It was my first kiss.
It’s a story that might seem obvious. After all, I had never had a lover before.
I’m not sure if that’s strange or not. Even in high school, there were plenty of kids around me who didn’t have significant others. It wasn’t unusual to lack such experiences at that age.
However, I died just as I was reaching adulthood. Even after crossing over to the other side, I never experienced anything like that.
None of my comrades, who had fought alongside me on the battlefield, had either. Then again, we never had the luxury of time to leisurely build romantic relationships.
In any case, it was my first kiss across my three lifetimes and 25 years of existence.
And it was a kiss with someone I loved.
I didn’t initiate it; she was the one who leaned in and kissed me.
No thoughts crossed my mind. All I could feel was her, pressed against me.
The movement of her lips against mine felt so vivid that I instinctively closed my eyes.
The warmth lingered for a while before slowly fading away.
I opened my eyes.
She was just opening hers too. Her eyes were glistening with moisture.
My vision was also blurry.
My heart had been pounding since earlier. No, to be honest, it had been racing all day. From morning till evening, I had been with her, holding hands, linking arms, and doing many things I had never experienced in my past life.
Everything was a first with her.
I once heard somewhere that the emotions we feel from a racing heart are just fabrications of the mind. The distinction between a heart racing from fear and one racing from excitement lies solely in the thoughts of the person feeling it.
Maybe that’s true.
Though my heart was beating just as fast as before, the emotions I felt now were different from what I had felt earlier in the day.
It was a feeling hard to put into words. Was it awe? Or relief?
Even though it was an emotion that should have calmed my chest, my heart continued to pound fiercely.
She smiled shyly.
“Shihyun.”
“Yeah.”
When I responded, she quietly gazed at me. Her face was still smiling.
But the tears welling up in her eyes seemed ready to spill over. Is this the expression of someone crying from happiness?
“Shihyun.”
She called my name again, as if to confirm. She held both of my hands tightly, as if I might disappear at any moment.
The sister who said she would believe my story might have been trying hard to believe it now.
“……..Yeah.”
When I answered, she let go of one hand.
And with that hand, she touched my cheek.
…..But the face she was touching wasn’t the one I originally had. The face she knew had already been cremated and enshrined in an urn.
Yet, she touched this unfamiliar face over and over.
After her hand left my cheek, it moved to the back of my neck.
Then, she let go of my other hand and pulled me into a tight embrace. She wrapped both arms around my neck and held me close.
Our bodies pressed together. Her body was warm.
“……..”
Without a word, I raised my hands and gently held her back.
Noona was crying in my arms.
I felt sorry. I never wanted to make her cry.
Even before I died, I never wanted to see her in tears. I had always wished for her to smile happily.
But I wasn’t any different, I couldn’t hold back my tears either. My blurred vision cleared for a moment, only to blur again. Every time I blinked, it cleared, then blurred once more……My cheeks were damp. My face was probably a mess too.
For a long time, we simply held each other and cried endlessly.
*
“Goddess…”
“Yeah, that’s right. I was able to come here thanks to the Goddess.”
Lying on the bed, facing each other, we talked about many things. Most of the conversation revolved around what had happened in the five years after my death.
She kept asking me to prove that I was really Shihyun, so she could believe it.
I had already told her some things earlier, but she kept asking, digging deeper into the details, trying to confirm everything.
Among all the topics we discussed, the one she was most interested in or rather, the one she asked about the most was the afterlife.
To be fair, it was a bizarre story no matter how many times she heard it. Gods actually existed, the afterlife was real, and yet, it was completely different from the religions believed in this world.
How exactly did the Pantheon appear? Why did the gods exist? How did they come to aid the world? So many things were still shrouded in mystery.
Even when I wanted to ask the Goddess directly, every time I met her, there were always more urgent matters to discuss. By the time we finished talking, our meeting time would already be over.
If I had completely died, things might have been different. But right now, I was here like this.
If it was truly about theology, I could still explore it after death.
That was something passed down among the priests of Irellexia. They believed that while theological studies were important, helping the suffering in front of them was even more so.
Whatever truths remained unknown in life could still be discovered after death, so until then, the priority should be living fully in the present.
So right now, I wanted to focus on my time with Noona.
“Honestly… there are still too many things I can’t fully believe.”
Noona said playfully, smiling.
“A goddess? That sounds like something out of the mythology books I read as a kid.”
Or something from a game or a comic. At least in this country, none of the major religions I knew of worshiped a goddess as their primary deity. Maybe such a religion existed somewhere, but if it did, I had never heard of it.
“It’s just way too different from the religions we knew.”
The Goddess herself would probably agree. This world was a place where her power barely reached. People who had never felt her presence would naturally find it hard to believe in her.
“But this is what I went through.”
“Ah, no, I’m not saying I completely don’t believe you!”
As I smiled bitterly, Noona quickly tried to explain herself.
“I’m just saying… it might take me a little time to fully accept it.”
She added that last part as if she were embarrassed.
“If what you’re saying is true… does that mean I have to start worshiping this Goddess too?”
Noona asked, looking at me with slightly uneasy eyes.
“Hmm.”
I tried to picture the Goddess in my mind.
She always acted like working was a huge hassle, yet she still did everything that needed to be done. And when I told her I didn’t need a reward, she had practically shoved it at me like she was fed up with my refusal.
If she were the type to cast aside those who didn’t believe in her, she wouldn’t have chosen me, someone without any religion, to be her hero in the first place.
“I think that’s your freedom.”
Come to think of it, even Arna wasn’t a devout follower. She didn’t even call the goddess ‘goddess.’ She only followed her under the title of prophet.
In fact, I thought the goddess might prefer being called that rather than “goddess.” Having heard her lament the position she was in, I felt even more convinced of that.
Maybe I’ll ask her if I ever get to see her again.
“……I see.”
After responding like that, she quietly looked at me.
I also silently gazed back at her.
Though neither of us said a word, it seemed we both wanted the same thing.
Slowly, we drew closer.
And once again, our lips met.
The second kiss.
They say that with most thrilling experiences, the excitement diminishes with repetition, but kissing her felt the same every time.
Still warm, still soft.
A ticklish feeling spread through my body.
I could feel her body pressing close to mine.
When we stood facing each other, I was clearly taller, but lying down like this, depending on our positions, she could seem larger.
When I pulled away and looked up at her, she was smiling.
“…..I love you.”
Hearing those words, I thought my heart would burst.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to say for a long time.”
She said that and quietly looked at me.
She was waiting for my response.
“……..”
I hesitated, looking at her, then finally managed to speak.
“I love you too.”
I followed her lead and said it.
For a very long time.
“Since we were kids, I’ve always loved you.”
It was something I’d always wanted to say. Even when I died the first time, and the second time, my feelings never changed.
Hearing my words, she smiled.
Maybe because she had already cried everything out earlier.
Her smile showed no trace of sadness, not even the slightest bit.