My body felt light. So light that it felt as if I wasn’t walking, but flying.
Yet the soil beneath my feet was cold enough to freeze my skin, and the gusting wind was bitterly cold.
From somewhere, I could hear the sound of sorrowful sobbing. Helena soon realized that the person crying was herself.
More precisely, Helena as a child.
[Just looking at your face makes me so angry I can’t stand it! How can you not do something so simple properly?! Was it so difficult to just sit and watch?! Don’t even think about coming home tonight!]
Matilda slammed the door shut and went inside. Young Helena crouched down, leaning against the shabby exterior wall. Red liquid flowed from her forehead.
[She said she’d come, sob, she said if I waited she’d come, sob, I just need to wait.]
Young Helena buried her face deeply between her bent knees and continued to mutter. Due to her crying, her pronunciation was slurred and hard to hear.
[She promised, she has to find me, –.]
As she strained to hear more clearly, the surrounding scenery began to ripple. It distorted and condensed severely until it finally became a single point, and then her body suddenly felt heavy.
‘…Was it a dream?’
Helena finally managed to open her eyes after several attempts.
The first sensation upon crossing the boundary from dream to reality was oppressively heavy. Her entire body creaked and her head throbbed. It took quite some time to move her muscles at will.
When she finally came to her senses, a man was beside her.
It was the man she had last seen at the beach.
“Are you conscious? How are you feeling?”
He remained unchanged. Still with an anxious face and voice, acting as if she were his lover.
“The doctor said that fortunately there’s no danger to your life, but you shouldn’t overexert yourself for a day or two. However, if you feel uncomfortable anywhere, please tell me anytime. I’ll call the doctor right away.”
“……”
Helena swallowed to suppress her growing discomfort. The man’s gentle voice irritated her. It was too gentle, and that irritated her.
Instead of answering, she turned her gaze to the ceiling.
The bland patterned wallpaper commonly used in inns was monochrome. There wasn’t much to see, but she stayed like that for a while.
Her clothes, which should have been wet, no longer felt damp. When she slowly raised her arm, dark green linen fabric came up with it. It wasn’t the clothes she had been wearing originally.
This too was irritating because it was so considerate. She could only laugh hollowly.
“…Do you feel proud for saving someone who stupidly tried to throw their life away?”
Helena finally sat up with a faint groan. Ian reached out to help, but she coldly brushed him away.
Before he could say anything, her anger erupted first.
“You must feel like you’ve done something good and be proud of yourself. I saved a precious life, my altruism rescued this ignorant woman. Isn’t that right?”
“……”
“Don’t even dare to assume such things.”
Helena fiercely poured out her resentment, but Ian didn’t even blink.
“…Rest. I’ll bring medicine.”
He simply turned away with a somber expression.
Helena roughly pulled back the blanket and put her feet outside the bed.
Due to standing up so suddenly, her legs couldn’t support her. A dizzying sensation came over her momentarily, but she gritted her teeth and endured.
As she staggered forward a few steps, Ian turned back just in time. He caught her as she nearly collapsed into him.
The momentum pushed Ian’s body slightly backward, and a medicine bottle fell as it hit the bedside table.
In the silence, pills spilled out from the bottle as it rolled across the floor.
Helena gripped Ian’s collar tightly and began to shout.
“Nothing ever goes my way. Who are you to save me as you please? Did you think you’d receive thanks for saving me? Even breathing is unbearable for me now, everything is just exhausting and painful. Because of your ignorant goodwill, do I have to keep struggling to live again? Can’t I even decide about my own life?”
“If you suddenly stand up, it’ll strain your body. Please go back to bed.”
Ian gently admonished her, but her mouth, which had started pouring out words like a broken dam, wouldn’t stop.
“I never asked to be saved. I especially didn’t want to open my eyes after failing to die properly. You should have left me alone like everyone else. Then I wouldn’t be this miserable. At least I wouldn’t have to feel this way knowing that the person who saved me wasn’t family or husband but a complete stranger…!”
Tears welled up, blurring her vision. Helena had to gulp several times to forcibly swallow them.
She was angry. She was angry but couldn’t cry. That would be too foolish.
In the tense atmosphere, Ian soothed her as if trying to cut through it.
“…It’s okay. You can resent me all you want.”
Helena was irritated by his calm tone, so different from her own. And he seemed determined to continue making her feel that way.
“But I’m not sorry. I don’t want to regret it either. And still, I don’t dislike you.”
Judging by the nonsense he was spouting.
Helena raised her head again after having lowered it gradually. Her disheveled hair obstructed her view, but she saw his face clearly.
He truly wasn’t sorry.
He didn’t even get angry at the woman who was berating him after he had gone to the trouble of saving her.
He simply reached out a hand to support her waist, as if afraid she might collapse. He remained firm without wavering.
It was herself who became more furious at his wooden demeanor. She couldn’t bear the relentless gentleness coming at her.
Her fingers gripping Ian’s collar whitened with the force she was exerting.
“How much more clearly do I need to say it for you to understand? For some people, living is hell. You haven’t saved a person, you’ve killed one.”
“I will save you.”
“I said you killed me. You killed me.”
Helena compulsively repeated it.
“In the most wretched way, you killed me again in a way that’s unbearably miserable!”
Crash! Bang!
Lightning struck like a scream, leaving deep shadows in the space. With a flash, the oil lamp went out abruptly.
In an instant, everything was enveloped in darkness.
Only heated, rough breathing intermittently echoed in the ears. It was as loud as if her heart had moved next to her ear.
Thump-thump-thump. It sounded like someone vigorously knocking on a door.
In the perfect solitude, heartbeats of unknown origin whispered to her.
Leave me too. Leave as if nothing happened.
So that I can hate the world without regrets, so that you can abandon me again without hesitation.
Go away.
Helena blinked slowly until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her small shoulders, which had been rising and falling with her breaths, gradually settled. By then, her head had cooled down.
The strength also slowly drained from her grip on his clothes. She just exhaled with desperate hope, as if collapsing.
‘Please go away.’
Helena hoped he would just turn and leave the room. She wished that her outburst would hurt this man.
She wanted him to leave because she was ungrateful and hopeless.
Not because he was tired of her, not because he was fed up.
But from their first meeting until now, he had never once done what she wanted.
A large hand passed her elbow and slowly moved up her arms, as if trying to soothe her with his body heat. Ian stopped at her wrists with gentle pressure.
“I’m not used to losing someone dear to me. Even if I experience it dozens or hundreds of times more, I’ll never get used to it.”
He carefully detached Helena’s hand from his clothes and met her gaze.
Then he rubbed her whitened knuckles with his thumb. Again so gentle, Helena thought.
“Just as your desire is death, this is my desire. So even if you end up hating me for the rest of your life because of this, I’ll save you again and again. Call it an obsession from fearing loss if you must.”
Helena felt a slight tremor transmitted through her captured wrist.
After a brief pause, Ian continued.
“I want you to live until the end.”
Even in the darkness, his violet eyes were vivid. They were stubbornly fixed on her alone.
So Helena turned her head away. She didn’t want to know a man who spoke with such eyes, such a voice, such words. She had to never know him.
But why.
‘Why do I feel such longing?’
Helena pulled away from him as if escaping. It was only one step, but it created a little space.
Only after confirming that she could stand properly on her own did Ian release her wrist.
As soon as she was free, Helena needlessly gathered her hands together. The warmth from his large palm seemed to linger.
She tried to maintain her composure as much as possible before speaking.
“…Fine. I’ll consider myself unlucky for running into someone as meddlesome as you. But I am not your precious person. Or is your preciousness so shallow that you develop attachment from the first meeting?”
“……”
Ian was silent for a while.
Nevertheless, Helena could clearly feel his gaze fixed intently on her. She couldn’t bring herself to look up.
The silence grew longer, and she, who had no intention of waiting in the first place, passed by him toward the door.
However, as soon as she turned the doorknob and opened the door slightly, the thick wooden panel slammed shut again with a bang.
She sensed a heavy presence behind her. A hand with protruding tendons was pressing against the door.
“I said, don’t, overexert yourself.”
He now seemed a little angry.
So was she. Helena immediately turned to face him.
“Just because my anger has subsided doesn’t mean I want to be with you. You said you don’t dislike me, but I still dislike you.”
“I’m simply saying it wouldn’t hurt to follow the doctor’s orders well.”
“By what right do you—”
“If you really want to argue about it, I could answer ‘temporary guardian.'”
“You must enjoy going out of your way to make things difficult for yourself.”
“…Because you did the same.”
Again, again.
Helena groaned inwardly.
Though barely noticeable and fleeting, he kept making that face during their conversation.
Some emotion that showed through despite his best efforts to suppress it.
It couldn’t be explained simply with a few words. Turning away seemed like the only answer.
‘Or confronting it head-on.’
Dry saliva passed down Helena’s throat.
