#86

…….

5 years ago.

Or was it 10 years ago? No. It must have been much longer ago than that.

In fact, I’m not sure how far back I should go to account for my mistakes. Perhaps from the moment I was born as a blank monster, unfortunately grew up seeing you, and that itself was a sin. Most recently, it would be the night a few days ago.

I shouldn’t have come to you in that state. I shouldn’t have soaked you, who was already in pain, and let you sleep while wet. Even the fact that you’ve been feverish and near death for the past few days is my fault.

Don’t pretend you don’t know now. You must have known for a long time. How could you not? Yes, you’re the one who has been treating me like I don’t exist all along. But I wonder if you know this too.

You’ve changed something lately.

Especially when I hurt you greatly, when I think it’s all over, you hold onto me like a lie. No? Look, Isolde. Just today, you asked the very person who hurt you to put you to sleep, and you nestled against me so nonchalantly, didn’t you? How on earth, what kind of feelings must one have to…

…….

No, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I wasn’t going to ask you. I already know the reason. I understand that you must be desperate because you can’t even have a normal daily life without me in your position. I get it.

You may not believe this, but I’m okay.

I’m saying I don’t mind if you don’t give me your heart, since I don’t deserve your sincerity anyway. But… but Isolde. Even so, I don’t know how to explain this anxious, morbid feeling.

When will I be able to forget your back turning away from me? Even though you were never mine to begin with.

You only hold onto me in desperate moments. Because you need me, you desperately ignore the fear you feel while being afraid of me. You try to see only my good points while ignoring the parts that trouble you.

Even if you want me today, someday in the future you will surely realize your fear again and shudder. I can assure you that you won’t be able to bear that fear and will turn away from me or leave.

Yes, you’re someone who will eventually leave me, so I should let you go, but from the moment you pretend to be someone who won’t do that again and hold onto me, I can’t see anything but you.

I don’t care what your feelings are, and I end up forgetting even my true self. Even though I know it’s attention and touch born out of necessity, I can’t come to my senses. Only my thirst for you remains inside me.

Why this time of all times?

Why… you of all people?

Now I want you to never leave me. I desperately wish for you to always stay within my reach. But you, yes. You will surely leave me someday. Yet I can’t let you go. No, I can’t let go.

Rather, I feel like I’m going crazy with anxiety about losing you.

You probably don’t know how I endured the year after you left. Do you know what it feels like for every minute and second to be shattered? Even with you by my side now, my reason is so thin, I can’t even imagine what shape I’ll crumble into after letting you go. Now I’m even afraid of myself, constantly losing myself. So… Isolde.

Please. I won’t ask for much. I won’t complain. I won’t torment you by forcing myself on you anymore, so just stay by my side. Just don’t abandon me. Just don’t turn your back on me like before.

…….

…….

Please.

Kretzman.

You said your family was killed by ‘me’. And that the ‘horse’ ‘I’ moved at that time happened to be your demon.

When I heard from you, whom I fatefully encountered three months ago, about the memories Johannes had been living with, I was devastated. However, when I heard Johannes’s fervent first confession kneeling before me, I just wanted to cry a little, feeling that I shouldn’t be too happy to have someone who desires me so much in front of me. Because I didn’t know anything.

If it were a scratch on the surface, I could at least embrace it. But how should I comfort this person whose deepest parts are full of wounds that cannot be touched? At that time, I didn’t fully understand even half of what Johannes poured out.

Such obsession, such pain, anxiety. And the depth of those emotions.

Could it be because I had kept my mouth shut for so long? Whether it was voluntary or involuntary, could it be because I had turned away from him for far too long? The visible suffering was so intense that it made me sick, but I couldn’t fathom its cause, and the conclusion I came to was just the past few years of this life.

I was going to wait, hoping he would open up a bit more. But Johannes, having finished his story alone, simply pressed his head against my chest again. Ah, that gesture…. Somehow, to my eyes, it looked like a child’s whim, wanting to be stroked like before.

What should I do with this man?

I swallowed hard, suppressing the hot breath rising from deep in my throat. Unable to do this or that, I leaned down and hugged his head once. Then I gently pushed away the shoulders clinging to me.

As his shoulders were pushed back, I lowered my hand under Johannes’s chin, which was sinking even lower, and lifted his face. Forced to raise his head as it rested in my hand, Johannes briefly turned his gaze outward. The corners of his eyes were quite red.

“…Are you done talking?”

I asked him quietly.

“Can I talk now?”

“……”

“Do you truly wish that I would hate you instead?”

As expected, there was no answer. Look at me, Johannes, I said. I cupped his face to make him face me. Johannes half-lowered his eyes and was reluctant to look at me, but I brought up the story I hadn’t been able to tell until now.

“Something has been strange for a while. We… sometimes it felt like we were conversing in different languages…. Now I see that neither you nor I have been opening up about anything. It seems that only misunderstandings have piled up because of that. Now, as you said, I’m not sure how far back we should go or what we should resolve first….”

“……”

Johannes showed no small reaction. I closed my mouth for a moment. Yes, this was not a story that could be unraveled in a single night.

For instance, the letter Johannes said he received. The reason he decided to leave me. My first wedding night. The stories of the fifteen years I spent confined in the women’s quarters… And even the demon. In fact, doesn’t it cover almost an entire lifetime?

“How much do you remember about last night? Johannes.”

I asked him after much deliberation. And at that moment, I didn’t miss the fleeting sign of embarrassment that Johannes, buried in my hands, showed. I couldn’t have missed it since I had been staring at him all along. After hesitating for a very brief moment, Johannes answered shortly, almost spitting out the words.

“Most of it.”

“Don’t lie.”

“……”

“You honestly don’t remember much, do you? Isn’t that right? I clearly remember what state you were in that day.”

The brow that still wouldn’t look at me furrowed slightly. It seemed like anger, but it was clearly anger directed at himself. Well, he’s a person who has engraved self-blame into his bones. Unable to watch Johannes’s suffering any longer, I shook my head several times.

“Listen, Johannes. I’m not trying to blame you right now. I just wanted to affirm that I’m not afraid of you at all. No… no. It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t afraid at all after seeing you that night. It was a fear I couldn’t control myself. You know, actually? You looked like someone I had never seen before that night.”

“……”

“But… but Johannes. I don’t think the fear I felt was directed at you. How should I put it? Ah, that is, I… I was only afraid of the act of it being the first time. I was afraid because of my ignorance. Believe me.”

I stroked Johannes’s ear, which gave no reply. I recalled the Johannes I had seen a few days ago. Remembering how he had come to me in tatters like a downpour, and then how he had docilely melted into me as if it were a lie, somehow made my throat feel a bit choked.

“…I remember your gestures from that day. Things like the concern that filled your eyes, or the gentle warmth soaked in your touch. You don’t know? This might sound a bit sorry to you, but somehow you looked out of your mind, and occasionally showed sharp looks, yet nestled so quietly in my arms… how, how.”

“……”

“Pitiful… and lovely.”

“……”

“And you’re telling me to resent you? Why should I? What for? I refuse.”

I ended up speaking in an almost tearful voice. Only then did Johannes’s gaze rise to my eyes. The gloomy and confused aura hadn’t completely disappeared, but it was a much more docile look than what I had seen earlier.

I swallowed once. After taking a quiet deep breath so that Johannes wouldn’t notice, I spoke in the steadiest voice I could muster. It was my effort to gain his trust. And looking back, I think I focused too much on that effort alone, which I regret.

“Don’t be distressed, and don’t blame yourself. You’re the one who saved me, aren’t you? Not someone else, but you were the one who pulled me out of hell.”

“Isolde, that’s….”

“You saved my life.”

Johannes, who had been listening silently until then, tried to open his mouth to say something, but I cut off his voice. I thought it would just be a repetition of his earlier self-blame, regardless of what I heard.

And in fact, at that time, I also felt a sensation as if someone was gently pressing my windpipe with a greasy large needle, but I ignored that too. No, I had to ignore it. Because it didn’t exist.

Yes, even now, years later, I still can’t properly explain that vague sensation. In a way, it was a hidden desire that I had unleashed by harming Johannes in my dreams, and concepts without names don’t exist in this world, now as then, do they?

Nameless. There is no nameplate to read with the eyes and roll off the tongue. There is no language to gather the evil sounds that pierce the hot vocal cords below the standard. In the end, it can’t be conveyed to others, so it’s only remembered by the temperature of the fire left in my lungs…. That’s how I burned my throat without even knowing that thirst was thirst.

Like all nameless things in the world, the suffocating sensation was forgotten by me without filling even a moment. It seemed as if I could only see the self-blaming Johannes. That alone was heavy enough to weigh on my heart. So I just put all my effort into holding onto the suffering Johannes.

“…I’m sorry.”

As expected, what came back immediately was a short apology.