Chapter 114.2

Chapter 114.2

He dragged a tense hand through his hair. The more he spoke, the more he realized how self-centered he had been. And the fact that she had loved him despite that felt almost miraculous.

“André…”

When she whispered his name, her light brown eyes were brimming with transparent tears as she met his gaze.

A dreadful premonition made his heart plummet. Bracing for a slow, dull ache, he closed his eyes, then opened them.

Miran’s trembling lips parted.

“We’re too different. I don’t belong in the world you’re part of. After everything that’s happened, I realized it’s not something you can overcome with effort like language or culture. And I can’t leave my family and friends to live alone somewhere else and endure all of that by myself. Someday, a long time from now, if I fall in love again, I want to get married normally without contracts or conditions. And have kids. I want to fill in each other’s shortcomings and live like that.”

Miran set her jaw and pressed her lips together. When she blinked, the tear gathered at the corner of her eye slipped down her cheek. Even so, she forced a smile for André.

“So… you should go back too. And meet someone who belongs in your world. Thank you for giving me such beautiful memories. I mean that.”

André listened in silence, then met her eyes. Miran didn’t look away.

“I’ll fix it. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it. So Miran, give me a chance. Please.”

If she would take him back, he planned to pour every tangible and intangible resource he had into changing every part of her life that had ever felt difficult because of him.

A heavy silence settled between them. Like a man awaiting his execution, André asked quietly,

“One last thing. Do you really not love me anymore?”

“….”

Her clear brown eyes, terrible at hiding emotion, trembled helplessly. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.

Seeing that, André exhaled the breath he had been holding and scrubbed a hand over his face. The fact that she hadn’t driven a nail through his heart with a firm no was enough for the thinnest thread of hope to slip through a crack.

If that was the case, he would fight for her with everything he had, to the absolute end. Without Miran, he had no hope of living like a person anyway. In that sense, this was something he had to do for himself too.

He hadn’t understood, back then, how miraculous it was that she had stepped into his life of her own will.

He hadn’t understood how precious the heart she placed in his hands was, and because of that, he lost it with his eyes wide open. He only realized after she was gone that the fullness he felt when she was beside him had been happiness.

After meeting her, all the priorities he had thought important in his life flipped upside down.

So never again. As long as he lived, never again would he make that mistake.

In a steady, careful voice, André tried to soothe her.

“You don’t have to answer now. I won’t ask you to love me again. I know it’s shameless, but let me love you. I won’t even ask you to stay by my side. I understand now that you could never be happy that way. If the problem is that we live in different worlds, then I’ll take a piece of your world and move it into mine. I’ll mix your world with mine as much as I can, so don’t tell me things like thank you for the memories.”

“…What are you talking about? Sorry, but I…”

Before she could finish, still blinking her wet eyes in confusion, André suddenly asked,

“Can I write to you?”

“W… write?”

Caught off guard, Miran stammered. Coming from a man who had replied to her endless letters exactly once, and even then with a few words scrawled on the back of a photo, the idea of him writing anything felt unreal.

“To be precise, email. You remember, right?”

A few months ago, André had explained to her with great enthusiasm that something called email had just come out. She had nodded along as if she understood, but in truth she hadn’t grasped a word of it. If she remembered correctly, it sounded similar to PC communication services like Hitel or Chellian.

But Miran barely knew how to turn a computer on and off. According to Hyunjung, students who entered university in 1995 wrote their papers on computers and submitted them on floppy disks. When Miran was in school, she wrote every report by hand in a notebook. With no computer at home, she had never used PC communication at all.

So she gave a vague reply.

“I sort of remember… but you know I’m hopeless with computers.”

“You like that Minesweeper game.”

He let out a soft laugh as he said it, and Miran’s face flushed as she recalled the memory.