A maiden, even sickly, should be treated with respect. Protected by those who love her deeply.

I was envious of girls because of that.

They were allowed to be sickly so long as they were beautiful, while I was bullied for exactly that.

Average looks, maybe even handsome if they look closer at me... but a coughing mess straight after.

I wondered what it'd be like if I was different.

Maybe if I had big bones and was tall, I'd be like those heroes on American television and movies.

Saving the damsels who were in distress.

But what was I supposed to when I'M in distress?

Meh, I couldn't be bothered feeling sorry for myself at a certain point. What's the point of it?

Accept the world the way it was.

Things went more smoothly in life for me when I thought like that. It started from there.

I met a kind girl who'd take care of me for the rest of my life. At least, that's how I'd thought as a kid.

My real story started after reaching my thirties.

Going from a married man, to divorcee, to a cruel scum that took the opportunities of my ex-wife.

She had maintained my family business quite well.

Being owners of a security firm didn't make us high class citizens, but we never suffered from poverty.

Unabashed about being the man I was today.

Like always, I was just following my wife's lead.

She taught me the simple way of handling business when she was out with her new husband. Taught me how to find the really small pleasure spots on her person. And showed me how to raise her kids.

There was this fine line between us, but she never rejected my existence like my peers had done.

Nor left me on my own when life looked peaceful.

I'd once hated both her for stopping me from pursuing my dreams, and my parents for leaving my fate in 'her' hands... but now those memories seemed like a distant dream. Far from my reach.

"Pass me that document." In the office I usually worked at alone, I'd asked someone to help.

It was my ex-wife's widowed husband.

"Have you taken your medicine today?" He kept on nagging me about useless stuff like this usual.

"Blegh~ It tastes really bad. I'm fine right now, so can you leave me be about that?" I glared at him.

"If you could just be a bit more mature about it, I'd worry a lot less." He sighed as if dealing with a kid.

What was this widow with two daughters saying?

Did I look like one of his kids?

"Are you being arrogant just because I'm transferring the firm to you?" My nose had raised.

How sly of him...

"Don't act like throwing all the work at me is doing me a favour." The man dared rolled his eyes at me.

...So he saw through my true intentions well.

"Why? I taught you how to run this place." I told him how there shouldn't be any problems at this point.

Right?

"It's fine." He turned his head away from me.

"Come on~ The sun is shining and flowers are blooming. It's a time for a new tomorrow!" I'd made my case, but he still didn't seem to be looking at me properly. Did I do something to upset him?

Strange... This mild-mannered guy didn't even confront me when I purposely missed 'her' funeral.

Samantha Turner, the girl who died as my ex-wife.

But HOW he confronted me now was surprising.

"Liar..." In contrast to my happy-go-lucky face and attitude, he was outwardly showing displeasure.

Even though he was the same kind of person as myself, albeit healthier, he could still say this?

It's weird. So... 'weird'...

"Brighten up. At least you had children with her before she died. Me? You know my situation."

My tone were still light, but my words didn't come out as positively as I wanted to speak inwardly.

I'm such a dumbass.

One of the many reasons Samantha divorced me was because of this useless thing of mine.

It took so long learning to satisfy that numb body of hers. Learning every 'technique' in bed.

But it ended up being completely useless.

Pleasure couldn't make one forget the purpose of nightly activity. She wanted children from me.

And I physically couldn't give them to her.

Wow, I'm a failure of a man even in that aspect.

Was my useless body destined to never get better?

I couldn't even give her such a simple thing.

Those midgets called children. The ones who are as weak, needy, and dumb like me. But are not me.

I wondered what my own children would be like.

They would definitely be different from 'his' at the very least. Taking in my sickly genes and stupidity.

I'd have felt sorry if she had my babies.

"Stop... Is what happened to her still weighing on your mind?" He acted as if he saw through me.

Was I that bad at hiding my emotions?

I admit that I'd started off foolish and made many mistakes, but each one helped me grow mature.

Each year, I felt the difference in my mentality from the year before. Failure helped me be thoughtful.

Careful about my words. My expressions. The tone I used. The approach in making decisions in life.

Normal people, even if they were close, couldn't tell what I was truly thinking. My 'mask' was thick.

But 'he' had special eyes.

The empathetic kind of person who grew up with a healthy body. Not smart, but not easy to trick.

A perfect person to inherit this security firm.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I didn't want to talk to him more than necessary right now.

He was too quick to catch onto things.

"...So you feel nothing?" But this bastard had to ask an obvious question. Was he trying provocation?

He learns these tricks well.

Maybe I shouldn't have taught him...

"Yeah. As lifeless as before I'd met her." My words were emotionless, but that in itself was a mistake.

I couldn't hide my feelings by showing none at all.

Damn it.

"So you feel something." He caught onto my tail.

"I have no heart. Just curse me for it." I denied it all.

There was no way I'd let him see through me. Not today. At least not today. I had to keep my act up.

Just a little bit longer...

I managed to act like it was just me having a hard time keeping the sadness inside. Misleading him.

"Anyway, less joking and take your medicine on time. Samantha put you under my care. I can't meet her in heaven if you die early." Looks like my new guardian was offering to take care of me now.

I smirked in response, saying: "Don't worry. I took it this morning and feel fine. See? Steady breathing."

"Good." He finally seemed satisfied.

We did our work like any other day. Samantha never helped after a having kids, so it worked well.

Moreover, my successor here was good at learning.

It was when he was distracted with the things I'd left for him... did I slip away to a certain room.

It was Samantha and 'his' bedroom. A place I was unfamiliar with, but had good sense about.

Since I knew how 'she' thought to a certain extent.

My ex-wife was a smart and cautious person. Even if we didn't earn a great amount, it was enough to attract thieves and robbers. To be prepared for the worst situation, she likely had something with her.

Something that normally couldn't be brought out.

Getting a gun license was extremely difficult, but procuring a firearm on its own wasn't to her.

Those who had a gun license weren't all the best at controlling their emotions, so there were loopholes.

Similar to why and how school shootings happen.

Ahem... The point was me going out to kill a person. For that, I took a single bullet she stashed.

And a gun I managed to keep as decoration.

After getting what I wanted, the only thing to do now was to head to the destination of the killer.

That damn joy rider...

Samantha was my sun. My sky. The puppeteer controlling me and the God who gave me mercy.

I could live without her as an introvert for a while.

But as time went by, things would become much worse. The night in my heart only grew colder.

The fire in my throat turned more unbearable.

The suppressed urge to scream would make me feel like I'm passing out at times, but I held it in.

Not now... Not yet...

That girl. She still wasn't dead yet. Wasn't the reason I'd acted all calm specifically to kill her?

Who was this person again?

I forgot her name, but she's a teenager who goes to school and had quite the delinquent boyfriend.

That guy managed to take enough blame on himself to protect his girl. Saving her from juvie.

How cool. How dependable.

Not that I cared. It just made things easier to isolate her when seeing how hurt she was over it.

They must have been close.

If she understood the feeling of having someone ripped away from you, then why murder my wife?

Why crash into her and cave in her ribs, huh?

Why bloody her body to the point there was no hope of saving her? Why do this to our happy fa-

No, maybe we always wrong.

It wasn't lost on me that our relationship was strange to others. I shouldn't have been happy.

I'd realised it late, but Samantha... wasn't kind.

She was realistic and manipulative. The type who'd go after someone specifically for their background.

It was why she was attracted to me.

I wasn't that attentive or careful at the time. The way I talked was weird, and my voice was screechy.

So why did I want to believe she liked me?

Even when I saw her smile with 'him'? The smile she wouldn't show to her ex-husband whatsoever.

That said, she was my only hope in life.

In this world where people only cared about status and strength, only she had paid attention to me.

Even if I was merely a rock on the roadside.

My parents gradually only started to care about each other, but she kept me fed and clothed.

Her words made this strange world make sense.

Now that she was gone, all I could think about was how unfair it was... that people died so easily.

That's why I'll prove this world is hopeless.

How ironic it would be if I managed to kill a girl grieving over her lost love. What would that be like?

What would it make me feel personally?

I was willing to put what was left of my life on the line. Signalled by a coughing fit after leaving home.

Blood spat onto my hand.

My sickness wouldn't let me live much longer anyway. There was only so much time I had left.

With it, I'd kill that joy rider.

I'd already predicted where she'd go after leaving school. The dark alleyway she took to get home.

I stood there and waited.

There was a gap in the wall where you couldn't be seen unless someone walked past in the alleyway.

A gap between two buildings.

I used that as my ambush point, and took out my gun while trying to hold back my trembling hands.

My fluctuating emotions were making it worse.

I couldn't cough here, even if I wanted to. The moment someone heard me, they'd find me easily.

That girl would run off if I so much as coughed.

So even if it hurt, even if holding it made me feel like dying... I mustn't. There was no other method.

Steps... I could hear them coming. Finally...

But there was something odd.

One- No, two shadows had appeared here. This was not part of the plan. Would she survive today?

No, as long as I aimed and shot properly, then things would end the same anyway. I wasn't planning to live longer at this point. 'He' had already adapted to the firm and would live well.

With that, my life had no weight.

I'd simply drag down what Samantha left behind.

Just to be sure, I hid myself deeper into the gap thanks to my unusually small body for my age.

It was the only time I was thankful for being short.

The two people arrived, and what I saw far exceeded my expectations. It wasn't a good scene.

That girl... I'd thought as much, but she lacked so much awareness that she ended up being caught.

A ruffian with a knife managed to drag her here.

"S-stop." She wept in a small voice to the thug grabbing her hair, but he had no compassion.

"No way~ I wonder how your bastard boyfriend would look if I fuck you up~ His face is going to be the funniest shit ever!" It looked like they were similarly aged despite the difference in size.

The ruffian thug held her face down onto the concrete. He'd already managed to subdue her.

Tying her wrists together with duct tape.

From the blood on her head wound, it looked like he'd knocked her out before threatening her here.

This definitely wasn't the bastard's first offence.

Was this karma in action?

I didn't even have to shoot them. Not interfering would be enough to cause the greatest grief.

Would her suffering satiate me enough before holding back my body's urge to scream killed me?

It was such a gruesome scene to behold.

A man pulling down his pants while threatening a girl with a knife. Weighing her down with his body.

I had to make a decision here.

Be decisive.

Either let her die now, or let fate destroy her.

I only had one bullet.

The strength in me was fading. The grunts of her struggles and the thug's laughter hid my presence.

I could finally breath properly.

But it's not like my health got any better.

I still felt like my lungs were smouldering in flames and heart was being cut. Only to a lesser extent.

The pistol in my hand became clearer to me.

In hindsight... Maybe killing her was just something Samantha would've wanted me to do by proxy.

She would've never forgiven her killer whatsoever.

That's her... then what about my opinion?

I'd lived my life as a puppet from a young age. I'd never wanted to change. Life was... all peaceful.

So why even try?

But now that I'd reached the end of the road, the things to think about have increased too much.

Maybe it was about maturity.

If I didn't take Samantha's hand and put her on a pedestal all my life. Letting her spoil me rotten...

Would anything really change?

The only regret I've come to realise coming closer to death... was that I found my wife's killer useless.

Her despair didn't do anything to complete me.

This scene was only dirtying my eyes.

And so...

The gun clicked as I'd aimed at my target.

Bang. A body dropped before they could even react to my presence. Brain matter gushed out.

With the thug dead, the girl looked at me with tears in her eyes and fear. I stabbed the duct tape on her.

Slicing through it like paper.

When I was done, she got up and even tripped over herself to run away... screaming fearfully.

Crying her eyes out.

That loud piece of shit...

Looks like I spooked her.

Hopefully, she dies in a car accident that way.

Now that there was finally silence for me to think straight, I let my body react to its earlier trauma.

The coughs I'd held in as well as my burning emotions bursted out. Bloodying my shirt further.

My wish came to mind.

If I could go back in time and redo things, I'd have made my younger self treat his life more maturely.

Not get bogged down by my physique and just did whatever I wanted. Free from anyone's shackles.

Why did I only realise this now...?

If I was going to die in the end anyway, it would've been better to continue chasing my old dreams.

Even though I couldn't remember them anymore.

Ah fuck... It hurts...

I don't want to die. Why the fuck is this body so weak? All I did was hold back a cough and get worked up. Now my guts were spilling out while laying in a pool of another person's blood.

Screw insecurities. If I could just start again from scratch, I'd never let myself become like this again.

Never rely on someone to the point they'd die taking care me, the same way Samantha did.

I'll... live my life splendidly... next time... promise...

It was the last thought I had before the fires in my heart and bodily warmth faded into nothingness.

The world simply turned off. My story had ended.