Crown of Thorns

After staring at Evan for a while, I managed to come to my senses and held his hand that was patting my cheek. He was brushing my cheek with his thumb alone. The unfamiliar sensation poked through my body. When I held his hand, he turned around. And with happiness in his eyes, he wrapped my hand tightly. It was a hand that I had thought was only long and pretty, but it was unexpectedly big, which made me embarrassed.

“Won’t you say “Welcome”?”

Evan’s voice was a little hoarse. It was a friendly way of speaking that was no different from before, but his voice was very low and thick, so the overall feeling was completely different. In the past, I had felt his naivety and felt a strange pity for his longing for a mother’s affection. But now, I felt like he was whispering to a lover. It was friendly and soothing and had a force that was hard to resist.

His voice, which has matured as much as his appearance, had a heavy echo. It made me feel like I was infinitely weak and small, unlike when he was a boy. He was no longer a boy whom I had to protect and care for, but a young man who made me want to collapse as I was.

I almost said, “Welcome,” just as he said.

But I couldn’t. I shook my head, pulling out my hand that had been caught by Evan. And as I tried to back down, he held my hand again.

“Why? Why aren’t you saying it?”

The low-pitched voice was still friendly and languid, but strange feelings came through with it. Obviously, he was asking me questions, but they didn’t feel like questions. They felt like he was reprimanding me for not welcoming him. He was grumbling at me for not doing so.

Evan sounded just like when he was a child. I felt a little relieved. Having grown up through countless situations and fights, it felt strange that a boy who was weak enough to lean on a witch was now a young man who had his own life. However, all of it quickly fell apart, and I saw the boy I knew in him.

The thought of Evan as I knew him made me feel relieved. It was as if the time when we were apart had melted away.

I opened my mouth and called him.

“Evan.”

“Yes? Talk to me, Nyx.”

“Why do you keep coming here?”

For a moment, Evan looked blankly at the unexpected question. He quickly asked back with an incomprehensible look.

“Then why does Nyx keep telling me not to come?”

Are you sure you don’t know? Even if Evan is not a warrior, there is nothing good about being with a witch. Has he forgotten the time he had suffered from being driven into a monster? The world is now in a state of anxiety, and the people are anxious about a long-forgotten witch. And even if he put that fact aside for a moment, he can’t forget that I’m a witch. Come to my side: how? And why?

Unable to answer, I looked only at the floor. Evan, with his upper body slightly bent, tried to look at me face to face. His tilted face caused the white hair covering his forehead to favor one side. And his clear, innocent red eyes looked up at me.

He continued, speaking on eye-level from me.

“I told you to wait here because I was sure I’d do what Nyx had told me to do. If I can use my strength, then I can come to see you anytime. So I only hoped for that and tried hard. But why are you just pushing me away?”

Evan, the boy, had innocent eyes that seemed to be scarred. But the current Evan was a little different. As he grew up, his facial structure changed slightly, and his eyes became sharper. As I looked up at him, however, I could still see traces of those bygone days. He was no longer a boy. He became beautiful and manly, and so he couldn’t be as outspoken as he was before, but the atmosphere that he created with his sullen expression accusing me of having let him down made me feel complicated. Evan must have been born with a knack for putting me in trouble.

“But, Evan.”

“Of course, it’s not that I don’t understand Nyx’s mind. Nyx, let me ask you one thing.”

Although the way he looked at me was sad, his voice was powerful. He spoke softly in a low-pitched voice, as if he were trying to persuade me, or implore me, but that didn’t mean I was in a more advantageous position. It was quite the opposite. I thought asking him to go would be an act done for his sake, but when I heard him speak so, I felt as if I had thought wrongly.

I answered unconsciously.

“Yes.”

Evan asked me a question as if he had been waiting for me to answer.

“You still want me to be a warrior? You want me to save the world?”

I was startled. It was as if I had been set on fire. I almost forgot why I pushed him away. Evan’s way of expressing himself with his whole body made me feel extra sorry for him, which is why I always told him as he liked when he acted this way in his younger days.

I want Evan to wear the crown, I want him to be the sun to illuminate the world, and I want him to kill me in the process. I want to stop now. For a long time, I realized what it was like to be alone. And when the young man in my memory died next to me, I realized once again how much more painful it was going to get, and how great a curse it was that I could not die no matter what I did.

I know for a fact that, until I breathe my last, I will not forget the young man who had closed his eyes in blood. I also know how long my curse will last if I don’t die now. Forever.

So I can’t give up dying by Evan’s sword. It was the meaning of my life now, my only goal. I can bear all the pain now, for there is hope that it will end soon. I can look at the world without turning a blind eye to it because I know that my ending is possible. And so I cannot bring myself to give up on Evan. What matters to me is the “end.”

But the problem was Evan. To die by Evan’s sword is my greatest joy and happiness, but not Evan’s, who will have to kill me.

I wasn’t the one who would get hurt. I like it when Evan is around, but I’m afraid he’ll be hurt and suffer more if he doesn’t sever himself from me. It’ll end for me once I die with his sword, but I’m afraid it won’t be the same for him.

That is all. I’m sure I know that, and I’m trying to push him away for that reason. But looking into his eyes, they seemed to tell me that I was wrong.

I had to keep myself from closing my eyes and hiding my face. If Evan weren’t here, I would have closed my eyes tightly and tried to numb the pain. However, I soon managed to open my mouth with an expression close to my usual one.

“I know that you will save this world. It’s getting closer to the future that I’ve seen. I’ve dreamed of it for a long time, and that’s all I want from you. But Evan, this place is nothing but poison to you. If you want to do as I say, then you should stop coming here. I’m sure you also know this… You should know.”

Evan, knitting his eyebrows for a moment, asked.

“That’s all you want from me? Becoming a warrior?”

“Yes.”

“How can I be a warrior? What the hell is this warrior that you are talking about?”

“To light the world by the Emperor’s side. As you probably know, there is a threat to the world. You will drive out that Darkness and be a new hope.”

The threat I was referring to was of myself. I was going to lie to Evan if he asked what it was, but he said nothing. When everyone talked about the witch being behind everything, Evan reminded me of the way he shouted, “Not the witch.” I couldn’t understand why the small, naive boy still believed and relied on me even though he had grown up this much.

I don’t know what it was like, for the witch’s tower to become Evan’s whole world. But now, so much was beside him. I didn’t know why he was going this far when it was so dangerous for him. No, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know what he thought of this place, what exactly it meant to him. Knowing that will be a standard for guessing how hurt he will be after he finds out the truth.

Evan seemed to be thinking things over deeply. But soon he said with a slightly brighter look.

“Well, that’s it. That’s all that you want from me anyway, right? Then I can do what you want.”

What I truly want is death. All you can do for me is to stick the sword in your hand through my chest. His words, unknowing of the truth, were said in a way that he would do anything. It made me both happy and sad. So I made no answer, and he continued with a smiling, yet frowning, and at the same time, vague expression.

“Then, Nyx, you have to listen to what I want as well.”

He added in a stronger voice, perhaps having felt my reluctance.

“Don’t push me away.”

At first glance, the voice of the young man who remained only in memory, overlapped with his. Even though many things have changed, I often felt like I’ve gone back to the past whenever he says or does the same things as the man from my dream. I keep mistaking him for the young man of that time. I’m sure there are enough differences between the two to call them separate people.

“Always stay here. So that I can come to see you anytime.”

“Evan.”

“I’ll do what you want, so why won’t you listen to what I want?”

The closer he gets to me, the more pained he will feel after learning the entirety of the truth. But now that he had put me on the spot, the desire to do as he says had soared. I wanted to obey him, ignoring that it would grow his pain, only for my own pleasure.

“…You’re going to have a hard time.”

“I don’t care, Nyx. I can come here without anyone knowing. You just have to stay here. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll help you achieve whatever you want through me.”

I took it in a completely different way, but after he allowed it, I felt a little relieved. Rather, that’s what I had believed.*

“…Right.”

Before I knew it, I had become a witch that would put her own joy first and cause more pain to the warrior.

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*T/N: meaning that she understood that as him allowing her to borrow his hand in order to die.