Confession After Sixteen Hundred Years
I kept looking at him without hiding the intensity of my feelings—at the one I had entrusted my body and heart to so long ago.
“You were… the one after all.”
After a while, the person before me spoke.
I didn’t know how to respond. All I could do was stare straight at him, barely holding back what was welling up inside me.
He looked at me.
It was the same expression he had shown so many times, sixteen hundred years ago. Not as a sister… but as a woman.
The expression seeped through. I could no longer hold it back.
I leaned into him, almost collapsing into his arms.
He held me gently, yet firmly, as if enclosing me within himself. Feeling his warmth, my emotions spilled out as sobs.
What kind of fate had brought us into existence like this?
Sixteen hundred years of time—wild, raw, and yet unbearably pure feelings surged up from deep within me.
“I wanted to see you… I wanted to see you for so long.”
“I remember it clearly… the moment you came to me in this land.”
“I remember it too… I remember it all.”
“You finally came to me, after all that effort.”
“Because I had already decided… I would follow you anywhere.”
“Crossing endless waves and storms…”
“Because I knew… you were here.”
We stayed embraced, letting time pass in silence.
How long had it been?
You spoke softly.
“There is something I need to tell you.”
“Something you need to tell me?”
I lifted my face.
I looked at you.
Your eyes were cast downward, shadowed with sorrow.
After a moment, you said:
“Please forgive me.”
“Eh…?”
“I have something I must apologize to you for.”
Apologize…? For what?
“For the fact that I once dragged you into political conflict.”
That… that wasn’t your fault.
“You were an extraordinarily beautiful girl. No man could meet you without turning to look again. There were many who sought your hand—far more than just one or two. Even the Emperor himself had taken great effort to find you a suitable match.”
Many men had appeared before me. All of them were from powerful families.
“But among them, there were those who approached you only out of ambition. As your older brother, I believed it was my duty to protect you. To keep away those with impure intentions, I chose to keep you close to me.”
Yes… back then, I was exhausted by those persistent, calculating people. Being by your side was the only place where I could finally breathe.
“The Emperor had already decided that I would be his successor. Women tried desperately to win my favor. Not only women—their families, their brothers and fathers, all came forward, trying to draw me in. I could not afford to let my guard down. There was no one I could open my heart to.”
But you… you never once complained. You always smiled so gently.
“You were my only refuge. Your beautiful smile, your soft voice, your thoughtful care, your clever words… before I knew it, the time I spent with you became the only time I felt at peace.”
That was the same for me. I began to long for the moments I could spend with you.
“The more time I spent with you, the less I spent with others. Naturally, complaints began to rise. And the more that happened, the more I withdrew. Eventually… I even began to think it was unfortunate that you were my own sister. But that thought… is what brought misfortune upon you.”
Misfortune…?
“I was weak. It is only natural that once one becomes Emperor, many people with different ambitions will approach you. I hid behind your kindness. And in doing so, I gave those who wished to overturn my position the perfect opportunity. I dragged not only myself, but you as well, into it. Please forgive me. At that time… I should have let you go. If I had truly cared for you…”
“What are you even saying?”
It felt like my chest was being torn open.
Why… why do you have to apologize for something like that?
Why are you saying this now?
“I had nothing else I wished for. If only I could live my life in peace with you… if only I could spend my days watching your beautiful smile.”
That was exactly how I felt too. From the moment I accepted your feelings, there was nothing else I wanted in this world.
“But I took your life from you. Because I lacked judgment… because I was weak. Please forgive me. Sixteen hundred years… I made your soul wander for sixteen hundred years.”
No. No, that’s not true.
We were simply honest with our feelings.
You and I always shared our hearts with each other. We cherished that bond. And we simply entrusted that feeling to our next lives. That is all. That is why it became sixteen hundred years.
“I was reborn many times. And each time, I could not find you. At first, I thought that if we simply met again, everything would be resolved. But…”
“But…?”
“But as I lived through different lives and repeated rebirth, I came to understand how much my actions had hurt you.”
“Your actions…?”
“The mornings we spent together were the most precious moments of my life. When I woke up, you were there beside me. You would smile at me with those gentle eyes.”
A slow, warm kind of happiness.
If I could become the place where you could finally rest…
If I could loosen every tension in you…
If I could accept all of you, all the way to the end…
“But then there were those who began to condemn those mornings we shared. Even the Emperor spoke to me about it.”
People looked at me with cold eyes in the morning.
Whispers spread.
They questioned us.
They laughed at us with crude smiles.
And some… turned away from me as if I was something unclean.
Memories I had tried to forget began to surface again, dragging that unpleasant feeling with them.
“But the more I was told it was wrong… the more I wanted it.”
Yes. You began coming to me almost every night. And I was happy… but still.
“You started crying at some point. When I asked you why, you always said, ‘No… it’s nothing.’”
Back then, people around us began disappearing one by one.
“Now I can understand it clearly. Even I, as the crown prince, was being criticized. So of course you must have been blamed far more than I was.”
“At first, it was still mild… I can see that now. What I was hearing was still concern. But after a year… two years… three…It turned into ridicule. Into hostility. And I can now imagine how they must have looked at you.”
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter to me.
What mattered was that you were being hurt because of me. That was unbearable.
You would eventually take a wife anyway. And when that happened, I would step away.
You would no longer be blamed. I would lose you… but I told myself I could endure that.
“There were many marriage proposals. But no matter who I saw… I always thought of you. I would think: if only it were you…When I became Emperor… I thought I would finally make you my official wife.”
The Emperor… Father… was not young. But he ruled long.
By the time he passed away, both of us had already grown older.
You never took a wife. And you kept me by your side until the end.
Even Father allowed it… until his last days.
“But after the Emperor’s death… I was betrayed. Instead of becoming Emperor, I was exiled here—to Iyo. Now I understand. It was only natural. I lacked judgment. I lacked foresight. Because of that, people’s hearts became divided… and chaos followed. Even my brothers turned on each other. And it all began with my failure. And I dragged you into it… and caused you nothing but suffering.”
“It’s in the past now. Please don’t keep repeating it.”
“When you came here… when you finally arrived in this land… I thought—Is this really you? And I trembled at the weight of what I had done. The one person I should have protected more than anyone… I could not make happy. I had no right to be called Emperor. A woman crossed the waves alone to come here.
I thought—had you lost everyone you could rely on? I had taken everything from you… even the light that once surrounded you.”
“Please… stop going back over it.”
“I wanted to make up for it in the next life. So I was reborn. But I could not find you. Again and again, we missed each other. And finally… finally today, we met. But even now… we are born as siblings again. How much more am I supposed to confuse you…?”
Brother… stop. Please, enough.
…You loving me… me loving you… that’s enough.
Isn’t that why we chose to be reborn at all? So that someday, we could be together? That was the promise… sixteen hundred years ago. We’ve been separated over and over.
But we kept believing. That someday we would meet again… without being judged… and finally be together. That was everything.
Status doesn’t matter. If it fails again, we’ll just try again.
As long as our feelings reach each other… that should be enough. That should be everything.
No matter how many thousands of years pass… I still love you.
“So tell me.”
“What do you feel about me?”
“Answer me.”
“If you love me, then say it.”
“Just say it—and I—”
Tears wouldn’t stop.
If we hadn’t been born as siblings… none of this pain would exist.
Why… even after sixteen hundred years… do we have to suffer the same fate again?
Who… is doing this to us?
