Revampel didn’t lift his head buried on my shoulder. I waited for Revampel’s response, looking around.

The overall space was unfamiliar, but precisely the space I was standing in felt familiar.

‘The corridor is unfamiliar without any memory….’

The detached corridor ceiling. Chandeliers that seemed to have been discarded by someone, and long-neglected moldy pillars. Everything was new to me.

But the yellowish carpet on the corridor, the withered potted plants, and the broken sharp mirrors were very familiar.

The gilded mirror seemed to have been in one place for a long time, with traces of sticky aging. Trying not to touch it, I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

That’s when it happened.

The face of my childhood passed over the mirror like a lantern.

“……!”

Surprised by my childhood face passing over the mirror, I stepped back.

The place where young me stood was not here.

Whoosh.

I quickly turned my head back as if I could hear the wind. Then, behind the mirror, next to the corridor, a very small window appeared.

It felt like something would come to mind.

“Terry.”

“Shh. Just a moment.”

I stopped Revampel from speaking and looked at the small window like a prison window. It was a window so small that only a child’s arm could barely escape.

Through that window, a blurry figure passed through my eyes.

‘I… I was there.’

Exactly my childhood.

Young me was outside that small window, looking at this place.

The place where I am standing now.

I turned my head again and looked at the broken mirror. Through the broken mirror, I could see the potted plants and carpets in the corridor reflected from the other side of the small window.

They were things I thought were familiar a while ago.

‘Have I been to this place?’

The unfamiliar memory that came in like waves without any warning was confusing. But that was all.

Even if I tried hard to remember, there was nothing that came to mind.

‘It seems like there’s something I should remember.’

Leaving Revampel and Clint behind, I walked quickly out of the detached building.

The detached building was for confining the aristocrats who had committed wrongdoing.

I stopped in front of the small window where young me might have been. Since the bedroom of the detached building was built in a low place, to see inside the small window as an adult, I had to stoop down a lot.

“Terry.”

Revampel, who hurriedly followed me, called my name. And he hugged my waist, looking at my waist, which was staring blankly at the place where young me might have been.

Revampel comforted me like soothing my confusion on a bewildering day.

“It’s okay. Whether you and I met here or not, it doesn’t matter. Whether I met you or not, I loved you in the end.”

Earlier, he clearly said that this was the place where Revampel had been confined.

“So, don’t be confused, Terry. You don’t need to try to remember.”

“We really met.”

His assurance was strong as he handed me comfort.
When I turned my face away and looked back, Revampel was there, smiling bitterly. The gaze in his eyes was completely different from the voice that reassured me.

‘Having such an expression…’

I know this expression. It’s the expression he made when I first met Revampel and asked if he knew me.

The face that collapses like a sandcastle, devastated as the accumulated expectations collapse like waves.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Revampel.”

It was frustrating not to remember.

“Revampel, you knew me from the beginning.”

Instead of an answer, Revampel gently stroked my confused cheek with his large palm. His sweet body temperature touched me as if he had longed for it. As if he had been waiting for it for years.

“But why didn’t you tell me? That you know me. That you remember.”

And asking me to remember.

Revampel smiled faintly. Then, he slowly pulled me into his arms with both hands.

“At first, I was playing hard to get.”

His hand patting my back felt like a warm sunbeam.

“I kept waiting for you, only you, Terry. But you didn’t. Because you completely forgot about me.”

“So, you waited for me to remember you?”

“That’s right. I thought you would remember me as we spent time together. But on the other hand, it seemed that our meeting wasn’t that important to you.”

The strength in his arms that hugged me increased.

“Memories that people accumulate are all different. For me, they are more valuable and precious than any other memories, but for you, they could be fleeting, like memories flowing through your fingers like sand.”

“…….”

“So I couldn’t say it. I didn’t want to reaffirm that the memories that had become my reason for living were nothing to you.”

Revampel’s voice seemed to tremble faintly, as if confirming that those memories were of different sizes to each other.

“Even now, still? Even now, that’s why you didn’t say it?”

“No. Now…”

His hand, which had been patting my back, moved up and gently stroked my head. I felt Revampel’s warm breath above my head.

He spoke in a more calm voice than a while ago.