To Hell With Being a Hero!

ver do something like this.”

“…What…?”

“Why don’t you just speak truthfully?” Yohan’s eyes shook with betrayal.
“Just say you did everything because you wanted to live.
Did you want to live so badly that you used me to rationalize your actions?” The words he then uttered cut Eshnunna’s wavering heart deeply.
“You dirty coward.”

Slap! 

The clash of heightened emotions almost sent sparks flying between them.
The impassioned shouts gave way to a smothering silence.
Eshnunna was startled; she couldn’t process what she just did.
Her palm was numb.
Yohan’s face was turned to the side, and a clear red mark burned on his cheek.
It was only after she saw his cheek that she realized what she had done.

“Yohan…” Eshnunna was startled by her own action, but it was only for a moment.
Rather than feeling sorry for slapping her brother across his cheek, emotions that couldn’t be defined by simple disappointment and sadness were ready to burst out from her.
How could he say these words when he didn’t know anything? When he didn’t know what those blasted, self-centered recruits requested from them and how truly awful they could be?

“…How could you do this to me?” Eshnunna spoke with trembling lips.
“What do you want me to do? Why do you think I’m doing this? For what reason, because of whom—!”

“Stop using me as an excuse.”

Eshnunna flinched.
Yohan was glaring at her with hateful eyes, his face still tilted to the side.
“I didn’t tell you to do all that, did I?”

Eshnunna felt all the energy leave her body.
Her raised arms listlessly fell to her sides, and she collapsed onto the ground.
She no longer had even the energy to look up or say anything.
The only thing she could do was cry in sadness and disappointment.

“I now fully understand your thoughts.
I also know very well that you can’t be saved.” Yohan now called her ‘you’ instead of ‘sister’[1].
Even though he had merely changed the way he addressed her, it left a deep wound on Eshnunna’s heart.

“Do whatever you want.
I’ll do whatever I want, too,” Yohan said coldly and turned around with no consideration for Eshnunna’s feelings.

Shocked by Yohan’s statement, Eshununna quickly asked, “W-what do you mean by that?”

“You always did whatever you wanted.
Is there any reason for me to tell you anything?” Yohan was about to step out, but paused for a moment.
“What?” He turned back half-way and mocked her, “Are you going to hand me over as well?”

Eshnunna couldn’t believe her ears.

“Do what you want.
I won’t even be surprised anymore if you do that.” He didn’t say ‘because that’s the kind of person you are’, but it was implied.
With those final words, Yohan left.

“Yohan? Please don’t go! Wait a little bit! Yohan? Yohan!” No matter how much she called out to Yohan, he didn’t stop.
Her calls died down when her brother finally disappeared into the darkness.
Eshnunna remained on the ground in a daze.

How much time had passed? When Eshnunna finally regained her senses, she was in her place.
She didn’t know how she got here.
She hadn’t even thought about closing the door.
She just stood and stared into the air with a devastated expression, her mind blank.
She could no longer even muster the tears to cry.
Her heart felt so empty that she wanted to give up on her life.
When she slowly regained focus, memories she had been suppressing began to surface her mind one by one.
Yohan’s face.
Yohan’s words.
The more she thought about these memories, the more the futility of her actions possessed her.

‘I…’ Her body shivered; she felt as if she had fallen naked into freezing water in the dead of winter. ‘What I’ve been living for all this time…’ Eshnunna was aware of her actions; she hadn’t forgotten what she’d done.
However, that hadn’t been her intention.
No, it didn't use to be like this. ‘How did it come to this?’ Her mind was muddled.
The memories that had surfaced one by one now assaulted her all at once, and it messed with her head.
She couldn’t tell if it was her vision that was distorting, or if her body was spinning.

She looked down at her shaking hands and hugged herself. ‘It’s so cold…’ She shook like an ash tree and slowly turned her head.
She couldn’t look away from her reflection in the mirror. ‘This is…’ With great strain, her hand reached the mirror.
‘Me…?’

Was it because she was so confused? Her own face felt strange to her.
There was no trace of the lovely princess who had been considered the treasure of the Salem Kingdom and received all kinds of praise and admiration.
There was only a woman who was swept away by harsh circumstances and filled with sadness and anger. ‘This is me…?’

At that moment, the Eshnunna in the mirror smiled brightly.
It was a beautiful smile that blinded people’s eyes.
Meanwhile, Eshnunna’s eyes widened in shock.
She blinked like crazy and quickly touched her face.
Her eyes were wide as saucers, and her lips were shut so tightly that her teeth hurt.
But the face reflected in the mirror was still smiling.
No, it wasn’t just smiling.
The softly curved eyes had become strangely bent and distorted like those of Hahoe masks, and the lips stretched impossibly wide to the tip of its ears.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the thing opened its mouth wide and burst out of the mirror.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” Eshnuna’s scream came out a few seconds later.

Bam.

Eshnunna fell hip first onto the ground and gulped, but before she could calm down—

[Why don’t you be honest with yourself?]

She heard a voice from her left ear.
“Yohan?”

[Sister, you did it because you wanted to live.]

[Did you want to live so badly that you use me to rationalize your actions?]

She could also hear his voice coming from above her.

[You dirty coward.]

When she lowered her head, his voice came from below.

[Why? Do you also want to turn me over?]

“No!” Eshnunna screamed at the top of her lungs.
She shook her head in a frenzy and struggled to move.
Even then, the voices did not stop.
She heard the accusations from all directions, so she could no longer even decipher what they were saying.
She instinctively struggled to fight, and her back hit against the wall.

“No…That’s not true.” Eshnunna shrunk into herself with nowhere to hide.
She denied what the voices were saying about her while covering her ears.
The last person she had held onto for support, her younger brother, had also turned his back on her in an impossible situation where there was no place for her to go and nobody to depend on.
Eshnuna sobbed and subconsciously pleaded in her heart, “Help me.” Anyone.
“Please—Please help me.
Please…”

“I will.”

Eshnunna flinched.
She had been covering her ears so hard that marks were left on her temples, but finally, she allowed her hands to come loose.
Before she realized it, the mysterious voices had all disappeared.
Eshnunna raised her head in reflex, and her tear-soaked eyes looked up in bewilderment.
The person standing in front of her was no other than Choi Chi-Woo.

Eshnunna’s lips slightly parted.
“…Why…?”

“You asked for help,” Chi-Woo calmly replied and reached out to her.
Eshnunna’s gaze trailed along his arm and settled on his large hand.
“Here.
Please get up.”

She then heard the words she wanted to hear the most right now.

“I will help you.”

1.
A different kind of ‘you’ is used in different situations; in this context, he addresses her like they’re distant or strangers. ☜