Nayun had jumped three steps to the side the instant she felt danger looming over her, her instincts as sharp as ever. Now she was watching me in silence, her arms crossed in front of her chest, her frown slightly deepened and a familiar gleam of distrust in her eyes. The kind of look that only someone who really knows you can give. It was as if she was trying to decipher my intentions with a simple stare.
I breathed softly before speaking.
I adjusted my posture, ready to trigger the magic of the enchanted screen in front of us, a magic capable of reproducing memories as if they were movies. But before I could even conjure up the first fragment of memory, Nayun approached with firm, decisive steps, and with an unexpected gesture, raised her arms, positioning herself right in front of me, preventing me from continuing.
"Uh?! What is it, Nayun?"
She bit her lower lip slightly, as if trying to find the courage to speak. Her eyes seemed to hesitate for a second, but when she finally spoke, her voice came out soft and clear, like a confession she had been holding back for some time.
"Hey! I was thinking... The truth is, I wanted to hear you talk about yourself, rather than watch."
I blinked, a little surprised.
"Are you sure? I think it's better this way, it might be easier to understand and less time-consuming too."
It was true, we still had more than fifty minutes until class started, enough time to show everything objectively. Besides, as vivid as they were, memories seen through magic could seem distant, as if they weren't real. Even so, I feared that by telling it in my own words, she would doubt the veracity of what that "me" from the past had experienced.
But Nayun shook her head firmly.
Her short, almost whispered reply was full of feeling. Her cheeks were flushed, and yet she kept her gaze fixed on mine. There was tenderness and determination in her expression, a quiet beauty that hit me like an arrow in the chest.
"...I want to hear from you, I want to know about you, I want to know about my boyfriend."
For a moment, I couldn't answer. I just stood there, staring at her as if for the first time.
I sighed with a smile of slight surrender.
"Okay, I'll tell you what, just don't get tired after you start listening to me."
After all, my life was as ordinary as anyone else's until my reincarnation.
She rolled her eyes, but smiled.
"I told you I don't care."
"Ah! Can we go back to our dorm first? It's a bit scary up here."
I looked at her with a slightly crooked smile.
It was funny to hear her refer to the dormitory as "ours", but in a way, she wasn't wrong. From the moment she agreed to be with me, that space became as much hers as it was mine.
I shrugged, anyway, she wasn't wrong...
I put out my arms and pulled her close, wrapping her in a firm hug, her body fitting naturally into mine.
"Hey! Is that necessary?"
She gave me a suspicious look as she felt my closeness, rightly suspecting my intentions.
I replied with the world's most serious face.
"The closer, the better for teleportation to work."
She retorted instantly, her cheeks taking on an even brighter hue. It was obvious that she didn't believe me for a second, and rightly so, as the excuse was as lame as my face would allow.
Still, she didn't move away. The greenish glow of magic enveloped us like an enchanted mist and, in an instant, the image of planet earth in front of us disappeared.
When the light faded, we were already in the warm comfort of the dormitory. She threw herself onto the sofa, grabbed a cushion and sat down cross-legged.
"Now... talk. Tell me who you are. From the beginning."
And so I took a deep breath, preparing to open my heart.
After all, my life had been ordinary, as ordinary as anyone else's... until the day I was reincarnated into this world.
Sitting down facing her, I began to speak.
"You already know that I had a family before I became an orphan, right?"
She nodded with a slight affirmative sound.
"Hmm! You told me that they had been in a plane crash when you were 11 years old."
"That's right, but there's something I didn't tell you, this accident that killed my family, it wasn't quite... in this world."
Nayun frowned. Her gaze sought to understand, without judging, but her surprise was visible.
"What do you mean...?"
"It happened in my original world. A completely different place from here, with no magic, no monsters, no djinns, no demons, no heroes... Just ordinary people, living ordinary lives. Cars, airplanes, technology... Still the same but different from here..."
She continued to stare at me, without interrupting. Then I continued.
"Theo's family in this world also had an accident. A similar accident, which also took their lives. But... This wasn't my family. They weren't the same people. They were strangers to me, even though we shared the same name and almost the same appearance."
I looked away for a moment, trying to come to terms with the strangeness of it all. It was an uncomfortable feeling, living with memories of two lives, one so distant and the other newly discovered.
"When I woke up here, in this body... at first, I thought it was a dream. Or a delirium. But everything was real. I had been reincarnated, or perhaps transmigrated after I died. I don't know for sure. What I do know is that it was no longer the same world. And, somehow, I had inherited someone else's life... Theo from here."
The silence that followed was dense. Nayun hugged the cushion tighter, her eyes slightly wide.
"So... you remember everything? Theo's life now and before?"
"Yes. I remember my childhood, my parents, my little sister... every detail. From both lives."
She stared at me, carefully taking in the words.
"This Theo of now... who is he? And did you find out why I came here?"
"He's me. Both of them are still me. I didn't replace anyone... I just carried on. Like a story with a new chapter, written in a different language. I don't know if I was brought here for a reason, if I'm a piece in a bigger game, or if it was all just a mistake of fate. But every choice I've made, before and since, has been my own. And they all led me here."
She let out a deep sigh. Her shoulders relaxed and, for the first time since I started talking, she smiled, a slight but genuine smile. One that said: "How nice, how nice that it's you."
"So... go on. Tell me more. What was your world like? What was your life like there?"
I said, straightening up.
But first, I added with a playful tone:
"But if you fall asleep in the middle of the story, I'll wake you up with a tickle."
She narrowed her eyes, threatening a slap with the pillow.
And so I continued. The morning was still young, and for the first time, I felt I was telling my story not to justify my existence, but to share it with someone who really wanted to understand.
Author: "Hello everyone, I'm here to tell you why I haven't posted any chapters on Fridays or Sundays.
I've just started studying (UNIVERSITY), and I'm also working. So it's hard to find the time to write chapters and post them for you these days. I'm leaving this notice so that you can understand my absence from the daily chapters.
I'll try to keep up at least one chapter every two days."