“Today’s work will end here! Thank you for your cooperation!”
As the man’s shout signaling the end of work reached my ears, I realized the sun was setting, casting a warm glow over everything.
Perhaps it was because I tried to avoid thinking too much, but I couldn’t quite recall how the day had gone.
In any case, the completion of work meant I had to remove the protective gear that had been shielding my face.
Raising my hands, I grasped the helmet planted firmly on my head and took a deep breath.
With great effort, I composed the distorted expression that surely lurked beneath the helmet and slowly lifted it off.
Pretending to wipe away sweat, I rubbed my eyes, hoping to mask any traces of tears.
Thank goodness I had been working so mindlessly.
With the plentiful sweat I had shed, my tear-stained face wouldn’t stand out.
“Scarlet, thank you for your hard work today! See you tomorrow!”
“Scarlet, see you tomorrow!”
As I changed my clothes, I could hear the children passing by greeting me with plans to meet again tomorrow.
For a moment, I felt a tightness in my throat at Jesse’s voice mixed in, but I somehow managed to put on a smiling face and waved back in greeting.
After that, I had little memory of the journey home.
All I could think about was getting to a place where no one could see me as soon as possible.
However, standing at my home’s door, I paused again.
What if Yoon Si-woo was home?
Yesterday, I felt like I wanted to share everything with him.
But on a day as tough as today, wouldn’t it be better if no one was home?
If Yoon Si-woo were standing in front of me, I would want to ask him to end my life right then and there without question.
It was hard to bear the feelings whirling inside me in my current state.
Yet, I knew that if I said something like that, he would be incredibly saddened.
So, I carefully opened the door with the thought of going somewhere else if he was home, and my empty entrance hall greeted me, suggesting no one was there.
I let out a sigh that could either be of relief or a lament as I entered the house.
As soon as I stepped inside, I made a beeline for the bathroom.
Opening the bathroom door, I saw the reflection of a girl with red hair staring back at me, her face contorted in the mirror.
The moment I met that gaze, an overwhelming nausea rose within me.
I was a contemptible criminal, shamelessly greeting her while nearly killing a friend.
A detestable monster, who had plunged her nose into the rotting corpse of a lesser demonic beast, ravenously seeking magic.
The visage of a madman who had drunkenly attempted to incinerate a friend to destroy evidence, trembling at the thought of being exposed.
It was all far too disgusting and repulsive.
“Ugh…!”
I immediately grasped the toilet and released the rising disgust.
Ah, I wish I could forget what I almost did in that moment of insanity; it would be less frightening than feeling this way.
Filling my body with magic by using the demon beast’s corpse, as if that could satisfy some unfathomable void.
The thought that I had almost killed Jesse because of my fear of being discovered.
All these memories remained too vividly in my mind.
Even though I was in a deranged state, the realization that all of it had occurred because I had decided and acted on it was painfully clear.
And to me, that was utterly intolerable.
Until now, I wished to remain myself until the very end, even in death.
But now, the self I had wanted to protect felt so shattered that I could hardly trust it anymore.
What kind of monster was hiding beneath this skin?
I scraped at my face as if I wanted to peel away my skin.
With a sharp pain, blood began to ooze from where my nails had grazed.
Drops of blood plopped into the murky toilet, coloring it with a hue befitting a beast.
However, the monster’s body, having barely regained a semblance of magic, seemed to deny even the act of harming itself.
The feeling of my flowing blood slowing down was despair itself.
I cried out, embracing that hopelessness.
If only all this witchcraft, all this magic could just disappear from my body.
If only I could expel everything, that would be wonderful.
With that thought, I opened my mouth and thrust my fingers inside.
“Ugh-! Huh… Ugh, Ugh… Huh, aah… Ughhh-!”
As I shoved my fingers down my throat, the metallic scent of blood hit me.
Drawn by it, something sour began to rise within me.
I couldn’t keep it down, so I hurled it up.
Each time I thought I might stop being nauseous, I would shove my hand back down my throat to forcibly bring it up and expelled everything.
I thought perhaps I could vomit out whatever was turning me into a monster.
I poured out everything I could from within as if to expel it all.
But of course, as one would expect.
What I vomited contained none of the magic of the demonic beasts.
All that came out was the sour gastric juice from my stomach.
What a foolish act.
Even if I did this, it wouldn’t change the fact that I was a monster.
“Ugh… Ugh… Ugh… Ugh…”
After the retching and sobbing, I found myself breaking into a hollow laugh, as if something in me had shattered.
Shattered… No, perhaps I was already broken from the start.
And for good reason; I was in a situation where I couldn’t escape without being fractured.
Almost every night, I dreamt nightmarishly of burning everyone to ashes.
When awake, I trembled under constant anxiety and I had become so accustomed to the auditory hallucinations that threatened to drive me mad.
What sort of person wouldn’t break under such an environment?
I was simply someone who had grown accustomed to enduring it, which is why I hadn’t made it overly apparent.
Just because I seemed sturdy didn’t mean I was unscathed.
The wounds that remained hidden had turned to mush, and sometimes, like today, they would burst forth.
Though each time was painful, I still managed to endure somehow.
Today was just challenging enough that even I found it hard to cope.
…Yet, I must endure.
After all, I had no choice but to do so.
With great effort, I stood up and flushed the toilet.
With the sound of water rushing, the emotional filth I had poured out flowed away.
I turned on the shower to cleanse my battered body, but today, the water felt piercingly cold against my skin.
Still, I thought that to return even a little to my usual self, I should take a cold shower, so I stood shivering under the spray for a long while.
*
Feeling my legs unsteady, I awkwardly returned to my room.
I lay down on my bed, but it felt like sleep would evade me tonight, so I sat back up.
Dazedly trying to clear my mind, my gaze drifted to the wardrobe across the room.
The moment I saw it, I felt a strange compulsion to rise and open the wardrobe door.
Peering through the hanging clothes, I spotted a narrow space within the wardrobe, and memories of childhood surfaced.
Playing hide and seek with my father.
I had made a promise with my father.
When strangers knocked at the door, we’d start playing hide and seek.
So whenever I heard knocking, I would crawl into the wardrobe and wait for the game to end.
The dark enclosure was frightening, but the joy of hearing my father open the door and say, “My son, you hid so bravely!” made me love those moments.
Recalling that memory, I nestled myself into that narrow space.
Closing the door, the world outside fell into darkness, creating a stifling space.
That darkness and suffocation began to slowly tighten around me.
As my breath quickened, it morphed into a wheezing sound, and soon my head felt hazy.
It wasn’t anything significant.
Just a simple case of claustrophobia.
The wardrobe felt like a space full of memories, but it also carried a trauma.
After my father had left our family, I learned that he had gone into debt, and I initially held plenty of bitterness toward him.
At the same time, I missed him even more dearly.
So, one day, when my mother went out to work, I entered the wardrobe after hearing someone knock on the door.
If I hid here, perhaps my father would return and open the door with a smile, just like always.
But, of course, no one came to open the wardrobe door.
Trembling in fear of the darkness for hours, no matter how much I begged my father to come help me.
As the sensation of my breath increasingly quickened, crying out to be saved.
The wardrobe door remained shut.
It was my mother, returning from work, who discovered me unconscious inside.
That day, I not only received a case of claustrophobia, but I also learned a valuable lesson.
That no matter how desperately I prayed, my father would no longer be there to open that door.
So, I decided it was better to rely on myself than someone else.
The tendency to refrain from seeking help from others likely stemmed from a dislike for owing anyone, but I believe that day’s influence played a significant role.
While I may have gained some trauma, I also developed a sense of independence, so it wasn’t all for the worst.
In any case, it was from that day onward that I thought of myself as quite a sturdy individual.
To be honest, my life was more about enduring than truly living.
Poverty and the absence of my father were familiar topics for ridicule from those around me.
Sadly, the world often held more bad people than good ones.
Topped off by my mother’s illness and passing.
Perhaps my life contained a bit more hardship than others.
Of course, it wasn’t solely a life of trials.
There were friends who had comforted me in difficult times and the joyful moments spent with my mother, who had given me boundless love.
I learned that if I endured long enough, I could meet precious people and find happiness.
Still, when it became too difficult to bear, I would sometimes deliberately hide in the wardrobe, giving myself a shock therapy of sorts.
Because if no one would come to help me, I needed to collect myself and rise again.
The only one I could truly count on was myself, so I would remind myself to stay sharp.
But, today, I felt as if I might not be able to trust even myself.
How could I trust myself after almost killing those precious people?
Breath caught in my throat.
Even if I wanted to open the wardrobe door and escape, my body wouldn’t obey.
With breath quickening, fear wrapped around me.
And then, within my increasingly clouded vision, an unexpected thought slowly emerged.
…Maybe.
I had actually been hoping someone would open that door and come help me.
Realizing this, I opened my mouth.
And at that moment, I revealed the weak self I had been trying so hard to conceal.
That I was scared, that I wanted to be saved.
That I prayed someone would come and help me.
Yet, that true desire didn’t turn into words, instead becoming nothing more than a faint sound that suddenly faded away.
In the emptiness, I closed my eyes.
So it is; no matter how much I say this, there’s no one to listen.
Just as I was about to give up,
From within the darkened wardrobe, light began to seep in.
“Scarlet!” “Scarlet!”
As the voices reached me, I slowly opened my eyes.
And then I saw them.
The white-haired boy and the silver-haired girl.
They were opening the wardrobe door that I thought no one would.
“…Ah.”
For some reason, those facts made tears burst forth uncontrollably.
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