Chapter 157
Eunji looked at Selena’s limp figure with a smile, and then, she smiled at the man behind her.
“You really… risked your life to come here.”
Her voice was as relaxed and leisurely as her smile.
In contrast, the man facing her was tense with anxiety.
“…Who are you? Are you God?”
Eunji shook her head as if the idea was absurd at Aiden’s serious question.
“Me? God? Don’t make me laugh. Even if you asked, I wouldn’t do it.”
“If not God… then who exactly are you? And where is this place?”
Aiden looked around and asked. Eunji silently observed him, like someone watching a stranger in a foreign land.
Eventually, when his movements stopped and his gaze returned to her, Eunji spoke again.
“This is the boundary between life and death. I’m not God, but rather, Sister’s younger sister.”
“Sister’s….younger sister?”
Eunji pointed at Selena. Aiden’s gaze followed her finger to Selena.
“The person you’re holding onto is my sister. My only sister.”
“Miss?”
At the term ‘Miss’ Eunji laughed.
Funny to hear that after such a long time… she muttered.
“Yes, the Miss you risked your life for… is my sister.”
“What does that mean…?”
Aiden’s eyes were filled with confusion. Eunji snapped her fingers, making a sharp sound that jolted Aiden out of his daze.
“Well, what does it matter now? What’s important is what happens to you and my sister… isn’t that it?”
Responding to those lightly uttered but heavy words, Aiden’s gaze sharpened. Eunji chuckled at his intense stare.
“Didn’t know you could make such a face?”
Aiden’s brow furrowed at her small murmur.
There was no hostility, but she was strange. Or perhaps, familiar.
He couldn’t understand why this unfamiliar person felt so familiar.
However, Aiden quickly dismissed his thoughts. As the woman in front of him said, what mattered now was not his thoughts.
But what would happen next?
“What’s going to happen to her… no, the Miss?”
“She’ll live. It’ll take some time for her to wake up, though. You two can just rest together. My sister suffers from chronic fatigue. She needs plenty of rest.”
Aiden silently gazed at Selena lying limp in his arms. With a gentle hand, he brushed over her closed eyes.
“When she wakes up, you’ll wake up, too. Treat her well. You really have to take good care of her. If you don’t, I’ll come back and get you. I’ll feed you to the wolves.”
“The wolves?”
Eunji lightly ignored Aiden’s puzzled question.
“Alright… it’s time. The flow of time here is very different from reality.”
Eunji waved her hand in the air, and a large clock appeared, suspended in the air.
The clock hand, which moved slowly initially, began to speed up and created a breeze with its rapid motion.
Aiden stared at the clock in a daze, while Eunji watched it calmly.
The clock hand gradually slowed down after its rapid movement, ticking steadily until it came to a stop.
“Aiden.”
Eunji called out to Aiden while watching the stopped clock.
Hearing his name suddenly, Aiden’s eyes widened. He slowly shifted his gaze from the clock to Eunji.
She watched him with a cheerful expression.
“Who are you….really?”
“Does it really matter now who I am?”
Eunji shrugged but then paused, as if something had crossed her mind. Her eyes, which had been staring into space, turned back to Aiden as she nodded slightly.
“Still, I’m sorry… Aiden.”
“…Sorry?”
“Take good care of my sister. She’s a really good person. Be good to her for my sake, too.”
Her soft-spoken words echoed through the space. Despite their gentleness, they resonated deeply in Aiden’s mind.
Aiden blinked slowly. Eunji smiled as he seemed filled with confusion, absorbing her words.
Eunji gave a bittersweet smile and reached out, touching the clock hand. As her finger made contact, it began to glow white.
“Goodbye.”
With a short farewell, Eunji moved her finger to the side and the clock hand moved to the side, too.
Tick. The sound of the ticking hand echoed, and Aiden’s eyes closed softly.
As Aiden’s body slowly crumpled, Eunji stood up and looked around.
From the darkness, a voice echoed from a location unknown.
– Are you sure about this? You have given your next life’s time to your sister. Your next life is essentially gone. You will have to wait in the afterlife until your turn comes again. It will be a long time, at least seventy years. This will be a long wait for you.–
Eunji lifted her head and looked up to the dark sky, where a faint light was breaking through. She spoke to the light, her voice cheerful and unregretful.
“It’s fine. I knew what I was giving. Besides, the afterlife isn’t so bad. I’ll just think of it as a bit more rest. And occasionally, I can visit her as a butterfly.”
Eunji walked over to her sleeping sister and knelt, carefully braiding her long, sky-blue hair.
The faint light followed her movements as if watching over her.
–Foolish… Selena.–
The voice reverberated through the space. Eunji’s hands paused for a moment but then resumed braiding naturally.
“Don’t call me that. That name belongs to my sister now. I am Eunji, Kim Eunji.”
Eunji, or rather, the original Selena, let a faint smile drift across her face.
* * *
She remembered the day she died. Trapped behind cold iron bars, she faded away in loneliness. The pain was like a fire in her heart and left her gasping for air.
Fear and terror.
All negative emotions blooming at once, sending signals of danger. Frantically, she banged on the bars, gasping for air.
“Someone… can someone… save me… please… just anyone… even just for a moment by my side… just for the moment I die… please… not like this… all alone… in such misery…”
But her voice reached no one.
She continued to scream in a voice that would not be heard, and suddenly her throat constricted. Her breathing stopped momentarily, and then a rush of hot blood poured from her throat.
At the same time, the memories of her past life flooded in.
Eunji’s life, her memories. And then…
‘They say you experience a panorama of your life when you die, right? Yeah, just like what Sister just saw. I went through the same thing. Oh, there’s one difference, though—I watched from the moment I was born. I watched every memory from that day, which I couldn’t remember.’
It was exactly that kind of memory.
I became a spectator, even witnessing Sister’s life.
It was shocking. Truly, deeply shocking.
The sight of her previous self dying of disease and her older sister living a life that hardly seemed like living.
It was so overwhelmingly shocking that it overshadowed the fact that she was dying now.
Her sister had been a quiet person, quiet and pitiable.
What does it mean for a fully alive person to die personality-wise?
Everything around her was killing her, the environment was killing her, and eventually, she had to kill herself just to barely breathe.
__