Chapter 12.14

‘I am not human, so I can only speak in these human rhythms. I love you deeply.’

That was, from a very distant past, the first confession he had given her in their first life.

‘If you love me, you’ll regret it.’

‘Then I’ll love even that regret most of all.’

Tears, tracing her pale, thin cheeks, fell from her chin. The floor was cold. The chill that crept up her neck was as hard as the marble floor where he lay.

She held Idris in her arms. In her mind, she saw themselves through the eyes of God.

At the end of winter, a woman with honey-colored hair faded to gray was lying on a hill, held in a man’s arms. Her beautiful dress had become worn and tattered, and her once-peach skin was covered in bruises.

She was dying in the arms of the angel who had so coldly abandoned her.

‘I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. Don’t die… I’ll save you somehow.’

The woman’s belly was flat, though the seasons had changed. The angel, arriving late after learning the truth, admitted his arrogant mistake and begged forgiveness. But the woman did not cry.

‘My allotted life ends here. Please, don’t do such things.’

She smiled sadly, holding his hand.

‘You were right. So your misunderstanding is fair, too.’

‘No, it’s all my fault.’

‘Yes, it is your fault. But… you know, saying I don’t regret loving you would be a lie, so I won’t say it. But I… you know, I love even that regret. Isn’t that foolish?’

The angel could not smile.

‘Maybe it’s because I know you suffered, too. How could I hate you to the end, when you kept coming back, unable to forget me?’

The woman’s voice slowed.

‘So, if God allows me another life, I will love you then, too.’

Her golden eyes faded like the sunset. A snowflake fell on the woman’s face as she confessed her love.

‘We will tie the knot we missed in our next life. Even if I must wait another ten thousand years, I swear I will wait with the heart of a flower, find you, and fulfill my wish. Wherever you are, whatever form you take, I will love you in every form of love.’

‘In any form. I will love you in every form of love…’

Ah. He loved her in every form. Bound by fate, unable to say he loved her or even realize it, he loved her.

“Idris. You were also my favorite regret. So please, open your eyes.”

She gently stroked his cold face, pleading, but he could not open his eyes. Beside her, the devil’s cackling laughter echoed, and she cried.

‘Why did you save me, only for it to end like this?’

Her tears stopped. Her head alternated between cold and hot, driving her mad. She held his hand, biting down on the faint warmth still lingering. No, he’s not dead yet. She turned her head to look at the devil whispering at her ear.

“Tsk tsk. If you had paid the price earlier, none of this would have happened. But I’ll give you a chance. If you give me your soul, I’ll save him.”

For a moment, all light vanished, then blossomed brightly like a Christmas festival.

“Really? Is that possible?”

“Yes. Nothing is impossible for me.”

The devil, who could touch only the realm of the Creator, was brimming with arrogance. She did not look away from the devil and slowly put her right hand into her pocket. The coldness of the slender rifle awakened her dulled senses, sharpening her resolve. K*ll. She had to k*ll. This was no human.

“So, now tell me your name.”

“If it’s a double contract, wouldn’t that put me at a disadvantage?”

As she lowered the hammer, the trigger caught her index finger.

“No. I am a devil who knows chivalry.”

“Doesn’t seem like it. Do you even know how to greet?”

The devil, absorbed in conversation, closed his eyes and demonstrated a gentleman’s greeting, magically creating a hat, removing it, placing one hand on his chest, and stepping back with one foot and arm—the posture was perfect. And it was the exact timing for her to draw and aim her rifle.

“What are you doing right now…”

Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger. Pull, shoot, pull, shoot—she repeated. Bang, bang, bang. Four bullets struck the devil’s body, which wore human flesh, and he collapsed easily. Bleeding, the devil stupidly stared at his own pierced body before toppling forward. She walked toward the kneeling, fallen devil as properly as she could.

“How… How could this happen?”

“If Emile River’s body dies, you’ll have nowhere to go.”

Everything matched what she had seen in her dream. Even the devil’s muttered words. Was that last dream a revelation shown to her by God?

“If you k*ll me, my brothers will avenge—”

Bang. The bullet struck the devil’s forehead dead center. The red light pooled inside, flickered, then disappeared.

Just like a dream, the devil’s death faded into a handful of ashes, and his curse scattered as a desperate cry that didn’t even echo. Nothing happened to her. It was an end so empty, it was almost pitiful.

Even after avenging her enemy, the dead did not return, and she could not even cry out in her emptiness. She went to Idris and embraced his body. Cold and lifeless, it was chilly to hold him, but she could not let go.

“Idris. I’m sorry.”

She kept calling him.

“I was too harsh. I won’t do it again, so please wake up. You didn’t hear my answer. Actually, I still love you very much. So, please.”

She kept talking to him. 

‘Why did you die for me? Such a thing should never happen.’

As she dazedly repeated herself, a small call reached her.

“Mom.”

Startled, she came to her senses. She couldn’t let the child see his corpse, so she hastily covered him with her own body and shouted.

“Lia. Don’t come here. Mom will, later, later…”

But it was already too late. Like a fledgling taking its first flight, the child hesitated, then spread her arms like wings and ran toward them.

“Don’t come. Aurelia. I said not to come! Please, stay there. Please.”

“It’s okay.”

Three steps away, the child stopped. Then looked straight at her.

“It’s okay.”

The repeated, clear words cooled her tears. Cold water poured over her burning head. In Aurelia’s mysterious green eyes, her gnawed reason returned. Aurelia was no ordinary child. Not a normal child, Aurelia was seeing the situation as it truly was.

“Mom. Dad is okay. I can hear his heartbeat.”

Aurelia’s ringing voice fluttered to her like a little bird. She fumbled and placed her hand on his chest. The stir of breath. As his frozen heart thawed and slowly began to beat, the pulse traveled from her palm to her ears. Her whole body trembled.

In her shaking eyes, she saw his chest rising and falling rapidly and lightly.

He lived. He was alive. The thought, burning like a brand, broke her halted breath.

“Idris, Idris. How…”

Unable to believe it, she called him, looked at Aurelia, then at him again, wanting to see the sunflowers hidden above his tightly shut golden eyelashes.

“The wings are gone. So it’ll hurt a bit. To heal completely, good sleep is important, so don’t wake him now.”

A small hand rested on the back of her hand. That little warmth melted her confusion like snowflakes. In the innocent radiance of those violet eyes, she nodded.

“Al…right.”

Just moments ago, the wings she had seen were now completely gone. Tears fell in heavy drops. The fact that the wings had disappeared—did that mean he was finally free from the past? Aurelia, who remembered exactly what she’d been told about resting well when hurt, was truly clever.

He was surely the angel. Or was it because he was an angel that an angel was born? She, believing the unbelievable truth Aurelia had delivered, spread her arms. The child, possessing a good and strong power to trust and love people, nestled into her arms like a small bird. As she gently loosened her arms around her, she timidly asked:

“Mom, when Dad gets better, do we have to go?”

She shook her head so her hair fluttered.

“No. I won’t send you anywhere. Never, nowhere.”

“Really? We won’t be separated anymore?”

The child’s face brightened like a buttercup under her chin, and the sun rose.

“Yeah. Me and your Dad will never be apart again. I promise.”

She held out her pinky finger. But Aurelia, with a playful, suspicious look, didn’t immediately hook her finger, instead grabbing Idris’s sleeping hand.

Then she stretched out only her pinky. In her expectant green eyes, the stars of the forest sang. Crying and laughing, she hooked her pinky with Idris’s, and Aurelia’s short, stubby finger wrapped around his long, slender, scarred one.

“Dad, you promised, too. Hurry and wake up.”

An eternal vow. This was a promise that would never break between them.

She promised to tell him everything when he woke up. Since they had made that promise, she insisted he had to keep it, no matter what.

But even after the snow melted and the year changed, Idris did not wake.