Crown of Thorns

It’s been quite a while since then.

I came to count the bells ringing at the time every day. And I got lost in many dreams. I kept thinking of scenes that I couldn’t tell whether they were from memory or imagination, and now I hummed songs that I couldn’t even remember their lyrics.

It was unclear what the young man wanted, but if it was to make the witch even more unhappy then he has done so successfully. The countless hours I spent trying to make myself forget the time have all gone to waste. Just like when I first got trapped in the tower, I felt every passing of each minute and they dragged on and on.

I couldn’t tell exactly how much time had passed because I a few bells, and I had to start counting them from zero again because I often forgot what number I was at. In fact, it was a very insignificant amount of time for me, that keeping track of it felt as useless as counting sand on a beach.

And yet, the reason I tried to count the bells was because I wanted to imagine the young man’s time.

I counted each day because I wanted to know how he would have changed, what he would look like now, and how he would change in the future. The young man was certainly crueler than any warrior I had ever met. He made me repeat the terrible punishment I had received for being a witch that I tried to ignore.

No, maybe the sky that sent such a warrior to a witch is the cruelest.

“Witch.”

“Why are you being like that?”

“Isn’t it unfair?”

“You’re affectionate and…”

“…I love you.”

Whether this echo was a dream or an auditory hallucination, I did not know, but it bothered me, and I curled up because of the afterimage that haunts me both when my eyes are closed and open. It’s no use burying my face or covering my ears with my hands and putting my knees up. The young warrior who came to the lonely me has been an unbearable punishment which was strangling me.

Many things that had been dead in me began to shake and wake up because of the young man who saw a woman in my inhuman self who had given up on being human.

When will they sink again? Since the day I was trapped in the tower, I haven’t been able to kill myself for a long time, but I’m already overwhelmed by the fact that I have to repeat that time again. I couldn’t breathe because I was frustrated. Still, I don’t die. When will this curse be lifted?

“Witch.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, I said.”

“I miss you so much.”

I had barely fallen asleep when I suddenly opened my eyes thinking that I heard the voice of the young man. But there was nothing around me. There was nothing but darkness, as always. But it felt different from usual. Something was more shady and cold. My fingertips trembled with anxiety.

I got up and approached the wooden table. I could see the cards neatly placed on it. Since the young man’s departure, I have been trying not to even look at them, so a pile of white dust gathered on them before I knew it. I lifted them in a hurry, and they scattered around.

I pulled out a card, and then turned it over. For a moment I forgot to breathe. Again. Mix, then flip. Again. Again. And again. But no matter how many times I repeated this useless action, it was the same card.

My trembling hand eventually dropped the card. The cards on the floor came into view through the white dust they left in the air around. I couldn’t take my eyes off them for a while and then turned around. I knew I’d regret it, but I couldn’t stop walking even though I knew it was irreversible.

The upside-down cards, whether by accident or fate, were blank. Nothing was drawn. There was no future.

*

The smell of blood stung my nose. It’s been a while since I last saw the moonlight or felt the night breeze, but I didn’t even have time to care. My eyes were fixed on the man sitting in front of me. The young man, exposed by the permeated moonlight, was covered with blood, making it impossible to recognize his former self.

As I approached him a little more, he raised his head, perhaps feeling my presence. He tried to open his swollen eyes and eventually succeeded. He raised the corners of his ripped lips and smiled.

“Did you… hear… My call?”

He said every word separately, mixed with heavy intakes of breath. When I thought of the young man who was struggling with his voice, I bit my lips with a stinging pain in my heart. I remembered the poison I had taken before. The insides of my body were hot, bitter, shaken and melted. It felt just like that.

The young man’s body trembled little by little. At that moment, I took a step forward, realized that he was smiling and halted. You laugh? How can you laugh? I’m confused because it looks so incomprehensible.

“you came out… so easily… Yet they said that they had you locked up… and were happy with themselves for it… Without knowing that you’re the one who shut yourself in…”

Is that funny? What’s important about that in this situation? Those words only consumed away the rest of his strength. The young man, coughing as if talking was too much effort, spat out a mouthful of blood. It was a familiar sight.

As I stood still without saying anything, the young man who looked up and stared at me continued.

“So… this is how you must’ve suffered…”

I couldn’t stand it, so I finally opened my mouth.

“I told you you were going to die for me, and I warned you not to get involved anymore.”

“You… you already knew this was gonna happen, right?”

I knew. The future of the young man had been clear since the day he came to find me as a young warrior. So I told him to run away. “Don’t come to me, don’t think of me, live a life that has nothing to do with me.”

Because I’m the reason the young man dies.

However, he ended up dying before my eyes. It was because of me. If it wasn’t for me…

“It’s all right, it’s my choice.”

Why are you making me suffer so much? I was already distressed by you. How hard will it be for me from now on? Just why?

“I had missed you… Thank you for coming to see me.”

The young man was dying for me, but he was thanking me. While panting and frowning with pain, he didn’t erase the smile that came up around his mouth.

“I wish I could live forever. Without leaving your side.”

The young man bowed his head and spoke with difficulty, as if holding back his tears.

“I’m sorry I’ve been selfish to the end… Still… if I were born again, I’d come to see you then. I want to.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t tell how long it’s been since I last shed tears. They were still as hot and damp as I remembered them. I couldn’t bear it because I was suffocating and my heart ached.

“You already knew, didn’t you? That I would come to love you.”

I already knew the young man’s future. So I tried to force him away. I thought it would be like this, too. Light had to drive away darkness, but darkness swallowed it. I tried, but I couldn’t change my destiny.

Destiny was so cruel to me.

“If, if my death could really release the curse, I would die a hundred times over.”

My voice was quivering thinly.

“I know it’s not because of you. So don’t kill yourself anymore. Because I was happy to meet you…”

Why? Why exactly did you take it this far?

I am the witch the world points fingers at, the witch who has taken away the precious person of the young man, and the witch who only has a terrible appearance and stench.

If it is really fate, is this also the deity’s will?

For me and you, the choice didn’t exist from the beginning.

Was the deity able to easily fool the hearts of the young warrior and the witch? Was an existence that I had never felt moving us along the thread of fate?

The faintly smiling young man began to gasp loudly. But soon he jabbed out his last words.

“…I love you.”

At the end of his remark, he stopped breathing. The surroundings were still. Only then did I feel the cool wind, the moonlight that had seeped in. The young man’s time had stopped and it was clear that my time in the future would stop again.

But it was clear to me that my time which has once again stopped, would feel more excruciating than before.

“I already knew, so I tried, but it didn’t work.”

I approached the already quiet young man and said, Even though I already knew there could be no answer, I couldn’t bear it otherwise.

His white hair was dyed red. The white face and eyelashes were also stained with red blood. That wasn’t the red I wanted to see. I wanted to see the brilliant, warm, burning red eyes. The eyes that embraced the light, the sun, hope, love, and brilliant colors.

Human life is fleeting. It crumbles too easily. Even though I knew it well, I wanted to see the dazzling red eyes again, and I regretted that I did not properly look at them before.

I have been trying so hard not to have regrets, and even those efforts were becoming regretful. Now I didn’t know how or what to do in the future.

If this is the deity’s will, then what do you want from me?

I sat down and reached out to the young man. He was still warm. I’m still as I am, but why have you changed so much? Why can’t I change your death, or even follow you in it? I looked around, but there was no one. No one was saddened by the death of the young man.

It was no different from me who had been locked up hoping to die. I was unbearably sad when I thought I would always be this lonely and melancholy.

I eventually fell on the young man’s body and let out an endless stream of tears.