Chapter: 186
“Today, we’ll wrap up the work here! Thank you for your cooperation!”
As I snapped back to reality at the man’s shout announcing the end of work, I noticed the sun was setting slowly.
Maybe because I tried hard not to think about anything, I couldn’t remember much about how the work went.
Anyway, the end of work meant it was time to take off the protective gear that was hiding my face.
I raised my hand to grab the helmet that I had flipped onto my head and took a deep breath.
Struggling, I somehow fixed the surely distorted expression inside the helmet and slowly took it off.
Pretending to wipe off my sweat, I rubbed under my eyes.
It was a relief to have worked mindlessly.
With all the sweat flowing down, the traces of tears wouldn’t be noticeable.
“Scarlet, you did great today! See you tomorrow!”
“Scarlet, see you tomorrow!”
While I was changing my clothes, I could hear kids passing by greeting me, saying they’d see me tomorrow.
For a moment, I nearly choked on Jessie’s voice mixed in, but I managed to wave and respond with a smile.
After that, I couldn’t remember much until I got home.
I just had this overwhelming thought of needing to get to a place where no one could see me, quickly.
However, when I stood in front of the house door, I hesitated again for a moment.
What if Yoon Si-woo was home?
Yesterday, I felt like I wanted to spill everything to him.
But today, being this worn out, I thought it might be better if there was no one at home.
If Yoon Si-woo were in front of me, I’d want to ask him to just kill me on the spot without asking anything.
My condition was unbearable to the point that it was hard to withstand those feelings.
And I knew that if I said something like that, he would be incredibly heartbroken.
So, if he was home, I carefully planned to go somewhere else. I slowly opened the door and checked the entrance, and the empty hallway seemed to confirm that there was no one there.
With a sigh that could have been relief or a lament, I stepped inside.
As soon as I entered the house, my first stop was the bathroom.
When I opened the bathroom door, the reflection of a girl with red hair twisted into an ugly grimace stared back at me in the mirror.
The moment I saw that reflection, nausea surged up.
The despicable criminal who almost killed her friend and coldly greeted her with a smile.
The disgusting monster who dove headfirst into decomposing beast corpses in a frenzy, seeking out miasma.
The insane psychotic who casually thought of burning his friend to erase the evidence just because he almost got caught.
It was all so revolting and disgusting.
“Uugh…!”
I immediately grabbed the toilet and hurled the awful feelings out.
Ah, if only I couldn’t remember what I had attempted to do while I was momentarily mentally unstable, I might have felt fear instead of this nausea.
The idea of using beast corpses to supplement miasma—that was me.
The thought of killing Jessie just because it would be problematic if she found out—again, me.
All those memories clung to my mind vividly.
Even though I had been in a distorted state, the reality that all of it was my own judgment and actions struck me relentlessly.
And for me, that was simply unacceptable.
Until now, I had wanted to remain myself, no matter the circumstances, even until my dying breath.
But now, the self I had desperately tried to protect seemed shattered to the point where I could no longer trust it.
What kind of monster lurked beneath this skin?
With a scraping noise, I scratched at my face as if I were about to tear the skin away.
Pain shot through where I scratched with my nails, and blood oozed out.
Droplets fell into the murky toilet, staining it with color reminiscent of a monster.
However, my body, having replenished some of the miasma I had lacked, seemed to rebel against allowing me to hurt myself even that much, healing slowly as if it had a mind of its own.
The very sensation of my bleeding slowing down felt like despair.
Feeling that deeply, I began to sob.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all the witch-like and miasma-like things in my body vanished?
It would be great if I could just throw all of it up.
So I opened my mouth and shoved my fingers inside.
“Ugh-! Huh, ugh, ugh… Ooh, ugh…”
As my fingers probed my throat, the metallic scent of blood hit me.
Drawn by it, an acidic feeling rose within me.
I couldn’t hold back and vomited.
Just when I thought the nausea might stop, I forced my fingers down my throat again to coax it out and continued to throw up.
Maybe if I did this, I could expel the things turning me into a monster.
With that thought in mind, I poured out everything inside.
But naturally, as expected, nothing miasma-like came out.
What I expelled was just the sour stomach acid that had been in my belly.
What a foolish thing to do.
Even if I did this, it wouldn’t change the fact that I was still a monster.
“Ugh… ugh… hic… ugh…”
After spewing everything and sobbing, a deranged laugh escaped me.
Broken… no, perhaps I had always been broken from the start.
After all, I was in a situation where it would have been impossible to not be broken.
I had been having nightmares almost every night where I burned everyone to ashes.
When I was awake, I was always trembling with anxiety, and I had grown accustomed to the auditory hallucinations that made me feel like I was going insane.
In an environment like that, how could anyone come out unscathed?
I had only been good at pretending to endure it, so I hadn’t shown much outwardly.
Just because someone seems strong doesn’t mean they’re without wounds.
What lies beneath the surface scars had already begun to fester, and occasionally, like today, pus would leak out.
It hurt every time that happened, but somehow, I pulled through.
Today was, admittedly, exceptionally tough to bear, though.
…Still, I suppose I have to endure.
Because, after all, there were no other options.
With great effort, I stood up and flushed the toilet.
With the sound of rushing water, all the emotional pus I had spilled flowed away.
Turning on the shower to wash away the wreck I had become, the water felt especially cold against my skin today.
Still, it felt like I needed a cold shower to return to some semblance of normal, so I shivered under the spray for quite a while.
*
Feeling weak in my legs, I stumbled back to my room.
I lay down on the bed, but sleep didn’t come easily today, so I sat back up again.
As I tried to clear my mind, my gaze landed on the closet across from my bed.
The moment I saw it, I got up as if in a trance and opened the closet door.
Peering into the narrow space between the hanging clothes, memories of childhood flooded back.
Hide and Seek with my father.
I had made a promise with him.
When strangers knocked on our door, it was time to start a game of hide and seek.
So, whenever I heard knocks, I would scramble into the closet and wait for the game to end.
The dark closet was scary, but I loved it because when Dad opened the door, he would smile and say, “My brave son, you’re hiding so well!”
Recalling that memory, I squeezed my body into the narrow space inside the closet.
And when I shut the door, darkness enveloped me, creating a stifling atmosphere.
In that darkness, I felt my breath gradually becoming labored.
My breath soon turned into wheezing, and soon it felt like my head was getting hazy.
It was nothing serious.
Just simple claustrophobia.
The closet was a space of memories for me, but also a place that had given me trauma.
After my father left our family, I initially resented him upon hearing that he had fallen into debt.
But ultimately, I missed him even more.
So on a day my mother went to work, I crawled into the closet at the sound of someone knocking.
I thought that if I hid like this, perhaps my father would return and open the door for me with a smile, just like before.
But, of course, there was no one who would open that closet door.
Trembling in fear in the darkness for hours, no matter how desperately I begged my father to come help me.
No matter how much I wheezed and shouted for help.
The closet door never budged.
The one who found me, passed out that day, was my mother who returned from work.
And I gained claustrophobia that day along with the realization.
No matter how earnestly I begged, my father wouldn’t come back to open the door for me.
So now, rather than relying on anyone, I would trust myself.
The tendency to avoid asking for help stems from not wanting to be in debt, but I believe that day had a significant impact on me.
Instead of just gaining a little trauma, I became more independent, so maybe it’s not all bad.
Anyway, since that day, I like to think I’ve become a pretty tough person.
To be honest, my life has felt more like enduring rather than living.
Poverty and the absence of my father were common subjects for mockery to those around me.
In the world, unfortunately, there seemed to be more bad people than good ones.
And then, my mother’s illness and passing away.
I guess I’ve gone through a bit more trials than others.
Of course, my life wasn’t composed solely of trials.
There were friends who comforted me during my tough times and those days filled with endless love from my mother.
I realized that if I endured and kept going, I could eventually find happiness with precious people.
Still, sometimes when it became too hard to endure, I would intentionally go into the closet, giving myself a shock therapy session.
After all, there would be no one to help me, so I needed to pull myself together and get back up.
The only thing I could believe in was myself, so I had to clear my mind.
But, today, today I felt like I couldn’t trust even myself.
How could I trust the one who almost killed my precious people?
I felt suffocated.
Even if I wanted to open the closet door and get out, my body refused to move.
As my breath grew more labored, fear wrapped itself around me.
And amidst my increasingly blurred vision, suddenly, a thought quietly surfaced.
…Is that so?
In the end, it might be true that I was secretly hoping someone would open this door and rescue me.
With that realization, I opened my mouth.
And there, I revealed the weakness I had been trying so hard to hide.
That I was scared, that I wanted help.
Please, someone come and help me.
But that true wish couldn’t form words, and it merely turned into weak gasps that vanished into thin air.
With a despairing heart, I closed my eyes.
I see, there’s no one to hear such words anyway.
Just as I thought I would give up,
A light seeped into the pitch-dark closet.
“Scarlet!” “Scarlet!”
As I slowly opened my eyes at the voices that called out, I looked and saw.
A white-haired boy and a silver-haired girl.
They were opening the closet door that I thought wouldn’t budge for anyone.
“…Ah.”
For some reason, tears burst out as I realized this.
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