TFM 243

This time, I will kill this love I have for you. I will kill it, no matter what.

 Chapter 243

The moment he realized that fact, a crushing pressure, as though he had swallowed a lump of iron, pressed heavily down on his chest.

With the sensation that the ground beneath his feet was helplessly giving way, he sank to the floor and leaned his back against the side of the bed. Even as his mind grew distant, his gaze remained fixed on her diary.

[You seem to have grown much thinner in the past few months. I’m sure you’ve buried yourself in work again without resting properly.

After interfering so much about my health, why do you take such poor care of your own body?

Even though I know I have no right to say that to you, I wanted to run to you and nag you endlessly. I wonder how you would react if I did.]

A faint trace of irritation and anger could be seen in the letters, pressed down firmly by her hand.

But the sentence that followed was arranged in a much calmer tone.

[Sometimes, I imagine approaching you and speaking to you as though nothing happened.

Have you been well?

Are you hurt anywhere?

Has work been hard on you?

Why is something so simple so difficult for me?

I must be broken somewhere.]

After that self-mocking sentence, blank pages followed for a while, as though she had stopped keeping the diary.

Her records began again after he left for the campaign once more.

[Autumn has finally begun.

At this time of year, the wind blows so often in Kalmor.

Do you know? When the wind crosses the fields and reaches me, I can smell the soft scent that used to linger in your hair.

Because of that, no matter how painful or sad it becomes, I cannot bring myself to hate this land.]

With eyes gone distant, he read that sentence again and again.

After that came plain records of daily life.

Khan still took up a large portion of them, but there were also brief notes about books she had read in the library, and conversations she had shared with the maids.

Though there was nothing especially remarkable in them, he read every single letter with obsessive care.

Because all of it was something she had left behind for him.

[Today, I ran across the fields with Khan. Across the endless grassland, on and on.

Even though my heart was pounding as if it might burst, strangely, it did not hurt. For the first time in my life, I felt glad that I was alive.

Perhaps God sent me a gift. Perhaps He thought that, at least once in my life, I should be allowed one radiant moment.

I’m glad Khan came to me.

On the day my breath runs out, I will surely remember this moment. I will remember that joy like heaven existed in my life too.]

For a long while, he could not leave that page.

The letters lined across the paper felt as though they had become long, sharp awls, piercing into his retinas.

After remaining frozen for a long time, he finally turned the page with trembling hands.

Blank pages followed after that.

Just as the thought crossed his mind that perhaps, because of that wolf, she no longer needed to write in the diary, a page with half of it torn away appeared.

He stared down silently at the sheet, which looked as though it had been ripped by hand, then carefully unfolded the crumpled portion.

On the half-remaining page, black lines that seemed to have been scribbled wildly and smeared ink stains ran chaotically across the paper.

When he turned it, severely distorted letters, almost impossible to recognize, came into view.

I’m sorry, Varkas. I’m truly sorry. Please forgive me. No, don’t ever forgive me. Please, just don’t die. I wish I had died instead. I want to die like this. I wish someone would please kill me. The truth is, I never wanted to be born. I’m sorry I was born. I’m sorry I desired you.

Even though no date was written, he immediately knew when it had been written.

At the sensation of his insides being torn apart, his body trembled as if in spasms. He fumbled over the crumpled page, then opened the next one.

The ruined, disordered lines continued for quite some time after that, but the ink had smeared so badly that he could not read them at all.

He stared for a long while at the black stains that looked like bloodstains, then turned page after page until clean white paper finally appeared.

At last, a new passage emerged, written clearly and neatly.

[I cannot erase the sight of you collapsing while coughing blood from my mind.

Every night, I dream that I am holding you as you grow cold in my arms, screaming.

If Khan had not stayed by my side and guarded me, I surely would have done something foolish again.]

For a long while, he stared at those sentences as if nailed in place, then moved his gaze to the next lines.

[It may be a shameless thought, but I want to be freed from this pain now.

I do not want to hurt anymore.

I do not want to suffer anymore.

So, every day, I pray.

That this love will die.

That I will love you only until today, and tomorrow, this love will be dead.]

He felt his heart plummet to the floor, and his body went rigid.

The hand holding the diary began to tremble so violently that he could no longer control it by will alone.

His gaze became fixed on the words left at the very bottom of the page.

[But when morning comes, I will surely think of your face again.]

His vision, which had been crumbling into white, began to ripple dizzily.

Cold sweat ran down his face and fell in heavy drops onto the diary. He hurriedly wiped it away, but the droplets kept falling without end.

He raised a hand and touched his face.

A lukewarm liquid was wetting his cheeks and neck. He wiped at it blankly, then suddenly realized that the stream was beginning at the corners of his eyes, and his movements stopped.

Drop by drop, tears fell and pooled in his palm.

As he stared blankly down at them, his wavering vision slowly began to collapse.

Watching the sight of his own arms and legs gradually falling apart, he soon raised his head and looked around the room, where darkness had begun to settle.

The hallucination that had begun with his own body had, before he knew it, spread to the entire space surrounding him.

The outlines of the bedroom, slowly melting away, lost their shape and sank into dense darkness.

At last, he was left alone in pitch-black emptiness, where nothing existed.

From the far side of that hollow world, he heard something howling.

It was the sound that had echoed again and again inside his head for the past several months.

That desperate scream turned every nerve in his body inside out.

In that instant, a crushing pressure came down over his entire body.

He gasped harshly and braced both hands against the floor.

It felt as though some enormous thing were chewing through his body while he was still alive.

A ferocious agony rushed over him all at once, as if every bone and piece of flesh in his body were being ground to bits, as if his organs were being shredded.

He clawed at the floor until his nails broke.

Agony tore through him, as though thousands of fragments were scraping along the inside of his skull, and his vision stained red with blood.

It was as if all the pain he had forced down until now had burst free as a tidal wave.

A beast-like sob spilled from between his parted lips.

With the realization that the sound was terribly similar to the desperate scream echoing inside his mind, he soon collapsed without form.

Everything he had built up like an illusion crumbled apart.

Now, all that remained to him was endless, boundless pain…

Only pain.

‧˚₊‧ ┈┈┈ ⟡ ┈┈┈ ‧₊˚⊹

At dawn, rain began to fall.

Varkas, who had been sitting there in a daze for a long while, slowly turned his head as though drawn by the sound of the rain.

Perhaps the healer had come and gone at some point, for beside the bed, a calming incense candle was releasing thick smoke.

He stared silently at the strands of smoke dissolving pale into the darkness, then soon lowered his gaze back to the diary.

After wandering through the room like a ghost and searching through every last one of her belongings, he had managed to find one more record she had left behind.

The newly prepared diary was filled with anger, sorrow, and despair directed at him.

[You killed our child.

Even though I begged you so desperately, you did not even pretend to listen. I cannot forgive you. Not even in death.

This time, I will kill this love I have for you. I will kill it, no matter what.

I will tear it to shreds until not even a trace remains. I will make sure of it.]

After that, words of resentment toward him continued.

From time to time, sentences filled with fierce contempt and self-mockery toward herself were mixed among them.

He read those words again and again with the feeling of harming himself.

Her pain.

Her resentment.

Her despair.

He swallowed every last bit of it without leaving anything behind.