BBDW 37 [Black Butterfly] - Nevereverland
Tim, who vowed to come
back tomorrow morning since it was already late at night, threatened to kill
him before he dies of an internal illness if he had a drop of beer after he was
discharged. After Beckman somehow took Clara out, Jude was lying blankly
facing the ceiling in the ward with the lights off.
Rather than the last
words of the little girl he just parted with, the words he heard way earlier
kept stirring his head. It seemed like he could hear a small scream in the
corner of his heart that he should not step further, but it did not stop voluntarily.
When Tim who helps diverting his attention in front of him and other people
disappeared, the feeling just stuck together and grabbed the back of his head
and didn't let go.
-It is our own world.
-This is our own
world.
Have you ever had a
silly get-together with other kids in your childhood? No, that's not it. It's
not like that. This is, something a little closer than that. Something more
fundamental, more deeply conscious. The boy's voice, which he clearly doesn't remember, kept whispering in his
ears.
-This is our own
world.......
It was clearly a voice
calling for him. But oddly enough, the familiarity felt in the words was too
much. He can't believe he doesn't remember such a familiar voice. It was an incomprehensible
word, but the feeling was exactly the same. Tossing and turning on his bed,
Jude finally let out a short sigh into the air. The air in the hospital room
was warm enough, but one corner of his chest was frighteningly cold. All of the
sudden, the rims of his eyes became hot.
-This is our own
world.
There is no more. He doesn't know what it is, but the voice was now inaudible. That was all he could
tell. Was it something he shouldn't have forgotten? As opposed to the
unconvincing heat gathering near his neck, his heart was frozen stiff. He
couldn't understand. Why would his body shake so much at pieces of words that
he doesn't even know the meaning of? With one shake of his head, Jude closed
his eyes, dispersing the heat. While he was unconscious, he felt like he saw
something in that sticky darkness. Something he doesn't want to think about.
When small footsteps
were heard in the silence, Jude's body was paralyzed. The sound of walking from
the end of the hallway was magnified slowly. Is it a nurse doing midnight
rounds? The quiet footsteps weren't in much of a hurry. In the silence, even his own breath is heard so clearly as the sound of the footsteps gradually came closer;
close enough to alarm his whole body. When he felt that the calm, restrained
sound had grown so loud that it could no longer get any louder, it stopped abruptly in
front of Jude's ward.
Jude breathed a long,
long sigh at the feeling of certainty.
Soon the door opened little
by little, and a silhouette floated into the bluish darkness. Upon confirming
the silhouette, the blond detective clicked his tongue without even realizing
it.
"Yeah, you
again."
"You were
awake."
The gentle smiling
face could be identified only by the weak streetlight outside. The door closed
without a sound. The platinum-haired young man with a horn-rimmed glasses quickly approached Jude's side. The gesture of sitting on the chair was so
natural and Jude turned to him with an unfavourable face.
"Why again. How
do you know I’m here?"
"Gee, don't be
angry. I just came here because I heard you were sick."
"Who the hell is
this guy...... I'm going to report to my superiors and investigate the spy."
"Ahhaha, don't
be so angry. He doesn't do much other than report on you."
The neat face, which
was smiling clearly, soon clouded a little after taking a glance at Jude. With
smiling eyes, Alvin swept Jude's head lightly.
"Are you okay?
You don't look well."
"Oh, it would be
amazing if a person who has collapsed from a stomach cramp had a good
complexion."
"No, it's not
like that."
"Ha? Then what is
it?"
"Something’s
bothering you? That's the kind of face you have. You can’t even sleep till this
hour."
"......you, are
you wearing some kind of necrotizing antenna? How come you only come in time
for those rare moments when I'm in a bad mood?"
A low laugh rang once,
and the touchy hand smoothed Jude’s hair. As the cool hand moved on to the side
of his face, which had been burning up just now, it doesn’t feel too bad.
Rather, his eyes were about to close, and the voice whispered thinly in his
ear.
-This is our own
world, our own, our own.
His eyebrows narrowed
by themselves, and a low yet soft question came from the side.
"What's wrong,
Detective? Did something bad happen to you?"
"...... noisy......."
"Gee, I thought I
was talking low enough."
"No, it's not
that.......... something keeps whispering in my head..........."
Suddenly, he felt very
tired. It was true that he had been tired since he collapsed, but the straps he
had been holding on to seemed to break one by one. He didn't want to hear this
voice anymore. It was clearly tightening his heart. The nerves in his head were
all messed up. The hand that was stroking his hair came down and touched his
cheek. Through that hand, the fever that drove back to his neck went out a
little, and Jude gave out a small sigh.
"Are you all
right?"
"...... it's
comfortable except that I can't sleep."
"Did you remember
anything when you were a kid?"
"...... I don't
know."
"You don't know, do
you hear what the voice said?"
"I don't know...... I
don't know anything, but I shouldn't have done something..."
I think I did
something I shouldn't have done. Something that should never be done.
Swallowing the words, Jude bit his lips once. Alvin stole his attention again, as
he tried to close his eyes.
"You don't
remember much about your childhood, do you?"
"Are you
expecting me to tell you about it?"
"I don't think
you're going to tell me."
I hate you at any rate
- and when Jude looks askance at him with his eyes, Alvin laughed. This guy,
he'll never stop trying to dig it out even if I didn’t tell him one day. He's
about 20 light-years away from the good-natured Tim. Jude shook his head once while
lying down, and spat it out in a flat voice.
"It's just a very
fragmented scene. The image of a house, the image of a man, and the reddish screen. Don't ask me what that red thing is, I don't know. It's just
those pieces that remained, and I don't remember specific people or
events."
"After only
remembering those images, and then all of a sudden, the voice came up today?
What did the voice talk about?"
"......I'm not
sure what it is."
-This is our own
world.
-Our own...
"I don't know,
but even though I don't know..."
His eyes heated up
again. He didn't know why. He couldn't even express it in front of Tim, and he
was desperate to push it inside even when he was alone, but the intense feeling
that could not be accurately determined by a few words, filled his chest and
overflowed because of this bluish-grey-eyed man. Before it became uncontrollable,
Jude clenched his molar and spat.
"Get out."
"It's all right."
"I didn't think
we were close enough to show this. Get out, before I call someone."
"It's all
right."
Reciting the same word,
Alvin slowly swept Jude's forehead. Slapping the hand a little roughly, Jude
rose from his bed with his body that was a bit hard to move. The pale blue-grey eyes
did not even budge with the eyes glaring at them.
"Get out. Don't
make me say it again."
"Detective, it's
okay. I'm not going to tell anybody about this. Because I don't want to share
it with anyone. So, it's okay."
Speaking in a voice
like memorizing poetry, Alvin gently swept across the back of Jude's shoulder.
As if comforting and soothing him, his gaze and touch were amiable. Jude's
eyes, which were looking at his face with a tense body, soon seemed to be
slightly distorted, and then hid under his right hand.
"Then, it wasn't
supposed to be..."
The hand touching his
back pulled him with a force that was not so strong. The touching bodies,
unlike the cool hands, was a bit warm. A voice that sounded mellifluous, asked
from beside his ear.
"What do you
mean?"
"I don't know, I
don't know...... but I shouldn't have. I knew, but I still did it. I don't know
what I did, I don't know, but I feel like I've let something big, something
that shouldn't have been removed, disappear with my own hands, and
keep..."
-This is our own
world, I promise.
The tears escaped no
matter how hard he tried to suppress them with his throat. The boy's voice
stimulated his feeling of guilt, which had hardly been stimulated since his memory
lost. It was a painful emotion that can be felt through his lungs, and Jude
was thrilled to feel both unfamiliar and familiar at the same time.
"I had
to...... no, I don't know...... but...... that was, that was what I
did......."
"Shh-shh. It's
okay, you don't have to think about it right away. You can just rest now."
The kind voice seized his
crushing spirit and melts it away. You can just rest. The words filled his mind
with strange clarity. As he breathed in a wet breath, he idly placed his chin
on his shoulder, and that gentle voice echoed again.
"By the end of
the night, you'll feel much better. After a good night's sleep..... I mean, after
a rest. So, sleep at ease....... okay?"
You'll feel better
after a nap. The sentence penetrated sharply into his head. And at the same
time, his eyes closed as he was relaxed. Why, is it because he was buried in the
voice of the man in front of him? The boy's voice was no longer heard.
Rather, he wanted to hear his voice than the boy's voice. It may be annoying, but it
wasn't painful.
Lying down slowly as
Alvin led him, Jude snapped at him.
"Say something."
"What do you
mean?"
"Anything......... so
that I can get some sleep."
The curve of his eyes
bent gently. Jude pulled up the quilt and closed his eyes, and the musical
voice began to ring quietly in the room.
"I recently went
on a trip to LA..."
"Oh, don't include bloodshed, murder, and hatred when you’re talking. I'm afraid it will come out
in a dream."
He heard Alvin
laughing as he made that remark.
"Okay, I'll only
talk about the general landscape. Even in LA, the non-urban areas were pretty
quiet and peaceful. Like Mrs Rice's town, people get along well. Most of all,
it's a place where the home meal is really delicious. I think I gained more
weight there....."
He couldn't possibly not be
tired after questioning and running around all day. Moreover, the voice was now so
faint that it could no longer strain his nerve. His whole body quickly fell
into a sweet sleep, and Jude did not resist.
- By the time Alvin's voice, which had been echoing like a velvety whisper in his ears, was cut off, something soft seemed to touch his cheek.
My heart feels satisfied (my Fujoshi heart)
ReplyDeleteI’m really curious about Jude’s past >_< why do all main characters have mysterious pasts which keep leaving people on cliffhangers?
Thank you for the chapter ❤️
BTW, why did you move to another website?
The new site is better than the previous one ๐๐ป
Well, I decided to move to Blogger because Wordpress doesn't really let me have control over it unless I upgraded my plan. I mean the control from the back-end side. Despite both being free website, I decided that Blogger is better for me. Although the available theme is quite meh and this is the best looking that I found so far, I'll just upload a custom theme later.
DeleteAnyway, I'm curious about Jude's past too but as far as I'm translating rn, there doesn't seem to be any clues abt it yet. Well, we're not even halfway of the novel yet. And I just wish for more fluffiness in the future. Moaarrr is better. Btw, you're welcome.
<3
ReplyDeleteWhy won’t it let me comment???
ReplyDeleteSorry, I forgot to moderate the comment section. Ehee. So, I just changed the settings so I don't have to moderate the comment ever again. Blogger seems to do the job better than I do anyway. And I hope you enjoy the chapter. Peace yaww.
DeleteOh my God ๐ญ❣️ alvin comforting jude is one of the best things i have seen ❤️
ReplyDeleteI am so late to read this ๐ญ i had Tests so i wasn't active in wordpress
Thank you ❤️๐๐❤️๐ฏ๐
You're welcome. It's nice to see familiar faces here ( เน‾̀◡‾́)ฯ » And yes, their relationship is progressing, finally <( ̄︶ ̄)>
DeleteAhh jude and Alvin are most likely childhood friends and soulmates
ReplyDeleteThis chapter is so sweet! Love Jude’s and Alvin’s interaction—it always made me giggle. Hehe.
ReplyDeleteThank you for translating this amazing novel!