Became the Academy Romantic Phantom Thief

319 – The Road We Passed

Sometimes the girl recalled the past, feeling distressed about how everything ended up being ruined.

At first, it was a happy and beautiful family that clearly had no problems, and was not inferior to any other family.

All misfortune began when my father died of illness.

Because her husband and wife were extremely good at drinking alcohol, her mother could not easily overcome the reality of her father’s death and lived each day helplessly, immersed in her grief.

The reason she was able to continue her life even if she was forced to do so was probably because of the children she left behind.

In particular, unlike the girl who was passive and quiet, her older brother was a person who was lively and considerate even at a young age and was able to care for others with maturity.

Thanks to that, her mother gained strength from her son’s comfort and she was barely able to smile.

I wish it would have ended there, but the world cruelly put the Granger family through another ordeal.

Following her father, her son suddenly lost his life in an accident.

This time, her mother completely broke down.

Her deep, deep despair left her completely unable to eat or drink, and only the sound of her wailing echoed through the house all day long.

The girl knew, as did her brother, that she had to comfort her mother, but she didn’t know how.

Perhaps she hastily approached her for no reason and ended up making her mother suffer even more.

I wonder if even her mother will leave this world because of her strange nonsense.

If even her mother disappears, then the girl becomes completely isolated.

In fact, it was natural that this situation would be difficult for the girl to overcome.

It was more difficult than I thought to comfort someone when I was in a position where comfort was not enough.

Nevertheless, the girl mustered up her courage and approached.

She opened her door, which had been tightly closed, and gave her mother the words of comfort she had prepared after thinking as hard as she could.

But her reaction upon return was completely unimaginable.

Her mother, who had been sobbing all the while locked in her son’s room, turned her head, looked blankly at her girl, and muttered.

“···Jin? “Are you Jin?”

The girl’s shoulders are shaking and her eyes are filled with embarrassment.

It was natural. Because her girl’s name was ‘Gina’, not ‘Jin’.

Jin was her brother’s name.

The mother stood up from her seat and hugged her girl so tightly that it took her breath away.

She buried her face in her small shoulder and repeated in a trembling voice, wetting her tears.

“Jin, Jin…! You won’t miss it. “I won’t miss it again!!”

Her expression distorted as she passed, and her mouth fell silent.

I have to say it. She must let him know that he is not her brother and that she is Gina.

Her brother is dead and he can’t meet her anymore, but he should have told her that he will always be by her mother’s side.

But no voice came out.

She said she was afraid that her mother would drown in her tears that she had shed.

She was left alone in a lonely house with no one around, and it seemed like the girl would also die lonely.

Even if the hug wasn’t for her, she hoped that the warmth covering her entire body that she felt for the first time in a long time would not disappear.

Yes. It’s better to have a cool older brother who can comfort my mom than me who can’t say a single word properly.

You have to be cooler and more perfect Jin than foolish Gina.

After that day, the girl became a boy and she began to live under the name Jin, not Gina.

“······.”

Even looking back now, I am convinced that the choice was the right one at the time.

Even if you could go back to the past, you would probably make the same choice.

But that day, Gina disappeared from this world. It’s like she’s been denied the memories she’s built together, the entire life she’s lived so far.

No matter when she remembered that fact, it remained as a wound that could never heal.

However, her mother gradually regained her strength and slowly regained her bright appearance.

When she heard that she had been admitted to the Academy at the top of her class, she felt, even for a moment, that her mother had returned to the happy days when no misfortune had occurred.

So it wasn’t wrong.

Everything was right. It’s okay even if Gina disappears.

She tried so hard to deceive herself and affirm her false life.

But one day, just as misfortune struck without warning, luck also secretly visited the mother and daughter’s home.

“···Mom? What’s the matter?”

When she returned home from her outing, her mother was sitting blankly on her sofa.

For some reason, her expression wasn’t good and when she looked closely, she was even breaking out in a cold sweat. The girl asked in confusion.

After hesitating for a moment, her mother touched her forehead and answered.

“I had a nightmare. But it was so vivid… “It felt like it wasn’t a dream but reality.”

When she heard those words, the girl felt her heart sink.

She managed to get her daily life back by getting rid of herself, but is she going to disappear like this again?

But something about her was different.

Her mother’s expression was definitely not good, but it seemed more like regret than despair to her mother.

“In that dream, Mom was having such a hard time that she ended up making a ridiculous mistake. As a result, she ended up hurting the most precious person in this world.”

“···Mom.”

“But I lived my life without even realizing that I had made such a mistake. “I ignored the fact that my current happiness was fake, built on that person’s sadness.”

As her mother’s story continues, she realizes that it is not just her dream.

It is a confession uttered by someone who belatedly realizes her sins, a remorse for the past.

“The goddess who appeared in my dream spoke. “You will bear all the original sin of lies, so accept the truth now and start over.”

By the time the words were finished, both mother and daughter were shedding tears without anyone knowing.

The mother got up from her seat and slowly walked over to her girl and hugged her with open arms.

This time, unlike before, she looked straight at her daughter, the most precious thing to her.

“I love you. My daughter pass···.”

“Black. Mom···. “Me too, I love you too…”

***

Juliet closed the magic book and spoke in a sarcastic tone.

“Hey. A touching mother-daughter reunion. That’s really good. Happy ending clap clap clap! So why are you showing me this? “And it’s just a lot of stories about my father’s girlfriends that I don’t even know much about.”

The man sitting across from her laughed awkwardly at her caustic sarcasm.

“A happy world has been completed. “Isn’t that alone enough?”

“Then enough is enough. So, I can also leave a story in this magic book, right? “Does this bring my story to a happy conclusion?”

“Of course. Of course it will.”

Juliet snorted as if she was shocked by her man’s hesitation in answering.

“Then you should have changed my past first. Isn’t the first thing you should do is throw me away in an orphanage alone and neglect me for ten years, then make it all the better? Father?”

“If that makes you truly happy, I will turn back time and change your past even if it means repeating everything.”

There was no way she wouldn’t understand what she meant.

Juliet quickly lost her laughter and looked with a straight face and asked in a cold tone.

“Are you saying that changing the past won’t make me happy?”

“That’s not a question I can answer. You have to ask yourself questions in your mind. And as you already know, future you chose the answer.”

Ah. Know well. Her future self told her father that it was okay for the past to remain the same.

No, I even asked him to do exactly that.

The current Juliet could not possibly understand that fact. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself, it just sounded like a bad joke that wasn’t even funny.

“Certainly, if we change the past, we can prevent unfortunate events. That’s a story that applies to everyone. The same goes for Gina’s problem we just saw. “Wouldn’t it be a better solution to go back in time and prevent the deaths of my father and brother in the first place?”

As for Rachel, if she could go back in time and bring her parents back to life without having to support her scholarship, she might have ended up in a much more prosperous family environment.

But is that really the right choice?

“Changing the past means denying the entire path you have walked. “She’s also destroying the memories we’ve built up so far.”

If we change Rachel’s past and create a world where her parents exist, the path she has walked along alone with her older sister, relying on her, will become nothing.

Even though the process of walking that path was difficult and arduous, it cannot be denied that there were happy memories along the way. Even that all disappears.

What about Gina? Her situation was so much more serious that it was no wonder that she felt it was right to bring her father and brother back to life, even if it meant losing her memories.

Gina obviously denied herself and chose the life of a man for the sake of her mother, and she endured her pain alone for a long time.

But thanks to those sacrifices, her mother was able to overcome her grief and regain her smile.

After seeing her mother like that, she declared that Gina had no regrets about her own choices.

Of course, the direction the mother and daughter took may have been wrong.

But at the end, when they finally reached their destination, they held on to happiness.

When Eldina appeared in her dream, it was only a slight push on her mother’s back, but it was clearly a destination she would definitely reach someday.

The dainty flowers grown in flower gardens and the wild flowers that bloomed in the wild in the face of wind and rain.

There is no correct answer to the question of which of the two is beautiful.

All you have to do is choose the one that looks more beautiful.

What is certain is that just because it is a wild flower, we should not necessarily discount it as inferior to the flowers in the garden.

“It is dangerous to deny the path I have walked. What makes you who you are now is not just the happiness of the past. “The sadness and suffering of the past are clearly important factors that enable you to become ‘Juliet.'”

The phantom thief realized that fact through her journey so far.

And I hoped that Juliet would also realize that fact.

“···If the past 10 years had never happened, I wouldn’t have been looking for my father so desperately. And I may not have felt the joy of reunion or the feeling of wanting to continue to be together like this.”

Juliet calmed down her excitement and the phantom thief smiled quietly as she spoke quietly.

“And you probably didn’t realize that you wanted to chase away the shameful cat thieves who dared to target your father and have it all to yourself, right?”

“···Hmm. “It’s all good, but isn’t the ending a bit strange?”

Juliet smiled innocently, ignoring his questions.

“The past 10 years have definitely been lonely and lonely, but these happy moments are more important to me. So, I won’t let this world and the path I’ve taken happen as never happened.”

Finally, the future Juliet appeared in the present and uttered words that might be the beginning of everything.

“Please leave me alone. And please come see me someday.”