311 – EP.11 The End of a Long Puberty-3
***
Your eyes are becoming increasingly accustomed to the darkness.
Things that seemed pitch black gradually begin to become familiar to the eye.
Her clothes filled with stars and her hair in pigtails.
And I see her mysteriously sparkling purple eyes that seem to contain a galaxy.
“Seong-ya.”
Cough, her cane presses gently against my neck.
Her cane was pressed against her throat and a slightly hoarse sound came out.
“Swear.”
Like a parrot, she repeats her words to me to swear.
The green scale floating in the air softly brightens the room.
I want to ask why she is doing this and what is going on.
But now there is something else I have to do first.
A subtle vibration is transmitted to me through the cane that touches my neck. Her hand holding the cane is shaking.
He moves his eyes and examines her closely. Her legs and feet on either side of my body are shaking.
And her eyes. Her eyes, which seem to contain the beauty of the universe, have been shaking ever since I woke up.
So, rather than what I want to ask, she should tell me what she wants to hear.
“Seong-ya, what’s going on?”
Did I have a bad dream? Did I unknowingly stimulate her unstable psychology?
The shaking of her eyes becomes more intense at my question.
I think of cases I have experienced across quite a few dimensions.
And then I project the most similar situation onto her.
“Swear.”
The cane presses on my neck even more.
The voice urging me is slightly watery. A trembling voice and heightened emotions.
I still can’t guess what her concentrated emotions are that seem to be sticking an anchor in her throat and bursting out at any moment.
However, I am convinced that it is not a very good positive feeling.
“Okay, I swear. Can I change my posture a little instead?”
In order not to provoke her anxious mind, I comply with the request and make this request as well.
Purple eyes are looking down at me.
Do not be intimidated, but rather smile.
“This posture is a little uncomfortable. Let’s talk face to face. Just like when we first used this scale.”
I appeal to her by bringing out her memories of her past.
Hearing my words, she also brings out the same memories as me and shares them.
“…….”
A moment of hesitation, no worries.
She took a step back, and my neck regained its freedom.
I was not in a hurry and got up slowly.
“Fire… Should I light it?”
“……”
It doesn’t seem to be a positive silence.
She didn’t seem to have any intention of listening to my request after this situation.
“[I swear to Libra that I will tell only the truth.]”
Now that she has accepted our request, it is my turn to respond to her request as well.
The green balance shines brightly.
Even though the magic contract was over, she did not speak.
What am I hesitating about? I decide to open my mouth first.
“If you suddenly come to me like this in the middle of the night, there’s something you want to ask, right?”
I don’t blame her.
Of course, I don’t understand her sudden behavior and feel it is sudden, but I don’t show it.
Because then she will feel less guilty after all this is over.
“…You look relaxed.”
Her words that came out after a long period of silence were not a question.
It feels like they are avoiding the question one more time.
“Is there something else I can ask you other than that? It’s okay.”
I smiled to reassure her.
I don’t know if she could see clearly because her room was dark.
I don’t know what question she will ask, but she looks quite nervous.
Just by taking a deep breath and catching her breath, you can get a rough idea of how heavy the burden is on her mind.
“Mister.”
“Yes. I’m listening.”
“Is there something you’re hiding from me?”
A question I had never imagined was suddenly thrown to me.
And with her words, the scales tip.
The fact that the scale was tilted meant that I had to tell the ‘truth’ in response to her question and balance the scales.
“Huh? What?”
“Please answer the question instead of asking it back.”
Seongah’s hands are still shaking.
It seems like a question with some certainty. I have no idea what the heck it is.
“I think it would be good if you could be more specific.”
“You betrayed me… No, you approached me from the beginning to deceive me… Didn’t you?”
She says, squinting her eyes as if she doesn’t even want to say it.
And when I heard that question, I couldn’t help but make a dumbfounded face.
While her mind was blank for a moment as to what to say, Seong-ah began to let out her pent-up emotions little by little.
“Um, I… I saw it. You and the Four Guardian Kings met and talked.”
Her hands begin to tremble more.
“What?”
Are you really talking about that time? But, I didn’t say anything special about that.
Ah…!
What the Crown said comes to mind.
[Isn’t it true that we can only meet for a special reason? Between us.]
[Are you getting along well with the magical girl?]
[I just wondered if everything was going well.]
[Let’s meet again next time.]
The Four Heavenly Kings who spoke to me in a friendly tone.
If the words were aimed not at me but at Seong-ah, who was watching from somewhere…
Come to think of it, it was that day that Seong-ah’s mood sank.
f*ck. You took a hit.
“For being good to me… For putting me in a situation where I couldn’t be without you… At an important moment… For me…”
Perhaps because of her emotions, Seong-ah couldn’t continue her words and sobbed.
“Well, I can’t do it without you… But if you weren’t actually purified… But pretended to be purified…”
The staff pointed at her shakes.
The sound of Seongah sobbing began to fill her room.
“I kept thinking it wasn’t true… I looked at you, but I still don’t know. Uncle… So, please tell me honestly.”
“Uncle, are you planning to deceive me and betray me?”
Seong-ah stares at me with her eyes full of fear.
Her eyes are filled with tears, and I click my tongue without realizing it.
Her scales tilt once more.
“First of all, to conclude, no.”
As soon as she finished speaking, her weight went up on the scale.
Seongah’s eyes widen.
“Let me be clear. I am not part of a force opposing you, and I did not create a situation to make you dependent on me.”
“Really?”
“Your magic speaks for itself. Look at this.”
I pointed to the scale with my finger.
With the weight on the scales, a light of hope appears on Kim Seong-ah’s face.
“Then the betrayal….”
“I won’t do it. There is no reason to betray.”
“Then it’s fortunate… Ah?”
Seongah, who was sighing in relief, looked at her scales and her face hardened.
The balance was still tilted.
“But the fact that the pendulum came up means it’s true.”
Seongah looked at the weight on the scale.
“But why… Isn’t it leveled?”
Seongah’s eyes begin to shake again.
“[I do not belong to the forces opposing me, and I did not create a situation that made me dependent.] …The first question I asked was… Yes, do I have something to hide…”
Her gaze, which was focused on the scales, comes back down to me.
She swallowed her saliva unconsciously at the foreign emotions contained in her eyes.
“Mister. There’s still something you’re hiding from me.”
“I told you, everyone has secrets.”
“But, I want to hear the secret you hid. I think only then will my heart feel at ease.”
“Sometimes what you don’t know is medicine.”
“Mister.”
Kim Seong-ah comes closer to me.
As she slowly approached her, she pulled her body back and found herself in a half-lying position.
With her hands on the floor, she brought her face closer to me.
She buried her face in my chest, at a distance where I could feel her breath.
“I want to know everything about you. In fact, you don’t know anything. What you used to do, where your hometown is, what kind of people you met and what kind of life you lived…. You told me a lot, but in fact, you don’t tell me anything. “I didn’t.”
“That’s right….”
It’s because there’s really nothing I can tell you.
“The few days I thought that my uncle might have betrayed me were very difficult. I couldn’t concentrate at school and couldn’t rest comfortably when I got home. But… I’m so worried that he’s still hiding something from me. “
“Seong-ya.”
“Please tell me. I’ve told you a lot of things, and I think it’s so unfair to keep it from you.”
Seongah rubs her face against my chest.
“Uncle. Please….”
From Noble mtl dot com
I think about feeling the body temperature of Seong-ah crying in my arms.
There is only one thing I am hiding from Seong-ah.
The secret of a man named Kang In-ho that has never been said out loud.
No problem… Right?
I slowly stroke her head with my hand.
“I am.”
She flinches at the sound of my voice.
“It’s a persona, but it’s not a persona.”
She waits with bated breath for my next words.
“I am Kang In-ho.”
Reflecting on the beginning and process of all this, I speak slowly.
“He died unfairly,”
“She was cursed by the goddess,”
“Wandering through many dimensions,”
“Possessing the bodies of many people,”
“Suffered many deaths”
“I’m a possessed person from a different world than this one.”
I tell her the secrets that she has kept hidden.