Chapter 22 …
“Lysian! Lysian!”
Sweetpea pounded desperately against the transparent wall, calling out Lysianthus’s name. But Lysianthus did not wake up. As if… as if…
He were dead.
That can’t be.
There was no way Lysianthus could be dead.
“Lysian! You have to wake up! Lysian!”
Her fists struck the wall until they hurt, but nothing changed. The barrier still stood firmly between Sweetpea and Lysianthus, and Lysianthus—his horn torn out—lay collapsed and powerless. The life in his eyes was gradually fading.
“No!”
Just as Sweetpea struck the transparent glass wall again with desperate force—
Like shattering glass, the invisible wall crumbled.
“Huh…?”
The sturdy barrier fell away easily, and nothing remained between Sweetpea and Lysianthus.
Even though she knew Diego was nearby, Sweetpea felt no fear and ran straight toward Lysianthus. She hurried to the side of his head, which was larger than her entire body, and reached out her hand toward him—
“Ah…”
The background changed again. The forest that had been burning and collapsing was restored to the same lush green scenery as before.
No—it was as if time had turned back to before the fire.
“What in the world…?”
As Sweetpea stood there in confusion, the main body of Lysianthus that had been right where she reached out vanished. Instead—
“….”
When she turned her head, she saw Lysianthus standing with someone.
“Lysian!”
Sweetpea ran toward him again, but Lysianthus didn’t even turn his head, as if he couldn’t hear her voice at all. Instead, his attention was fixed entirely on the person beside him.
“Lysian…?”
The woman wore a veil embroidered with gold thread. She and Lysianthus were conversing. More precisely, whenever Lysianthus spoke, the woman would write on brown paper and show it to him to communicate.
Lysianthus could not take his eyes off the woman, whose veil fell to her waist and revealed not a single strand of hair. From the hand and arm that wrote the words, to the face hidden beneath the veil—
He took in everything about her.
To Sweetpea, the sight felt unfamiliar. It was as if this was not the Lysianthus she knew.
Should I… approach him right now?
She had never seen him look so happy…
But in the end, Sweetpea pushed aside her hesitation and moved toward him.
This wasn’t reality. Perhaps the Lysianthus of the past had been happy with someone else. Perhaps he had once treasured someone who wasn’t her.
But that was all in the past.
Leaving him trapped in the past couldn’t be what was best for him.
Her slow, hesitant steps gradually quickened.
“Lysianthus!”
Limping, Sweetpea rushed forward and tried to grab his arm—
But once again, the scenery changed.
“……”
No—the scenery was the same. But it was clearly a different day. Lysianthus’s clothes had changed, and the person beside him was different.
…No. His clothes had changed, yes—but could she really say the person beside him was different?
The woman at his side now wasn’t wearing a veil. Her hair, flowing down her back, was a beautiful blonde. For some reason, that differently toned blonde felt familiar.
It’s the same woman from before.
Unable to speak, she once again wrote words to show Lysianthus. And once again, Lysianthus smiled at her gently.
Sweetpea wanted to ask him—
Who is she?
Who is she, that you smile at her like that?
She knew she and Lysianthus weren’t in any special relationship, and that she had no right to think such things…
But she was jealous.
And it hurt.
She didn’t even understand why she felt this way.
Those troubled feelings didn’t last long.
“Huh…?”
The woman turned around.
And Sweetpea finally saw the woman’s face—the face she hadn’t been able to see because the woman had always been turned away or veiled.
Clear blue eyes unlike her own, low-saturation blonde hair… a slender figure and a lovely smile—
“Unnie…?”
She looked exactly like Sweetpea’s older sister.
Why is my sister with Lysianthus…?
Sweetpea couldn’t think any further.
No matter how she thought about it, the situation was strange. Why was her sister in this scene—whether it was a hallucination or the past—and why…
Why was she lowering her head as if to kiss Lysianthus?
Unable to bear the sight any longer, Sweetpea squeezed her eyes shut.
But instead of the peaceful sounds of birds chirping and grass rustling in the wind, another noise reached her ears.
She had no choice but to open her eyes again.
What spread before her—
Was Lysianthus, bound by long, stretched flower vines in pitch-black darkness where nothing else could be distinguished.
His body was tied to the vines, his eyes open as he stared into empty space. There was no focus in them. One uncovered eye—unlike his beautiful golden one—had lost its light, dull and gray.
“Lysian.”
Sweetpea approached him carefully.
“…Who are you?”
“…You don’t remember me?”
It was hard to tell whether Lysianthus’s question was sincere.
“Look at me…”
Lysianthus didn’t even glance at her. He seemed completely uninterested in whoever had approached him.
Maybe the Lysianthus before her was buried in a past she didn’t know.
Maybe, to him, her existence was as small and forgettable as an ant.
“Leave me alone…”
“……”
“I want to rest like this.”
Only now did Sweetpea finally understand a little of what Lysianthus had once said to her.
He had no attachment to life.
How could that be?
Sweetpea, who had struggled desperately just to survive, couldn’t understand him.
And she was afraid.
Afraid that he might really leave her behind and remain here.
It hurt—and she was jealous, too.
If the woman he had smiled at so brightly… if that woman with her sister’s face were here instead of her—
He probably would have looked at her.
But even if what Lysianthus truly wanted was to be left alone…
Even if it meant sinking into this darkness and disappearing forever—
Sweetpea couldn’t allow that.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t leave you alone, Lysian.”
Lysianthus had become someone very important to her in many ways. In Sweetpea’s lonely life, he was the only being who gave it meaning.
She could never give up on him.
“If we get out of here, you’ll probably scold me for being an annoying kid, Lysian…”
“……”
“Maybe forcing you awake isn’t really what’s best for you…”
“……”
“But I still can’t leave you here.”
She didn’t know exactly what had happened in his past. She knew Diego had taken his horn, and that Diego had implanted it into his own head—but she didn’t know why, or what exactly had happened back then.
Still, she could tell.
His past hadn’t been made of happy memories alone.
And that was exactly why she couldn’t leave him here.
The future was full of infinite possibilities. What might happen, who they might meet, what feelings might arise—
None of it could be predicted.
Maybe more hardships awaited in the future.
But you couldn’t abandon hopeful possibilities just because of negative ones.
Sweetpea’s life had changed for the better after meeting Lysianthus.
Maybe she hadn’t been that valuable to him—but she couldn’t know that for sure.
Maybe someday in the distant future, Lysianthus would smile that brightly again… at someone else.
“So come with me.”
Sweetpea grabbed the vines binding Lysian and pulled with her bare hands. But the tightly tangled vines wouldn’t snap easily.
With no other choice, she bit through the vine with her front teeth.
It might have looked ridiculous to others, but to her, it was desperate.
“…Why go that far?”
Lysianthus asked, sounding like he truly couldn’t understand.
His gaze still wasn’t on her.
Though his refusal to look at her stung, Sweetpea answered honestly.
“Thinking about it… our promise was unfair from the start.”
“……”
“You risked your life to save me, Lysianthus… but I don’t think I gave you enough fun in return.”
Lysianthus’s shoulder twitched ever so slightly.
But Sweetpea, busy desperately tugging and tearing at the vines, assumed it was just his body reacting to her movements and kept talking.
“If I really made life enjoyable enough for you to want to keep living…”
“……”
“You wouldn’t be throwing yourself away this easily.”
And he wouldn’t be telling her to leave him behind in this darkness.
With hands reddened and heated from the strain, Sweetpea grabbed Lysianthus’s hand, which had been hanging limply.
“When we get out of here, I’ll really make you happy.”
“……”
“…Though I still don’t know how.”
At last, focus slowly returned to Lysianthus’s eyes.
He lifted his head and looked at Sweetpea—the fearless girl who had thrown herself into the darkness to find him.
“So…”
With a faint trace of hurt, Sweetpea spoke as he finally looked at her.
“Please remember me now…”
Like the person from long ago…
Did her words reach him?
Slowly, his lips parted.
“Sweetpea.”
At the sound of her name from Lysianthus’s mouth, Sweetpea’s eyes widened.
At the same time, a dazzling light burst into the black world. The vines wrapped around Lysianthus were swallowed by the light and snapped one by one.
When they opened their eyes again—
The two of them had returned to reality.
