Chapter 121 – #27_Crossed Paths
#119
1.
Why do happy moments pass by so quickly?
Time slipped away like sand through fingers, impossible to grasp.
Every day, we woke up and ate breakfast together.
Amelia’s cooking wasn’t particularly outstanding.
Knowing this, Amelia didn’t try to show off extravagant skills but instead focused on bringing out the natural flavors of the ingredients.
Things like fried eggs, bacon, sausages, and bread.
After breakfast, before lunch, we would pack a picnic and go out somewhere.
Because we had decided to do one special thing each day.
Some days, we would take an easel, canvas, and pencils and sit together on a hill in a barley field, overgrown and unkempt, and draw.
Other days, she would play the violin, holding a concert just for Siwoo.
And on other days, we would go fishing or swimming together in a nearby lake.
We would lie side by side on the roof, looking at the stars,
or stomp on bed sheets in a tub full of bubbles, washing them diligently,
and sometimes, we would buy ingredients and bake apple pies together in the detached building’s oven.
Amelia shared all the warm days she had received from her teacher with Siwoo.
Each day was so precious and radiant.
“Amelia.”
“Yes?”
“You seem a bit out of it today.”
“I was just lost in thought for a moment.”
Amelia shook her head and looked at Siwoo.
He was sitting at the table, organizing formulas that had become much more complex than before.
Now, Amelia couldn’t even properly read them without his explanation.
If it were another witch’s magnetic magic, she might have understood, but the magic he was researching had such a unique color to it.
Moreover, after he lost his emotions, that color seemed to have become even more intense.
“You don’t have to stay by my side. I can do it on my own now.”
“No, but you still get stuck sometimes.”
Siwoo’s voice had deepened.
More than half of the potion bottle was empty, and he had already become a young man who had passed puberty.
He still had a bit of a youthful look, but with each passing day, he looked more and more like the Siwoo Amelia knew.
“If you’re tired, you can go to bed first.”
“No, I’m a witch. I’m not that tired.”
“But you’ve been going to bed regularly these days.”
“I guess I’ve gotten used to it. But it’s still the same that I don’t need to sleep.”
Amelia, who used to go without sleep for a week or even months at a time, had become a witch who now had a regular sleep pattern.
“Is it because you’re lonely without me?”
It had been quite some time since Amelia and Siwoo had stopped sleeping in the same bed.
Siwoo, who was growing taller day by day, had first felt embarrassed and declined to sleep together.
Siwoo asked, trying to act nonchalant but still a bit embarrassed, trailing off at the end of his sentence.
He seemed to slightly regret bringing it up.
“Is that so?”
“Ah.”
Amelia’s one word made Siwoo, who was already feeling awkward, even more so.
It was a word that came out without going through the brain’s filter.
Siwoo opened his mouth blankly, and Amelia stared at his face.
Now, the modifier “like a child” was awkward to use for his appearance.
That small boy had grown up so much.
The actual time they had spent together was only about a month, but because she had watched him grow from a young child to now, it felt like they had been together for a very long time.
If the time was this happy, it wouldn’t be strange for each year to feel like a single day.
“I’m sorry. I was joking.”
“Was Siwoo? I was joking too.”
Amelia leaned her head on the desk and smiled brightly, and Siwoo awkwardly covered his chin with his hand and turned his head.
He coughed dryly.
Perhaps because so many memories were being reconstructed with such dense intensity, each day felt like a year to Siwoo.
Just closing his eyes and waking up, his body, mind, and memories had changed.
Therefore, the intimacy and affection Siwoo felt for Amelia, who was by his side all day, was not just for a month.
It was as if Amelia had raised the young Siwoo, sometimes like a mother, sometimes like an older sister, sometimes like a teacher, and sometimes…
“Siwoo.”
Amelia suddenly poked her head in, interrupting Siwoo’s thoughts.
In Amelia’s hand, which was now smaller than Siwoo’s, was the potion bottle, less than half full.
Every night, Amelia gave Siwoo his medicine.
There was a desire for these days to continue.
There was also, of course, a desire to run away and avoid it.
But this was Amelia’s duty and responsibility.
Seeing Siwoo’s appearance, which was recovering safely, she felt relief, but at the same time, a sadness that felt like burning embers also coexisted.
Siwoo, unaware of Amelia’s feelings, calmly took the potion on the spoon.
“I can drink this on my own now.”
“I want to do it.”
Siwoo obediently put the spoon Amelia gave him in his mouth and swallowed the medicine.
Amelia watched him with a sad look for some reason.
“Don’t overdo it too late. I’m going in.”
“Yes, Amelia.”
Amelia, who was about to leave because she felt like she would burst into tears if she looked at his face any longer, stopped in her tracks.
Seeing Siwoo growing up so robustly, the lingering feelings she thought she had given up on long ago resurfaced.
She knew it in her head.
She shouldn’t say it.
She shouldn’t say these words.
It was a cowardly, petty, and despicable act.
But the impatience and desperation she had been building up, watching the happy time come to an end right next to her, unconsciously slipped out of her lips.
“Siwoo, there’s something I want to say.”
“Yes?”
Amelia stood diagonally next to the desk where Siwoo was studying.
Perhaps he noticed that her voice was different from usual?
Siwoo turned to look at Amelia with a slightly nervous expression.
Her desperate gaze felt like it was piercing through his heart.
She was sad.
Seeing Amelia’s gloomy face, Siwoo’s heart also ached.
He thought that such an expression didn’t suit her, that a smiling face suited her better.
“I’m listening.”
Siwoo carefully showed consideration for Amelia, who hadn’t spoken for a while.
Amelia’s beautiful eyes were already filled with tears.
“Later…”
Amelia swallowed her tears and spoke to Siwoo.
The selfish words she had decided never to utter,
for a moment of comfort.
“Later, even if you regain your memories… can you… forgive me?”
“……..”
Siwoo, seeing Amelia looking so frail and weak, unlike her usual self, reached out and wiped her tears with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Amelia…”
Amelia felt the urge to run into his broad arms and hug him.
She wanted to tell him everything she had done wrong, how sorry she was, and cling to him.
She wanted to beg.
She wanted to cry out loud that she was so sorry, that she regretted it so much, and to never abandon her.
She wanted to plead, beg, and ask for forgiveness.
But Amelia barely managed to stop that sacrilegious impulse.
She could feel Siwoo’s thickened hand patting her back.
“I don’t know what wrong you did to me, Amelia. So I can’t promise you anything.”
Even in her weak and selfish state, his gentle voice rang close to her ear, and like a lie, tears began to pour out.
“Hic… hng… hic…”
Siwoo gently stroked Amelia’s head as she shook with sobs, wetting his shoulder.
“But, I’ll try to forgive you. Even if I can’t right now, I’ll try. Because right now, you’re the most precious person to me.”
Siwoo waited until Amelia calmed down.
He grabbed her shoulders and created a little distance to see her face.
Amelia’s once neat face was a mess of tears, right in front of Siwoo’s face.
The two people had different environments, ways of thinking, and positions, but at this moment, they had the same thought.
They wanted to kiss.
Without either of them knowing who started it, their lips met.
Soft and tender lips overlapped, and Siwoo wrapped his arms around Amelia’s waist and neck.
Amelia’s hands, which had been awkwardly searching for a place to go, grabbed Siwoo’s shirt as if clinging to him.
As if she didn’t want to let go.
As if she wanted to stay like this forever.
As a rough tongue slipped between their lips and into her mouth, Amelia’s body trembled as if she had been electrocuted.
At her attempt to escape, Siwoo tightly gripped her slender waist so she couldn’t get away.
Amelia felt the sensation of the kiss in a daze, as if she were walking in a dream.
It was rough yet soft, tender yet sticky.
She had learned from her teacher.
Her teacher had said that a kiss was a signal between two people.
A signal that said, ‘I trust you.’
A signal that said, ‘I allow you more than before.’
Shin Siwoo trusted Amelia.
Amelia wanted to allow Siwoo more than this.
She didn’t know about anything else, but she could know and feel that much.
Amelia clung to Siwoo as they exchanged saliva and breath.
The increasingly heated breaths filled the small room.
Amelia’s hands, clinging to his collar, also held a silent desperation.
Siwoo’s hand, which had been supporting her waist, grabbed Amelia’s buttocks.
His other hand, which had been inside her neck, lifted her nightgown like a curtain, grabbing her soft, bare breast.
Siwoo didn’t know how to treat a woman.
He was just acting towards Amelia, led by instinct.
Amelia also didn’t resist Siwoo, who was touching her body.
She just breathed heavily, sucking his tongue more diligently, as if she was truly surrendering her body.
The two walked naturally towards the bed, as if they were waltzing, without stopping their kiss.
Amelia’s legs, which had been gradually stepping backward, hit the bed, and she fell back with a thud.
“Haa… haa…”
“Haa…”
In that moment, their lips parted, and Siwoo looked down at Amelia, calming his trembling heart.
Her hair, scattered on the bed like glittering gold dust, her two cheeks flushed red.
Her nightgown, lifted by Siwoo’s hand, revealed her white, smooth belly and one of her breasts.
Amelia didn’t cover her body.
She didn’t fix her dress.
She just looked up at Siwoo, breathing heavily from the kiss, as if waiting for his disposal.
Siwoo swallowed hard.
In Siwoo’s perception, Amelia was a benefactor who had taken care of him and poured affection on him for nearly a decade.
He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t guarantee that he had never thought of the beautiful Amelia as a woman.
On the contrary, it was the opposite.
He had often thought that he wanted to get closer to her, that he wanted to have a deeper relationship with her, not this ambiguous one.
Very much.
And even if Siwoo, who didn’t know anything, looked at this atmosphere, it was a natural flow.
A flow where he could become one with her and have a deeper relationship.
“………”
“………”
Even if they were officially dating, the relationship would be three years later, that’s what she had always thought.
Because that was the proper behavior of a refined and cultured lady.
But when his tongue slipped between her lips.
When his strong hand grabbed her breast and supported her buttocks.
When she was lying on his bed, receiving his burning gaze.
She wanted to allow it.
She wanted him to open the door to a world she had never experienced before.
Siwoo swallowed hard and lowered his upper body, covering her as if he were crawling over her.
Amelia closed her eyes tightly and turned her head.
And as if she had made up her mind, she gently pushed Siwoo’s cheek away with her palm, as he was about to bite her neck.
“No… Siwoo, we shouldn’t do this…”
“Ah…”
Siwoo, who had been intoxicated by the atmosphere and tried to take her, also came to his senses as if he had woken up from a dream.
As the heated atmosphere rapidly cooled down as if cold water had been poured on it, Amelia, who had gotten up, straightened her disheveled dress.
She said in a choked voice.
“I also want what Siwoo wants…”
Amelia passed Siwoo and grabbed the doorknob as if she were running away.
Amelia’s back, turned away from Siwoo, looked very small and pathetic.
“But… I’m not qualified… I’m not qualified to do this…”
“What qualification…”
“I’m sorry.”
With those words of apology, trying to undo everything, Amelia returned to her room.
