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Chapter 186: Academy Heroine's Right Diagonal Back Seat

Chapter 186



"That’s it for today’s work! Thank you for your cooperation!"


At the man’s shout announcing the end of the workday, I snapped back to reality and realized that the sun was setting.


Was it because I tried so hard not to think about anything?


I couldn't clearly remember what I had been doing.


In any case, the fact that work was over meant I had to take off the protective suit that had been covering my face.


I raised my hand, grabbed the helmet on my head, took a deep breath.


With difficulty, I steadied the expression that was surely twisted inside the helmet, and slowly took it off.


I pretended to wipe my sweat, rubbing the corners of my eyes.


I was relieved that I had been working so hard.


Because with all the sweat I’d shed, the tear marks wouldn’t be noticeable.


"Scarlet, good work today! See you tomorrow!"


"See you tomorrow, Scarlet!"


As I was changing clothes, I heard the kids passing by say goodbye, saying they’d see me tomorrow.


I almost stopped breathing for a moment when I heard Jessie’s voice among them, but I somehow managed to put on a smiling face and waved back in greeting.


After that, I couldn’t really remember much until I got home.


All I could think was that I had to get somewhere where no one could see me as soon as possible.


But as I stood in front of the door, I hesitated again for a moment.


What if Yoon Si-woo was at home?


Yesterday, when I was struggling, I felt like I wanted to tell him something.


But today, when things were even harder, I just felt like it would be better if no one was home.


Because if Yoon Si-woo were in front of me, I’d feel like asking him to kill me right away without any questions.


That’s how unbearable my current state was.


But I knew that if I said something like that, he’d be immensely saddened.


So, I cautiously opened the door, planning to go somewhere else if he was home, but the empty entrance greeted me, as if telling me no one was here.


Heaving a breath that was either a sigh of relief or a groan, I stepped inside.


The first place I headed to as soon as I entered the house was the bathroom.


When I opened the bathroom door, a red-haired girl with a contorted face stared back at me from the mirror.


The moment I saw that reflection, I felt a wave of nausea.


A despicable criminal who nearly killed her friend and yet shamelessly greeted her with a smile.


A disgusting monster who buried her nose in the rotting carcass of a demon, obsessively craving magic energy.


A deranged lunatic who casually thought about burning her friend alive to destroy the evidence just because she almost got exposed.


I was so repulsed and horrified by myself.


“Urk...!”


I immediately grabbed the toilet and vomited out the revulsion rising inside me.


Ah, if only I couldn't remember what I had tried to do while I was briefly out of my mind, I might have felt scared, but at least I wouldn’t feel like this.


The memory of trying to replenish my depleted magic energy using the corpse of a demon while babbling about lack and fulfillment.


The memory of trying to burn Jessie to death because I thought it would be a problem if I got caught.


All of those memories were vividly etched in my mind.


Even though I had been in an altered state, the stark realization that everything happened because I acted on my own judgment was so clear.


And it was something I simply could not tolerate.


Until now, in any situation, even in the moment of death, I had tried to remain myself.


But now, I felt like the self I had been so desperate to protect had been irreparably broken.


What kind of monster is hiding beneath this skin?


I scratched my face hard, almost as if I wanted to tear off my own flesh.


Pain accompanied by a stinging sensation as blood oozed from the scratches on my face.


Droplets of blood fell into the murky toilet, staining the water the color of a monster.


However, as if this wretched monster’s body, which had replenished a bit of its lost magic energy, wouldn’t even allow me to harm myself, it slowly started to heal.


The feeling of the bleeding stopping itself was sheer despair.


I wept, feeling it intensely.


If only all this witch-like magic energy inside me could just disappear.


If only I could vomit it all out.


So, I opened my mouth and shoved my fingers down my throat.


“Urk—! Huu... Ugh, bleurgh... Hic, hic... Bleurgh—”


As I stuck my fingers down my throat, I could smell the metallic scent of blood.


Drawn by it, something sour surged up from within me.


I didn’t hold it back and spewed it out.


Whenever the nausea seemed to subside, I shoved my hand down my throat again, forcibly dragging it out and vomiting again and again.


I thought maybe if I did this, I could expel the things that were turning me into a monster.


I vomited as if I were going to throw up everything inside of me.


But as expected, there was no trace of magic energy in what I threw up.


All that came out was the sour gastric juice from my stomach.


It was truly a foolish act.


Doing this wouldn’t make me any less of a monster.


“Huu... Huhuhu... Hic... Huhuk...”


After I had thrown up everything and the sobbing had stopped, I let out a broken laugh.


Broken... No, maybe I had already been broken from the beginning.


Come to think of it, there was no way I could have gotten through this without being broken somewhere.


Almost every night, I dreamed of burning everyone to death.


When I was awake, I was constantly trembling with anxiety, and the hallucinations that made me feel like I was going crazy had become so familiar.


Who could remain unbroken in such an environment?


It’s just that I was someone who was used to enduring, so I didn’t show it much on the outside.


Just because it looked strong didn’t mean it wasn’t wounded.


The inside of those hidden wounds had already rotted away, and sometimes, like today, the pus would burst out.


It hurt every time, but I had somehow managed to endure it.


Today, it was almost unbearable, even for me.


...But still, I guess I’ll have to endure it somehow.


After all, there’s no other choice.


I struggled to stand up and flushed the toilet.


The sound of rushing water carried away the pus of emotions I had poured out.


When I turned on the shower to wash my battered body, the water felt piercingly cold today as it touched my skin.


Still, it seemed like I needed a cold shower if I was going to return to my senses, so I stood trembling under the shower for a long time.


\* \* \*


I wobbled back to my room, feeling like I had no strength left in my legs.


Exhausted, I lay down on my bed, but it didn’t seem like I’d be able to sleep tonight, so I got up again.


As I sat blankly, trying to empty my mind, my gaze landed on the wardrobe across from the bed.


The moment I saw it, I got up as if entranced and opened the wardrobe door.


Between the hanging clothes, I saw the cramped space inside, and it brought back memories from when I was a child.


Playing hide-and-seek with my father.


He had promised me that whenever strangers knocked on the door, it meant a game of hide-and-seek had begun.


So, whenever I heard knocking, I would crawl into the wardrobe and wait for the game to end.


The dark wardrobe was scary, but I loved hide-and-seek because I was happy when my father opened the door, smiled, and said, “My brave little boy, you hid so well.”


Recalling that memory, I squeezed myself into the narrow space inside the wardrobe.


And as I closed the door, the surroundings turned dark, and an oppressive space was born.


The darkness and the tightness made my breath grow slowly short.


My quickening breaths soon turned into hiccups, and before long, I felt my head growing hazy.


It’s nothing.


Just simple claustrophobia.


The wardrobe was both a space of fond memories and a source of trauma for me.


After my father left our family, and I heard that it happened because he had debts, I blamed him a lot at first.


And at the same time, I missed him even more.


So one day, when my mother was out at work, I heard someone knocking on the door and crawled into the wardrobe alone.


I thought if I hid like this, maybe my father would come back and open the door, smiling, like he always did.


But of course, no one came to open the wardrobe door.


No matter how much I trembled in fear in the dark for hours, begging my father to come and help.


No matter how I choked and cried out for help as I felt my breath getting shorter.


The wardrobe door didn’t open.


It was my mother, returning from work, who found me unconscious in the wardrobe.


And on that day, I developed claustrophobia and realized something.


No matter how desperately I wished, there was no one left to open the wardrobe door for me.


So instead of relying on others, I decided to trust myself.


That’s probably why I try not to ask for help from others unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s not just because I don’t want to owe anyone, but probably largely due to that day.


Though I got a little trauma out of it, I also learned self-reliance, so maybe it wasn’t all bad.


In any case, since that day, I thought I had become a pretty resilient person.


To be honest, my life was more about enduring than living.


Poverty and the absence of my father were easy targets for others to look down on.


Unfortunately, there were more bad people than good people in the world.


On top of that, there was my mother’s illness and passing.


I’ve probably had a slightly tougher life than most.


Of course, it wasn’t a life filled only with hardships.


I had friends who comforted me when times were tough, and days spent with my mother, who gave me endless love.


I realized that if you endure long enough, someday you can meet precious people and find happiness.


Still, when things got too hard to bear, I would sometimes lock myself in the wardrobe like this and give myself a shock.


To remind myself that there’s no one to help me, to snap out of it and get back up.


To tell myself that the only one I can rely on is myself, so I should pull myself together.


But today, today of all days, I felt like I might no longer be able to trust even myself.


How could I trust myself when I almost killed my precious friends with my own hands?


I was suffocating.


I wanted to open the wardrobe door and get out, but my body wouldn’t move as I wanted.


Fear gripped my body as my breath grew shorter.


And in the narrowing vision that seemed to blur more and more, a thought slowly surfaced.


...Is that it?


Maybe, after all, I too was hoping that someone would open this door and help me.


Realizing that, I opened my mouth.


And I revealed the weak part of myself that I had always tried to hide.


That I was scared, that I wanted to be saved.


That I wished someone would come and help me.


But that true feeling couldn’t turn into words and merely vanished as a faint choking sound.


I closed my eyes in despair.


So, this is how it is. Even if I say something like this, there’s no one to listen.


Just as I was about to give up,


The wardrobe, which had been filled with only darkness, was suddenly flooded with light.


“Scarlet!” “Miss Scarlet!”


At the sound of voices, I slowly opened my eyes.


And I saw them.


The white-haired boy and the silver-haired girl.


The two of them were opening the wardrobe door that I thought no one would ever open.


“...Ah.”


For some reason, tears burst out from my eyes.


----------------------


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Comments

  1. Sinwoo and Silvia ftw. Kinda wish it had just been sinwoo though

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