Chapter 82
Even when you ate, you looked vacant. You didn’t even bother to bustle about with cleaning anymore, and though you claimed you were tending to the garden patch, it withered despite the time you spent there.
Even as you grew dim like a clover losing its light, you were still endearing. But compared to watching you sink deeper and deeper, I found it far more pleasing to hear you timidly ask me to grant a trifling wish, or to scold me by urging me to eat one more carrot. So I watched you all the more closely.
But no matter how much I read your thoughts, there was never a clear answer.
One day you forgave me, another day you feared me, and on yet another you despised yourself. You could not decide on an answer for yourself either. That was only natural. Yes, perhaps all of those were both correct and incorrect at once.
We are not something that can be defined so simply. You may not realize it yet, but we are bound together more firmly than anything else in this world, unable to let each other go.
Do you know that, Prina?
When I thrust myself into your narrow entrance… you grip me so tightly that I cannot even pull out.
Just like that, you and I are locked together inescapably. We cannot be apart. You must understand this too, Prina.
And the more I thought of this, the more I obsessed over you.
I wanted to confirm it that you could never leave me.
I wanted certainty that you needed me.
No, perhaps I even wanted to force it upon you.
To you, who thought a broken mirror could never be mended, I wanted to say the mirror doesn’t matter at all. That I am your mirror, and I cannot break. And even if I did, I would pierce into you with those shards, dig into you, and remain within you still. That is what I wanted to imprint upon you.
So I gave you mirror after mirror.
And in those mirrors, only you were reflected.
I wanted you to see it.
That beside you, there is me.
That at my side, you are living and breathing.
Because it cannot be any other way.
You were born for this. This is the reason for your existence.
So, Prina… do not leave me.
Do not run away, leaving me behind.
I embraced you over and over as though in desperate supplication. And each time, you welcomed me. If I went by the responses of your body, it would have been simple, but humans, though nothing more than beasts, are such troublesome creatures refusing to be beasts.
That is why I wanted to teach you directly. Until you realized it yourself, until it was engraved in your body.
So I whispered to you, again and again.
That you cannot live without me.
That only with me are you complete.
That you love me.
Because that is the truth.
Like footprints stamped into the snow, I stamped myself into you again and again. And each time you tried to erase me, I knew I could do it again.
I would not tire. And you… you are the only human I spare, the only one who is not a burden, the only one I love. I intended to repeat this endless, wearisome cycle again and again.
But then, one day, Happy died.
After that, it was like piling dirt only for it to collapse again. No matter how much I tried, there was nothing I could do.
The little grave you made for the bird was clumsy. Happy’s face was still visible. Did you believe he might come back to life? If I were to fix him myself, I feared it would only deepen your sorrow, so I left him as he was.
Day and night, animals and insects swarmed to gnaw at he, but I destroyed them one by one. And then I placed a spell upon Happy so he would never decay.
Because if your last remaining hope were to be destroyed, I wanted it to be by my hand, not by some other beast. Of course, I would greatly enjoy that shameless act, and even your despair would be dear to me…
But somehow, I felt that if I broke you now, I would not even be able to claim those shards.
Because of such thoughts that did not suit me at all, I delayed it again, and again.
The bird, devoid of warmth, lay in peaceful slumber, but strangely, after that, you never looked at it again. As though you already knew that it was not truly Happy, but a false image I had created. So you turned away.
I floundered like a lost child.
You did not avoid me, yet you no longer welcomed me either. Those days continued, and though you were well-tamed, I could not shake the feeling you might slip through my grasp at any moment, and I did not like it at all.
It was only later that I realized.
That this was fear.
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