178 – Spring

178 – Spring

It took ten years for the boy, who had swallowed the red jewel and lost consciousness, to open his eyes.

The inferno’s light, which had painted the sky crimson for seven hundred days, had finally waned— .

The shadow that had stalked the land for days had also vanished, and now the sky and earth were a hazy ash-grey.

*Shh, shh*—.

The boy walked across the drifts of ash and dust piled up like snow, listening intently.

Hoping, perhaps, that something besides him remained on this earth.

*Whoosh*—.

But only the sound of the wind blowing was especially poignant in his heart.

In the meantime, the boy had completed his home.

Made from old boards haphazardly joined together, black rain streamed down through the holes in the roof, but…

*This is, like, the most luxurious house in the world*— he thought.

The boy was generous with praise for himself.

A desolate desert where not a single blade of grass grew.

The shack built upon it was the boy’s kingdom, his proud fortress.

Inside the fortress was an old but working fan, and that was the boy’s treasure.

*Now, if I only had a girlfriend, it’d be perfect.*

*Like, I’d be the richest, most eligible bachelor in the world*—.

*Drip, drip*—.

Crouched beneath the leaky roof, the boy waited with a flutter of anticipation, hoping that someone might knock on the plank door.

Like, a guest barging in without even removing their shoes.

A very pretty girl.

But, until the sun, risen from behind the rainclouds, faded into dusk, no visitor knocked at the boy’s door.

After going to the trouble of installing that grand doorbell.

That it never once rang.

*Ding-dong!*

Sometimes, when the doorbell chimed ethereally, the boy would pause what he was doing and open the door to gaze outside.

Of course, contrary to his hopeful expectations, only a teasing wind *whooshed* about, just outside the entrance.

On days with such profound disappointment, the boy would climb onto the roof and watch the clouds.

Wondering if a friend, parted from long ago, might be drifting closer from afar.

The clouds, similar in shape to one another, felt like comrades.

As night arrived, and the sky glittered with exceptionally bright stars and a beautiful moon, the boy reached out his hand toward the heavens.

As if to gauge the distance between himself and his celestial abode.

Whenever he felt sad or lonely, it was the boy’s routine to sleep on the rooftop, watching the moon.

There was one moon during which he spent 29 out of its 30 days on the roof.

Of course, the boy spent a very small portion of his day gazing at the moon.

For he scrutinized the earth as much as he did the sky.

He would plant seeds in the dust- and ash-ridden soil, watering them and hoping they would sprout.

But the seeds rarely grew, and the power plant, burning like a distant volcano, only *growled* with a sense of impending doom.

Like the little prince, cleansing the active and dormant volcanoes of his lonely star, the boy grabbed his cleaning tools and tidied the power plant.

The toxins emanating from the melted-down reactor were indescribably agonizing, but the boy thought he could endure it.

*I know girls far more venomous than this*—

The boy struggled to recall their faces.

But, he quickly grew weary and lonely, and stopped.

––.

Then, startled by a sound from somewhere, the boy hastily fled the power plant.

He heard a sound like a four-legged beast, perhaps a red fox, howling.

But only a desolate wind *whistled* through the air from an unknown origin.

He must have misheard the wind.

40,007.863km.

Living alone, enjoying such a vast star all to himself, the boy had nothing to envy.

He alone could leave footprints on the ash-colored snowfield, blurred with snow and dust.

*Squeak, squeak-*

The boy returned home, leaving his mark like a triumphant general.

*Squeak, squeak…*

But sometimes, he missed it so much that he walked backwards, like in the tale of some poet.

To see the footprints left before him.

How long had this world without spring, summer, autumn, or winter continued?

The boy passed the place that had once been a crosswalk, glancing around.

Wondering if someone might be there, someone not noticing the truck because they were looking at their phone.

But the rusted cars scattered across the road showed no sign of movement.

A world without green lights or red lights.

In this crushing monotony, the boy knelt and wept.

And then, something caught the boy’s eye as he looked down.

It looked like dust, or perhaps trash someone had discarded. But it held a strange, green glow.

The boy’s heart, long dormant, began to pound.

So loudly, he worried it might burst.

The boy stared intently at the thing that had sprouted from the earth.

Trying to discern whether it was the sprout of a rose or of a baobab tree.

One day, two days, three days, four days—

Innumerable hours passed before the boy recognized what it was.

A plant with three tender leaves.

Clover.

The joy of discovering such long-lost green was fleeting.

An overwhelming sadness filled the boy, and he wept uncontrollably.

Anyone who witnessed the scene would have mocked him, perhaps.

But fortunately, those who might mock him were too far away.

After that, the boy sought out the clovers that had sprung up throughout the world.

He gathered them, creating a small bouquet, and ate them, as if he were a sheep grazing in a field.

To be honest, they didn’t taste good.

# # #

Closing his eyes, memories of long ago would surface.

Faint laughter, belonging to people whose voices had blurred with time, would visit him like wisps in a dream.

Their expressions, even their scents, were fading, losing meaning like faded and hole-ridden photographs.

But the warmth of their embraces, that tenderness, remained vividly etched in the boy’s heart.

The ache of that warmth stole his sleep for days.

Though it forced him to endure the dark nights with eyes wide open, fortunately, the boy possessed tears that shone with an inner light.

A few shakes of the liquid held within the plastic bottle, and the dark world would brighten, if only for a moment, as if touched by daylight.

In that illuminated world, green clovers bloomed, tickling the boy’s eyes.

This is a tree.

This is grass.

This is─.

Amidst the green that sprung up everywhere, the boy strained to find yellow, or blue, or red.

But no matter how much time passed, the vibrant colors of flowers stubbornly refused to appear.

When would spring, with its blooms, finally arrive?

The boy waited for spring.

He yearned for the laughter that would return with it.

Battling such acute loneliness, the boy thought:

It’s a relief that only I remain here─.

This is not a suffering worth enduring, even for the greater good.

But, for the sake of the boy’s timid love, it was something he could bear.

As time passed, and the blowing wind slowly regained a measure of warmth…

The boy, after a long, arduous time, succeeded in coaxing forth a single blossom.

A flower with blush-red petals, a beautiful thing.

The boy, having forgotten the beauty of red for so long, felt as though he might be blinded by it.

Was this world truly so beautiful?

This vast and boundless star was no longer just shades of grey.

Upon the boy’s solitary footprints in the dust and sand, grass began to grow, and the seeds of nameless flowers he had scattered started to sprout.

Kwarreureung-.

Then, a thunderclap that shook the very world filled the boy with dread.

An immense premonition of a storm hung in the air.

Kwarreung, kwarreung-.

Shwaaa-.

For nearly a month, the rain persisted.

A fierce wind tore the roof off the boy’s shanty, forcing him to endure the wind and cold for days.

His one solace was that the rain wasn’t tainted.

It was a season of transparent, clear monsoons and typhoons.

Still, the boy worried that the flowerbeds he had painstakingly cultivated might be ruined after a month of such weather.

So, on a day when a rainbow arced high in the sky, the boy rushed to his garden, and was struck dumb.

The verdant leaves, holding droplets of rain, possessed a shade of green so vibrant he’d never seen it before. It was dazzling.

He was awestruck by the kaleidoscopic hues of the delicate petals.

Life is truly amazing…

Even these frail and fragile things haven’t given up on living…

That winter was exceptionally harsh.

Cold, white snow fell without end.

Everywhere was painted in pure white, and the flowers the boy had nurtured with such care vanished beneath the blanket.

But as the frozen snows melted, even more greenery sprung up throughout the world. The boy’s garden had grown so large he couldn’t possibly explore it all in a single day.

Then one day…

The boy discovered what seemed to be traces of something gnawing at his precious flowers.

Wondering what could have happened, he searched the surrounding area and came across a group of furry creatures.

─Meeeh-.

─Meeh-.

He was utterly surprised by their fluffy forms, grazing on the grass.

The boy ran to them in an instant and embraced them, feeling the warmth of another being for the first time in a long while.

Where on earth did these fellows come from?

The boy scanned the surroundings and finally noticed a strange cloud drifting across the ground.

━Ingingyaing.

Gumsil gumsil-.

The sky-blue cloud seemed to be regurgitating tufts of fur from its body. Rabbits and squirrels, chickens and foxes…

Countless animals poured forth from the cloud’s form.

The boy tried to chase after the animals, but they all fled in a single bound.

In the end, only a peculiar cloud remained in its place.

The boy caught the cloud and embraced it.

The cloud embraced the boy as well.

The two stayed like that for a very long time.

# # #

*Beep-.*

A mechanical sound from somewhere.

The woman opened her eyes.

Four seconds, five seconds….

The number she’d been counting from one had already passed four and five.

The space between three and four seconds.

Barely even a second.

One second.

The woman had only slept for that much time.

However, she couldn’t know exactly how much time had truly passed.

‘Someone left on Earth sent a signal to the moon to wake me.’

She examined the stars visible beyond the black window.

The glimmer of the blue star was especially dazzling.

The woman woke several others who were asleep, just like her.

To return to their homeland.

“Send us back!”

“Send us back!”

“We have to go to Earth!”

The first ones she woke were the girls who had been the loudest, right up until they’d stopped.

As soon as they came to, they chirped like hungry birds, and soon understood exactly what had happened.

That an unimaginable amount of time had passed while they’d only been stopped for a single second.

【+61733 D】

Just how many years does the time displayed on the screen even represent?

What does Earth look like, and the people who remained there…

“Teacher! Send us back to Earth!”

“Quickly!”

“Faster!”

Not another second could be wasted.

The girls, practically strangling the woman, reached out towards that blue star.

They arrived at a valley where clear water gurgled and flowed.

Everywhere, flowers bloomed, and tree branches grew like the antlers of a deer – all strikingly unfamiliar.

It felt as if they had stepped into a beautiful fairy tale landscape.

Even the air was unusually sweet, and the breeze, warm.

The butterflies flitting about, the bees buzzing here and there, made the girls realize they had plunged headfirst into the heart of an unknown season.

“…I smell something.”

Then, the girl who resembled summer twitched her nose.

Summer, not missing the unusual scent, followed a road paved with beautifully arranged stones, until a hut came into view, built from cut logs and topped with a thatch of straw and flowers.

Plume upon plume – .

Smoke was rising from the hut’s chimney.

The scent that Summer had caught was emanating from that very house.

“It smells like ramen!”

Winter declared.

Indeed, just as the girl had said, it resembled the aroma of ramen.

“…Let’s go inside.”

Autumn placed her hand on the door.

Screech-. The door, more stubborn than they expected, refused to open, and the girls’ palms gathered one, two – .

Screeeeak-.

Finally, when the door gave way, the girls discovered a pot bubbling vigorously. It was boiling so fiercely that the broth was on the verge of overflowing, yet the cook was nowhere to be seen within the hut.

The girls felt a flicker of impatience.

Just then, Winter spotted the back door of the hut.

Opening it, they found a garden blooming with beautiful flowers, and a rather tall tree casting shade in the warm sunshine.

And in that shade, a boy was leaning against the tree, dozing with clouds resting on his lap.

His expression was so peaceful and languid that even they, watching him, felt an involuntary yawn creeping up.

“Hanam-ssi─.”

“You little rascal—”

“Jin…”

Each girl had a mouthful to say, but soon they were gazing at each other’s faces.

Words unsaid, they all shared the same thought.

Slinking—

They now carefully approached, mindful not to rouse the boy from his slumber, and nestled beside him, huddling close.

There would be ample time for stories later.

The weather was far too balmy, a pleasant breeze too gently whispering, for furrowed brows and angry outbursts.

A day like today might never come again, so they closed their eyes, dozing in the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the shade.

A perfect spring day for a nap.

The spring everyone had yearned for.

Of course, soon enough they would awaken, and erupt in a cacophony of shouts directed at one another—

—but that was a tale for a slightly later time.

For now, they simply slumbered peacefully.