[Short Story Collection - Flower Crown] Episode 31: 'Retelling (Extra)'
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Retelling (Extra) - Grage -
Retelling isn't about painting something over to make it look beautiful.
What we retold was—
Fail's "fled heart."
It's not about paraphrasing it into noble words.
It's not about granting forgiveness either.
We simply looked at it head-on.
...No, I finally managed to look at it.
Fail fled.
Clinging to his own righteousness, he eventually threw everything away.
With words that pushed me away, he fled from his responsibilities, from his family, from everything—.
...Even so, he came back in the end.
To retell it.
To put his "fled heart" into words.
That wasn't for anyone else's sake.
Perhaps it was for his own sake.
And the words he spoke remained within me.
That is why I decided.
I will retell these words as my own.
It is no longer the "record" that decides what Fail was like.
I myself will decide "how to tell it."
I will tell it like this.
"He fled. But, at the very end, he admitted it."
"He hurt me. But, he took on that pain in front of me."
I will not romanticize him.
But—
I will tell of the fact that he "came back."
That he stood in the final place, before us.
Retelling is surely something like that.
It is not a record.
It is not a story written by someone else.
With my voice, with my words,
to retell his life.
……That is surely his salvation.
That is, perhaps, my salvation.
And that is fine.
<End>