The more time passed, the more memories resurfaced. The remnants of Han Ye-an stayed by my side, pestering me. I remembered when all four of us were happy together. The one time I complained about how hot it was and how she had poured a bucket of icy cold water on me, the time when Semi wanted a pet and she had brought a cricket and had lost it in our home.
I learned just how many things she had wanted to do beside her jobs as I cleared out her belongings. She had no choice but to push aside everything she had truly wanted to do in the face of our crushing finances. She had pushed aside everything she had wanted to do, but had supported all of her siblings in what they wanted to do as much as she could.
She was an incredibly talented person. She was as sharp as a whip and picked things up quickly. She was intelligent and would never have fallen behind anybody.
Our nuna was someone with so much wasted potential. She wasn't someone who should've left without leaving a mark.
I parked near the cinerarium and rested my forehead on the steering wheel.
"I still..."
I couldn't help but grumble as I sighed. I still wasn't over Han Ye-an's death. How I had held her cooling body close in my arms, how she had died on the cold asphalt alone, how she had held onto the gifts she had gotten for us as she died. All of those images bothered, haunted me. My hands shook as I held onto the steering wheel.
I smiled bitterly. I looked down at the family photo I had taped on my car. It showed Semi and I making funny faces while Ye-hwan and Ye-an nuna looked at us with an annoyed look. I stretched my hand towards Han Ye-an in the photo and stroked her face. I wanted to see her. So much. So much that I couldn't breathe.
I grabbed the flowers I had brought with me and got out. A cold gust of wind hit me as soon as I got out of my car.
I went into the cinerarium and found Han Ye-an's spot. The gifts that my siblings and I had gotten for her were neatly placed next to her ashes.
'....Han Ye-an was still alive when we bought those things for her.'
It felt like everything had happened just yesterday. I held my little siblings' hands and wondered what gift we should get her. We thought about buying clothes but didn't understand Han Ye-an's grotesque taste in clothing and gave up. Han Ye-an was like a parent to us, so we decided to get her a flower badge, just like how we would pin flowers on our parents. We thought she would like it. We got her a rose badge to congratulate her becoming an adult, too. Even though we couldn't give it to her.
Semi had made paper flowers to place next to her. I put my flowers next to them.
"Hic, hic..."
I wanted to stop crying. I wished I could accept everything now. How many years had passed for me to still sob in front of her ashes like this? If Han Ye-an saw how weak I was, she would call me a crybaby and would make fun of me for it.
I was crouching in front of her ashes and was rubbing my eyes when someone started walking towards her.
A woman who I had never seen before came over to Han Ye-an's spot and put down a wine-colored flower. She had short black hair. She had sharp, clean features and had piercings all over her face. She had at least one piercing in her nose and on her lips.
It was freezing cold outside, but she was still wearing a sleeveless shirt. Over her exposed dark skin, she had a bunch of complicated-looking tattoos. Her hands were shoved into her pockets as she pouted and muttered to herself.
"Swanhaden, how dare you just come to me like that and give me such an annoying request. I'm just following your request because it's for Shuraina. I'm not usually nice like this."
She muttered with an interesting expression on her face. She combed her hand through her short hair and crossed her arms before staring at Han Ye-an's photo before grinning.
"Am I finally escaping this stupid time trap now? Hurray, I'm free! It's over! The DuBois' godforsaken time circle won't activate now, right?"
The woman had a hoarse, husky voice. She linked her fingers together and stretched her arms up. She looked refreshed.
She looked like she had a strong personality, but she also had an immense sense of pressure surrounding her. She wasn't gesturing or doing anything special, but the pressure seemed embedded in her body. I unknowingly frowned. This wasn't someone normal.
When I just stared straight at the woman in front of me, the woman noticed my stare and turned around. Her eyes looked at me.
I stayed there, crouched, and wondered who this was and if they were someone who knew Han Ye-an. I flinched when our eyes met
Her irises were rimmed with a dark shade, and the insides seemed to shine brightly with a dark color. The insides of her eyes seemed sparkly, as if they were snowballs with black glitter. The most shocking thing about her eyes were that they were slit in the center, as if she was a reptile.
The woman scanned me from top to bottom before tilting her head.
"Oh my, child. What are you doing under our Shushu's remains like that? How dirty. Why are you crying?"
Her eyes shifted downward from my face to my necklace in surprise. Her eyes grew wide as the corner of her lips climbed up. It was amazing how high the corners of her lips went up. It looked inhuman, just like her eyes. Her eyes were full of curiosity and her lips were still curled upwards. It was an eerie expression.
I wanted to run, but my feet refused to move. It felt like someone had tied my feet down to the ground. It wasn't that I wasn't moving, but that I couldn't pull my feet up as hard as I tried.
While I was flailing, the person walked closer to me. My face crumpled into a scowl.
"How do you have this? This is Shushu's. Moreover, this world doesn't have any concept of magic. You wouldn't be able to get a magic stone even if you wanted one."
She glanced at me and my necklace as she muttered the question to herself. She still had that eerie smile on her face. She was smiling, but she looked murderous. It didn't feel like she was trying to be threatening, but I still felt uncomfortable.
"Huh? Wait. Your soul is….."
Her eyes grew wide. She looked surprised as she slowly walked closer to me, then grabbed my face with her hand and turned it left and right. I didn't know why, but my body refused to move. Some unseeable kind of power was holding me down.
Her pupils grew bigger and smaller as she peered closely at my face. She looked shocked, then excited, as she began to look gleeful. She made a strange, animalistic sound, kind of like a "Tss, tss, tss."
"Why is the soul that I threw away to prevent destruction all the way over here? I thought that it would be destroyed when time looped back to the beginning. Moreover, you…. Wait, who are you in this world?"
As soon as she stopped talking, I felt my body regain some sort of power. The strange power forced my mouth open. I answered her question as if I was controlled.
"Han Se-yoo. Ye-an's little brother."
I didn't want to respond to her question. But my response just flew out. I bit my lips after telling a total stranger my name. It felt like I was being controlled by a ghost.
She laughed loudly when she heard that I was Ye-an's little brother. Her eyes were wide open and looking at me as she laughed. It was terrifying.
"Ha, haha! How interesting! This is unbelievable. So you were the reason why that pompous, cold prince became so cute and childish, huh? I can't believe I found the soul that I threw away here."
She rested her hand on my shoulder and laughed until tears welled in her eyes. Throughout all of this, she stretched her hand towards my necklace and continued to touch it.
"I'm incredibly amused thanks to you, so I'll give you a little reward. Looking at the current state of things, it seems right to use this spell at this moment. Don't lose this necklace. This will lead you to your original soul."
She placed a finger in the air and began to draw out a strange symbol. I was just getting over the shock of seeing something being written out in thin air before I saw the words engraving themselves into my necklace before disappearing completely.
I wanted to shove her hand away, but my body refused to move. She continued to laugh as she looked at me. I was scared out of my mind while she was having the time of her life. Nuna, save me.
I frowned as I listened to all of the nonsense coming out of her mouth. I gave up figuring out who you are at this point, but couldn't you help me figure out what you were talking about? We're speaking the same language, right?
She narrowed her eyes at me as I glared at her, then tapped my forehead before laughing again. Then, she finally pulled away from me slightly and began to mutter again.
"Does this mean that I'm not going to see Hestia anymore? Finally!"
She grabbed my hands and began jumping for joy. I was pulled from where I was standing by some unseeable power, then skipped in a circle with her.
"It's finally over! I'm free! It's finally a success after countless attempts! I can wake up Blanchielle now!"
When I just stood there awkwardly, she nagged at me for not being happy and excited with her. I wondered if she was a runaway patient from a nearby mental facility. I wondered how I could persuade her to go back to the facility when my entire body stiffened. She was holding something in her hand.
The black-haired woman was holding none other than the rose-shaped badge that I wanted to give to Han Ye-an for becoming an adult. I had placed it in the display next to her ashes, but she had taken it out.
The woman looked at my badge and smiled.
"I'll pass this on to its owner for you. I'll persuade them and make it so that you can give it to her yourself, so. Don't worry about it. Haha. Maybe I've gotten too nice?"
I scowled at her words and yelled. I thought my voice wouldn't work, but my voice seemed to follow my will this time.
"Wait! If you take that!"
I tried to catch her, but she just placed one of her fingers on my forehead.
"...!"
A strange kind of power came out of her finger and touched my body, and I soon became drowsy and lost consciousness. The last thing I saw through my blurry vision was her. See you again, she mouthed. Then, she ripped the air in half and left.