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“Well, I don’t know about that. It’s been a while, right? When I discovered you it was not long after I came up to my senior year, but there were rumors of the ghost before that.”
Nathan asked, holding his throbbing head, “You said I wasn’t just walking around, you said something, did I…what did I say?”
“Oh, that’s…”
“Did you say something weird?”
“Well…”
The idle voice frightened me. What did I say? Nathan’s heart thumped with anxiety. My fingertips cooled and trembled briefly. His anxiety grew as he watched Hazard mumbling his lips as if he were choosing a horse. While wanting to hear what Hazard said, there was also a coexistence of the feeling that he didn’t want to hear it.
Nathan’s anxiety stems from the fact that he alone knows the future. If his unconsciousness tells the boy in front of him what he shouldn’t do, that’s it. If anything changes because of that, Nathan is not confident of taking responsibility for it.
“What did you say?”
A trembling voice asked Hazard to give an answer. So Hazard sighed and said, “You said ‘I want to go home.’”
Nathan put his face in the palm of his hand and made a painful noise. I’m going crazy. It was something I’d never even imagined. I was relieved that my expectations were missed, but I was very ashamed. How old am I and I want to go home. I came to the train station without realizing it. Nathan was now 19 years old, and his original age, including his life here, was almost 30.
Nathan knew why Hazard hesitated to say. Yeah, I’m a little embarrassed about this. That’s a childish thing to say. Nathan pressed his face with the back of his cold hand because he felt like his face was getting hot. I couldn’t possibly look straight at Hazard.
He must have been lonely. Why? There’s no family, no relatives, no one here that knows him. The writer Nam is too far away, and I don’t have friends, so Nathan’s mouth swells with shame. It was clear that he didn’t even know what he was saying at the time. Hazard opened his mouth as he watched Nathan gibberish.
“I’ve tried to imitate a dog before.”
“…What?”
“What?”
Nathan was stunned by the sudden noise. What is he saying? In bewilderment Nathan stared blankly at Hazard. His blond hair sparkles enchantingly in the moonlight. As if nothing was wrong, he folded his blue eyes and smiled softly, and his face was very calm.
Nathan laughed after a moment. He recalled what he had just heard. Considering Hazard’s status, what he said was beyond composure.
“Listen to me, Norbert, I haven’t told anyone about this.” However, the person who spoke was calm. It was even playful as if it were a secret story hidden somewhere.
“You know I have a lot of brothers, right?”
“I know.”
“I’m especially not on good terms with my brothers. They don’t like me very much. Well, was it when I was seven? There was a small tea party in the castle. At that time, I couldn’t eat well because of various reasons. It was like that then, too. I was hungry, but suddenly I smelled something delicious. I went there because I was so curious. But when I went there, there were my hyungs. We haven’t been close since before then. It was worse because I couldn’t hide it when I was young. The first brother who found me suddenly said this. ‘If you’re a dog, pretend to be a dog. Then I’ll give you something.’ So I crawled on all fours, barking like a dog, and honestly, I grew hungrier then.”
Maybe even Nathan, who thought he knew better than even him, about Hazard, this was the first time I heard of it. Hazard focused on his adventures and his growth from Hazard’s point of view, but his past was only summarized in a few sentences, with no direct information other than that his childhood was unhappy and shabby.
“Well, I don’t care. The cupcakes I got were delicious and I shared them with my sister. It was a good memory.” It seemed like it really didn’t matter for him to show such an exaggerated shrug.
Is that really a good memory? Nathan wanted to raise a sudden question, but he just shut up. Perhaps because Hazard’s atmosphere was not serious until the story was finished, his question, which would seem to ruin this atmosphere, never passed his lips.
“All right, that’s it. It’s fair that we both had a secret story, right?”
“What’s that?”
Nathan laughed quietly because he was dumbfounded by the next word. The confusion that had continued since he first opened his eyes had long disappeared,
“Shall we go now? It’s no use staying here until sunrise.”
“Oh, we should.”
In the meantime, Hazard reached out to Nathan insignificantly. Nathan looked at it and smiled slightly at the corners of his mouth, then turned away his hand. Nathan got up on his own, pretending to shake off the clothes that would have nothing on him. Isn’t it a bit embarrassing to hold hands when you’re just sitting and waking up?
Well, I stumbled in front of Hazard right after that, so I couldn’t say anything.
As he left the dark train station, a quiet street greeted Nathan. The dawn, when everything was asleep, was too quiet. From time to time, the sound of grassworms and the spinning wheel could be heard from afar, but there was no sign of anyone. As I always remember the lively appearance of the village, I felt quite different. For a moment, Nathan seemed to overlap with the convenience of his dream, which he still vaguely remembered. The lights go out one by one, the terrible darkness and silence fall, and the world is left alone.
Nathan clasped his arms and trembled. Although it was close to summer, the air at dawn was a little chilly to endure with a thin sheet of his robe. Suddenly Nathan thought he was embarrassed.
“Ha, I can’t believe I’m here in this outfit.”
It was crazy to wander around outside in pajamas like this. Moreover, this outfit was more likely to be what people would’ve remembered if they saw him in this state. ‘That must be a person who is not tidy and doesn’t know where to dress like that in front of others.’ It was fortunate that Hazard found him first and took him around. If it were someone else…it would already be buzzing around the Academy and talking about the ‘ghost’ again.
Just like when I was in first grade. People were more interested in others than they thought, so rumors passed on from mouth to mouth were bound to change significantly from their original intentions and contents at the end. The same was true of Nathan.
The only survivor of Baron Norbert was the one who ran away to live alone at some point, so that’s all. Well, if this is rumored, wouldn’t there be a rumor that Nathan Norbert, who survived alone, is completely out of his mind because he’s so guilty?
‘You managed to put on your shoes.’
“Oh, I put them on for you.”
“If there’s a rat hole, I want to hide.”
Nathan sighed heartily. Then Hazard burst out laughing next to him. Then Nathan dropped his head with a sour face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?”
“You could have told me earlier.”
Azar managed to catch the rambling words. The cool burst of laughter gradually died down and his expression became quite serious.
“…I thought it would be better if I said it. Professor Matilda said sleepwalking is the biggest sign of stress at this age. You’re so stressed out, but isn’t it more stressful to know? So I couldn’t bring it up.”
“It would have been better if you just told me.”
“It could have been.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you. It’s just, it’s just…it’s still a little embarrassing.”
“It’s okay, you can blame me.”
Nathan was flustered at the moment, appearing to blame him. I didn’t mean to. It was more of a question than a blame. But Hazard told Nathan he could blame him, Seriousness made him smile as he looked at Nathan. The laughter Hazard brought out of habit was refreshing.
“You know what? Because I didn’t tell you even though I knew. In a way, what I did to think of you might not be the case. If I think about it like that, I think I was just short on thought. So you can blame me because you’re offended.”
“You are…”