Chapter 58
The scene changed again.
The pack of gray wolves left the village, and the snow rabbit stoically saw them off, hiding her sadness. She watched the procession all the way, only covering her face and sobbing when they were out of sight.
Among the audience, the children were screaming.
“Wolf dummy!”
“I feel so bad for the rabbit!”
Their parents hurriedly silenced them, but some adults too had tears in their eyes, myself included.
’They’re both stupid.’
The wolf was foolish to conclude that the rabbit would not understand him, and the rabbit was also a fool for not stopping his departure.
When the puppet moved away, the background changed rapidly.
New shoots sprouted, leaves grew thick, then fell—
And when the cold winter came, snow piling upon the ground, the peace in the quiet village was broken.
A pack of hyenas arrived. The situation quickly turned bloody.
“Hyenas started brutally killing the rabbits. While the snow rabbit had the ability to heal, she couldn’t beat out the hyenas,” the narrator said, so steadily that the story seemed more tragic, “who figured out that they needed to get rid of her first. The moment a hyena found the snow rabbit, it moved to bite her neck.”
Sighs broke out among the people, and some children burst out sobbing.
“Her fur became stained with scarlet. After the raiding hyenas left, what remained was a ruined village. When the gray wolf belatedly heard the news and returned hurriedly, the snow rabbit was already dying.”
***
The wolf stretched out his paws and hugged her close, uncaring of the blood and dirt. His face, which had been expressionless even when he left the village, was now awash with indescribable horror.
“Haaah.”
He quickly bent down and placed his ear to the rabbit’s lips, which parted slightly into a whisper. His face contorted in pain.
The last wishes of a doomed life were indeed powerful.
Snowflake raised a shaking hand and touched the wolf’s cheek in a final farewell. Her eyes closed as her body became limp.
His eyes widened in disbelief. He touched her face frantically.
She didn’t even move.
He hugged the rabbit’s small and slender body tight, rubbing his cheek against hers.
By that point, I could no longer keep watching.
‘I shouldn’t have come to watch this.’
It was a puppet show with cute animal characters, so I hadn’t thought it would have a sad ending.
As the host walked out to the front of the simple stage, complaints were thrown at him.
“This is too much!”
“Please bring the snow rabbit back to life!”
He tilted his head, as if in confusion. “As you know, there is no way to bring the dead back to life.”
“No!”
He smiled. “But nevertheless, it is we humans who continue to wish for miracles. As long as you stay with me, hope is not lost. The story is not over yet.” He disappeared backstage.
The puppet show began again.
The gray wolf found all the hyenas that attacked the village and exacted revenge. It was then that a blue bird appeared in front of the agonized animal.
It sang, [The rabbit will come back someday.]
As unlikely as it was, it was his only hope.
He began to wait. On sunny days, even on rainy days, and even on cold and windy days.
One snowy day, he went deep into the forest and sobbed. He came upon an enchanted pool and a bitter groan escaped his mouth.
“I couldn’t even grant her last wish.”
In the audience, one of the children raised her hand. “What was her wish?”
The area around the tent instantly fell silent.
“…Forget me.”
I groaned inwardly.
The rabbit must have known the wolf’s heart.
I felt sorry for him, who must have been wishing for her return with all his heart. My heart ached as well as I thought about what the rabbit wanted.
One day, after a time that seemed like an eternity to the wolf, the blue bird came to visit him once more. It put him to sleep with magic.
[The day the rabbit returns, you will wake up too.]
A faint smile appeared on the wolf’s face.
The lid of the puppet box slowly closed.
The host reappeared. “Will the wolf ever wake up?” he asked the audience casually.
“Yes!”
“They will definitely meet again!”
The children responded vigorously, and he smiled and nodded.
“If you really want it, a miracle will happen. So, don’t give up on your dreams, listen to your parents, and become great people.” He waved his arm enthusiastically for the last time.
There was thunderous applause.
‘Thank god.’
It would have been bad if the puppet show had ended midway with the tragic ending.
Personally, I would have felt deeply uncomfortable.
A life in which one died too early and the other could not die at all was too harsh. At least, this way, there was hope that the two would meet again in the distant future.
“Olivia, do you believe in miracles?”
It was an absurd question, but maybe because of the host’s words earlier, I felt like thinking carefully about the question instead of scolding him for talking nonsense.
If I had been asked that in my previous life, I would have answered in the negative without hesitation, believing that miracles were only foolish ideas.
Because if there were a god, I wouldn’t have been abandoned.
“Hm, I think I do believe in them,” I answered with a grin, more confidently than I had expected of myself.
Lennox, though, stood motionless.
At first, I thought he was watching the people take down the tent, but that was not the case. His unblinking eyes were on the puppet box, where the rabbit and wolf doll were left.
“Lennox?” I carefully grabbed his arm.
He jolted, as if waking up from a dream, and turned to me with his usual calm and serenity.
Somehow, it felt like a mask.
Before I could catch up with my thoughts, he had already started speaking.
“Olivia.”
“Are you okay?” I blurted out.
He looked at me with one eyebrow raised, then smiled.
“You’re okay, then.”
His simultaneously kind and indifferent gaze was familiar. “Your eyes are red, though. Like a red-eyed rabbit,” he joked leisurely.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was desperately trying to hide his weakness, as impossible as it was for him to have any.
’I must have seen it wrong.’
After coming to a rational conclusion, I felt more at ease.
“But I have green eyes. Who’s the real red-eyed person here, huh?” I responded playfully.
“You’ve got it wrong.”
“Have I?”
“My eyes are amber.”
’Wow, how can he say such nonsense so seriously? It’s so difficult to argue with him when he teases me like this.’
“Aren’t red and amber too different?”
“I’m not lying.”
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