My heart is burning with a strong sense of frustration.
If I kill Owen here, this body is now completely mine.
No more fear of my past self taking over my body.
âYouâre in my way. âŠâŠâ
We donât need two Owen Peppers in this world.
I donât think anyone needs you, Owen.
Youâve never been loved by anyone.
Youâve never needed it.
Hated and ostracized as you are, whatâs the point of you, Owen, living?
Iâm going to live long enough for you, Owen.
I straightened up and looked at Owen.
Before I know it, the flames are gone from Owenâs body.
Somewhere in there, he was in the exact same position as me.
I point the index finger of my right hand at Owen.
Then Owen did the same, pointing his right index finger at me.
Itâs as if Iâm looking in a mirror.
My hand shakes as I point it at Owen.
Itâs like Iâm asking myself, âAre you going to kill yourself?
Is killing Owen the right thing to do?
Can I proudly say that this is the right thing to do?
This body had originally belonged to Owen.
Taking it away and killing him. âŠâŠ Thatâs no different than murder, isnât it?
I ask myself, and almost fall into self-loathing.
Itâs like an ugly part of me is being highlighted and it makes me sick.
Thereâs only one me, and I donât want the Owen of the past.
Eliminate the alien, and become one, pure being.
Kill Owen and find a way out of the world of consciousness.
Thatâs what Iâm gonna do.
With determination, I was about to pull the trigger â thatâs when it happened.
Owenâs eyes were pleading grief.
âDonât look at me like that. âŠâŠâ
I put my right hand down, sluggishly.
Owen is definitely a jerk.
But letâs say I make him disappear and I replace him as Owen.
Could it really be Owen Pepper?
Whatâs beyond the denial of who you were someday?
Whatâs the point of erasing the past if you want to forget it?
My gaze locked with Owenâs again.
The past me, Owen, stared at the present me.
At that moment, suddenly, the memory of Owen rushes through my brain.
âYes, I remember âŠâŠ.â
I remember Owenâs memories, along with the emotions of the time.
Owen just wanted to be recognized.
His father, Black, and his mother, Aisha, seemed to be looking at their son, Owen, but not at all.
Owen was not in their eyes, and there was no affection between father and son.
Owen learned this at an early age and began to act in an effort to win his fatherâs favor.
Then my father finally acknowledged Owen and praised him.
When I hit a servant, he praises me for being a man of superiority.
Thatâs why I violated the servants.
If I say the food is bad, he praises me, saying, âThatâs my son, he has a good palate.â
Thatâs why I undermine the food.
The abuse, the name-calling, the outbursts, the violence, were all the self-expression of Owen, a young child in search of affection.
Eventually, the servants began to treat Owen as if he were an eyesore.
Somewhere along the line, I began to use violence, not for the sake of praise, but out of my own anger.
That what my father has for Owen is not parental love.
That the servants will only leave me if I abuse them.
After all, wherever he was, there was no one to look out for Owen, and he had no allies.
He is lonely and can only express it with violence.
His loneliness eventually turned to despair, and he could no longer find meaning in life.
I used to be me, Owen, and I suffered alone all the time.
I was drowning in the dark.
But such a pathetic Owen â too.
My mouth is full of words.
Ugly, stupid, pathetic, helpless Owen is a part of me.
Thereâs more than one thing that shapes Owen.
The past led to the present, and as a result of the chain of events, I am here now.
Donât deny it, donât forget it, donât erase it.
I reached for Owen, who was in front of me.
Then Owen did the same for me, and held out his hand.
Me and Owenâs palms overlap.
The world really did pop.
As if a glass was broken, the world changed its aspect at once.
I get a strange feeling that two souls are mingling.
Strangely, there was no fear.
Iâve decided to take it all in.
Owen is not me, with my Japanese knowledge, nor am I the arrogant, stupid man of the past.
The two combined are what Owen Pepper is all about.
When I came to, Owen was nowhere to be found.
The world is back to normal.
At the edge of my vision, I notice that the sphere is changing.
What had been clearly separated by crimson and dull red a moment ago was now painted with a darker red.
Not pure, but a red with a dull tinge.
Itâs not a pretty color.
But I had a feeling that this murky red was the Owen Pepper.
At some point, the rain had stopped.
Itâs not sunny, itâs cloudy.
The light shines through the gap of such a cloud.
I slowly approach the sphere illuminated by the light.
And the moment he touched the sphere floating in the air â my body was sucked into the sphere.