Chapter 98 part 2: Labyrinth (2)

*Notice
This chapter is a sequel to the side story Labyrinth (Λαβύρινθος), which is located between chapters 27 and 28.
Please understand that this chapter solely contains the story of Sora confiding her past to Mika and Sensei.
Thank you.

After that day, I threw everything away.

There was nothing left.

Anyone I could call family had long been shoved into a coffin, and what had become my only hope and goal was nothing but worthless trash, and above all…

I no longer had any will left within me.

I simply lived because I couldn’t die.

Those who tormented me, stole my wings, and took away my hope… and the people around me, utterly unrelated to me, were continuing their peaceful, ordinary lives.

Unlike my world which had collapsed… they were completely fine, and absurdly, they were telling me that I was the one in the wrong, that I should just stop resisting the d*mn flow and endure it.

So… I let go of many things and just lived as life flowed.

Another year passed… and as if wanting me to feel déjà vu, my homeroom teacher this time was that man again.

Yes, that son of a btch who crushed my dream and fckingly only thought of his own safety.

“…”

“Ha… What are you going to do…? Huh?”

I had let go of a lot.

Studying, the one thing I was somewhat confident in, was something I didn’t want to pick up again once I let it go.

Even the heavens were indifferent; as if its role was solely to cast me down to the ground, the one who beat me for absurd reasons and physically trampled me only bounced out of my world after I had given up everything and crashed to the earth.

The trash in front of me pretending to be a teacher explained it away as a sudden move due to a simple relocation… but later rumors said that the business his biological father was running was actually illegal, and he ended up in prison.

However, in the process, that guy had lent a hand, and he couldn’t avoid responsibility either.

Isn’t it funny? The tower that guy built by trampling on so many, always claiming he was number one and would continue to be, crushing anyone who stood even slightly ahead of him – it collapsed so absurdly.

And as soon as he fell, a change occurred.

“You were good at studying until last year, weren’t you? Huh? Let’s just try a little harder, okay? Huh?”

“…”

‘If you… if you… fck… fck, if you had just properly… just a little… really just a little, stopped that bastard or provided a normal solution and taken action, I wouldn’t have ended up like this…’

It was disgusting.

You, who made me like this, you, so wicked and only thinking of your own safety, saying such things, and now that the rope you clung to disappeared, you desperately search for something else with potential, trying to climb even a little higher.

I absolutely didn’t want to make it easy for him, and I absolutely couldn’t let them see a good outcome… I couldn’t muster the strength to escape this d*mn abyss again… so I kept… sinking.

While just sinking like that, one day, I don’t know when, at some point, I started asking myself why I was living.

It was a question asked because nothing remained, no will to live, no goal, no meaning, and it could be considered a somewhat philosophical question, but unfortunately… no, perhaps fortunately, the answer came quickly.

Having no goal means being unable to have will, being unable to have will means being unable to have meaning, and a life that leaves no meaning is not life, but merely a useless lump of information.

Recently, for the first time, I decided to make one choice by my own will.

Rather than remain a useless lump of information, I thought of a way to leave meaning, even if that meaning was negative and might remain a trauma for someone.

In my hand was a mechanical pencil… a single pencil given as a birthday gift by a staff member, the director, of this orphanage, my current residence, who I don’t know why still keeps someone like me,

back when I hadn’t lost my goal and was diligently running towards something, after hearing my dream was to be a teacher.

I heard later it was an expensive item, around 50,000 won. Lucky me.

I was a bit worried about doing that with just a mechanical pencil, but I guess I didn’t need to worry about its durability.

In the dark of night, probably when no one was around, when even the staff member on duty might be asleep, I arrive at a damp place, perhaps a fitting final destination for my meaningless self, sunk in the abyss.

I’ve lost the reason to remember the name of this place anymore.

Because everything ends now.

It’s not that spacious; about eight people could use it at once, and among them, four spaces were blocked by partitions.

Since I hoped it wouldn’t end clumsily if possible, I settle into the innermost space among the four partitioned areas.

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I raise the hand holding the mechanical pencil high.

I place my other arm before me.

The act I’m about to perform is not meant to be short and concise; it’s to feel alive for the last time.

That’s why it’s a mechanical pencil. Because this doesn’t seem like it will end in one go.

There’s no need for resolve.

Ending something meaningless requires no resolve.

Accepting something eagerly awaited requires no resolve.

I organize the thoughts left in me.

I settle the meaningless past.

What is here, now, is the scene of cutting away the meaningless and gaining meaning.

I begin.

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I plunge it down.

It hurts.

I plunge it down endlessly.

It’s painful.

I plunge it into my left arm.

‘Why do I have to be doing this?’

I plunge it down strongly, as strongly as possible.

‘I don’t want to do this.’

It’s dark, so it doesn’t pierce properly.

The metallic scent of blood is unpleasant.

‘It’s okay, the longer this takes, the better.’

‘I wish this moment would end quickly.’

I feel alive.

‘I feel like I’m going to die.’

It’s warm.

It’s hot.

It’s joyful.

‘Stop it.’

The mechanical pencil breaks and flies through the air.

‘What meaning is there in this act?’

I bring my hand, my remaining right hand, to my left arm.

‘The very, very end, with my own hands.’

“Because I want to… leave meaning…”

And then I… woke up.

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The world was cruel.

“Why did you do that…? Won’t you tell this Director?”

The world didn’t even grant the weak the right to die.

What I woke up to was an unfamiliar ceiling.

Unfortunate.

Perhaps because of the commotion I caused, and because what I had built up until then wasn’t entirely meaningless, I remember somehow getting into a decent high school, just barely.

Entering high school, I bid farewell to everything that had tormented me.

The world had changed, and there were no longer people around me who would do such things, yet despite that, having lost hope once, I was still at the bottom of the abyss, simply living because I couldn’t die.

Just because the perpetrator of malice disappears doesn’t mean the wings broken by that malice naturally heal.

“…”

I remember.

Things I could no longer properly understand… no, things I probably didn’t want to understand anymore…

My brain, which used to run, revolve for a single goal, started filling its ample leftover capacity, now that it had stopped doing many things, with trivialities.

I just blankly memorize every single gesture, every single word of the people standing in front, explaining theories, history, content – people there just to teach, no, just to earn money.

In that meaningless time, my vision of the front also blurred, and the white lines etched on the blackboard began to turn into meaningless, incomprehensible things.

“Ha… I can’t stand watching this… Hey [Redacted], see me for a sec.”

“…What is it… Why…”

“Ha… I don’t know what happened, but you’re completely broken… Hey, come out. Let’s go somewhere.”

A friend, someone I’d hung out with often since elementary school, from whom I’d grown distant at some point – no, someone I had unilaterally refused to communicate with – started talking to me.

But I couldn’t find a reason to start communicating again now. Since nothing held any meaning for me anyway, I was about to bury my face in the desk again when…

“Ah, just follow me!”

“…”

He grabbed my arm and started dragging me out.

‘It’s annoying, it hurts, it’s irritating, I don’t want to do anything, this cold reality won’t do anything for me anyway, even if I try to do something alone, it either laughs at me saying it’s nothing or brutally tramples any slightly high goal I set, so I don’t want to do anything.’

He dragged the listless, desireless me to the school rooftop.

It was only a four-story building, but the wind in this slightly elevated, open space, felt for the first time in I don’t know how long, seemed contrary to my current self.

And this d*mn openness, paradoxically, made me reflect on this cold reality that held me captive and denied me even the right to a peaceful death, making me feel quite unpleasant.

“Look, last year we ended up in different classes, so I couldn’t see you often… but whenever I caught a glimpse from afar, it wasn’t a good sight, you know? And you know when that started? Exactly in the second year.

We got lucky enough to end up in the same class in high school like this, but huh? You’re even gloomier than back then. You respond half-heartedly to what I say… You seem half-assed during class too…

Do you know what people around call you? A doll, they say, because you space out without any reaction. Why on earth are you like this?”

“…Do I have to say?”

“Hey… Ugh… Really… I won’t know unless you tell me… Are you going to die like this? How long has it been since you looked in a mirror? You seem to be washing up, but why the hell are you acting like this?!”

“…Do you have to know?”

Having lost my only goal, I didn’t want to do anything anymore. What should someone who has lost their life’s goal and the only thing they considered meaningful look towards to live?

Even hikikomori, who are of no help to society, have their own goals, whether trivial or not, as they live.

Even if those goals are trivial and meaningless, even simply burning time on TV or PC is a goal for them, and that is their meaning.

Then… what about me? Nothing remained for me.

“Are you f*cking saying that like you mean it right now?!”

Filial piety? Sorry, but I’m an orphan. By the time I entered elementary school, I had no family left.

Even that… didn’t affect me that much… No, maybe I was already broken at that moment.

A dream? Do you know how it feels to have that dream denied right to your face?

I ran and ran diligently, I tried hard… but do you know how I felt when someone else shoved the fact in my face that it was nothing, utterly useless, and that reality is more wretched than you think?

“Think about [Redacted] seeing [Redacted], you f*cking [Redacted]!!!”

The guy in front of me raises his agitated voice. But I can’t understand his words.

No, I don’t try to understand. No matter how hard he tries to bring me back, the me from back then was already dead.

“@#^&!#^&^^&%)#@

%&@^)(^*&()(^^@#!$%”

For people who f*ckingly have no hope, don’t want hope, lack even the strength to move, what’s needed isn’t hope pushed onto them by others, but euthanasia that can gift them peaceful rest.

“…Ha… F*ck… I really didn’t want to go this far…”

Why is it? The voice that I couldn’t hear, didn’t try to hear, the voice that seemed filtered in my head, suddenly returns to normal.

The reason remains forever unknown, but I didn’t know then that a future awaited where I should be grateful that my ears worked properly at least in that moment.

“Hey, I’ll say this just once… If you can’t even hear this, well, I guess that’s that…”

He slowly walked towards the edge of the rooftop.

Slowly, time flowed slowly.

-Click-clack-

Every time his foot, clad in indoor slippers, stepped forward, I seemed to hear phantom footsteps that shouldn’t have been audible.

He stopped about five steps from the edge of the rooftop, looked at me again, and opened his mouth.

“Well, it’s a life you saved anyway, so I have no complaints. So listen carefully.”

“…”

“From now on, every minute that passes, I’m going to take a step back. Five minutes, five steps. If I’m lucky, maybe six steps, and I’ll fall headfirst from this four-story building rooftop and probably die instantly.

The only way to stop this is for you to tell me what happened that day and why you became like this. So… choose. I don’t know if I’m still your friend now, but if you still think of me as a friend and wish for me not to die, tell me.”

‘Why… are you making… such a choice…? Why…?’

My once-stopped head starts spinning again.

I can’t understand.

“First minute.”

‘Why are you going this far for someone like me?’

‘Why can you throw away such a meaningful life?’

‘You have goals I don’t have, meaning I don’t have, everyone looks up to you, what’s the reason!’

“Second minute.”

‘What am I? Our connection was just due to my whim and foolish blindness, so why?’

“…Third…”

‘You… have friends… parents… dreams… things you want to do… What the hell am I that you’d go this far…’

“Fourth…”

‘No, not you, not yet. You are a meaningful existence. This world is one where even I, a meaningless existence, cannot die carelessly.’

‘This world is one where you can’t even choose the method of rest properly.’

‘You, who have no reason for rest, falling into rest is wrong. That’s a wasteful act.’

“Fifth… Ugh?!”

A sudden gust of wind, a collapsing balance, a moment that might be irreversible.

In that moment… I moved.

“…Ha, you stopped me? You’ll tell me, right?”

“…F*ck…”

I woke up.