Thank You For Being Trash

[ Note: The ‘She’ and ‘I’ in this chapter was intended by the author, so even though it might seem confusing, please bear with the confusion for now! ]

I soaked myself in cold water, enveloped by a profound silence that rendered the outside world nonexistent.

Within this darkness, my thoughts were confined.

It was a night where no one came. Eventually, the tranquility of the moment made me think if I had ensnared Rewan in my own despair, consuming his very existence.

I moved my feet. Even with the slightest movement, the water ripples and waves cascade. Each undulation felt like a connection between Rewan and myself, the ebb and flow of our intertwined lives.

Rewan's despair and Rewan's unhappiness are all caused by me, and he was guilty of nothing but getting swayed by my movements. Then, when I was hugged by Rewan, I remembered the thumping and beating of my heart.

The echo that started with guilt.

…She didn't love Rewan. She was just mistaken that it was love. It was sympathy covered in a shell of love.

A certain guilt seized me.

I didn’t know how this happened. How did I come to know love, how did I come to know positive feelings, or how did I come to expect happiness? Don’t expect my love, emotion, and warmth at this end. All I had left was an endless pit.

Don’t expect anything.

I made it that way. I didn’t know where the false beginning to the end of this despair came from. Even though I've traversed too far to dwell on what went wrong, I incessantly cast blame upon myself, uncertain if fault truly lay within me.

It killed my heart. I was out of breath and out of my mind.

Was there any reason to live this life any longer?

Flash.

In the midst of the boundless sea of melancholy, I fell asleep for a while in the murky depths of unsettling and unpleasant thoughts. However, as the sudden sound of knocking brought me back to reality, it wrenched me from the clutches of that dreadful despondency.

My life wasn't wrong. I wasn’t living the wrong life, so I had to live somehow.

No matter what I do, I must live…

The look on Eris' face that met mine suddenly cut my thoughts. I closed my eyes.

“Why, you said you didn't want to look at me.”

If I could live by denying my heart, denying his heart, and denying everything, I would hold on to life even at the edge of the abyss.

“Shut up. Don't apologize. Don't spit out any words because I want to kill him.”

I despised you for loving me.

It was a life devoid of reason or purpose. Even if you lived like that, what would await me at the culmination of it all?

Love me.

A silent, desperate cry died inside her.

* * *

Her heart withered, plagued by anguish and sorrow. The relationship with Distria was painful, even though she found solace in the fleeting moments of pleasure that consumed her thoughts. Why was it painful? Why was it devastating, why was it so hard to die?

She couldn't know.

She was dry and brittle, and she was filled with anguish from pain, and she did not know where it began.

Nothing.

Nothing was clear.

It was white as if my mind had become a blank slate. I recalled finding the reason for my life in an ignorant and painful act.

How painful it was that I tried to live my life by relying on something like that. It was an unexpected question and realization. Even if I came to realize it now, nothing would change. Even if I were asked why I lived such a life, there would be no answer.

Depression gnawed at my heart, tormenting me even as it remained the only pleasure I liked.

For the first time, she cried and screamed in the midst of the unexpected affair. The first time she pleaded for it to stop and screamed. Despite the pain, she couldn't comprehend the reasons behind her anguish.

Because it was all locked-up feelings.

I believed the agony stemmed from my hatred towards Distria. So, without much thought, I handed it off to someone else. I wondered if it would alleviate the pain if it weren't him… but why did the pain not go away, lodged in her chest?

Wasn't this the life I had yearned for?

Why was it… so painful?

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know anything. There was nothing to know.

Frustration took my breath away, and I was suffocated. It ate some of her life as a defense mechanism to keep her alive. Unknown emotions suffocated me, making life arduous.

It remained an enigma.

Her defense mechanism, intended to keep her alive, strangled her breath.

Her heart was broken.

I didn’t know why I was crying, I didn’t know why I was frustrated. I didn't know why I was apologizing, I didn't know what I was apologizing for.

‘…Why? What? Why am I crying?'

‘I am… wrong.'

‘…I’m sorry.’

To whom?

Why? Was I apologizing? What was she so sorry for?

My heart was not objective, even to myself, because I didn’t know the answer. It was because I didn’t even know my heart. It was a feeling I had only learned, so I was not good at everything.

I didn't know.

My awareness of my feelings was close to ignorance.

I'll get lost and confused for a while and get used to the pleasures that fill my body again.

I thought simply. So, maybe I misunderstood sympathy and love and acted as if it was really love. Maybe I have lived my whole life under that illusion.

Foolishly.

* * *

Rewan is dead.

It didn’t occur to me that he was dead. I just got scared. I looked at Lepis, who calmly announced Rewan's death in front of me. Would everyone besides me just die? I was afraid of that.

‘…I was foolish.'

Even in this situation, I kissed Eris, who confessed his sins. I undid the buttons on his neck one by one and tried to covet him. Eyes filled with emptiness, expressions that contain nothing. Perhaps those eyes contain a terrible hatred.

I was afraid of that, but I didn't stop acting.

It was an act against my will.

…Run away, run away.

If you stay by my side, you would die, too.

Although he despised me, I did not want his death.

There was the sound of something breaking into pieces.

I don't know what that is.

I don't know.

Contrary to Rewan's ignorance, if Eris got discouraged and despaired, she would experience even more hell. I would rather they hate me, they dislike me.

It was clearly a different action. The actions of Rewan and Eris.

She thought of Eris first, not me.

All of this was her abyss because the unconscious wants to act like that. It reminded me of Distria, which was filled with madness. The one who killed everyone for having a relationship with me. It reminded me of him, who didn't even care who I killed.

When he treated me as a slave.

‘Now he's looking at me.'

It was contemptuous to pretend to be in love. It was contempt for the people. The one who only knew how to destroy and destroy everything… and I looked like him.

It was because I terribly resemble him the way I hated him.

Distria's love was violent and sadistic, and he cut down on his surroundings. Raphael's death was like that, and the nameless man who slept with me was like that. It was the same with him, who died at my hands.

The cause of their death was the sin of enslaving me… that was it.

If he cut through his surroundings like that, wouldn't he create his own ruin in the end? I thought so, and that prediction was just right.

‘Because I'll kill all the bastards who slept with you.'

Death in his growling voice. Ruin to his life, and the same to my end.

A person who regards life around them as easy.

Come with me. Die with me.

I remembered the death I would face with him. It was the best conclusion I could give.

His death and her death.

The light faded. Only darkness remains.

I wanted my death. By the way, wouldn't it be useful to them if I died like this? Would such a useful death be a wrong life?

* * *

The scar was erased by the elixir. The scar on this grip. The scars I looked at from time to time were perhaps traces of love… traces of feeling love for Eris.

Because of that, its disappearance was quite a shock.

My heart got confused, and my foundation was shaken.

It didn’t make any sense.

The meaning of my life has been erased. Those minor scars were traces of love, traces of her feeling of love—the gripped hand, the hot warmth felt through him—it was a trace of Eris. I was shocked that the traces had disappeared.

My body trembled.

This… this was not. It wasn't something I wanted to do.

I wanted his destruction to cut through the surroundings, but why did the aftermath strike me as well? She was desperate. My heart was deeply shaken, and thoughts that had been locked up popped up on the surface of the water.

Eris was the first thing that came to mind, and then Acacia.

I remembered Rewan's death.

After that, I slept with anybody more like crazy… a meaningless and worthless life.

Let's just die together. I wanted to die in the overflowing veil of emotions. And, as she expected, Distria confessed his love to her. Disgusting that someone that resembled me would love.

It was disgusting.

‘…Love you.’

I wish you death.

I wish you ruin.

If you loved me, just like they whispered to me.

Don't be afraid of death, either.

Otherwise, your love is a lie.

I wanted to run away from the suffocating difference between their love and his. And suddenly, I wanted to see them. The feeling was obvious, and she ran and ran. These were the feelings I faced at the end of my life. Although my end may be ruined, she wanted to kill Distria.

She wanted to kill him.

Even though it was a feeling that was close to destruction, I cherished that feeling.

I wanted to live… still, I didn't want to live like this. If I dropped everyone's life into the abyss and die, what was the difference?

She ran and ran and touched the remaining warmth.

Acacia's sword and a note.

〈 I leave it as yours. I'll pick you up soon. 〉

It gave her some courage.

I raised my sword towards Distria. This was an act like a declaration, like a promise to my future actions. It was a confirmation of my feelings and an action that would serve as an opportunity for change.

It was the most honest act in my life… and that honesty, that challenge, that certainty of emotion was thwarted.

‘I sent Acacia to the periphery. You’ll never see him again.'

‘I sent him somewhere else. He’ll never come back. I'll make it so.'

While doing meaningless actions now, what kind of complacency did he act like that for? What did you do this for, and what did you wish for?

‘I love you. Arne.'

She whispered in her ear until the end. The whispers of his love that I hate, who resemble me because the person who wanted to kill me whispers of love.

Despair, despair, despair.

Could there have been any more emotional abyss than this? The end of a person who has been ruined from the beginning couldn’t be happy. It was the setback from the courageous challenge, an attempt that could not be repeated, and the first and last adventure.

The end was despair.

I killed all those feelings back into the abyss. As if nothing had happened, like I just hated him and wanted to kill him. Just like that.

Just come with me. Destroy everything, trample on it, and die with me, leaving nothing behind.

That suits us better.

She laughed bitterly.

Cold prison floor. Cold air. No one.

…Where could there be a better place for me than this? I was just mistaken that I could live a decent life, intoxicated with the weak warmth for a while.

This was her reality.

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