A Depressed Kendo Player Possesses a Reckless Aristocrat

96 – Things not to be forgotten (2)

“……”

I froze for a while, holding the smokey candle.

He held his breath quietly, not moving a single finger.

ㅡ smart…

ㅡAnswer me, brother…

A knock on the door once again and a familiar voice lingering in my ears once more.

I tried ignoring him and carefully bit the sage that was in my hand into my mouth.

Breathing smoke escapes from between the lips and covers the field of view.

“Whoa…”

Damn… stop looking for me now…

I let out a small moan at the voice of Ariel, who came to visit me today as well, and touched my throbbing forehead.

ㅡOppa… Are you really okay…?

ㅡIt’s there, right…?

ㅡI heard from the butler… He said he wasn’t eating properly…

Despite deliberately not giving an answer, Ariel did not stop talking.

As if she would not give up on me, she continued her monologue persistently, standing in place.

Into the room filled with silence and smoke, a girl’s voice, embracing a delicate trembling, gradually invades.

—-Please, oppa… show me your face at least once…

—-I know why my brother is like that, but I can still hear his voice…

—-Really, I’m worried…

Every word pushed through the crack in the door pierces my throat deeply.

Every time I heard Ariel whimper and swallow tears, I had to wince and chew on my lips.

ㅡuuu… oppa…

ㅡPlease, please don’t…

—-It’s scary… I feel like my brother will really disappear somewhere…

ㅡThat’s why… Hehe, hehe…

Ariel, who continued to speak in a broken voice, eventually burst into tears.

As the girl’s song became clearer, I let out a shrill moan at the pain in my chest that grew thicker and thicker.

‘Ariel…’

I quietly muttered the girl’s name to myself and clenched my fists.

Then, I picture in my head the image of you standing beyond the closed door.

When I thought of the red eyes crying sadly while holding on to the doorknob that wouldn’t open, a deep place in my heart throbbed.

‘…..sh*t.’

I wanted to run out right now and hug Ariel standing in front of the door.

I wanted to wipe the solid water-colored lines on my white cheeks and comfort her not to cry.

I wanted to whisper to him not to worry, that he would never leave.

However…..

‘…but I shouldn’t be like that.’

With trembling hands, he grabbed his hair and buried his face into the blanket.

The stuffy throat and the eyes that spread hotly.

I desperately held back my tears, and endured the collapse of my thin emotional walls.

ㅡPlease, brother…

ㅡHuh, open the door…

stop.

stop it.

don’t shake me anymore

I mean I’m not who you think

I mean, I’m not the brother you love so much…

“f*ck… f*ck…”

I can’t stay here

I can’t love you who love me

Because I’m not Raiden.

If I, who only borrowed Raiden’s body for a while, love you and live with you…

That’s nothing more than deceiving you.

It just eats up your hearts that love Raiden and becomes a parasitic bug living in it.

ㅡBrother…

“Ariel…”

Even for you guys, it’s only right that I disappear at this point.

Even though the breakup is as painful as being burned, and as empty as a corner of an empty emotion.

Because it would be better than hugging a love that was painted with deceit and lies.

ㅡBrother…

“……”

I closed my eyes, ignoring Ariel’s constant voice.

Then I held my breath with my ears plugged until the voices through the door disappeared.

.

.

.

After about an hour or so,

After Ariel, who had been knocking on the door, finally went back to her room, I was able to regain my calm.

“……”

The stillness that hovered around me seemed to ease the pain in my heart a little,

Even so, I couldn’t welcome it with open arms.

This heavy silence was a cruel stigma that reminded me of my loneliness.

ㅡClick, chiik…

“Huh, whoa…”

All that was left next to me was the haze of smoke and the terrible sense of reality.

I inhaled the unique herbal scent of simmacho that wafted around my nose, and rubbed the simmacho stick I was smoking against the wall.

Maybe it’s because I’ve consumed a lot of energy, but I feel the deep fatigue blurring my consciousness.

“Uh, ha…”

He took a deep breath and buried his face in the pillow again.

Then, he quietly closed his eyes.

I did not resist the exhaustion that oppressed my whole body.

I just calmly accepted it and gave my head completely to the soma who tried to bite me.

I began to sink once again into the sea of consciousness.

Under….

Under.

Until you reach the bottom where you can no longer sink.

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Just like that, it was swallowed up.

.

.

.

bubbling bubbling….

Every time breath is expelled from your mouth, the sound of air bubbles dispersing reverberates in your ears.

A sense of buoyancy that gently embraces the body and a strangely blurred sense of reality.

In response to those foreign sensations, I opened my eyes that had been quietly closed.

“……”

What comes into my eyes through the swaying vision is the black abyss of the sea.

It was a scene of a space that I had become accustomed to to some extent because I had faced it dozens of times in my dreams.

I let out a small sigh, brushing my bangs that were lapping along the rolling waves.

“Haa… why is this dream popping up all of a sudden…”

A bizarre dream that appears out of nowhere every time, and ends with me and Raiden’s shape spitting out strange sounds.

I frowned at the dog dream that came to me regularly and crossed my eyebrows…

“Uh huh, what a f*cking dream! It makes the listeners sad.”

“That ignorant bastard… You don’t know how much we suffer…”

“……?”

When I turn my head to the two voices that suddenly interrupt my thoughts…

Two boys who appeared this time without fail are looking at me.

When the two boys met my eyes, they waved lightly and greeted me.

“Hello~ It’s been quite a while, right?”

“I’ll see you in about a month, cheap.”

“You keep swearing and swearing… You know that’s spitting in your own face, right?”

“Noisy.”

Seeing the two of them arguing with each other, I tilted my head slightly.

what? It’s a bit strange… I’ve never had a direct interaction like this before.

Unlike the previous episodes, my voice seems to be coming out properly…

“Ah, is that so? It’s because the ‘wall’ blocking us has disappeared.”

“You know that, right? It’s… a skill that does ‘iron spirit’ or something.”

wall…? And the iron spirit, what are you talking about all of a sudden…?

As I stared at the two of them dumbfounded for a moment, the boy in the form of Raiden shrugged his shoulders and continued.

“Well, I’ll explain that step by step… Let’s start with the most important thing. The current situation in reality has become a complete mess.”

“Ehh… I was watching from inside, but you dug deep into Rachel. Just?”

“It was a bit harsh… but, I can understand why.”

“……”

Rachel, the sudden echo of that name takes my breath away.

—-Bocchan… you said you wouldn’t leave…

—-For me… To me, the young master is everything…

Once again, when the voice in my ears distorts my expression,

Naru, who was looking at me, sighs and laughs.

“What, what did you do well to make that face?”

“……”

“We definitely warned you. Don’t collapse… In the end, this is what happened, so the responsibility is all on you.”

“Hey, don’t push me too hard… I don’t know anything.”

Naru looked at me as if she was self-sufficient and sneered at me, and Raiden stopped Naru.

I bit my lip at the words that seemed to be reprimanding me.

Is this all my fault…?

I knew that all of this was an afterimage of a dream, but for some reason I couldn’t contain my anger.

I finally opened my eyes wide and glared at the figure in the shape of Naru.

“Ha, your eyes are brutal.”

“…..Shut up.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s just a dream… you talk like that because you know something…”

How did I make up my mind to leave this world?

You don’t even know how I felt and threw Rachel away like that…

Buried beneath the sadness and guilt, the hidden anger and despair begin to emerge little by little.

“…then what the hell was I supposed to do?”

“……”

“No matter how hard I try, I can’t become Raiden… People love Raiden, not me…!!”

A throbbing chest, and a side of emotion that pierces through.

Fragments of the wounds that were deeply embedded in his heart squeezed through his throat and poured out.

“Even if I stay here… I will never be able to blend into this world…”

“…Hmm, is that really so?”

“…..What?”

Raiden shrugged his shoulders and let out a calm voice after hearing my resignation-soaked murmur.

He nodded his head with a sly smile on his lips.

“Are you sure? Everything you just said.”

“…..What are you talking about.”

“It’s literally like you said, are you just a parasite covered in Raiden’s shell?”

At the words whose meaning is unknown, let me frown for a moment,

Raiden, who had come right in front of me, tapped my forehead with his finger and giggled.

“You… No, ‘I’ really have a really bad memory?

“You told me… what the hell…”

“You really don’t remember? I’ve said it many times, ‘We are the same from the beginning’.”

I don’t remember… Of course I remembered those words.

The only words that came out of my dreams every time were those cryptic things.

But it must have been some kind of bullsh*t from my dreams. Why did you suddenly say that…

“Why did we say that?”

“……”

“Do you really still think you and Raiden are separate people?”

“…f*ck, stop talking bullsh*t and tell me what the point is.”

“Whoa, calm down. I’ll tell you even if you don’t want to hear it…”

Raiden took a step back from my harsh reaction, paused for a moment, and then opened his mouth.

“Umm… should I call you Naru now? Then, listen to me, Naru…”

You’re not like something fake.

It’s not even like a parasite that robbed an empty body.

You’re like, um, how to say… a ‘homecoming traveler’.

A traveler who returned to his original body after crossing thousands of years of time and numerous world lines.

Is it because of the journey that was too rough and long, or because I came back after too long?

I seem to have forgotten even the password to enter the house, but…

Still, it is an unchanging fact that you are the owner of the house.

“Hmm~ If I told you this, wouldn’t it be time for you to notice?”

“……”

“Ha ha! Looking at the expression, I guess I can roughly guess it?”

Raiden saw my blank expression and let out a pleasant laugh.

Then he slightly poked his head out, put his mouth close to my ear, and whispered softly.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

Naruto, so the existence of you is…

“…The reincarnation of Raiden, who fell off the cliff and died.”