I always thought memories were linear. From yesterday, to today, to tomorrow—lined up like people waiting for a bus.
It wasn’t until that moment that I understood—
Some memories fall on you backwards.
From a “very long time ago’s tomorrow,” smashing down all at once.
When Silent Man said that line, the store was very quiet.
“...It’s something you and I failed to finish, a thousand years ago.”
His voice wasn’t loud, but it felt like someone fired a gun right next to my ear.
I stood there in a daze.
My throat was so dry I couldn’t speak.
A thousand years ago. Together. Something unfinished.
Those three fragments nailed themselves into my skull, and the next second, it felt like the color drained one step out of the world.
The sound of the AC moved into the distance. The hum of the fridge sounded like it was in another room.
I stared at him and suddenly felt—
The person in front of me wasn’t just “Silent Man.”
“Are you… sure…” I forced my voice out. “This isn’t some… really screwed-up joke?”
He pressed his lips together and didn’t answer. He only reached out and grabbed the edge of the counter, like that old piece of wood was the only thing keeping him upright.
His knuckles turned white. His fingernails dug into the scratches in the wood.
That wasn’t the posture of someone about to lie. It was the posture of someone about to be sentenced.
I drew in a breath, but my chest felt tighter.
My heart was beating too fast.
“...Fine,” I said quietly. “Then explain. What do you mean, ‘a thousand years ago’?”
The second that question left my mouth, I knew I’d regret it.
Because what flashed through his eyes wasn’t a desire to talk—
It was the desire to run.
“I…” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I don’t remember everything either.”
“Then you—”
Before I could finish, a sharp pain exploded between my brows.
Like someone slammed a blunt object into the back of my head.
The world tilted.
The shelves, the register, the fridges, his face—all of it stretched into a single line and got sucked into some black hole.
I didn’t have time to grab anything. My vision went white.
Not light-white. Colder than that.
And then—
The memories came crashing down.
[Memory Fragment I: Land of Wei Flowers]
The first thing I feel is the wind.
It’s freezing.
It rushes in from every direction, cold enough to strip skin. It carries ash, blood, tree sap, and a smell I can’t place—half flower, half rot.
My vision slowly focuses.
There’s a field of Wei flowers under me—
Thicker and crazier than the ones I saw in the Rose Court.
Their petals aren’t dark purple, but almost pure white, their edges tinged with the thinnest red.
When the wind blows, the mass of Wei flowers bow and rise again, like they’re nodding to someone, or seeing someone off.
The ground is wet.
Not from rain.
From blood.
I’m lying in it.
My back is pressed into the cold soil. With every breath, my body feels like it’s tearing open a new wound.
There’s a sweetness in my throat.
The kind that makes your body want to retch.
I try to lift my hand.
My wrist feels numb, like it doesn’t belong to me.
But when my fingertips touch the air, the familiarity comes back all at once—
This isn’t the first time.
…No.
This time is the last time.
Someone is calling me.
A voice that’s far away and right beside me at the same time.
“...Don’t sleep.”
“...Look at me.”
His voice is shaking, like he’s just been thrown into ice water.
I blink hard. The world pulls itself together.
A face fills my vision.
Not entirely clear, as if covered in fog—
But the outline is familiar.
A straight nose. Deep-set eyes. Wet lashes, I don’t know whether from rain or tears.
His long hair is sticky with blood, plastered against his face and collarbone.
He’s kneeling in the Wei flowers, holding me.
Both his knees are buried deep in blood and mud. Below the knees I can’t even tell what color anything used to be.
His arms are shaking from how tightly he’s clutching me, like he’s afraid that if he loosens his grip even a little, I’ll spill through his fingers like sand.
“Look at me.”
He presses his forehead to mine, his voice forced low.
“Don’t close your eyes.”
He’s crying.
Not the heaving sobs kind of crying, but the kind where the tears are being held back so hard they break through anyway.
I can feel how uneven his breathing is. His chest rises and falls violently. His heartbeat is slamming against my bones.
“...Why are you crying?” I hear myself say.
My voice is very soft—soft like someone else is speaking for me.
“Shut up,” he chokes out.
“Don’t talk.”
I take a breath. The sweetness in my throat thickens.
It feels like someone is scraping the inside of my lungs with a knife, slowly.
“It’s fine.” I force a tiny smile.
“Anyway…”
He suddenly shakes his head, hard, like a child refusing something.
“No.”
His fingers dig deeper into my shoulder, as if he can keep me from being taken away just by holding tighter.
“Don’t use the Mark again…” His voice is trembling. “I’m begging you…”
He breaks off halfway, like he’s swallowed something down.
I drag my gaze past his shoulder.
In the distance, the light is still burning.
There is only one color in the whole sky—white, burned-out gray.
That’s the Rose battlefield.
That’s what I tore open with my own hands.
“...It’s already too late,” I whisper.
He doesn’t reply.
His shoulders shake harder.
It’s still the same unsaid plea:
Don’t.
I feel tired.
My body and my head both have this weird weightless feeling, like in one more second the wind will carry me away completely.
Normally, people should be terrified right now, right?
Afraid of pain, afraid of death, afraid of disappearing.
But my emotions are… calm.
Much calmer than his.
“You’re crying,” I say, and lift my hand.
It feels like there’s water between me and my arm; the movement lags half a beat.
Blood is caked dry and fresh between my fingers and up my forearm.
But I still manage to raise it.
With that bloodstained hand, I touch his face.
He stiffens.
My fingertips brush his cheek.
It’s wet.
Not rain. Tears.
He closes his eyes for a second, like he’s been pierced.
“Don’t cry,” I murmur.
This time, I’m more serious than I’ve ever been, asking him for something:
“...I don’t want you to still be crying a thousand years from now.”
His lashes tremble. For a second, the light in his eyes shatters.
“A thousand…” His voice claws out of his throat. “Why are you saying—”
I don’t hear the rest.
Because my chest suddenly seizes.
Not the tightness of a heart cramp— but the weight of the whole world dropping onto my heart in one go.
I can feel something warm running out of the corner of my mouth.
He fumbles to wipe it away, then stops halfway, visibly shocked.
His hand is shaking.
His fingertips are coated in my blood.
Wei flowers snap around us, one by one. Their petals soak red.
Far away, the light rips through the tree line, like it’s going to swallow the entire world.
“Hey.” I really want to laugh, but no air comes up my throat. I can only use my eyes to look for his face.
“Look at me.”
He forces himself to lower his head.
With the last bit of strength I have, I lift my fingers to the space between his brows.
“Like this…” I mumble. “Even if you forget…”
My fingertips are ice. His skin is burning.
“...you’ll still know that you once cried for me.”
He shuts his eyes.
He can’t hold back anymore. Tears fall, one by one, onto the back of my hand.
“Don’t—”
His voice finally tears out of him, almost a scream.
“I don’t want this.”
I want to say something, but nothing comes out.
The world begins to lose focus.
His face stretches, distorts, pulls away—until all that’s left are those eyes, wet with light.
The last thing I see is—
He bites down on his own lips hard enough to draw blood.
His arms clamp around me. His whole body kneels in the sea of Wei flowers like a giant tree that’s been broken in half.
Then everything is swallowed by white.
[Reality]
“—Don’t cry.”
I hear myself say it.
By the time I realize it’s me talking, the words are already out of my mouth.
Not in the dream.
In the convenience store.
The hand I’ve reached out—
Is resting on Silent Man’s face.
His eyes widen.
The position we’re in is ridiculous and strange:
He’s half-crouched in front of me, one hand gripping the counter, the other bracing my shoulder that’s about to give out;
and I’m slumped forward, practically in his arms, fingers trembling against the side of his face.
For a heartbeat, the dream and reality overlap.
Wei flowers, blood, tears, and cold wind—
Collide with the white light of the store.
I gasp like I’ve just broken the surface of a lake.
“...Don’t cry.”
My voice is very soft, but clearer than in the dream.
He freezes, staring at me.
His eyes aren’t wet.
At least, not on the surface.
But I can feel his breathing is off.
His Adam’s apple moves hard, like he’s forcing something down.
“I’m not crying.” He forces his voice to stay calm. “What are you talking about?”
“...Sorry.” I slowly let my hand drop. My fingertips are numb. Once I loosen my arm, it feels like someone cut a string.
“I, I just…”
The aftershock of the memory fragment is still there.
My chest feels tight; there’s a faint sweetness in my throat.
I look down at my hand.
My palm is clean.
No Mark of Wei. No blood.
Just a slight tremor.
Silent Man stares at my hand for a few seconds, like he’s confirming something, before finally speaking:
“You… saw it again?”
I nod.
He’s quiet for a moment, then asks, “What did you see this time?”
I stare at the floor.
The broken glass has long been swept away. Only streaks of water remain where the mop passed.
The light hits them and flashes painfully.
“...You were kneeling on the ground, holding someone,” I say.
“Crying like hell.”
It sounds like I’m describing someone else’s story.
“Who was it?” His voice is very soft.
I look up at him.
The face looks similar. The eyes look similar. Even the way he holds his breath down is similar.
But the man in that memory… is “brighter” than the Silent Man in front of me.
So bright it hurts.
So bright it looks like he could shatter at any moment.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“I couldn’t see clearly.”
His shoulders loosen just a fraction, then tense again.
“That—” I swallow. “The person in his arms was probably me.”
That line sounds even more ridiculous than his “a thousand years ago.”
The second I say it out loud, I want to laugh at myself.
But I can’t.
Because my throat still hurts.
My body still remembers what it feels like when the blood seeps outward from the inside.
Silent Man doesn’t laugh.
He just stares at me, as if trying to read truth or lies in my face.
“There’s blood on your mouth,” he says suddenly.
I blink and instinctively wipe at it.
My fingertips come away faintly red.
It didn’t come back with me from the dream—
It’s real.
Cold spreads up from the soles of my feet.
“I–It’s just from before—”
“It’s the Mark reacting,” an unfamiliar yet familiar voice cuts in.
I jump and turn around.
Sethiel is leaning against the doorway. I have no idea when he arrived.
He isn’t wearing last night’s theatrical long coat. Today it’s just a shirt and light jacket. But that face isn’t ever going to turn into background decoration, no matter what you dress it in.
He looks a little tired, his brows slightly tensed, like a nobleman who stayed up too late.
“You’ve started remembering,” he says mildly.
“Earlier than I thought.”
Silent Man’s tone drops in temperature instantly.
“Who told you to come in?”
“The door wasn’t locked.” Sethiel gives him a lazy glance. “Besides, this place doesn’t count as a simple convenience store anymore.”
He looks at me. His gaze pauses a second at the smear of blood at my mouth, then falls to my hand.
“You saw the part where he was kneeling in the Wei flowers, didn’t you?”
One sentence nails itself straight through the dream I’ve just struggled my way out of.
I flinch. “You—”
“You’ve died once,” he says, his tone so flat it’s almost cruel.
“Don’t be too surprised.”
Silent Man grabs him by the collar, his whole body igniting.
“Shut up!” he roars.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him like this.
Not that usual restrained anger— but a fire that’s simply burst into open flame.
Sethiel, however, doesn’t panic at all. He only lowers his eyes to Silent Man’s hand on his clothes.
“You really don’t remember anything,” he says with a soft laugh.
“Last time you were the one kneeling down. Dying in her arms.”
Silent Man’s hand jolts.
The tremor doesn’t feel like fear of being exposed—it feels like something sealed too long inside him is starting to thrash.
“Enough,” he grits out.
“Sethiel, didn’t you say—”
“I’ve said a lot of things.” Sethiel cuts him off. “One of them was: ‘Memory comes with a price.’”
He shakes off the hand on his collar and straightens his clothes, like he’s wiping off something dirty.
Then he looks at me.
The way he looks at me is different now—not the mocking, toying look from before, but something… more serious.
“The Rose War isn’t some far-off legend,” he says.
“You used your death a thousand years ago to drag that war—barely—into the present.”
When he says “your death,” his tone doesn’t move at all, as if he’s saying “the coffee is hot.”
That coldness stings more than any exaggerated grief.
“Now your Mark is awake.” He taps his finger lightly against my chest.
“So the war has to continue.”
“Why does it have to be me?” I hear myself ask.
“Is the Rose that noble? Does the world really have to move forward by constant killing and fighting?”
The words come out sharp, but inside I’m rattled.
There’s still blood at my mouth. My throat still hurts. The scenes from the dream are still playing behind my eyes. It’s all too real.
Sethiel glances at me.
“You can choose not to believe,” he says.
“But you can’t choose not to be involved.”
“That’s not a choice. That’s bullshit.” I let out a short laugh.
“Sounds like you’re just rephrasing ‘I have no choice.’”
He doesn’t deny it.
Silent Man suddenly speaks up.
“She does.”
Sethiel narrows his eyes slightly. “And how are you planning to give her that?”
Silent Man turns to me. His gaze is heavy.
“You can keep pretending nothing happened,” he says slowly. “Tell yourself the dreams are just stress…”
“And then?” I cut him off.
“Then you’ll die on some night shift that looks a lot like this one,” Sethiel says, taking over smoothly.
“Blood at the corner of your mouth. Heart stopped. No one knows why.”
His voice is very calm as he says it.
That calm is more frightening than any threat.
“That’s what happens if you refuse to face the Mark,” he adds. “You get eaten alive by it and die pointlessly in the middle of your ‘ordinary life.’”
The picture is too specific.
So specific I can see it:
Me collapsed behind the counter, uniform stained with spilled coffee, phone on the floor, screen still lit, showing a message I never replied to.
That kind of death is more pathetic than being swallowed by light.
“...So if I ‘accept’ it?” I ask.
“If I stop pretending I’m just a convenience store clerk?”
Sethiel looks at me, the corner of his mouth curling with careless ease.
“Then at least you’ll die for something that matters,” he says.
Silent Man whips his head around. “Sethiel!”
“I’m just stating facts.” Sethiel shrugs.
“The Rose War isn’t a game. It won’t change its rules just because you don’t want her to die.”
He fixes his gaze on me. His eyes sharpen.
“What you’re carrying is the consequence of the choice you made a thousand years ago,” he says. “I’m not the one forcing it on you.”
A thousand years ago— Wei flowers, the battlefield, me saying “I don’t have a choice,” him kneeling and holding me.
The images flicker again.
My head throbs. I grab the counter to steady myself.
“So,” I take a breath, “you’re saying if I lie down and play dead, I really will die here. If I don’t lie down, and I face this so-called Rose War, I might still die, but… at least it won’t be for nothing.”
Sethiel thinks for a moment.
“That’s one way to put it,” he nods.
“You still have one more choice,” Silent Man says suddenly.
Both of us look at him.
His fists clench, like he’s trying to crush a thought before it fully forms and failing.
“You can choose not to forgive the me from a thousand years ago.”
That line is something I didn’t see coming at all.
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“The Rose War isn’t one-sided,” he says quietly. “It wasn’t just your choice that led to the ending.”
He lifts his eyes to look at Sethiel.
“What did I do?” he asks. “You’re not going to remind me?”
“You sure you want to know now?” Sethiel replies, expression unreadable.
Silent Man is silent for several seconds, then shakes his head.
“...No.” He says hoarsely. “Not before I’m qualified to hear it. I shouldn’t let her hear it either.”
He’s looking at me as he says that.
And suddenly I understand—
He’s more afraid of remembering than I am.
Because once he remembers, he might find out that he was not only the one holding me as I died—
He may also be the reason I died in his arms.
“All right.” I inhale slowly.
The metallic sweetness still lingers in my lungs; the taste of blood feels like some kind of reminder.
“I’m not going to start pointing fingers yet,” I say.
“Because I don’t remember anything.”
I look at the two men.
One in the light. One in the shadow.
One is held together by restraint about to break. The other is so cold it feels like he’s always been watching from outside.
“But there is one thing I’m sure of.”
They both wait.
“I can’t keep pretending I’m just some part-timer,” I say quietly.
“I can’t keep using ‘ordinary life’ as a line to comfort myself.”
The phrase sounds especially ironic right now.
Wei flowers. Marks. The Rose Court. War. A death from a thousand years ago—
Put those in front of me, and insisting “I’m just normal” becomes pure denial.
“So…” I lift my head. “What’s the first step of this Rose War?”
Sethiel looks at me and suddenly laughs.
This time the smile doesn’t look like he’s testing me. It carries a hint of I knew it.
“The first step is simple,” he says.
“You quit this job.”
“...That specific?”
“If you keep working here…” He shrugs. “You either die behind the counter or this store turns into a temporary exit for the battlefield. Neither is a great ending for a supposedly normal convenience store.”
It’s an annoyingly practical reason.
Practical enough to make me want to swear.
“I’ll resign tomorrow,” I say.
The words come out more cleanly than I expected.
Maybe because I know—
Even if I don’t resign, I’m going to get forcibly “discharged” soon anyway.
Sethiel nods.
“As for the real first step—” he continues.
“You’ll have to walk back to the Rose Court yourself.”
That’s where the Rose Duel is held.
The gate to war.
And the place where I died once, a thousand years ago.
“How?” I ask.
“You going to throw me in there like last time?”
“No one’s throwing you this time,” Sethiel says.
“You’ll walk in on your own.”
He looks at me, all trace of playfulness gone from his eyes.
“Because the Mark on your body will start leading the way.”
Right then, I suddenly feel heat in my chest.
Not on the skin—deeper.
The Mark isn’t in my palm. It isn’t on my forehead. It’s—
Near my heart.
Like something asleep in there has just turned over.
I suck in a breath and press my hand against that spot.
There’s no pulsing light. No movement.
Only that dull, simmering heat.
“...Fine,” I say.
“Whether you show the way or not, either way—”
I look at the streaked floor, the unstocked shelves, and the screen that’s been playing the same late-night infomercials forever.
“I’m not going back to what I used to call ‘a normal life.’”
When I say it out loud, my chest actually feels—lighter.
Like a decision that’s been dragging too long has finally been hit with “confirm.”
Silent Man closes his eyes briefly.
“I’ll stay by your side,” he says quietly.
It doesn’t sound like a promise. It sounds like a sentence he’s passing on himself:
Whatever he did a thousand years ago, he doesn’t plan to run this time.
Sethiel lets out a soft laugh. “Let’s hope you don’t end up kneeling in the Wei flowers holding her and crying again.”
Silent Man doesn’t answer.
But in that instant, the image flashes through my mind again—
Wei flowers. Blood. A man on his knees, holding me as his tears fall one by one onto my face.
I brush my fingers across the corner of my mouth.
Nothing’s officially started yet, but the war quietly moves one step forward.
The Rose War—
Begins the moment I stop using “ordinary” as an excuse.
ns216.73.216.33da2
and then Add to home screen.