Chapter 93

How miserable a thing it was, to have to live a whole life on the strength of a single memory.

That was the fate of a mermaid. It was like an illness they were born with. The most intense emotion carved into the soul left such a terrible mark that no circumstance could ever overturn it.

For Iser, that mark was the human named Giovanni.

"Sleep well."

"... You too, Teacher..."

This place is peaceful.

"May you have a peaceful night."

It is so comfortable it sends chills down my spine.

It was an absurd sensation. Not a sensation a mermaid, not a sensation Iser, could allow.

Even the quietly blowing spring breeze and the rustling murmur of the forest came to him with a charm he could not shake off. Iser had been given a bedroom in Jio's cabin.

"..."

The floor beneath his bare feet was made of wood.

From the glossy, lacquered floor, walls, and ceiling of the cabin came a bitter scent that made his mind grow hazy.

The large window to the terrace stood wide open, full of the forest air, and the bed, neither too large nor too small, held a gentle warmth.

"..."

When he lay down on that sensation.

"... Is this..."

Unable to hold back, Iser spoke.

"Does this make any sense?"

Within this peace, Iser felt a dreadful emptiness and loss.

"Where am I right now...?"

In the mermaids' memories, Giovanni had died. He had died horribly.

What had Iser thought when he saw the wounds that seemed impossible for the warm descendants of the sun to have inflicted, the rotting skin, and the festering strands flowing down through his empty eye sockets?

'I was drugged, yes, but that does not mean I have no memory of that time.'

If anything, that moment was far too vivid. No one would know with what thoughts he had been forced to eat him.

Back then, our peace met its death. The dead should not come back, so what in the world was this comfortable space? Where was I now, that I was feeling peace?

"... It's frightening..."

His once-full stomach felt as if it had emptied out before he knew it.

"..."

And in its place, it would be filled with rotting flesh.

"... I feel sick."

His stomach was not well.

It felt like motion sickness. He had the sensation that his brain was shaking.

His vision seemed both blurred and clear, and the voice of the silent forest grew louder and louder. A mermaid's memory had stopped at Giovanni's death and the ruin of the sun, so there was no way such tranquility would not feel repulsive.

Iser had become more accustomed to blood and screams.

"Ah..."

That was Iser's fate.

"..."

Mermaids lived in a sea of blood.

Even if he was handed such an absurd gift now, he had become an ugly adult who felt fear first.

"..."

Only after a long while did the mermaid speak.

"... I think I'm going to have a bad dream."

I did not know the place I lived was a nightmare.

Lying here like a corpse, I finally know it is hell.

* * *

"..."

At a strange sensation, Jio raised himself from the bed.

"... Mm..."

The sensation of wanting to take a walk.

'Should I go out?'

Jio was not the sort of person who thought deeply about the source of his desires.

He left Honey asleep and came out of the room. When he stepped down the soft wooden stairs into the living room, for some reason he saw the teddy bear lying on the living room sofa, with the cat Dana beside it.

The two looked up at Jio, giving off a faint light that seemed about to go out at any moment.

"I am thinking of going for a walk."

"..."

"Dana, would you like to come with me?"

Dana, who had been looking at black-haired Jio, soon stood at his side. Like a ghost, she made no sound as she walked. The teddy bear did not stop the two from leaving the cabin and simply watched them.

With his usual black cloak thrown over him, Jio walked along the path without attaching any meaning to it. He had come out barefoot, but the softly rustling grass was gentle and did not hurt.

No matter where he stepped in this place, the sensation was pleasant. Perhaps that was why he ended up wandering around without shoes all the more. There was great joy in walking.

"The forest is quiet."

At this hour, the forest always maintained a strange silence, as if it had fallen asleep.

"Dana, do you like the forest?"

"..."

"What about the trees? The scent of the flowers?"

"..."

"The weather is very nice."

RUSTLE, RUSTLE...

The sound of tender grass swaying.

"The moon is so bright."

In this place, there was a sun and a moon.

But they were clearly different from those of Earth or any other planet. They boasted colors like transparent gems, and even when taken into the eye, they did not shine painfully enough to blind.

It felt only like looking at a brightly painted picture...

"Look."

Above their heads floated a jeweled moon with a light as cold as a glacier.

"It resembles you."

"Meow."

"That cry is different from usual."

It sounded like a cry imitating a cat.

"You are a cat, but..."

He had been about to say something, but he did not want to think about it any further, so he turned his gaze away. She resembled that cold moon floating in the night sky.

"You are shining."

"Meow."

"Thanks to you, it is not dark."

The round moon was large, and like the swarm of jellyfish he had seen in the deep sea, a Milky Way was draped across this sky as well. They maintained their silence with a dry sparkle that gave off not the slightest sense of life.

The moon shed its light. The Milky Way drew a curtain. At his feet stood a chilly cat, and the forest that should have been dark had grown secretly bright, so the only shadow in this place was Jio himself. He was the only black thing here.

"Even with so much scent of trees..."

His steps soon came to a stop before a dazzling spring.

"There is the scent of the sea inside it."

"..."

"Aria."

He saw his student with her pale bare feet dipped in the pooled spring water.

"Can you not sleep?"

Looking at the Black Cloak within the shadow where his face could not be seen at all, the mermaid showed him a seasoned smile, as always.

"How could anyone fall asleep in a place like this?"

"Was the bed not to your liking?"

"Everything was so much to my liking that it gave me chills."

"And yet you are not running away."

"Because I hope that someday, you will accept us."

Pearl-colored eyes held the Black Cloak within them.

"If we take responsibility, will you forgive us too? Will you love us again, like back then?"

"My forgiveness is not necessary. Resenting and hating you is not my role."

"... We have so very much time."

Aria's voice was clear and soft, no different from usual.

"I never thought that would come to feel like such tremendous fear."

She asked Jio.

"Do you know what kind of existence this spring is?"

"I had no reason to know, so I did not try to find out."

"Do you know what this forest means to you?"

The mermaid continued to ask.

"Why you have been placed in this situation, why you have come back to life in a bizarre form that is neither resurrection nor anything else, with what intention and context the world is flowing this way..."

"I am not curious."

"That is just like you, Teacher."

The mermaid's voice had a smoothness like a pearl.

"Compassionate and indifferent."

And for that reason, it also had rough edges.

"Are you aware that this place is inside your stomach?"

"This place is a picture I drew."

"I do not think that is very different."

"If you say it is a part of me, perhaps that is so."

That was because the one who created this place was Jio, and at the same time, he was a portrait.

"I knew that this forest reflected my mental landscape."

"Even so, can you still be called human?"

"I have never once ceased to be human."

"..."

"I was always human."

It was something obvious, without any need for deliberation.

"It seems like a good night for conversation. Is there anything you wish to ask this teacher of yours?"

"..."

At the voice that changed its tone in an instant, Aria took the pitch-black cloak into her eyes.

"... I cannot see your face..."

The inside of the cloak could not be seen at all.

"You do exist, don't you?"

"I have never disappeared, Aria."

"What do you look like right now?"

"I have not looked in a mirror, so I do not know."

"But I cannot see you either."

Then.

"How can I prove that you exist?"

How could one distinguish whether there was a human inside that pitch-black shadow, or the god of the sun, or a painting, or life and death?

If it was a shadow whose appearance itself could not be known until someone defined it.

"There is something I want to know, Teacher."

"I promise I will give you the best answer I can."

"How can I be certain that you will not disappear?"

"Nothing is eternal. The living and the dead alike are bound to continue changing."

"It is true that I have not seen the limits of humanity. The humans I know grew stronger without end, evolved, and even became gods or nature."

But.

"You are different in kind from them."

A pitch-black sheet of drawing paper that could become anything.

"... If I feel fear and loss at that, will you understand?"

"I think it is only natural for you to feel distance, considering how much I have changed."

"Distance? That was not what I meant. It is completely different."

As long as he was "Giovanni," she had no intention of growing distant from him at all.

"Why would I try to distance myself from you? I already had to feel that empty place for so many years, looking only at a hollow sea that was neither coffin nor grave. Now that I know this is not some unbelievable nightmare or miracle that came upon me in an instant, I am saying that I do not feel anything as petty as distance."

Therefore, the emotion Aria was feeling now was.

"I..."

"..."

"... Teacher."

It was closer to misery or desperation.

"Why are you always standing at the center of fate?"

It was dreadful.

"Would it not have been enough if you had simply been some insignificant person who passed by? To be born into an ordinary family, live an ordinary life, and die an ordinary death. Who could be more suited to such a place than you, Teacher? Of the thousands, tens of thousands, and even more humans I have seen, why are you not included among them... That is what I wonder."

Seeing this forest was enough to know. No.

"Even just looking at you is enough to know."

If one saw those eyes and still did not know, it was no different from being unable to see the world.

"It would not have mattered even if you died, Teacher. It was a situation I expected. Even if it had not been an especially peaceful and tranquil death, I would have been satisfied."

"..."

"If only it had been just a little ordinary, if only it had been common enough that everyone in the world could simply pass it by, if only you had died like that, how good would that have been?"

From beneath the pitch-black hood, within the dense shadow whose inside could not be seen, a voice flowed out.

"You wished for me to be happy."

It was clearly the voice of "Giovanni."

"Is it hard because the person I am is too special, because you cannot handle it?"

"I would like to think that sounds conceited, but it certainly seems that way too."

"Do you not think it is an extremely cute complaint?"

"..."

Just how many voices could flow out from within that shadow?

"... Unfortunately, this is not such a cute situation..."

It would have been very nice if she could have laughed it off.

"... Since when were you a portrait?"

"I am not sure myself."

"What do you think you are?"

"I am Jio."

"Your happiness is no longer what matters."

Giovanni had not met an unhappy death.

"I know that death was one you liked."

So what mattered was the fear and loss around him, the mermaids', Aria's.

Because no matter what moment came, Jio would make the choice that was happiest for himself.

"You will live a life that pleases you. No matter what happens to those around you later, you will take the best action you can at that time. Do you not think that is so idealistic it is horrifying?"

"It seems Aria thinks it is horrifying."

"Yes, it is horrifying. Because I know that is the best, and I know it is an ideal. After respecting you for being that way, I cannot come now and tell you to fix it. Because I have already lived too deeply immersed in that..."

What on earth was the true nature of this portrait?

Its name was the "Portrait of Jio." It was both a person and a painting. It was only a painting, but it was also a painter. It was the master of that fate who had drawn his own life, and like a vast nature that would live while embracing even more fates.

Was it because he had been a portrait from the beginning that he had come to repeat the name "Jio" without end? Or had he become a portrait at some point because he was Jio, and come to embrace countless "Jios"?

"Yes."

Aria finally put a name to why she was so uneasy.

In the terribly distant past, in the future, and even at this very moment...

"... Teacher, you will be special for your entire life."

This person could not be ordinary. Not once had he ever been so.

"..."

"..."

Now what was she supposed to look at and denounce as cruel?

"... Teacher, do you trust humans?"

"There is happiness that can only be gained by trusting."

"And you have no intention of giving up."

"Just as Aria has not given up her anger."

"Yes, then..."

Aria smiled with a drained expression she had never shown before.

"I will take care of my share myself."

How much of the shadow beneath that pitch-black cloak could I have?

She only prayed she would not have to let it drift out to sea again.