By Zephyria 
I always remembered my dreams vividly upon waking, but today was strangely different. Was it because I wasn’t fully awake yet?
It was already afternoon. I lazily got up and was blankly recalling my dream when someone quietly opened the door and entered.
The tightly shut window burst open, and a gust of cold air rushed in, causing me to pull the blanket over my head.
“So cold…”
“Please get up now. You haven’t had breakfast yet.”
I was about to reply when I realized something. In that short moment of thinking about something else, I couldn’t remember what I had dreamed.
Surely, there was a sailboat in a red sea…
“Aska!”
I closed my eyes and tried to calmly retrace my memory, but the blanket was yanked off noisily. Feeling as if I had been stripped naked, I curled up, and Emily shouted loudly.
“I said, get up! We have to move today, so we need to hurry.”
“Close the window first, it’s cold.”
“You’re cold because you’re just staying under the blanket. Do you know how warm the sun is outside right now?”
“No, I’m really cold…”
I tried to make a pitiful face and shiver, but it didn’t work. Emily forcibly sat me up, took off my pajamas, and started putting on a shirt.
“You didn’t take your medicine this morning, did you?”
“I did. I took it and went back to sleep.”
“Sakira said she saw you throwing the medicine into the flowerpot.”
“She must have been mistaken.”
No, how could anyone drink something so sticky? People who haven’t tried it don’t know how difficult it is to swallow. Who knows my suffering of having to drink such a terrible thing three times a day?
As I was thinking that, Emily, who had finished buttoning up my clothes and putting on my shoes, said, “Oh, Abyss came looking for Aska. Go downstairs quickly. You can walk on your own now, right?”
I nodded and dragged my feet down to the store on the first floor. The busy staff greeted me.
“Good afternoon, Aska!”
“Hello! Did you just wake up?”
“Lazybones.”
“Hurry up and eat!”
“Wait, who said ‘lazybones’?”
I tried to find the culprit, but they had all run away in that short time.
“Aska.”
Then I heard a familiar voice.
Abyss, with his messy black curly hair and still wearing his robe, as if he had just arrived, was smiling in front of me.
“Did you just get here?”
“A little while ago. Did you just wake up? Eat first. I heard you haven’t taken your medicine yet?”
“…”
Ugh, nagging as soon as he arrives… And I clearly threw away the medicine secretly, but how does he know everything?
Abyss took me, who was making a face, and sat me down in a chair.
Today was the day we were moving, so the store was unusually chaotic. I liked the quietness of the mountain village, where there weren’t many people, but it was too sparsely populated to do business.
“Where did you say we were going?”
I clearly heard it a few days ago, but I couldn’t remember, so I asked. Abyss placed a plate with watery soup, cooked vegetables, and a little boiled meat on the table and said, “Calderia. The main branch of the merchant guild is there. Didn’t Sakira tell you?”
“She probably did?”
“Aska’s health has improved a lot now, so it’s okay to go to the city little by little. Here, say ‘ah’.”
The boiled meat crumbled easily when pressed lightly with a fork. I took the meat that Abyss gave me and said, “I had a dream again today. It was about a red sea.”
“A red sea? Do you remember it?”
Abyss asked with a surprised look.
“Yeah, I remembered a few things, but Emily came into the room and I forgot everything.”
“Your memories will naturally come back over time. First of all, it’s most important to recover your health. Got it?”
That’s true, but I felt uneasy. I didn’t remember the details of the dream well, but it felt ominous and creepy.
I was eating what Abyss gave me without really tasting it when the bell rang as the store door opened. Sakira, wearing a robe, saw us and approached quickly.
“When did you get here?”
“A little while ago. Where were you and what were you doing? I heard Aska hasn’t eaten anything today. Are you out of your mind? Where are you wandering around?”
Sakira brought a thick blanket and put it on my shoulders, glaring fiercely.
Originally, they would bicker and fight nine times out of ten when they met, so I was used to watching them argue. After chewing and swallowing everything I was eating, Abyss put a small piece of cooked vegetable in my mouth even as they were arguing.
“Aska, I told you, eat by yourself now. Don’t just lie down all the time, move around a bit. You won’t get better if you just curl up because you’re cold, you know? Don’t you remember what the doctor said?”
I was suddenly caught in the crossfire. I turned to Abyss with a pleading look, but Sakira was quicker.
“You stop it too! You keep taking care of everything from A to Z, so Aska doesn’t do anything on their own!”
“I was outside all the time and only came today after a long time, what are you talking about? If you only count the number of times, you’re worse than me!”
“…”
Abyss stood up abruptly, looking wronged, and shouted. He grabbed a piece of bread and slowly got up, preparing to run away.
There was no point in getting involved in a marital spat. I was slowly backing away when Sakira and Abyss, who were raising their voices and arguing, turned to look at me at the same time.
“Sit down!”
“How much is this that you’re leaving again?”
“…”
I had no choice but to sit back down in the chair at the thunderous shout. As soon as my butt touched the chair, Sakira started nagging again.
“Even a baby eats more than Aska.”
“You only sleep all day because you eat so little. You need to eat something to have fuel to be active.”
“Please stop throwing away your medicine. It’s ridiculous for you to throw away your medicine because you don’t want to take it, you’re not a child.”
“I know, right? Don’t think of it as nagging, listen when we talk. Do I feel good when you take your medicine? Only Aska does. Do you think Sakira is nagging you to take your medicine because she wants to feel good? We’re doing it so that Aska can get better quickly.”
“…”
I didn’t know if the bread was going into my mouth or my nose. I quickly ate the remaining food while listening to their nagging. It was soft and warm, so it was easy to swallow without chewing much.
Sakira cleared the empty plate, and Abyss brought a cup filled with medicine. It was filled with a thick, viscous liquid of pale greenish-blue color.
Just looking at it made me want to throw up everything I had just eaten. I couldn’t even guess what ingredients it was made of, it looked so violent.
The only good thing was that it didn’t smell too bad. It smelled like grass, but it was too strong to be good. Still, it was better than smelling like a sewer.
I took a few deep breaths, held my breath, and drank the medicine in one go. Tears welled up in my eyes every time the liquid passed through my throat. As soon as I finished the medicine, Sakira, who was waiting, put a piece of candy in my mouth.
“Good job.”
“I feel like I’m going to throw up…”
“If you throw up, you’ll have to drink it again, so try to hold it in.”
“…”
Actually, eating candy didn’t help at all. It was just a matter of feeling. I rolled the candy around in my mouth and gradually calmed down.
“I still have things to pack, so I’ll go. Play with Abyss. Go out for a walk or something.”
Sakira pulled the blanket up over my shoulders and tucked it in before going inside the store.
The sunlight coming through the window was bright and intense, but the wind was still cold. Wouldn’t I freeze to death if I went out like this? It’s so cold even inside.
Abyss sat next to me, who was shivering, and said, “Shall we go for a walk for a bit?”
“No, it’s okay. How did it go with what you went to do? Didn’t you say you were going to meet someone?”
“I couldn’t meet them because they were too far away. But we agreed to meet in Calderia, so they’ll come if we wait. Oh, and do you remember that Fatima and the others went ahead a month ago?”
When I nodded, Abyss brought paper and skillfully started drawing.
“Fatima found a mansion for Aska to live in and is decorating the landscaping and interior. She’s doing a pretty good job.”
I’ll be able to see it myself soon if we leave tonight, but he’s still drawing it for me. I rested my chin on my hand and quietly looked at the landscape of the mansion being completed, then glanced at Abyss’s face.
Abyss was the one who saved me when I was seriously injured about five years ago and almost died. It’s only been a few months since I was able to walk on my own after being in a coma for a long time.
I spent more time lying in bed sleeping than being awake, so it was often awkward. Even though we’ve been together for five years.
According to him, we had known each other since before I lost my memory. The same was true for Abyss and Sakira, and the twenty or so people in the store. If you add Fatima and the people who left for Calderia first, there were over thirty.
I heard there were quite a few in other countries as well, but it seemed like they couldn’t all be contacted. Anyway, most of these people were married to me before I lost my memory.
At first, I thought I was hallucinating when I heard it in a daze, but it was the same when I asked again. They said we were separated now, so it didn’t matter, but I couldn’t understand it with my common sense.
Or am I just not familiar with the common sense of the world because I lost my memory? I was okay with other people, but I felt strange every time I saw Abyss.
That’s because it’s too weird to have Sakira’s ex-husband and current husband, me and Abyss, together… Besides, it was strange that they were both taking care of me so devotedly.
Anyway, I hadn’t thought deeply about it because I was sick, but as I got healthier, I naturally had more random thoughts.
“What kind of person was I before I lost my memory?”
What kind of person was I to have married so many times and divorced so many times…?
I didn’t expect an answer, but seeing Abyss unable to say anything and just moving his lips, I could only sigh.
“I can’t remember anything other than that my name is Aska.”
When I first came to my senses, I couldn’t remember anything other than the name Aska. I guess I should be grateful that I remembered my name at least?
“Don’t be too impatient. Your memories will come back slowly. Well, what if they don’t come back? We can just live happily together like we do now.”
Even if I lost my common sense along with my memories, I knew that this relationship wasn’t normal. But there’s nothing I can do about it.
It was ambiguous to affirm or deny, so I looked out the window and changed the subject.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
“Please wait a moment. I’ll get your coat.”
Abyss, who stood up at my words, brought a thick coat and shoes for going out. Abyss, who knelt down and put on my shoes and carefully put on my coat, held out his hand to me.
I took his hand, got up from the chair, and went outside for the first time in a long time.