* * *
I thought I heard Hesia’s voice calling me in my sleep.
However, instead of opening my eyes, I swam in the dream.
My head ached a little from facing the past after so long, and I just wanted to rest.
Before I completely fell asleep, the world I saw through narrowly opened eyes was filled with Hesia rushing towards me.
“Vivi! …going to? Well…”
Hair the color of cotton candy sold on the streets, fluttering with every step, a face so blurred with a messy mixture of worry and affection that its form was unrecognizable, and waves of anxiety so turbulent that they could be felt from a distance.
Both what I could see and what I couldn’t see were frighteningly full of affection.
I smiled faintly and drifted off to sleep.
Perhaps because the last thing I saw was Hesia running toward me like a cat meeting its owner after days…
I dreamed that a hundred Hesias multiplied and clung to me.
Amidst the Hesias pulling at me from all directions and shouting, ‘Vivi is mine!’, I had to shout ‘Mine!‘ alone and forlornly.
Furthermore, at the end, I had to blankly watch a doll made to look like Haen, which they had brought from somewhere, burn fiercely, while they clapped and giggled.
I barely escaped from the dream and opened my eyes with a blank face.
“Wow… that’s strange. I slept, but why do I feel more tired?”
I raised my hand to rub my temples and muttered as soon as I woke up.
The shout, ‘Vivi is mine!’, spoken by the 100 Hesias, wouldn’t leave my ears.
I barely collected myself and instinctively felt the space next to me, then realized that this was the bedroom I shared with Hesia.
I gently pressed the fluffy bedding and tilted my head in confusion.
“Who moved me, hmm, Sia, I guess.”
I answered myself while speaking.
It couldn’t be anyone else, as Hesia deeply disliked anyone other than himself touching my body.
This was separate from whether he trusted the person. I, who had been hesitant to let others touch my body due to the torture at Letiyan’s hands, no longer cared if another person’s hand touched me.
Hesia’s persistent attendance to me was tinged with deep affection and jealousy.
I sat up in bed, brought my knees up, and buried my face between them.
I slightly turned my head, shifted my gaze to the window where the sun was beginning to set, and muttered.
“Sometimes, I just don’t understand.”
What is it about me that he likes so much?
What is it about me that is so precious?
He embraces all the good things about me that even I don’t know.
And he willingly accepts all the bad things about me that everyone knows, loving even that…
“A strange fellow.”
The moment my quiet murmur ended, a knock was heard.
And simultaneously with the knock, the door burst open.
There was only one person in this castle with such a habit.
I chuckled softly, finding it quite amusing and cute how he loudly proclaimed his identity the moment he appeared.
I lifted my head from between my knees and looked at the cute intruder who had invaded the room.
His face, which frantically scanned the surroundings and immediately softened the moment his eyes met mine, was endearing.
Hesia smiled like snow melting without resistance before the sunlight.
Radiantly, to the point of being a little sad, with the face of someone who had long since accepted that resistance was meaningless.
As I quietly watched that face, Hesia closed the door softly and asked in a gentle voice.
“Vivi, are you going to go?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
Hesia whispered, as if I could go anywhere I wished.
His voice was slightly cheerful, as if speaking of a fantastic place that would only appear in a fairy tale.
The fact that his voice slightly trembled at the end was probably only known to me.
I thought I was destined to wander forever, unable to belong anywhere.
Hesia, however, seemed to think I was the wind that could go wherever I wanted.
It was a similar yet completely different perspective.
What kind of being am I to Hesia?
The sudden question was, I dare say, a question that even Hesia himself wouldn’t be able to answer.
I slightly raised my head and looked at the firmly standing Hesia.
The reason we seemed so distant despite sharing the same space must be that we could part ways at any moment, and we both knew that fact.
“Sha, do you think I’ll leave?”
“…Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing in this world can force Vivi.”
‘Neither money, time, nor people can tie Vivi’s feet. You are that kind of person. A person who is forever free, a person who can leave forever.’
Hesia, who whispered like singing, slowly approached.
As if worried that I might leave in a flash if he moved too hastily.
“I like that about you so much, but I also hate it so much.”
“……”
“Vivi, it’s so good that there’s nothing in this world that can hold you. But it’s so pathetic that even I can’t hold you.”
Step by step.
Hesia, who walked as cautiously as if walking on a tightrope, reached out his hand towards me.
I could have easily avoided it, but I meekly offered my face to his white hand.
His fingers, hardened with calluses from holding a sword, stroked my face.
From my forehead to my eyes, from my eyes to the tip of my nose, from the tip of my nose to my lips.
Hesia slightly curved up the corner of my mouth, which had been firmly pressed into a straight line, and whispered.
“Don’t ever be tied down to anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t follow that bastard Haen De Winter.”
“I won’t follow him.”
“Even if God comes looking for you, stay here. You are better suited to breathe as a human than to live as a servant of God.”
‘Live by your own will, Vivi.’
Hesia gently held my chin and mumbled as if pleading.
The veins stood out on the hand holding my chin, but the grip on my chin was still infinitely gentle.
I listened quietly to all those words and then chuckled softly.
“I’ve thought this before. Sia, you promised me in the desert, didn’t you? That you wouldn’t compel anything. Was that a lie?”
Hesia, who momentarily looked speechless at my question, which was accompanied by a raised eyebrow, chuckled softly.
“Yes, that was all a lie.”
‘How could I just stand by and watch you leave in a flash?’
Hesia said without batting an eye that he couldn’t do that even if a knife was held to his throat.
I laughed heartily at his bold and preposterous words and stretched out my arms towards Hesia.
At that simple action, Hesia’s large body collapsed towards me as if dissolving.
Like a strong gravity acting only around me, like a shooting star that fell from the sky and plunged into a lake.
Hesia fell into my embrace just like that.
My body, which I habitually held stiffly, couldn’t bear Hesia’s weight and fell backward.
We collapsed as one without any resistance.
Hesia was in his full ceremonial attire, which he rarely wore, because Haen, a foreign dignitary, had come. His light pink hair was neatly combed back, revealing his white forehead.
His forehead being visible made him seem more like a child.
I lightly pressed my lips to his white, innocent forehead and whispered an apology.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Vivi did nothing wrong. I am the greedy one. It’s because I dared to want you.”
Hesia, who spoke with a melancholic face like a scolded child, finally burst into tears.
The star that voluntarily fell into my embrace, which was empty and devoid of possessions, was crying.
I had wept in secret, but I had never comforted anyone, so I couldn’t do anything.
I just aimlessly accepted the tears flowing down Hesia’s cheeks with my mouth.
“Don’t cry. I told you before, I don’t know what to do when you cry, Sia.”
“When that happens, comfort me.”
“How?”
“Hold me. Tell me I’m pretty. Tell me I’m the only one in the world. Tell me I’m the most precious. Tell me there’s nothing you cherish more than me. Even if it’s a lie… tell me you love me.”
Ah, how should I explain the act of him tearing open his own chest, parting the ribs that God had individually placed there to protect the fragile human heart, and taking out the heart that quietly beat inside to show it?
At least among the words I knew, there was no word to describe that act.
My hands trembled slightly, and then I tightened the arms I had wrapped around Hesia’s back.
I pulled him closer until our chests were touching, and I returned the words Hesia had whispered, one by one.
“Sha, you are the prettiest thing I have ever seen.”
“More.”
“There is only Sia in my world.”
“Keep going.”
“Sha, you are the most precious.”
“Yes.”
“There is nothing I cherish more than you.”
I continued the words without a moment’s hesitation, but I paused slightly at the last one.
Hesia knew that, yet he showed no sign of dissatisfaction.
I held Hesia in my arms and recalled what had happened today.
Hesia had rushed over as soon as Haen left.
He seemed to be trying not to show his emotions.
But after spending so much time together, how could I not see the anxiety scattered across his white face?
Would it be believed that the promise I shared with Hesia is more precious than the promise I made with Haen during my childhood, with his innocent, unaware face?
After a brief consideration, I hugged Hesia a little tighter.
I buried my face in his long, straight neck, like a deer’s, and let out the final words with a sigh and a smile.
“I love you.”
‘I love you, Sia.’
And neither of us tried to determine whether those words were a lie or the truth.
No, we couldn’t determine it.
For sometimes, ignorance is the better truth.
* * *
