---

It’s dark.

The darkness that has been pulling on my body from the depths of the abyss was dragging me toward a bottomless pit where I could see no end.

No matter where I turned my head in search of light to dispel that darkness, the only thing shining in this pitch-black space was myself.

The stars that once floated in the sky were nowhere to be seen, and the moon that illuminated the dark night was also absent from this place.

Without a way to properly resist the darkness, I had no choice but to be drawn into that hole.

However, strangely enough, I found unexpected things in this place that I thought would hold nothing.

Stars and moons that had previously been invisible, no matter how hard I looked for them, were embedded in the walls of the hole, fading and drawing an invisible celestial map.

As they touched my hand, the stars crumbled into dust, and with the memories flooding in, I realized what I held in my palm.

It was the past.

More precisely, it was the time that had vanished when I regressed, and they would exist in my memory forever moving forward. Upon realizing this, I began to piece together the nature of the darkness that was pulling at me.

Looking down once more, the endless bottomless pit was no longer there.

[■■■■■■. ■■■■■?]

[■■. ■■■■■!]

The forms were so muddled that I could barely comprehend them with my eyes and ears. Although the timelines were all mixed up, they were undoubtedly memories of my own.

Yet, unlike those stuck on the walls here, they were a collection of painful moments for me.

Yes. The darkness that was holding me captive was drawing me back into memories from before my regression.

Now I could understand why, every time my past memories appeared in my dreams, they only showed me scenes devoid of happiness. This damned foreign belief’s divine power continued to torment me even after its owner had died.

Had it been as it should, I shouldn’t have been able to feel such occurrences happening in my subconscious. But for some reason, I was maintaining a clear consciousness even within the realm of the unconscious. So I moved around, trying to escape the darkness.

While it was true that I found motivation for my current life in regrets about the past, that didn’t mean I wanted to step into a torture chamber that showed only despair.

If it were the unconscious, perhaps, but with my current consciousness, there must surely be a way to resist somehow.

Yet, no matter how quickly my thoughts raced, the method eluded me.

If this phenomenon were simply due to the foreign belief’s powers, I wouldn’t need to be grappling with such concerns at all. I could just crush it with sheer force and wake up from this dream.

I gazed at my body, the only thing in this darkness that had not lost its light. Even as I pulled at the darkness with my hands that shone with pure white light, the darkness still remained intact.

No, it’s wrong. Nothing is working.

The divine power of the foreign belief had merely released a taut bowstring; the essential cause of this matter lay in the regrets and attachments I had left in the past that I still hadn’t forgotten. Therefore, unless I discarded them, I had no way to repel this darkness.

“Ah.”

A short sigh escaped my lips.

Thinking about it, it wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened. There was simply a hidden backdrop to what I had thought was a nightmare, but nothing had changed.

Just a moment… just for a moment. The night isn’t that long. If I calmly look back at the past and wait to wake from the dream, time will surely pass by quickly.

“Damian…”

As I was about to resign myself to the darkness, memories of the time I had spent with him today suddenly flitted through my mind. The last thing I had seen before closing my eyes was his playful face, and it was still vivid in my memory.

As I began to recall one after another the times I spent with him after my regression, a warm sensation started to fill my left hand.

But it wasn’t an illusion.

My left hand, which could only emit a faint white light, was now surrounded by a bright golden glow like sunlight.

The light began to grow, pushing away the darkness. Soon, it expanded enough to completely engulf me, causing the world shaped by darkness to collapse.

As the world filled with my regrets of the past shattered, I soon realized that I would be waking from this dream. I surrendered my body to the flow of consciousness as it resurfaced.

*

“Ugh, mm…”

When I regained consciousness, the first sensation I felt wasn’t the bizarre floating sensation of falling into darkness from the dream but rather the soft touch of the bed.

The familiar scenery of the room and the contrast with the foggy dream told me clearly that this was reality.

I had managed to escape the nightmare somehow, but I had no desire to experience it again. Once my mind was fully awake, my thoughts were filled with the need to find a solution to what just happened.

As I glanced at the wish paper tucked away in the drawer, trying to calm the gloom in my heart, I felt warmth emanating from my left hand.

“Why is my hand still warm… Damian?”

Turning to see the warmth that had not left my hand even after waking from the dream, I found him, soundly asleep, still holding my hand.

His sudden appearance almost made me scream in the middle of the night, but I managed to stifle the yelp by putting my empty right hand over my mouth.

I paused my thoughts and took a deep breath, steadying my wildly beating heart and mind. Slowly regaining my composure, memories from before I fell asleep began to surface.

I remembered holding his hand in the carriage before falling asleep, but I hadn’t expected to still be holding it by the time we reached the bedroom.

Yet, more than anything, the image of him playfully smiling at me as he saw me not letting go of his hand made my face warm.

I cautiously attempted to free my hand from his grip, but it was impossible to shake off his tight hold, as if he was determined not to let go.

I had no choice.

Even if I wanted to withdraw, he wouldn’t let go, so I might as well stay like this a bit longer.

Looking at our joined hands, I began to understand the warmth and light I had felt in the dream.

Though it wasn’t his intention, it was indeed his power that dragged me out of the nightmare.

Realizing that the warm sensation and pleasant light I felt in the dream belonged to him brightened my previously gloomy heart like a sunrise breaking through clouds.

With that, I held tightly onto his hand, grinning softly as I looked at his sleeping face.

Despite seeming uncomfortable, he hadn’t frowned and wore a gentle smile, like a serene lake. But even though he looked so calm now, I couldn’t help but imagine he’d twist and groan when he woke up.

Perhaps it was because I was starting to feel at ease. Watching his sleeping form made all sorts of thoughts cross my mind.

Wouldn’t it be better to wake him up? On the other hand, the sight of him so defenseless against me made me think that this could be a chance to do things I couldn’t do usually, making it hard to decide.

After a long deliberation, I came up with a compromise between both sides.

Just a little, and then I’d wake him up.

Though the absence of a specific time limit made it seem like I had already succumbed to desire, what did it matter?

Once my mind was set, I waited as if I had been just waiting for the moment, pulling his cheek gently. Although his usual dazed reaction was absent, it still made me feel good.

Perhaps, due to his character, he would have been the type to playfully grab my cheek while I slept.

Thinking that made one side of my cheek feel slightly numb. I stretched and pulled at his cheek again and then set my sights on his hair.

Contrasting my snowy white hair, his shiny black hair looked so soft that I felt an urge to stroke it.

After all, the only ones present in this room were just him and me.

And besides, he was asleep, so no one could object to my actions.

“Hehehe…”

With each movement of my hand, his silky hair tickled between my fingers. I lost track of time enjoying the sensation of his hair as I felt happiness within my grasp, unlike the dream that had shown me only sadness and regrets.

That realization made me forget all about the dream.

Before long, his hair became a tousled mess under my fingers. But still, my hand kept moving. Ruining it intentionally and then brushing it neatly again reminded me of games played by children in the streets, but as long as it was fun, that didn’t matter.

Come to think of it, when I burst into tears in his arms before, I think he may have ruffled my hair like this… but now, trying to recall the feeling, I couldn’t remember it well.

In which case, I had no choice.

I took his empty hand and gently placed it atop my head.

“Was this… the feeling? No, a bit softer….”

Then, I tried to make the sensation of those moments come alive by slowly moving his arm.

His limp arm felt oddly awkward without any pressure; however, the sensation of his fingers brushing through my hair remained, and I felt so satisfied experiencing his touch, not his real touch.

But at some point, an unusual sense of discomfort began to creep in through his hand.

Though his arm was still relaxed, the more I moved it, the more I sensed a subtle change that was hard to describe, unlike the way it felt when I first moved his arm.

It wasn’t a bad change; rather, it felt gentler and more delicate than before.

Initially, I had thought I was simply becoming more skilled at moving his arm, but as it began to feel like his hand was moving on its own without exerting any effort, I could no longer move his hand freely.

Eventually, it seemed he had no desire to hide it any longer, as he continued to gently stroke my hair even after I released his hand.

I slowly tilted my head down to look at his face.

Sure enough, where my eyes landed, his golden eyes, seemingly containing sunlight, shone brightly even in the darkness.

 

---