Lost Memories
“……!”
Lukna’s already wide eyes grew even larger. The health teacher muttered, “So you really forgot everything.”
“I knew it, of course. You used to come here all the time. You’d show up after getting beaten up by bad guys, and once you even had a broken arm. That’s how I came to know. I can tell everything just by looking at you.”
The health teacher grinned.
Despite her middle-aged appearance, her smile was pure and mischievous like a child’s, which made her strangely endearing.
“Did you put that red medicine on me every time back then too?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“……Did I heal?”
“Of course. It’s a cure-all, you know?”
The health teacher proudly shook the bottle of red medicine.
‘Wouldn’t that just be natural recovery?’
Lukna stared at the bottle, which didn’t seem particularly effective, with a doubtful expression.
“Now unbutton Matian’s shirt. My arms are tired from holding these bottles.”
“Oh, yes.”
Lukna began undoing Matian’s shirt buttons one by one. As the neatly pressed shirt parted, his firm chest was revealed.
‘I had a rough idea when I saw him at the training grounds, but…’
Unlike his gently smiling handsome face, his thick body was rough and fierce.
Each time he breathed, his chest rose and fell, occasionally twitching as if seized by pain.
Thinking she might need to prepare for CPR, Lukna swallowed nervously—when the health teacher began smearing the red medicine around his heart.
“Um… teacher?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you putting that there again?”
“It seems like his heart hurts.”
At that, Lukna remembered Matian clutching his chest earlier.
‘Is this teacher sharp, or just guessing wildly?’
Or maybe she could actually see a little. The place she applied the medicine was surprisingly accurate.
Lukna looked back and forth between the mysterious health teacher and the red medicine.
The teacher drew a heart shape over Matian’s chest with the medicine, then muttered, “The pressure point was a little lower than here,” and drew a larger heart beneath it.
As a result, Matian ended up looking ridiculous, like someone had doodled on his thick muscles.
“Treatment complete.”
“……Complete? That’s it?”
Lukna pointed again at Matian’s chest.
Two hardened brown hearts were stamped onto his skin.
This is ominous. If Matian sees that, there’s going to be chaos!
“Um, teacher.”
Lukna called her cautiously, her face pale.
“Yes?”
“Please keep it a secret from Matian that I brought him here.”
“Why?”
“……I don’t want to die in a sparring match.”
Lukna imagined Matian waking up.
That guy would smile gently and say, ‘I never expected you to humiliate me like this, Lukna,’ before requesting a spar she couldn’t refuse.
‘It’s not like I’ve seen that only once or twice.’
He always crushed his opponents with a slightly troubled expression.
Cruel—but carefully measured so their hope wouldn’t completely break.
Because of that, the defeated opponent didn’t feel discouraged. Instead, thinking they were just unlucky, they’d fall under his spell and challenge him again.
And only after making a mistake and getting seriously hurt would they regret their decision—never realizing the mistake had been exactly what Matian intended.
‘That could be me.’
Ugh, chills. Lukna shuddered and hurried out of the infirmary.
“Lukna.”
The health teacher stopped her.
“I didn’t tell you earlier—my name is Gale. Will you call me by my name from now on?”
“Huh?”
“I liked it when you called me ‘Teacher Gale.’ And whether you remember or not, your essence is still you, so don’t be too confused.”
As she said that, Gale lifted her glasses onto her forehead.
Behind her crescent-shaped smiling eyes were two lifeless pupils. Seeing the long, slit-like pupils wrapped in red irises, Lukna realized the health teacher wasn’t human but another species.
“If you fall again, don’t worry about it. I’ll put medicine on you every time.”
Wait, teacher. I’m not a child—I shouldn’t keep falling, should I?
“Oh, and this is a gift.”
Lowering her glasses again, Gale approached Lukna, feeling her way forward while holding the medicine bottle.
Then she smeared a long streak of the red medicine across Lukna’s forehead. Ugh, cold!
“I hope you recover your lost memories!”
It was raining steadily, and everything was dark. Sitting in a carriage, Lukna lowered her gaze.
Her hands and feet looked unusually small—like those of a ten-year-old child.
Is this a dream?
〈I love you, Lukna. Our daughter.〉
Two people who looked like her parents hugged her tightly, their voices trembling.
She also saw her older brother holding back tears. She couldn’t grasp the situation, but it was clearly urgent.
〈From now on, we’re going to play hide-and-seek.〉
〈Right now?〉
Her mouth moved on its own as she answered.
Her parents placed her inside a small box and handed her a water pouch and some jerky.
〈Yes. It’s a game where you endure without coming out until someone opens the box. It might be a very long hide-and-seek.〉
〈I’m scared, Mom.〉
〈Scared? You can’t even handle this, Pumpkin?〉
Her brother teased her in a voice thick with restrained tears.
Then he threatened to make her eat broccoli every day if she came out of the box.
Their father quietly patted her brother’s back.
〈Our Lukna can endure it. It’s hide-and-seek where you have to fight scary nightmares, so even if you hear terrible noises or the box shakes, you mustn’t make a sound, okay?〉
〈I have to fight nightmares?〉
〈We’re Closets, after all. We must purify all evil with our own power.〉
〈I want to be with you, Mom and Dad! Oppa isn’t hiding either. I don’t want to hide!〉
〈Hey, Pumpkin. You’re still too small. You need to grow big like me first.〉
〈Your brother’s right. When you grow so much that you can’t fit in this box anymore, then you can join us, okay?〉
Her mother kissed Lukna’s forehead.
Her mother’s shadowed face wasn’t visible clearly, but tears welled up anyway.
Soon, the lid of the box closed, and Lukna curled up inside.
Before long, the box rolled around violently, making her nauseous, but she kept her promise and made no sound.
Even when horrible noises and sickening energy seeped through the wooden planks, she endured silently.
Soon, a nightmare that devoured everything split Lukna’s soul in half and swallowed one half. The remaining half trembled under the tidal wave of fear.
‘Help me. Please save me!’
Then the scene changed.
The space confining her transformed from a wooden box into a metal cabinet.
Her body had grown too large to fit in a box, yet strangely, she was trapped inside a long, narrow metal container.
‘Is this when Hans locked me in the cleaning supply closet?’
No. Instead of the stench of dirty rags, the air reeked of rusted metal. This was different.
〈Help me. It was all my fault. Please let me out!〉
Clang, clang, bang! She pounded and kicked at the cabinet door, but it was useless.
The memory of being trapped in the wooden box made it feel like she would suffocate and die.
As her palms bruised from striking the metal, Lukna peered through a thin crack.
She saw the college hallway and someone’s silhouette.
But that person merely smiled elegantly and did not help her.
“Please let me out. I feel like I’m going to die… Ah?”
Shouting, Lukna’s eyes snapped open.
The dark ceiling of the dormitory greeted her. She was lying in her bed, not inside a cabinet.
She bolted upright and wiped her eyes. Her cheeks were damp with tears.
The fear she had felt in the dream was so vivid it seemed like she had glimpsed a real memory.
‘Maybe it wasn’t just a dream. Maybe it was this body’s memory.’
Lukna slowly blinked and pulled her knees to her chest.
Her whole body trembled, and her breathing was ragged.
The horrific fear of being trapped in a narrow space did not fade easily.
‘Let’s wash up. I’ll go wash my face.’
4:30 a.m.
After checking the wall clock, Lukna left her room and descended the spiral staircase to the first floor.
With no one around, the square lobby felt larger than usual, and a massive mural she normally ignored caught her eye.
It depicted the three heroes who had fought in the “Demon War” hundreds of years ago, vividly painted across the whitewashed wall.
‘So that’s the Closet who was called the Saint.’
Sacred light swirled around her as she held a long staff, but her face was left blank—like a faceless ghost.
Unlike the typical image of a “saint,” she was energetically beating demons with her staff.
〈We’re Closets, after all.〉
The words from her dream suddenly resurfaced.
‘No way.’
Shaking her head, Lukna headed to the communal wash area behind the dormitory.
At this hour, the faucets and bathhouse were quiet and empty.
The dirty boys rarely washed anyway, so as long as she avoided the hot midday hours, it was never crowded.
Lukna twisted the faucet.
Cold water gushed out. She cupped it in her hands and splashed it over her face.
The chilly weather made her skin sting as if freezing, but it cleared her head.
Just then, she sensed someone inside the communal bathhouse further in.
