Very Much
Unable to forget the fire from five years ago, the scars that formed that day still remained as pain.
Although she would occasionally feel melancholic or sad, the five years that had passed had dulled the agonizing pain and memories to some degree. So now, at least, she wouldn’t shed tears in front of others because of the scars.
“……Ren…….”
But the more Sharti tried to smile, the more she tried to speak calmly, the more tears leaked out.
Her vision kept getting blurry, her nose stung, and her chest felt tight.
She couldn’t even understand why sobs kept welling up from deep within her chest.
All Sharti could do was foolishly swallow her emotions over and over again.
“Sha-.”
Watching Sharti desperately holding back her tears, Ren’s heart was being torn to shreds.
There was no way it didn’t hurt.
There was no way she was okay.
She was so fragile.
Even reaching out to comfort her felt presumptuous and required caution.
The rebuttal that should have come naturally—that it wasn’t hideous—wouldn’t come out, as if his throat was being choked.
Just as when he heard her voice, just as when he saw her face, he couldn’t easily say that everything was fine, that it was okay.
The burn scars carved into her body were that shocking.
What this fragile, small woman had experienced in the past when she was even younger than now was too horrific.
“…….”
Ren swallowed his crushing chest pain and looked up at Sharti.
Sharti, who had been repeatedly moving her lips, bowed her head deeply and shook it from side to side.
At the same time, tears dripped onto the back of her hand.
As she avoided Ren’s eyes and curled in on herself, Sharti realized the reason for the tears that had suddenly burst forth.
She was ashamed to show this version of herself to Ren.
What did it matter if her horrible voice had miraculously disappeared?
‘Not only was the head broken, but the body was also grotesque….’
She was far from an ordinary woman.
Who would want such a broken woman, her love?
But at the same time, trembling all over, Sharti spread her arms wide.
With her head still bowed, choking back sobs, Sharti’s hair fluttered in the winter wind.
“……Tell me you can handle even these scars.”
“…….”
“Tell me you’ll handle everything.”
Ren’s expression crumbled and his lips trembled violently.
Unable to see this, Sharti’s body shook. The tears she had been holding back began to leak out mixed with her trembling breaths.
“If Ren, sob, if you say that…… I won’t cry anymore……!”
Before Sharti could finish her words, Ren lifted her by the waist and held her firmly in his arms.
His large, trembling hands pulled Sharti’s small body into a strong embrace. The small hands that embraced his broad back also gripped his clothes tightly.
Breathing that sounded like moans, impossible to tell whose crying it was, echoed in each other’s ears.
“May I, may I handle it?”
As if he had never broken down, growling like a beast, Ren asked Sharti.
“May I dare, may I do that?”
As Sharti’s head moved up and down, Ren pulled her even more tightly into his embrace.
Ren let out the breath he had been holding. His chest felt so full.
His heart, which had plummeted, seemed to find its way back to its place as it pounded fiercely.
“Sha-.”
At Ren’s call, Sharti barely lifted her head.
Seeing Sharti up close—her nose, the corners of her eyes, her cheeks all red—Ren’s eyes wavered again.
Even her crying face was so beautiful he couldn’t take his eyes off it, but at the same time it was a face that pained his heart and he didn’t want to see.
“If what I must handle are your wounds, I’ll say it as many times as needed.”
“…….”
“No matter what form you take, you’re the most beautiful in my eyes. Your eyes, nose, mouth, hands, feet—everything is beautiful. No matter how large or deep the scars are, whatever form you take, to me, Sha, you as a person are beautiful.”
Looking at Sharti sniffling, Ren’s nose also tingled.
“Sha, because it’s you. Because even your imperfect aspects are lovely because they’re yours…….”
[Ren, do you like me?]
If he had just answered back then, on that day, perhaps Sharti wouldn’t be crying like this now.
Not wanting to answer with a half-hearted heart, with the excuse of giving her time, he had bought time to become a better person.
But what use was a plan for a wonderful confession when Sharti was crying?
[-I like you, Ren.]
Now he had to give the answer he had postponed and postponed.
The preparations to handle her, the preparations to handle his own emotions—they were all finished.
“-I’ve come to like you.”
Telling him to say he would handle everything was no different from telling him to say he liked her.
Therefore, Ren gladly confessed his feelings.
“Though I’m insignificant and pathetic, this feeling that makes me want to become a better person every time I see you is surely an emotion I can feel thanks to liking you.”
He wanted to tell Sharti.
He wanted to respond with all his might to her confession that had been blown away so messily.
“Sha-. You who always shine in my eyes, you who became my light…… I like you. Very much.”
“…….”
Sharti burst out crying and laughing at the same time.
Her ice-cold hands cupped Ren’s cheeks. Ren didn’t mind and rubbed his face against her palms.
The tears pooled in the corners of his eyes disappeared into her palms.
At the same time, the loosened bandage on her right leg slipped off smoothly and flew away in the wind.
Under the clear sky, a man with many shortcomings and a broken woman pressed their foreheads together and shared tear-soaked smiles.
Continuously, until Sharti had poured out all the tears she had been holding back alone.
****
Having escaped the valley that had been full of troubles and mishaps, Sharti and Ren safely arrived at the small village they had targeted around late evening.
“Are you travelers?”
“A doctor on a house-call treatment visit.”
In place of Sharti, whose voice was hoarse, Ren took the lead in dealing with the villagers.
Standing one step back, Sharti was wearing a short hooded cloak and hiding her face.
She could feel the glances of people looking her way, but Sharti couldn’t take off her hood even though she was wearing the silver ring.
‘My eyes won’t open……’
It was because her entire face was swollen from crying.
How would it look if an outside doctor who suddenly came to the village had a salt-stained face and couldn’t even open her eyes properly?
Sharti swallowed a sigh.
‘I have no strength in my body at all.’
Her body felt like it was drooping limply because she had cried so much she was exhausted.
The facial muscles that had repeatedly cried and smiled also felt a bit sore.
Sharti massaged her face, pressing down on it with her hands. She especially pinched the corners of her mouth that kept rising.
‘Ugh……!’
Even until they had lunch while she was drooping in Ren’s arms and started moving again, Sharti had been in a dazed state.
However, when Ren started running and she was hit by the strong wind, Sharti was finally able to come to her senses.
‘I, I received a confession!’
Sharti took a deep breath while pulling down the corners of her mouth that kept twitching.
Her heart was pounding so much, it had been difficult the whole way.
Every time her eyes met with Ren, the voice and gaze from when he confessed his feelings came vividly to mind, and strength naturally entered her hands.
It was good, she was so happy it was embarrassing, and expressing that she was happy felt shameless and made her feel bashful.
‘Definitely, what I say and what I hear from Ren are completely different.’
Moreover, she had even been told she was beautiful by Ren, so she couldn’t come to her senses.
That wasn’t all.
‘……Light, he said.’
Ren had been sincere.
He had confessed what he thought exactly as it was, without adding a single lie.
From Sharti’s position, having received such an excessive confession, she couldn’t help but have many thoughts.
‘They say you can’t weigh feelings of affection, but……’
Since her feelings of liking him had been discovered first, Ren’s emotions felt deeper and heavier.
With complicated feelings, Sharti recalled the confession she had made in the rain last time.
“I was the one who did it first.”
She regretted even more the confession that had already been ruined.
Sharti looked at Ren’s back as he conversed with the villagers.
‘I can’t just let it end vaguely like this.’
She also wanted to confess properly with sincerity like Ren had.
She hoped that Ren too would keep recalling the confession that he liked her.
Just then, as if the conversation had wrapped up, Ren turned around.
“Sha, fortunately the village says they’ll sell us a mana stone.”
Ren stood close to her as if carefully looking after Sharti and whispered softly.
Sharti, who was about to take his hand and move, tilted her head at a thought that suddenly occurred to her.
‘Come to think of it…… what did I answer to Ren’s confession?’
All she could remember was Ren beyond her blurry vision and her reaction of being busy crying and laughing.
“You said you’re looking for a red mana stone, right? That’ll be 8 silver.”
Lost in thought, Sharti reflexively nodded her head.
As she took out 8 silver from her purse and handed it over, Sharti’s eyes sparkled.
‘-This actually worked out well. I was planning to confess to Ren again anyway.’
More than anything, from Sharti’s perspective, the current relationship with Ren could be said to be very ambiguous.
In any case, Ren didn’t properly remember her confession, and Sharti had only confirmed his feelings, not knowing what kind of relationship they should be afterward.
The natural procedure of starting to date after confessing their feelings was unfamiliar to Sharti.
Eventually, just as Ren had done, Sharti also began to plan a wonderful confession.
‘From now on, no more slave or assistant, but my boy, boyfriend……’
Sharti’s face flushed red.
If Virena had seen this, it was a train of thought she would have found bittersweet, saying that the more of a beginner in romance one is, the more they obsess over the textbook approach.
And starting with Ren himself, his insides were burning up in a different sense at Sharti’s reaction.
“Good night, Ren.”
“…….”
Fortunately having rented two shabby inn rooms in the village, Sharti entered her room, leaving Ren behind.
Click. At Sharti’s reaction, which seemed almost bland, Ren’s mind became complicated. Even though they had advanced their relationship to the stage where they had exchanged confessions of liking each other, there was no change in Sharti’s attitude.
The appearance of her being conscious of him and acting shy until they arrived at the village was nowhere to be found.
“……Did she think it wasn’t that great after reconsidering?”
Ren sat on the bed and began to seriously review his confession.
“What was the problem? Was it too much? Or was it too sudden after all?”
Looking at them one by one, the problem was that they all seemed plausible as causes.
But hadn’t Sharti definitely smiled?
Ren sprang up and paced around the narrow room. Then he stopped abruptly.
“She must be very tired, so that could be it.”
Since the scars she had been hiding like a shameful secret had been discovered, it was natural that she didn’t have room to spare yet.
In a situation where she had barely alleviated her physical fatigue, mental fatigue was also accumulating, so she must have gotten tired quickly.
Ren ran his hand through his hair and exhaled deeply.
“……How pathetic.”
To show such a lacking composure just because he had confessed once.
He couldn’t show this side of himself even in front of Sharti. It would only add to her burden for no reason.
“Until Sha brings it up first, act like usual…….”
As if that would happen.
Tsk, Ren clicked his tongue cynically at the resolution he didn’t mean.
How could he act as if nothing had happened like before when his heart, which had been beating only while looking at Sharti since the confession, was so noisy?
Ren flopped down on the bed.
“……Sha-.”
When they slept outdoors, he could always see her sleeping face.
Ren, who had been gazing beyond the window, raised his left hand to look at the silver ring.
“But why doesn’t anyone see Sha and me as a married couple?”
Even though they were both openly wearing the same ring on their left hands, the villagers here didn’t mistake the two of them for a married couple.
[Ah, you’re the doctor’s assistant.]
[Aren’t you a mercenary providing escort?]
Confessing his feelings wasn’t the end. There was still a long way to go.
In various ways, because his mind was troubled, Ren couldn’t easily fall asleep.
The night was particularly long today.