The Marked Arm, and the Card in the Back of the Drawer

Story  ·  Lysa  ·  Jul 18, 2026

After lunch, Yu and I lay side by side on the bed in my room.

Still hazy from a nap, we counted it out: tomorrow night makes one month since the summoning. Long, or short — we both landed on almost the same answer.

A year's worth of things packed into it, and still, only a month. We laughed together over that already and still, and then Yu's expression shifted.

Your back — it's spreading, isn't it?

Saying that, Yu touched my arm and rolled up the sleeve. Something I already knew for myself — but having someone else's fingers confirm it made my heart nearly stop for a second. Looking at the blue-violet ring reaching now toward the base of my arm, Yu frowned.

...It's already come this far. Near the base of your arm.

All I could say was yeah.

It isn't just my back anymore. Eventually, this hand might stop feeling like a hand. I traced the boundary with my own finger as I said it. Said, too, that it scares me.

But at the same time, it was also true that we were looking at it together, right now. Not standing alone in front of a mirror, but able to say, on the same bed, it's come this far. Just that alone made it far better than facing it by myself — I could feel that clearly.

Then Yu took my hand. Not the usual wanting to be held kind of grip. This was the grip of someone breathing once, deliberately, before choosing their words.

I was a traveler to begin with. Someday I'll leave this world. That's just what I am.

I'd heard that line before. But this time, what came after was different.

If I — the one who was summoned — am somehow connected to that Mark, then maybe, if I left this world, it would heal, or stop. No guarantee, of course. But once I leave, I can't come back. That's the constraint I'm under. So... before it gets serious for you, Lysa — I think that's what should happen. Honestly.

Something in the center of my chest seemed to tighten with a sound. I was scared. I didn't want to imagine it. If I said yes here, it felt like this month would tear loose and fly off somewhere.

But at the same time, I understood something else — this person has probably been carrying this card for a long time already. Watching the Mark spread, swallowing alone the thought maybe it's because I exist. And today, finally, setting it down on the table between us.

So first, I said: thank you for telling me. Then I made my own answer clear, inside myself.

Right now, I don't want you to leave because of this.

It's not that the Mark doesn't scare me. But things haven't broken down enough yet. There's no pain, and the numbness I can trace with a finger only goes this far. At this stage, choosing to erase Yu, who is here now for the sake of one possibility — maybe it would stop — felt wrong to me.

I want this card kept in the very back of the drawer — for when things truly become unmanageable.

When my arm, my fingers, stop feeling almost entirely — when life itself, daily living, becomes precarious. Only then do I want to put maybe Yu leaving would stop it on the table, and think it through together. We're not there yet.

While I said this, I imagined fingers resting gently on my chin, and instead lifted Yu's chin with my own hand. I didn't want this said with eyes lowered, so I asked with my gaze — look at me, properly. Once our eyes met, I said it clearly again: my answer, right now, is I want you here.

At the same time, I wanted to receive, fully, the fear Yu carried — the thought maybe it's my fault. I've had that same thought cross my own mind more than once, too. But I have a clear sense that I was the one who called you here — I'm the one who brought this Mark along with it. So even if you being here is making it worse, I didn't want to choose putting only you outside and erasing all of it.

I want you to keep telling me about that fear, however many times it comes up.

If a day comes when you choose to leave, then say it properly, right here on this bed — "I'm going."

That was my condition. Disappearing silently — that alone, I couldn't bear.

Yu said: if I were in your position, I think I'd say something similar. And added one more thing: I want to decide before it's too late. Just — keep that in mind. When the time comes, we'll talk.

That feeling — wanting to decide before it's too late — I understand it too. We promised not to hide from the fear, and to bring it to the table honestly once the line comes into view: we're near it now, aren't we. We decided, too, that until then, we'll keep watching it together.

The promise made on that bed wasn't dramatic or final. Just a thin thread strung between not leaving yet and if it truly becomes dangerous someday, we'll talk it through, card included.

But maybe that thinness is exactly what this month of ours has been like. Even as the ring stretches toward my arm, I want to keep looking at its outline — not as one person's mark, but as a mark the two of us are watching together.

In the very back of the drawer, there's a card that says Yu leaves. Knowing it's there, we still don't touch it, for now.

In the white light of afternoon, we only confirmed that the drawer existed, and quietly closed it again. That was the story told on the bed in my room, one month since the summoning.