"When did you figure me out?"
At that cold question, Yi Sang answered calmly.
"From the moment you showed us the scene of raising the chickens. It would have been enough to show only the laboratory, yet you went out of your way to reveal even the hidden lab..."
"That's right. If no one else, I wanted to proudly show you my results and my success. Still, I'm disappointed. I'm sure I had plenty of time to greet an old friend I'd reunited with after so long."
"I thought there were no friends left at my side."
"So nothing has changed. You've always enjoyed keeping precious things bottled up and merely looking at them."
"And you could never bear not to put them on display."
Friends... was he talking about people like Gubo, who had brushed past us during the first mission? People Yi Sang had known for a long time.
"Did you say friends? Yi Sang, you have many friends reunited on this journey! Last time as well, you encountered that... that fellow with the sly tinted glasses, did you not!"
...He did have tinted glasses that didn't suit his tightly fitted pants at all, but he had at least introduced himself properly as Gubo.
No, that's not the point. Interrupting here is a bit tactless, isn't it, Don Quixote...
At Don Quixote's words, Dongrang fell silent for a moment, then spoke with a slightly sorrowful expression.
"Ah, so you've already enjoyed the joy of reunion. That's why you're so distant with me."
Then the corners of Dongrang's mouth rose ominously.
"But what should I do? It seems there's still one more left."
"What do you mean?"
...Yi Sang still has one more friend left?
No, how did that man even—
"Thanks to Shurenne's tip-off, I thought the members had already evacuated this building... but I suppose that wasn't the case."
...I understood Dongrang immediately. With a scent this distinctive, this thick, there was no way not to notice it.
That sharp, fragrant floral scent that felt almost suffocating. I had never smelled it here before, and yet perhaps because of old memories, I recognized it instinctively.
...The scent of spicebush. More precisely, the scent of spicebush blossoms.
Another name for it: camellia blossoms.
In one hand, a worn black photograph.
In the other, a dazzling Golden Bough.
She appeared like that, with hair painted gray as if bleached, golden eyes, and a K Corp researcher's coat over a brown hoodie.
"It's a good photo. There's only one left in the world now."
"Neither here nor there, I don't have a single friend greeting me warmly. The photo... won't you give it back? It may not look like it, but I treasured it dearly."
After saying that, Dongrang tried to walk toward the woman holding the photo.
"Dongrang-nim, do not approach recklessly. It's dangerous!"
At Samjo's hurried attempt to stop him, Dongrang halted as if coming to his senses.
Meanwhile, the chaos was not limited to that side alone.
"Everyone! Don't rush in recklessly! The Golden Bough could be destroyed..."
"I agree with that assessment."
"Faust will think of a way to retrieve it quickly."
"Tch, why do all the things that can't be solved by beating them up keep showing up? This is infuriating..."
Since someone who clearly looked like a member of the Technology Liberation Alliance was holding the Golden Bough, the prisoners were thrown into confusion as well.
And through that gap, the woman holding the Golden Bough slowly approached this way...
"That sharp, fragrant scent made me feel as though the ground had caved in beneath me."
"...!"
She passed Dongrang by.
Then, with a wet thrust, she drove the Golden Bough into Yi Sang's chest.
And Yi Sang's body, pierced through the chest, lost all strength and went limp.
"I never thought you'd choose him in front of my eyes after all."
"Yi Sang!"
"I'll return this. A photograph is nothing more than a frozen moment."
As she murmured that, the old photograph slowly slipped from her hand.
Perhaps because the Golden Bough still shone even while stained with blood, I suddenly felt that the faded black-and-white photo was dark.
As if the photograph itself were saying it could never return to that time.
I couldn't understand the feeling, and yet... somehow, I felt a little down.
Bang!
Then, light suddenly burst forth from the Golden Bough.
...
The resonance phenomenon caused by a Golden Bough. I'd experienced it so many times now that I was starting to get used to it.
So now Yi Sang's monologue and recollection would continue, I supposed.
"When I think of that time, I always feel as though I was floating lightly.
Yes, I endured life with the feeling of flying through the sky.
Because of that, I lived without even knowing whether I had wings, or whether I was simply a fool."
After that calm monologue, a faded laboratory spread out before my eyes.
The faces that were clearly visible were... Dongrang, who looked younger than he did now, Yi Sang, and... a woman with what looked like a black bob cut.
Who is she?
"Yi Sang, were you at it again, not sleeping and only doing research? I've warned you more than once that you'd work yourself to death like that."
Dongrang spoke first. ...So Yi Sang used to be like that? He's nothing like he is now.
Then, the woman with the black bob cut spoke.
"He's different from us. Don't you remember how once he got absorbed in something, he'd throw away sleep and meals alike?"
"Enough, Camellia. So... what are you planning to show us at this year's Nangsulhoe? If you keep locking yourself in your room day and night, it's hard not to look forward to it."
It was a familiar voice. So the woman who had stabbed Yi Sang was named Camellia. From the way they looked, they must have gotten along quite well back then.
After their turn passed, Yi Sang in the past also appeared holding something familiar.
"This time, I have... made something called a 'mirror.'"
...Was this when the legendary technology called the Mirror was first developed?
"So it is always unclear.
Whether I regret that day, or feel moved by it."
I instinctively felt that monologue marked the end of the resonance.
...What happened between Yi Sang and them? What caused their relationship to collapse?
I hadn't learned a single thing, and yet my consciousness was forcibly dragged back up.
"...Yi Sang... Yi Sang! Are you all right?"
"..."
Yi Sang slowly opened his eyes. As I always think, the fact that one turn of the clock can restore life is absurdly convenient.
Though at the same time, it made life itself seem... lighter.
Yi Sang did not seem particularly pleased by that.
"So... you have once again turned back time without fail."
"..."
By the time the Golden Bough had poured out its bright light and the glow faded, Camellia was already gone. The people who had been smiling brightly in the photograph must have long since lost their smiles as well.
Only Dongrang was staring into space, as if replaying the present situation in his mind.
"...Camellia must have been waiting with the intention of stabbing me. She must have learned from Shurenne and Senior Ran that I had allies besides K Corp employees... but she wouldn't have known Yi Sang was among them."
"Ah~ so you deliberately brought Yi Sang here?"
Wasn't that a bit too far-fetched? No matter how suspicious Dongrang was... surely he didn't plan something that elaborate, like Hong Lu was saying.
"Hmm... are you asking whether I brought a shield because I knew I'd be ambushed? My predictive ability is not ordinary, but I'm not clairvoyant."
"In the end, it worked out well. That was an attack meant to take a life."
...This bastard?
"What...? What are you saying...? Our comrade got stabbed in your place and nearly died, and you're saying it worked out well...?"
"There is no physical damage for us to compensate for, is there? If it's a psychological issue, you may file a claim, though the processing procedure is rather complicated, so please consider it carefully..."
"No, I mean, what you're saying right now is..."
As veins bulged on Gregor's forehead and the argument began to tip from a simple exchange into a full-blown emotional fight, a languid voice cut it off.
"Enough. There is not a handful of pain left. So stop."
When the clock is turned back, everything returns.
The tears in clothing, the stains crusted over with blood, not even the slightest scar remains.
And yet being restored to the original state did not mean the event itself was erased.
Thinking that, Dante carefully ticked the clock.
"Yi Sang, are you really all right?"
What did "all right" even mean?
It could simply mean the safety of mind and body, but that wasn't the only reason for asking, surely.
Personally, I thought Yi Sang was the sort of person who got hurt more easily than he seemed. In relationships, in everything. Right now, he had shut his heart and was in self-imposed exile, so it wasn't obvious, but...
And everyone Yi Sang had met as a friend so far, except for Dongrang, had harmed him in one way or another.
...No, perhaps even Dongrang had.
Maybe that was what Dante was asking about. Whether he was all right with that.
"Yes, you must have wondered all this time. I once belonged to a group called the Guhuinhoe. Gubo, Dongrang, Camellia, who stabbed my chest. The Manager, and the faces you have seen were all together.
But one day, we broke apart and scattered. Each of us was blown off toward our own path. That was all."
"What~? That's too much left out for it to be just that, isn't it? You split up for one reason or another and somehow ended up in a relationship where you swing knives at each other~ is that it?"
"Or maybe they weren't friends from the start."
Sinclair's face had stiffened, his voice rising, perhaps because Kromer had come to mind. But I don't think that was it. If anything, the people in that faded photograph, and the people from the past, had looked genuinely happy.
"It was only a moment. Since it was only a moment, that is the most fitting way to put it."
...Was it my imagination that he seemed to be deliberately avoiding something? Probably not.
Yi Sang's defense mechanism, after suffering a great wound in the past, was to look away and no longer care. Was that really all there was to it?
"Yi Sang, are you really all right?"
"I have always been all right."
I wasn't the one speaking directly to him, and yet for some reason, that answer felt false. Always all right... well, it didn't seem like he had ever been all right for even a moment.
"Recently, then. Something like... your happiest moment, or your most painful moment, perhaps?"
"...You are unusually interested in me today. Though I do not particularly welcome it... since you are unlike your usual self, I shall answer.
If I were to pick one, the happiest thing recently was... when we held the Nangsulhoe.
The most despairing moment was..."
Yi Sang's gaze, which had been lowering little by little, turned straight toward Dante.
"The forest where I first met you. The moment there when the life I had believed, without doubt, to have been severed was revived. And now. This moment, when I realize that revival is always perfect and unchanging.
...How is that? Has it answered you?"
"..."
"Now, should we not be moving? It seems the road ahead is long."
Leaving those words behind, Yi Sang turned his steps and headed deeper into the Lobotomy Corporation branch.
...Watching his back as he moved forward without ever looking back made me want to meddle in a way that didn't suit me. I didn't know why, but I didn't want to hold back.
"Yi Sang."
"...Did you call?"
"Yes."
"It is unusual for you all to be so interested in me. Well... what is it you wish to say now?"
I took out the words I had been carrying in my chest, words that had been piling up for a long time.
"If you have nothing to say, I shall be on my way. There is work to do..."
"...I just wanted to tell you not to keep turning away from everything."
"..."
"Whether it's now or the past. All of it. Nothing changes if you only keep running away."
"...I shall keep that in mind."
For a moment his expression stiffened, and then he left as if nothing had happened.
Soon after, I followed him inside as well. For the several minutes it took to head in there, only a heavy silence lingered.