Miss, It’s Just a Cold

Chapter 45: Normal

Morning had arrived.

Aria was slumped over asleep beside me, while I sat half-reclined, barely propped up.

“Wake up.”

“…Mm, ah, it’s morning already.”

I felt sticky, uncomfortable.

“Can I use the bathroom?”

“The bathroom?”

“I’ve been sweating a lot.”

“…And how exactly do you plan to wash up with that body?”

“I’ll manage somehow.”

Aria seemed to think it over for a while before scooping me up without warning. 

Hoisting me over her shoulder like I was being kidnapped, she started walking somewhere.

“Come to think of it, I could just help you wash.”

She carried me into the bathroom. As she began slowly undressing me, her face reddened for some reason. 

It wasn’t that kind of embarrassment—it was the kind that comes from irritation or frustration.

“Your body…”

“My arms? Oh, that was Ellie. The rest? My mother, who put her heart into beating me.
Even bruises don’t heal anymore. Maybe I’m just… broken.”

I chuckled faintly as she finished undressing me. Before stepping into the bathroom proper, I let myself go limp, leaning entirely on her for support.

Aria carefully washed me, her hands moving gently over my skin. She kept her clothes on the whole time.

Even though a pretty girl was bathing me, it didn’t feel remotely suggestive. Was it because of my body?

My mind screamed that I was still a man, but all it left me with was a deep sense of melancholy.

I closed my eyes. Then I reopened them.

Nothing had changed. My body remained the same. I guess waking up as someone else only happens in stories.

“…Does it hurt?”

“No, it doesn’t. Just wash me properly, okay? By the way, don’t you usually have a servant handle this sort of thing?”

“You were an adult who bathed yourself. Asking someone else to do it now feels… strange.”

“You could just think of me as a slightly malfunctioning, self-operating showerhead. Convenient, right? Even if some models don’t work properly.”

“Did your mother tell you that?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just something I came up with.”

Once she had washed me off lightly, Aria lowered me into a massive tub—one so large I hesitated to call it a bathtub.

The warm water stung my skin. I didn’t let it show.

“Aria.”

“What?”

“If I asked you to get me a gun, would you?”

“…No.”

“Why? Afraid I’d blow my own head off?”

“Yeah. Look at your arms.”

“This? It’s because I want to live.”

“Who cuts themselves because they want to live?”

“When my head feels like it’s about to burst, watching blood trickle out clears it up—like drinking a cup of really good coffee.”

I missed good coffee.

There used to be a little shop near the subway that sold Americano for 1,300 won. I never went back after trying it once, but now I feel like I could drink it and call it amazing.

At least it wasn’t poured by someone stacking paper filters one after another. And the grounds wouldn’t settle in a clump at the bottom of the cup.

“I don’t want to go back to that place I have to call ‘home.’”

All I had there was a bed, a tiny table, a chair, and a set of drawers. Even that room was so cramped it was nearly impossible to move around.

The mansion is enormous, yet my room was like that. Probably a repurposed storage closet—they hadn’t even bothered to clean out the musty smell.

“I don’t belong there. Where I should be is a six-pyeong chicken-coop apartment I managed to snag with a bit of luck.”

Now that I think about it, I used to have a cat. A black one—I just called it “Blackie.” I thought it was a clever name at the time.

I wonder if it starved. Or maybe someone came to my place and helped it.

What about my car? I used to pay 200,000 won monthly for a parking permit.

It wasn’t an expensive car—a secondhand one I bought from my uncle—but now I can’t help wondering.

I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Why am I living like this? Why am I still wearing Emily’s skin?

Why Can’t I Get Angry?

“…Stay here for a while. I’ll write to your family, tell them you’ve hit your head and can’t get up.”

“Heh. This isn’t the place for me, either.”

“Then what?”

“This is where you find love, where you’re destined to be happy with someone else. It’s all been decided. I’m just a blemish in your story, muddling everything up.”

What am I even doing? Am I being ungrateful to someone who’s taken me in, spouting nonsense instead of showing gratitude?

I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m alive, why I breathe, or why I feel relieved by the fact of living despite constantly questioning it.

No, maybe I do know. I think I’ve started to understand my role, what’s been given to me, and what’s likely to come.

I’m an impurity. Something you wouldn’t notice up close, but from above, anyone could point out as wrong, out of place.

Everyone shines, but I’m the one sunk deep, dark, and murky.

“When someone offers help, I shove them away with useless pride. I wallow in misery alone, making myself the pitiful clown people laugh at. You should be clutching your stomach, marveling at where this ridiculous jester came from.”

If I embarrass myself, you could easily laugh and go on to live a happy life with Ernst. Eventually, I’d fade from your memory. So why do you care so much?

That’s why I’m an impurity. Because if you don’t clean me up when you can, I’ll leave a stain.

Maybe that’s why I feel so strongly that I’m not Emily. Emily should have been forgotten.

But I’m not forgotten. I can’t be.

Pure white is clean and pretty, but filthy red leaves a stronger impression.

“I swear, I never understand what you’re talking about. We’ll be having a normal conversation, and then you say something completely out of nowhere.”

“So what? Just get me a gun. That’s all I need. You said you’d help, didn’t you? Save me?”

Maybe it was the heat from the bath, but my head felt foggy.

“I haven’t fired anything but a rifle before, but I’ll figure it out! I’ll blow my own brains out, or kill Ellie, or shoot my mother…”

“Why does it always come back to this kind of talk with you? We were talking about where you’d stay, and then—ever since I met you, it’s been the same! Every normal conversation turns into something gross and unsettling!”

Aria’s voice rose, her fists clenched and trembling.

Our eyes met. It was a familiar look.

The expression I see when I look at myself.

Specifically, the look I get when I view myself as Emily. It was also the expression Mother made just before she started beating me.

Contempt. That’s what it was.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

I’ve seen that look countless times, but for some reason, seeing it from Aria filled me with dread—a deep, rising fear.

I don’t even want to live like this. So why do I keep twisting every word, every thought, into sarcasm and negativity? Is it just the way I’m built?

Was Mother right? That I’m weak, pathetic, and stupid, and that’s why I live like this?

I told myself I’d stop the pointless self-loathing. But if there’s meaning in it, isn’t it worth continuing?

To become better, to be a proper human being, you chip away at yourself—flesh and blood, figuratively speaking. Though for me, it was often literal.

“I’m just… anxious. Sorry for saying such unpleasant things.

Could you please lower your hand? I’m sorry. Really, I am.”

I was trembling all over.

Aria’s face softened, guilt flashing across it. She looked at me the way someone looks at a child they feel obligated to care for.

It left a bitter taste. All I could feel was self-reproach.

My life has been perfect. Why did it turn out like this?

Not without its blemishes, sure, but still… perfect.

Before I realized it, I’d clenched my teeth, instinctively bracing for a hit. I adjusted my posture automatically to avoid breaking anything when the blow came.

It was reflexive. Learned. Terrifying how effective conditioning is.

Even when it’s not Mother standing before me, it ensures compliance.

Mother’s ancestors must have been slave traders. The kind who trained captives to sell them as obedient merchandise.

The thought made me hate myself even more.

Or maybe that’s just my imagination.

No—it’s not.

I love myself.