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The pain, just on the left side of my center, was distinct, and there was no escaping it. Memories remained stuck in a phase that should never have existed. I didn’t know if they were reminders or warnings, but the scar left on me never faded. Every day that I thought about it became another day of pain—stretching all the way to the end of eternal destruction.
I was grateful that fate had answered my prayers and spared my right eye. But when I opened it each day, all I saw was his regret and sorrow. That was when I realized my own foolishness—I had set the stage for tragedy with my own hands, and my happiness had turned into my pain.
There had been a time when my happiness was found in his smile. I thought that even with only my right eye, I could still hold onto that wish of happiness. But he didn’t smile anymore.
No, I should say that he did smile—just silently, like the eerie stillness before a storm. As he lowered his head, an absentminded, quiet smile tugged at his lips, detached, almost unthinking. I leaned against his shoulder, feeling the pounding of his heartbeat, so loud, so overwhelming, that I wondered…could a fragile heart within bear such a slow, merciless contraction of pain?
That smile was more devastating than his cold expression. The self-deceiving lie was like a frozen lake, too fragile to withstand the relentless beating of suspicion. In the end, he never confessed the sin of me leaving that small room outloud, yet my heart was heavier than the melody of a funeral procession. Above us, the oppressive sky stirred, with the restless urge to rain.
I fear nothing, yet his endless guilt and remorse suffocates me. Day after day, they never cease—unbroken and relentless. Even at night, not a single dream could spare me from them.
He said this pain will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Then, my pain would carry onto the next life—and the one after that. Not just the pain in my left eye socket, but the crushing pull deep within my chest—twitching, tightening—as if pressed beneath a lead weight, strangling every breath.
Staring into the mirror, even I couldn’t stand the sight of this tormented face. So I put on an eyepatch, sealing the viper-like scar, engulfing it in darkness, letting the fear and sorrow sink into silence.
“It’s okay, I’m not in pain anymore,” I tell myself, trying to numb his excessive guilt with self-deception.
“—It’s okay I can still find happiness in this pain.”