TTOA Chapter 149
by VolareKwon Jae-jin had been accepting his death for a long time already. Truly. He had just accepted life along with death.
So, Kwon Jae-jin tried to be faithful to every moment.
He couldn’t let even the last moment before his breath was cut off pass in vain.
“I’m sorry for leaving you alone. Don’t lose your mind without me… Right now, I might be everything to you… but I hope it won’t be like that in the future.”
“…….”
“You’re still young, only just turned twenty. If you live on, you can meet another Guide… another lover… You’ll meet someone else.”
“…….”
“And… there’s something I asked of you.”
Kwon Jae-jin’s voice faded more and more.
It was hard to speak, but he didn’t show it.
“Forget it.”
“It’s okay, memories… Now, just you is enough….”
“…….”
“Just….”
It was almost an inaudible whisper.
Kwon Jae-jin released the strength in his arm.
His hand dropped with a thud, and his body tilted.
Seo Eui-woo blankly knelt, supporting Kwon Jae-jin. His clothes and skin were dyed with bright red blood. His nape was turning black.
Warmth left his eyes.
He tried to smile at Seo Eui-woo at the last moment, but his coldly stiffened lips didn’t move.
Instead, Kwon Jae-jin twisted his collapsing neck and confessed.
It was nothing much. He should have said it more often without hiding it.
He should have become as recklessly honest as Seo Eui-woo.
He should have rushed in without knowing any better, like a clueless kid.
Why had Kwon Jae-jin always been so fearful and cautious?
What had been bothering him so much?
And he was so stubborn… Seo Eui-woo had said he didn’t like him Guiding other people, that he was jealous, that he liked being alone with him, and he had caused the poor kid so much heartache…
If he had known this would happen…
In the first timeline, too. And the second.
He should have just… everything….
“I loved you… always….”
The Core shattered.
The flowing time stopped, and his mind was thrown into a pitch-black universe.
Stars greeted Kwon Jae-jin.
*
It was a black space.
Saturn’s rings floated above Kwon Jae-jin’s head. And in front of him, as if it were natural, stood Seo Eui-woo.
24-year-old, first timeline Seo Eui-woo.
He approached slowly and walked alongside Kwon Jae-jin. They seemed to be starting a journey towards an unknown destination. The place their feet touched was dark and deep. Jae-jin frowned and looked back, only to see black things that looked like creature corpses sinking to the floor.
“…What is this.”
As he murmured quietly, Seo Eui-woo answered.
“What is it?”
“What is this place… Where the hell are we?”
“It’s Jae-jin’s dream.”
“It’s not.”
Kwon Jae-jin should have died.
How could he dream even after death?
“Yeah, actually, it’s not a dream.”
Kwon Jae-jin laughed hollowly.
Just a moment ago, he couldn’t even move a fingertip, but here he could act comfortably. He didn’t feel the pain of his Core shattering either.
“This is just a passage. We’re connected.”
“…….”
“A passage I created, connecting Jae-jin and me.”
“…You created it?”
“Yes. I did.”
Seo Eui-woo flicked his fingertips. Then, at the very end of the pitch-black darkness, light began to form.
The light dug into Kwon Jae-jin. Precisely, his forehead, the center.
Kwon Jae-jin had felt this sensation before.
It was a Mental-type Ability.
When Seo Eui-woo had entered his memory. When he had accepted him. It matched the sensation that had rushed in deeply at that moment.
A powerful and pure mass of energy enveloped Kwon Jae-jin and reached the end of his memories.
“You know that time. When the Gate opened in our yard, and Jae-jin got caught up in it and died.”
“…….”
“Jae-jin was really badly hurt. Even the Healing Factor couldn’t heal him. His Core had already shattered….”
“…Yeah. It was.”
“I had to turn it back.”
Seo Eui-woo calmly stated.
His expression was also cold. His tightly closed lips and sharp eyes reminded him of the pain of that time. Seo Eui-woo stopped at a fragment of memory, the same as Kwon Jae-jin’s.
Kwon Jae-jin’s death. And at the end of his first life.
“I had to make it as if it hadn’t happened. Jae-jin dying, that was an impossible situation for me.”
“You… what the hell did you do?”
“As you can see. I turned it back. To the past.”
“…….”
“So, to the beginning of Jae-jin and me.”
Seo Eui-woo pulled out more of Kwon Jae-jin’s memories. As they intertwined with his memories, there was a vaguely emerging fragmented memory. The connection between the first and second timelines, the journey within the rewinding clock.
“Spatial coordinate movement. It’s being researched in this era too, but in four years, a hypothesis will be proposed that it’s possible to move not only spatial coordinates but also time coordinates. Of course, it was just an unverifiable theory, but….”
“Then, you… you….”
“Yes. I did it. I did.”
In the forgotten memories, Seo Eui-woo and Kwon Jae-jin walked this pitch-black passage.
A black space with nothing. The two of them traveled back in time together to the starting point.
Walking and walking again.
For a long time… they had just been walking for a very long time.
Because they had to rewind four years….
“Do you remember now? Jae-jin and I. We promised.”
“…….”
“If we started over, Jae-jin and I, we would really try to do well….”
“…….”
“I had done a lot wrong, and there were a lot of things I hadn’t told Jae-jin, and Jae-jin said the same to me. That there were a lot of things he hadn’t told me. That we were like that with each other….”
“…….”
“So, we said we would really try to do well this time. That we had made that promise. That it was a new life, so this time it would be different… better.”
“…….”
“But it didn’t work out as we wanted.”
The light that had been digging into Kwon Jae-jin’s head became brighter and formed a huge timeline. Light droplets spread out just like when they did the spatial coordinate movement. That light was very intense and also affectionate. It was the result of Seo Eui-woo’s Ability exploding to its limit.
“Jae-jin was able to safely return to the past four years ago. The problem was me though.”
“…….”
“I… my body was saturated with imbalanced Ability four years ago. If I time-traveled to that moment, it was obvious that the concentrated Ability would runaway.”
“Ah…….”
“So, I inevitably had to wait. Here. Alone.”
“Ah ah…….”
“For Jae-jin to go back first, Guide me, for my younger self’s imbalance to be sufficiently resolved, for me to be in a stable condition to withstand the time travel… then, finally….”
To try and return….
“To start together with Jae-jin….”
But….
Kwon Jae-jin had forgotten.
Just like with the coordinate movement, time travel also happens in an instant. The moment he left the passage, the memories from here would be compressed and disappear as if they were just a moment.
Just like even a long dream is forgotten as soon as you wake up.
The things that happened in the passage would also be transferred to the depths of his subconscious and erased.
Kwon Jae-jin had forgotten that he had come with the first timeline Seo Eui-woo, and he had even forgotten that the first timeline Seo Eui-woo would be returning soon.
“Jae-jin started a new life not with me, but with the me from four years ago.”
Seo Eui-woo muttered softly.
His unwavering voice pierced his heart with a frightening intensity.
“The guy who didn’t know anything revealed the wrong I had to tell Jae-jin myself.”
“…Eui-woo.”
“I should have done it with me, dated with me, counted anniversaries with me, worn couple rings with me, that… I should have done it with me. Jae-jin.”
“Eui-woo…….”
“Jae-jin was… running away with that stupid past version of me, with the love that we should have had….”
“…….”
“I realized at some point. That Jae-jin wouldn’t be happy even if I went back. That guy is my past, but conversely, you think of me as the past. That you resent me, hate me, and eventually forget me… I’m still here though.”
The black space distorted.
The passage created by Seo Eui-woo’s Ability reflected his subconscious and changed moment by moment.
The universe unfolded, Saturn rose, and the screams of swarming creatures echoed from all directions.
“I’m waiting alone. For the moment when my past self’s Ability stabilizes. For the day I can return to Jae-jin. I’m desperately waiting for only that time….”
The space shook, and a fierce cold wind blew.
Kwon Jae-jin could only stare at the 24-year-old Seo Eui-woo without even blinking.
The fact that he had left him behind hit him with an uncontrollable shock.
“Even if I go back, Jae-jin is already in love with that bastard.”
“…….”
“I thought you wouldn’t greet me happily anymore.”
“…….”
“I wondered if I should just disappear silently like this and let Jae-jin live with that guy….”
“…….”
“I absolutely can’t do that though… I want to meet Jae-jin again too… Me and Jae-jin, originally… originally, we….”
“…….”
“Promised first….”