【 Reach a Happy Ending 】
The scenery feels so familiar, I wonder if I've even come back at all.
But unlike before, when my life ended in Mace's arms, I realize it's not raining yet.
My mind isn't hazy from the drugs either.
The center of the tree-lined street again. Even the dark clouds look like the weather before I died.
Still, should I be grateful that I wasn't sent back to the moment Mace got poisoned?
With our author's temper, they would've pulled that shit and more, right?
In the distance, I can see Giselle's—the Evergreen family's manor.
The evergreens planted in the garden, and the stairs where I begged her to take me back are faintly visible.
If I walk just a bit further, Giselle's remains will probably reveal themselves unchanged in the rain.
Once again, I turn my steps away without fail.
But there's somewhere I need to go before home.
Anyway, as long as Mace doesn't run into me, it won't matter what she gets from the beggars.
Only things I touch will break on their own.
Still, just in case.
Actually, this might just be venting.
Maybe I just want to hurl the one emotion I have left at someone.
My steps were calm the entire way to the underpass.
My body's been replaced with one from much earlier, but maybe I'm still not free from the drugs.
Seeing how my heart remains this coldly sunken.
I realized I was a caged bird who mistook what I gained for freedom and went wild with joy.
I realized it wasn't because Giselle was insane, or because Iris loved her family more than me that I was abandoned.
It's because I touched it. My life was thrown away again because of that.
Right? You're going to fuck up everything I touch from now on too, aren't you?
I don't even feel like resenting you. Let's just say it's my fault.
The rain pours down again. A downpour that pounds my clothes and body like hail.
My body grows heavier, but my steps don't slow compared to when I started.
Looking like a drowned rat, I arrive under the bridge, in front of the tout.
The tout with yellowed teeth seems to mistake me for a customer and rushes over excitedly.
After shaking the rainwater off my hand, I drive my fist into the center of his face.
—CRACK
All sorts of fluids scatter through the air from his shattered face.
Hot blood sprays onto my fist instead of cold rain.
The adrenaline hardens like cream exposed to air.
Come to think of it, I'm drunk right now.
I didn't hold back, but his head didn't split open like a watermelon.
I stomped on, kicked, and pounded with my clenched fists what lay sprawled on the ground for a long while.
Beggars trying to figure out the situation gradually gathered into a crowd.
But not one of them tries to stop me.
The level of my violence escalates.
I didn't stop until I felt every bone in the tout's body break.
The guy from inside the tent and those running a gambling den in the hole start crawling out.
It was worth screaming while beating him so it wouldn't be drowned out by the rain.
I ground the tout, who still seemed to be breathing, under my foot.
I drove the sword from my waist into the gravel ground and made an appropriate threat.
"All beggars, listen up. Don't approach any nun who comes here from now on.
Buy, sell, shoot up, suck down drugs all you want. I'd be even more grateful if you die doing it.
But if you talk to a nun, I'll cut you down. If you beg from her, I'll stab you. If you give her gifts, I'll gut you."
My targets don't murmur, only maintain silence.
My business is done. They must've gotten it, with this much.
If things still go to shit despite this, I'll just kill myself again.
Now I just need to go home and hole up.
The end of tuning is stock, and the first plan is always the most perfect.
Let's fill the house with alcohol and cigarettes like a bunker, blow through it all, and die right away.
I climb up from under the bridge and walk the path along the riverbank.
Mud dirties my shoes and pants as I climb the hill.
And fuck, it's still so vivid in my eyes. Her appearance before death.
...Mace is there.
In front of some closed shop, under the eaves.
She was avoiding the rain, leaning against the wall with a holy scripture in hand.
She seemed to have come out for her hobby as usual.
Would she be surprised if I told her I just ripped out those roots?
Mace is wearing her nun's habit for the first time in a while.
Not the clothes Iris bought her, but the outfit I know well.
Now Mace won't be expelled from the Academy or bullied.
Without one bastard child, even if she can't hang around with people, she'll live quietly and well on her own.
That's good. A nun's habit suits her best.
Mace's eyes are no longer closed from drugs.
With her usual bright eyes turned toward the sky, she's admiring the dark clouds and downpour.
Let's pass by. Let's bow my head, pass by, and go home.
You idiot. Not next to Mace.
Don't pretend to avoid the rain beside her—fuck off to where you properly belong.
Your dwelling isn't a sunny place. It's somewhere much lower than that.
Ain, this bastard, can never become human.
In terms of time, not even an hour has passed.
You broke it by touching it. You fucking bastard.
I must have sprained my hand while punching. My wrist is swollen.
But I don't care about pain anymore.
I'll have to experience it constantly from now on, so it's better to get used to it early.
The cigarette pack and matches I pulled from my pocket were soaked and shriveled from the rain.
When I put it in my mouth, the taste of wet tobacco leaves and filter is utterly revolting.
I suck on that taste resembling my saliva with my tongue.
No matter how many times I strike the wet match against the closed shop's door, it won't light.
Thanks to my bangs hanging like a curtain from the rain, I'm grateful I can't see Mace's face.
"You're not supposed to smoke on the street."
At the sudden high-pitched voice and words I know well, strength drained from my hand.
The cigarette and match that fell from my mouth gradually sink into the puddle at my feet.
I turned my head and looked at Mace.
Like our first meeting in the classroom, that gaze filled with curiosity and sympathy for the weak.
Her mouth is no longer closed either. It's gaping as usual.
"Oh my, you're hurt."
Her gaze touches my hand, and further, my wrist.
Without hesitation, she approaches and places both hands on the swollen area.
I wished she wouldn't close her eyes, since I'd just been sick of seeing it.
"It must have hurt. Can you bear with it a little?"
The first Blessing I received from Mace was warm.
But much less than her body temperature I knew—about the level of a slight fever, perhaps.
By that weak heat, the swelling in my wrist begins to gradually subside.
After finishing the Blessing, Mace looks at my face again.
Closing her eyes wasn't the problem.
I just can't face her anymore.
Without even thanking her for the treatment, I only stare at the puddle spreading moment by moment on the ground.
I can feel her gaze still fixed on me, not budging.
She's probably looking at the scar on my face and empty sleeve like before.
But her hand, approaching so quickly I can't react, lifts my wet bangs.
Her expression looking up at my eyes, trembling worse than my wrist, is unusually serious.
The warmth her hand conveys touches my cheek, not the texture of my scar.
"We've met before, haven't we?"
I have no memory of encountering Mace at this point.
The different behavior Iris showed from the previous life comes to mind, from when I left the manor and before.
Giselle's appearance too, who clung to me persistently over some trivial trigger after abandoning me without context.
Cycles, regression, death—whatever it is.
I wonder if something gets left behind with each repetition.
I want to answer yes to the question that chirping voice asks me.
I want to nod vigorously and make her warmth, her devotion mine again.
'Yes. We've met. I love you, Mace.'
If I just spit out those words, she might come to me again.
She might dig up the dirt poured over my grave again and breathe light into it.
This time for sure, together at the festival, the future...
Not a chance. Wake up from the dream.
A Bad Ending with a title full of deep malice and mockery will just be added at the moment of death.
Did you think up the next ending title well?
Too bad. If I fall for it again, I'm an accomplice.
I won't be involved with anyone anymore.
Please enjoy yourself.
If watching my life, inferior even to an insect as Douglas said, continue to end is so enjoyable for you, I can show you as much as you want.
But. I'll never show you being abandoned again. Know that.
You'll only see one man drinking and smoking in a matchbox-sized room before killing himself.
How delightful. Our author truly has an excellent artistic vision.
I removed Mace's hand from my gradually heating cheek and slowly stepped back.
Watching her hand stretch out more longingly each time I moved away, I realized something.
This time, I've truly died.
Giselle couldn't tear my love apart. At most, she only scratched it.
But the second heartbreak I experienced seems to have put my love in a coffin and even recited a eulogy.
As I leave the eaves, my body begins getting soaked by rain again.
I must now live my entire life only in this cold.
Mace hesitated and tried to follow me out from under the eaves.
"Don't come... Please..."
The cry of an insect begging the approaching sun was trembling.
Mace's eyes, hearing my words, begin trembling as much as mine.
The hand she was raising slowly lowers, and she only makes a blank expression in the rain.
There were so many expressions I didn't know about.
I didn't know because she always only smiled at me.
I only wanted to see that face resembling the stained glass of the prayer room.
There might have been much more to learn about Mace.
For example, her expression now welling up with what's clearly tears, not the falling rain.
I turn away from Mace.
I force myself to lift my feet that stick to the ground, refusing to leave, and begin walking step by step.
"I, I teach Divinity Studies at the Academy, so you can visit anytime..."
How cruel.
I can't go to the Academy anymore.
How perfect, Ain. Another place you can go has disappeared like this.
The closer I approach the sun, the more certain the wax wings of this insect will melt.
