had something to say about this.
“Well, I’m happy just to see Yooyoung having fun. “I can already be happy in other ways, so there’s no need to stick to one thing.”
“No, not really. Because your tension is noticeably lower than before.”
“To that extent…”
“That thought is the most problematic.”
Siwoo raised his voice with enthusiasm.
“The reason I say the treatment of the church is problematic is not simply because they force the saint to assume her position as a god and place responsibility on her.
When it comes to responsibility, there are people who are in that position, even if they aren’t as fanatical as a saint. President. Chairman. And even if the scale is not that large, there are many people who have greater individual responsibilities than anyone else.
As you said, just as saints are no different from other people, so are responsibilities. Are the feelings of a father who has to support his hospitalized son in the face of a livelihood crisis different from those of a saint who leads a religious order? The weight of responsibility is not necessarily proportional to power. In the end, it is the mind that is responsible.
But the reason a saint is different from them is because you yourself are constantly encouraging others to put you down.
Only in front of those who believe in, worship, and follow the saint. A saint is special, a being beyond humans, and the truth.In front of those who say they have touched . Have you had a chance to take care of yourself? At least, could he say that he was just an ordinary human being? Have you ever had any proper personal time before coming to school?
Because I am a saint. I take care of others rather than myself, and if one of us has to give in, I give in without hesitation, and that much of myself is lost, and that process ultimately eats away at myself. “If you only use your personal time for others, it can never end well.”
After the Japanese speech, Siwoo took a deep breath. Vince, who thought it was not his area to intervene, had been silent for a while, and Elia closed her eyes.
She was looking back at herself until now.
What Siwoo was talking about, her personal time, was a truly unfamiliar concept to her. Even before her candidacy for sainthood, she studied on her own time to see what her priests and teachers liked, and since she became a candidacy for sainthood, she really spends what little personal time she has to relieve her worries. Wrote in
Among the people around her, he calls a person with a particularly bad complexion and asks about her situation to help her, takes care of things like her birthday, and comes up with ways to relieve the fatigue of the people who work for her. That was usually what she ‘worried about’.
She never really had time for herself.
“Even if you say that, I… I don’t know how should…”
“Whew. “This won’t work.”
Elia trembled slightly as Siwoo let out a slight sigh. However, Siwoo was not very disappointed.
Elia’s balance is already broken. She has spent her entire life tilting her arms towards others, and at the end of it all, her scales have become rusty and hardened.
Even if you tell the owner of such a scale to give yourself a little more weight from now on, once the scale has become rigid, it will not be easily loosened. This was already expected.
In that case, you can leave her scale as is and add something else to Siwoo’s side.
As always, conversation is done in the other person’s language.
“Then you take care of yourself for me. I want to see you truly joyful, happy, and happy. How is it?”
“… !”
Asked to look at her Si-woo differently, she saw the thorns that had become entrenched in her own heart at this moment.
That’s what I like. Even if it feels okay to endure it a few times, the moment it goes beyond a certain point, it simply ceases to be an intention. Blind obedience, lack, regret. In any case, it definitely leaves a scar on your heart.
Her strong self-control, her self-control spirit, which she was born with since childhood, led her to where she is now, but it did not protect her along the way.
“… Yes. “Now I know.”
At this moment, Elia felt all the thorns in her heart melt away. The responsibility that was weighing her down became as light as a feather, and the discipline that bound her entire body crumbled.
She tried moving her hand. I tried shaking her arm. I tried taking a step with her legs. It was so freeing.
Only then did she realize that she had been in bondage to herself all along.
She also knew that her heart was something she had already had but had not noticed, and that her heart had grown to the point where she could not ignore it today.
“I am… “Finally, I have become human.”
A word from Elia. As she listened to the words representing her fable, Si-woo felt reassured.
After a really long conversation, everything seemed to have been resolved well.
*
After everything was completed, Siwoo and Elia decided to stay inside the church under the guidance of the church. Because it was already evening, it was too late to go through the same complicated procedures as when coming in.
It was a secret underground space, so it wasn’t large and there was nothing special about it. I thought it would be a good idea to give Elia a room like the hotel she used to stay in during her vacation, and give Siwoo a room to sleep in, but since we didn’t have a room and it would be difficult to prepare everything for overnight guests, I just accepted it.
However, that didn’t mean there was really nothing. Since all kinds of rare relics were gathered together, if the relics were used well, the space could be used widely.
The beach at night where Siwoo and Elia are currently walking was an excellent example.
Commonly known as ‘Secret Coast’. In this place, which can be entered when two people wear a pair of necklaces together, conversations that are fundamentally impossible to eavesdrop on from the outside are possible.
Of course, like Siwoo now, he could have used it just for a walk to get rid of the frustrations of the day.
My own resort with moonlight and stars pouring in from above, the refreshing sound of the sea to the side, the clean air purifying my lungs, and a clean white sand beach with no trash or pebbles under my feet. I almost thought that not enjoying a place like this would be an insult to the space.
But Elia wasn’t just for the walk, she walked along the beach in silence for a while and then carefully let go of her luck.
“… “Can I tell you a little more about my denomination?”
Siwoo smiled lightly and accepted the words.
“Uh. However much. “I want to hear it.”
“Yes. “Did I tell you that our church considers the five loves as its definition?”
Elia stretched out her hands and placed her fingers one by one.
Love, love, love, respect.
And Shinae (God Love).
“Among these, the one who realized divine love… In other words, a person who can give unconditional and absolute love to all things in the world is considered a saint. “Our denomination considers love as the highest of the five loves, so the saint is the most sacred person in the denomination.”
Elia’s quiet words flowed through the night sea. The voice of the saint who loved and was loved by all things calmly filled the beach.
Nevertheless, Siwoo felt that the saintly woman’s profile looked like an ordinary girl.
“But as Siu said, she is not a perfect saint. Shinae is different from other loves. There are people I am close to, and there are people I respect… “I didn’t know the other two emotions.”
Elia stopped her steps and looked up into the sky.
Her silver hair, shining in the light of the stars, flowed down her shoulders.
The night sky, so deep, sparkled even more beautifully in Elia’s gaze.
“Actually, that’s why I came to the academy. Since you can’t know love through romance novels, I decided to actually see other people dating… I thought I would find out then. “I thought I could live up to other people’s expectations.”
It was a stupid idea.
Elia lightly mocked herself. But she didn’t last long.
Because her foolish behavior is what ultimately allowed her to meet Si-woo.
“Siwoo. Do you know what?”
Dating was never something that could be learned through observation.
Elia knew it now.
“The saint actually doesn’t have gray eyes. “When she finds out about a relationship, her true eye color is revealed.”
Elia hummed like a bard telling an old legend.
Written in an old scripture.
However, these stories do not remain as legends.
“It is said that a saint who finds love has beautiful light pink eyes. “She gets eyes that are only one in the world.”
Elia turned her body and looked up at her Siu.
Her eyes were colored a pink prettier than cherry blossoms.
“What do you think, Siwoo?”
Elia laughed bitterly.
On that day, the saint became a girl.
11. Pink Saint-END