Chapter 113 – Chapter 4: Outcast – 2
Phantoms of memories scattered everywhere like fog.
However, as soon as I felt the sticky feeling of disgust, I had an instinctive intuition that I should never come into contact with those memories.
I took a step back.
The memories were slowly approaching as if they would swallow me up.
You have to run away.
Uddangtang!
I immediately turned back and left Tia’s house.
When I kicked down the wooden door and came out, Marie, who was waiting outside, was surprised.
“Oppa Ritz?”
“Heo-eok- heo-eok-.”
“What’s wrong? “What’s inside?”
“…”
I looked back.
Tia’s house was the same.
As if laughing at me for running away in shock, it stands there unchanged.
Marie held out her handkerchief in front of me as I was catching my breath.
“I’m sweating too much.”
“Thank you.”
I took her handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my forehead.
Why did you try to run away?
I don’t even know myself.
Only… Just like you can tell that today is a bad day by looking at a slowly approaching storm.
I just realized that I had to reject the memories that came.
“Shit…”
It’s a disaster.
I wondered where Tia had gone, and she came to this house to get her clues.
However, I couldn’t read any memories related to his whereabouts here.
Where did Tia go?
Saaa-.
The spring breeze blew.
The sounds of winter wind and spring wind are different.
A warm wind passes between me and Marie, gently brushing across the meadow.
I turned my eyes to follow the path the wind was taking.
“…”
Below Tia’s house. A small path along the stream.
Is that it?
I walked straight to where the ‘secret passage’ was.
Marie followed with her quick steps.
“Ritz oppa? Where are you going?”
Instead of answering, she stretched out her hand and dug into the bush.
Pussyuk!
Only 100 days had passed, but the secret passage was already blocked by overgrown grass.
This meant that no one had traveled this road during that time.
However, it was clearly the ‘path’ that Tia blazed.
With confidence, she put her legs into the grass.
Marie asked hesitantly.
“Is there a road there?”
“There is.”
“Ritz oppa…”
“You go back to Ruev. I have something to check for a moment. “I’ll be back soon.”
“No.”
Kwaak.
Something grabbed my arm.
I thought my sleeve was caught on a tree branch, but Marie was holding my wrist.
“Marie?”
“Sorry. My brother told me to stay with Ritsu. If something is wrong, tell me…”
“…”
I had nothing to say about Ruev’s decision to have Marie watch over me.
Because I don’t have any arrogant thoughts about myself being sane.
“… You too, follow me. There is a way here.”
He gestured to Marie.
She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then she jumped up and crossed the grass.
I don’t know if Marie, with her weak body, will be able to follow this dangerous path.
If I couldn’t separate her from watching, I had no choice but to go with her.
As the road became clearer as we moved forward, Marie asked curiously.
“Where does this lead?”
“General store.”
“… Yes?”
“It’s connected to the general store in Posao.”
Marie asked again, as if she didn’t understand.
“Why is Tia’s house connected to a general store?”
“That…”
I couldn’t bear to answer.
The empty voice goes down her throat and stabs her heart.
She didn’t answer, but Marie didn’t pry.
He just quietly followed me while observing my thoughts.
Sabak.
After going down the secret passage, I finally saw a general store.
“…”
There was no need to be nervous.
Because I expected it to be like this from the beginning.
The general store in Posao had no owner.
No, to be precise, it was an abandoned building without an owner.
Looking at the fallen winter leaves piled up on the roof and stairs, it seemed as if it had been neglected even before spring came.
It’s amazing.
In an abandoned building like this, all the windows and doors are bound to be broken.
Perhaps because no customers had come during that time, the entire exterior remained intact.
Just like Tia’s house.
I wiped the dust on the window with my sleeve and looked inside.
Next to me, Marie lifted her heel.
“There’s nothing?”
It was like that.
There was really nothing inside the general store.
Showcases, tables, and even dusty curtains were filled with strange objects.
Nothing was visible.
It was empty, leaving only traces that this place had once been a general store.
I walked to the front door and grabbed the rusty doorknob.
Crash.
It is locked.
“Do you want to go in?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not better to break the window and go in…” ?”
“No. It’s okay.”
Tuk.
I kicked the flower pot that was sitting next to me.
Clink!
When the pot made of ceramics broke, a key hidden underneath appeared.
Marie looked back at me with a surprised face.
“… Uh, huh?”
I picked up the key and inserted it into the latch of the door handle.
Snap!
The heavily locked door opens.
Kkeikik-.
The inside was opened.
I thought there would be a smell of rotten mushrooms as always.
But my nose couldn’t smell anything.
Rather, there was no smell and only the empty air felt like an empty interior.
I entered the general store.
“…”
There was definitely nothing there, but to my eyes, the shelves of the general store looked like a blurry afterimage.
It was the moment to reach out there.
[It’s me…]
Suddenly I heard a faint voice.
“What?”
I looked back.
Then Marie, who was standing on the stairs of the general store, opened her blue eyes wide.
“… Yes?”
“Didn’t you just say something?”
Marie shook her head.
Thinking she had heard wrong, she turned her head back inside.
[Come in. Tia.]
“… !”
A dull voice with oil in my throat penetrated my eardrums.
This was a memory.
Vast memories stored in a general store.
Slurp-.
A girl with red hair appeared in front of me.
Tia… I entered the general store.
[Exile… All of them were expelled?]
Then, Posao penetrated my body and approached Tia.
[Why?]
[…]
This memory… After Tia was expelled from Brisden.
It was the time when I went to Posao’s general store.
* * *
Tia told everything that had happened so far.
“Ri, Ritz became like that? That can’t be…”
Posao shamelessly said that.
They put me to sleep with poison and threw me off a cliff.
I planned all of this.
He looked genuinely sorry.
Tia, who knew nothing, continued to explain while receiving comfort from the pretentious Posao.
Rattling. Rattling.
While listening to the story, Posao could not keep still.
He opened his mouth wide like a toad and kept shaking his legs.
It seemed like he wasn’t even listening to Tia’s story in the first place.
That dirty face had many meanings.
The look in your eyes that says you knew it would end up like this.
I snort like I’m going crazy because I want to rape the girl in front of me right now.
“… So, after receiving the deportation order, I wandered around Taildon… “I came this far.”
“Huh- noaa- really?”
Posao scratched his hair that had fallen out.
“I saw a lot of smoke a few days ago… There was a forest fire. Well, expelling Tia was too harsh.”
“… I understand. It’s because of me.”
Even though people treated her like that, Tia accepted it solemnly, saying she understood.
“But we can’t leave Ritz like this. The doctor said he would look into her method… Until then, I have to protect Ritz… She didn’t know where to go…”
Tia trailed off and immediately began to sob.
Posao swallowed her saliva.
“Go, there’s nowhere to go, right?”
“… Yes.”
“What about money?”
Tia lowered her head without saying a word.
“Well… “Do you want to live at my house for now?”
“… !”
Red eyes filled with tears came up.
“Still… Is it okay?”
“Of course!
“… Thank you.”
It seemed that Tia had wandered around Taildon without money.
She could have made some extra money if she had brought along books or jewelry and sold them, but since she left all the valuable items at home, she had nothing.
She had no choice but to do so, she thought.
Tia… Because she had no intention of selling from the beginning.
She was not the type of person to easily throw away things that contained ‘memories’.
She said that those items contain memories of herself and someone else, so if she carries them with her, she feels like they are always with her.
… That’s why Tia wore her mother’s keepsake, a rose saber, wrapped around an old belt that her father had made, and she wore the ruby necklace I gave her.
Right now, there are no things that Posao gave to Tia’s body.
A white dress, a sapphire brooch, even a stiff new belt.
I didn’t throw it away, but I left it all at home.
The things Tia wants to keep and remember…
It is a memory of her parents and me.
But…
Drurrrruk-.
Posao pushed the table.
Then, he pushed the separate chairs to connect them and brought the rug and blanket from the bedroom on the second floor and spread them out.
“T-Tia, you can sleep here.”
“Thank you…”
“If it’s cold, you can turn on the fireplace.”
“Yes…”
Posao smiled shyly.
“Why… Why? Is it strange?”
“No… Sleeping at your house… “I think it’s my first time.”
“Naaaaa-what, what! “You must have slept with Ritz often when you were young!”
“It was a nap at the time… Sleeping at night… “It’s my first time.”
“Is that so? Hehe.”
Posao handed over a blanket and pointed to the back of the general store.
“Hey, I heated up the water in the bathtub. “Warm up.”
“I haven’t been able to wash for a long time… Thank you.”
Tia got up from her seat and headed toward her back door.
There was a steaming bathtub there.
It was a structure in which heat was transmitted from the wall connected to the furnace.
Tia seemed to feel uncomfortable and immediately took off her shirt.
Because she was busy making medicine and organizing her warehouse, she wasn’t even allowed time to wash.
Sreuk-.
I took off my pants and went into the bathtub.
Tia, soaking in the warm water, looked blankly at her ceiling.
I could read her thoughts in her blank eyes.
This moment is the same as when she received help from Po Sao in De Seo, when she was desperate…
Squeak.
Tia started washing her neck and shoulders thoroughly, pouring water on them.
And I could hear.
Hehe…”
She slowly walked out her back door, and she went up to the second floor.
Posao could be seen through the slightly open door.
The pig was faced down on the floor.
And while masturbating wildly with her one hand, she let out a disgusting laugh.
Hehe… Ti, Tiaga… Take a bath at my house… ! Hehe!”
There was a hole in the floor that he was looking at.
