Chapter 207

When Mira cries, it always means something really bad has happened to her, so I instinctively became frightened. But this time, it didn’t seem like a big issue. She was crying, but at the same time, she was angry.

“Can I vent my frustrations a bit?”

“Go ahead.”

Mira boldly declared that she was going to vent to me. It was as if she was saying she would use me as her emotional trash can, but I accepted it. Perhaps my response surprised Mira, as she hesitated slightly and chose her words carefully.

I made it easy for her to start.

“I won’t say anything even if time passes. Let it out as you wish.”

“…It’s a promise.”

“Yeah, a promise. Should I pinky swear?”

At my small joke, Mira sniffled but also let out a small laugh.

“…Mom has been discharged from the hospital.”

“Is she fully recovered?”

“She said her condition improved enough that outpatient treatment is okay now. I guess she accepted it quickly since we don’t have money.”

Mira didn’t often talk much about her parents, but she didn’t usually use a cynical tone like this. It seemed this incident had something to do with her parents. So, I decided to hold off on saying something like “thank goodness.”

“But you know, she told me to quit studying for the entrance exam.”

That seemed like a wise choice.

“I’m not going to cram school anymore. I used to get a little allowance. I bought reference books and problem sets with it. But after Mom got sick, I’m earning everything myself now through part-time jobs. I even contributed to living expenses. But now they want me to quit. They say it’s tough for both Mom and Dad, and that I should get a job instead.”

Mira had always been troubled by guilt. If she hadn’t been sick, they wouldn’t have to struggle like this. But it feels like that’s as far as it goes. I didn’t know the situation of Mira’s parents, so I couldn’t speak rashly, but it seemed she had touched a nerve.

Mira was living a very hardworking life. While preparing for the entrance exam, she juggled three part-time jobs and occasionally spent time with me or Eun-a. Her stamina was truly remarkable, almost like that of a superhuman.

It was undoubtedly a far tougher life than the one I had, where I just scribbled notes during entrance exam preparations. Guilt, inferiority, frustration, sadness, injustice—Mira, carrying all those emotions on her back, was an incredible child.

But what if that reality is denied?

“I don’t want to quit. It’s really hard, but I still want to keep going. At the very least, if I have to give up, I want to take the entrance exam fairly with my own abilities and then give up. We’ve all lived for this exam for over ten years, haven’t we? But they want me to give up? Me?”

All those emotions transformed into anger.

“Why should I?”

What Mira was shedding now might not necessarily be tears. Maybe her tightly shut eyes were bleeding from the rage she could not swing. It was the anger she was holding on to because she couldn’t bear to unleash it.

“I wanted to do well! It’s not like I failed! Is it wrong to be sick, to have just briefly suffered from the flu?!”

Perhaps Mira would have been better off just screaming. The pain she had kept bottled up was scratching at her. It was suffering. I couldn’t fully empathize with that feeling, but I tried hard to understand Mira’s pain.

Until I heard the next part of her story, that is.

“I don’t even know when I got infected. They said the incubation period was super long, that I must have been infected a few months ago. In truth, I wasn’t the only one it happened to. There were several others at school who caught it too. Everyone had been vaccinated, but it seems like some variant. The problem was that it broke out just on the day of the entrance exam, and I was the only one!”

…Huh?

“…It’s unfair. What did I do wrong? I lived well, messed up the entrance exam, and now they want me to quit studying for it. They want me to just get a job instead. I don’t want to do that. Why do I have to suffer like this?”

…It’s not certain. It might just be my misunderstanding. But what if…what if that flu with an incredibly long incubation period had transferred to me? I already knew that we both had the same illness. But the timing was just…too perfect.

Fortunately, I recovered without any major issues, so I hadn’t checked in detail, but it was clear that the flu I caught was indeed a variant. It wasn’t severely threatening, but it was enough to ruin an entrance exam day.

If this speculation is true,

Then Mira failed her entrance exam because she saved me.

That was a feeling bordering on horror.

“I wanted to do well. I could have done well.”

It was merely a conjecture. Other than the timing matching perfectly, I had no evidence. But if I was the cause, I had to confess. I needed to admit it as it was and face the blame Mira would hurl at me. It wasn’t an easy task. I was afraid. I was afraid of being abandoned.

But what terrified me even more was the thought of running away.

Mira was still crying. The tears had stopped for a while, but she was still struggling to control her emotions.

It was the worst timing. If I confessed the truth to Mira in this state, she would definitely blame me and curse me. So I had to say it now.

If I was indeed the reason Mira’s life was in ruins, I had to endure it.

“Mira.”

“…Yeah?”

“I’ve also come to a realization, and I think I need to confess something.”

“A confession…?”

I forced my mouth to open, which didn’t want to, and slowly pronounced each word.

“I also caught that flu. And when you saved me, I was likely in the incubation period.”

“What…?”

“I’m sorry, I think I… I think I transmitted it to you. That illness.”

How nice would it have been if this world were a fairytale? How wonderful would it have been if it had ended in a happy world? Mira was silent, perhaps choosing her words carefully. Perhaps she was trying to hold herself back.

But this world was reality, and it was a place where sweet and pleasant endings did not exist.

I was waiting slowly… for the verdict Mira would pronounce on me.

“…Why, why did you say that?”

In the end, Mira read me the judgment.

“Why did you say it? Why? Why tell me such things? It makes it impossible for me to hate you.”

“If I pretend I don’t know, I would never know. It would have been fine if I just didn’t say anything. Then, then today would have just been a sad day, and that would have been it. Why did you say anything?”

“Were you trying to relieve your puny guilt? Did you think about the pain I would go through?”

“…I did think about it. At least I tried.”

“And yet, how could you do something so cruel?”

“It’s my fault.”

“It’s not just your damn fault!!!”

Mira shouted loudly. It was the loudest I had heard her voice until now. It hurt so much.

Mira was crying. It wasn’t the anger-tinged tears from before; they were tears born from pain.

“You were the victim… That’s why I thought I did well that day. I was proud that I saved someone. Even if I could turn back to that day again, I would act the same way.”

“But you ruined everything. Because of you, I have no choice but to hate myself for that proud act. You turned me into a person who might not be able to act the same way if I went back to that day.”

Truly, this was not a fairytale.

If helping someone leads to ruining one’s life, should one blame themselves for helping?

“It’s not even certain if I really caught it from you, so why say that and make me such a bad person?”

“I don’t hate you. It’s not your fault, right? You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that I was extremely unlucky.”

“…I hate myself. I hate being this damn unlucky. Until a moment ago, I felt like I still had some spirit, but now I don’t know. I want to give up on everything.”

The entrance exam isn’t everything in life. But to children, it might be more significant than that. I also felt at the time of the literature entrance exam that it was more significant than my whole life. It was that kind of world. That kind of exam.

Mira’s parents denied that. Whether it’s true or not, it might be a tremendous shock to the children.

And I revealed a cruel assumption to Mira.

Mira was right. I shouldn’t have said anything. If I hadn’t, Mira wouldn’t have had to suffer like this.

Even so, the fact that I would have acted the same way if I could go back in time horrified me.

I was horribly selfish.

I was too weak to wear a mask and hide this truth for a lifetime.

I knew that Mira wouldn’t be able to hate me.

I wanted to clear my conscience.

“…Mira.”

“…What is it? Why do you call me? Can’t you just leave me alone? I’m struggling. I’m in pain.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s disgusting. I feel disgusting for not being able to accept that apology.”

“You’re not a bad person.”

The truly bad ones would be those who still dare to say such things.

“You’re not bad. It’s all my fault.”

“…Don’t say that.”

“Then, I’ll fix it.”

“Fix it? Huh…?”

I was truly a terrible person. I was nothing short of human trash.

“Mira might not feel it yet, but you’re an adult now, aren’t you?”

“…That’s true.”

“Do you want to run away?”

Mira stared at me blankly, as if she didn’t understand what I was saying. She must have been taken aback. It was something completely absurd to her.

I was serious.

“Do you want to live here?”

To absolve my guilt, supporting just one child like her was not difficult at all.

It was ridiculous, but as someone with experience.