31: The Unfamiliar Tom

“Barefoot Tom!
You slipped on a banana!
Skip your turn!”

The girl, who had been silent until now, suddenly shouted.

Rena instinctively realized—this was her younger self.
Without thinking, she grabbed the girl’s small hand and pulled her away, putting distance between them and the imposter Tom.

“Ow…! My shoes just flew off and I tripped out of nowhere!
What kind of magic trick is this?”

“Tom! You’re still not yourself, are you?!
You’ve been under its control this whole time—ever since the swing!”

“Control? I’m me, Rena.
If anything, you’re the one acting strange.
Why do you look so scared of me?”

“You’re not…
You’re not the Tom I know.
The way you talk to me, the way you act—it’s completely different!”

“Different?
But we’re engaged, Rena.
Of course I act this way—we’re even planning our wedding.”

Rena was stunned.
She already knew that trying to make sense of anything in this picture book world was futile.
But still—after reuniting with Tom, she didn’t want to walk away with only disappointment.

To protect the small version of herself—the little girl in the blue dress holding her hand—she tapped into a kind of maternal instinct and regained her calm.
Then, taking advantage of the bizarre conversation, she decided to probe deeper—to test him.

“You said earlier,
‘This is the high school version of me.’
But if that’s true, then why do you look and act so different?
It’s like… you’re talking as if you’re much older than you look.
So… how old are you, really?”

“My age…? Let’s see.
I’m actually 51 now.
But we got engaged when I was 21.
So… it’s been 30 really painful years…”

In the real world, someone talking like this would be dismissed as delusional.
But in the picture book world, things weren’t so easily categorized.
Despite herself, Rena’s darker curiosity began to bubble up.

“Painful how, exactly?
Can you explain it in a way I’d understand?”

Watching the fake Tom fumble with his words and squirm,
Rena felt a strange confidence rise within her.
Unexpectedly, she had taken control of the conversation.
She pressed further.

“Did I dump you or something?
Did we call off the engagement?”

“Oh, I wish that were it.
That would’ve been so much easier than losing you.”

“Losing me…? What do you mean?”

“You disappeared, Rena.
The day before our wedding.
And then… they found you.
Right here in this park—by this pond.”

Rena felt a chill run down her spine.

A vivid scene surged into her mind with terrifying clarity:
She saw herself—not as she was, but as she would be—reaching toward something that shimmered in the pond.
Grasping it—then running, as if being chased by something unseen.
It played in her mind like a film viewed from above, distant yet hauntingly real.