Story V – Part 12

The girl passed by without so much as a glance. Snow collected on her red parasol and quickly melted away. I tried to follow her, but my feet stopped. There was only emptiness in the boy’s eyes.

It was the eyes of someone who had lost everything.

“Let’s go, Odagiri-kun,” the girl called, keeping her eyes forward. “It’s too cold here.”

I followed her. Behind me, the scene turned blurry and vanished. The color gray returned, but a new image emerged the next moment. The warm light of spring bathed the space.

Spinning and spinning.

In the room was a man and a girl in a kimono. The man was serving as the girl’s chair for god knows how long now. The girl had beautiful features that seemed out of this world. Just as the man was about to crumble, the girl stretched and stood up. Turning around, she offered her foot before the man. Shedding tears of joy, the man brought his tongue close to the sole of the girl’s foot.

But before his tongue touched skin, the girl kicked him in the face as hard as she could.

The man collapsed on the floor, blood dripping from his nose. Seeing the man in agony, the girl flashed a cat-like grin. The man looked at her with an expression of ecstasy.

Acts of sadism and masochism played on and on. A twisted design, where pleasure had formed a circle.

The girl with the red parasol stared at it for a while. She then crossed the room and sat down on a garden stone.

“Take a seat,” she said.

I sat down quietly beside her.

The girl shook her head. “It’s really boring without your banter.”

What’s the point in saying anything when you’re not even going to listen?

Words rose to my throat, but quickly vanished. We looked up at the sky. The white flowers were in full bloom, reaching out toward the blue sky.

“Now then, Odagiri-kun. Right now, even the carp in a pond has more intellect than you. I can’t really blame you for that, though. You’re in a dream and you’ve been locked up for a while now. So whatever I say to you, you won’t understand. I hope you remember what I’m about to tell you when we return safely. You may call it idle chatter. Just lending an ear is enough.”

The girl looked around. I could hear a man screaming.

There was a muddled sound, like flesh burning.

“This world is very beautiful. It’s a stark contrast to the previous one filled with despair. What you’re seeing is Yuusuke’s and that hideous man’s dreams. I used them as vehicles to get to you. I told you before, didn’t I? I can enter dreams.”

The girl chuckled. I stayed unresponsive, and she eventually stopped laughing.

“A world shaped by memories can become either heaven or hell depending on one’s emotions. Like how your dreams are nothing but hell to you.”

Hell. Blankly, I repeated the word. A nightmare in which memories replayed endlessly in the gray darkness. My hell was in my past.

“I was worried,” the girl said. “But it looks like you’re still alive. That’s good to know. Now allow me to explain why this is happening.” She looked at me, then continued, even when I didn’t ask. “During the mermaid incident, Asato realized that the thing inside you is growing faster than expected. And while Asato himself was involved, it’s very uncommon for a person to conceive a demon. He wanted to take it out while keeping you alive. Put it another way, it’ll probably be bad if you died after giving birth.”

The girl reached out her hand and caressed my belly. With every touch of her fingers, pain rose up. Dreams should be separate from reality, but pain surged from deep within me.

“This is only a guess, but I think that a monster without a mother can’t be controlled. It’s like a tsukigami that had lost its vessel. If possible, Asato wants to get the monster while keeping you alive. Otherwise, there’s no point in letting you live. Put it another way…” She chuckled. “It’s quite interesting, really. I just didn’t notice it until now. There’s no point in telling you right now, so I’ll refrain from doing so.”

She cocked her head impishly. Behind us, the man screamed again. He crashed through the sliding door and fell into the pond, splashing water everywhere. Even that was a beautiful sight in this place.

“You’re probably asleep somewhere. Whenever you’re away from me and resonate with someone else’s emotions, your belly opens up. Though it also opens up when I’m around. But without me, it can’t be closed. You’re locked away in a dream, forced to sympathize with your past self so your belly would open. The quickest thing anyone can resonate with is the pain they experienced in the past. You’re asleep, unmoving, but your belly is slowly opening. It doesn’t take much effort at all. Very smart. You just sip some tea and wait.”

My stomach ached in response. I could feel even the dripping of blood. But that soon faded away.

“Once your dream ends, the monster will be born.” The girl smiled, swinging her legs. “Asato must be frustrated, though. This part’s easy, but he spent quite a lot of effort to get here.”

I just knew she had the same eyes as a cat’s. Like the girl behind us.

“He must be irate that I took you from him.”

“I don’t belong to anyone, ****-san.”

Words spilled from my mouth. At that moment, her visage became clear. There was a satisfied smile on her face.

“You really are fascinating, Odagiri-kun,” she said, touching my cheek with soft fingers. “Do you remember when I asked you if you’d ever change the way you speak?”

Her clear gaze took me in. Her big eyes felt so familiar, so comforting.

“You have a sharper tongue than when you had nothing in your belly. Yet you still still try to speak politely. It sounded weird, so I asked you to fix it.”

I’d already forgotten about it. But she still remembered.

“You said, ‘I’m fine like this, ****-san’,” she repeated the exact same words I said to her.

I couldn’t pick up a part of what she said, and it made me terribly disappointed. Slowly, the girl’s face melted away, becoming invisible again. She pulled her hand away from my cheek.

“As long as you keep mentally rejecting me, I can’t materialize fully. So I can’t use Dreamwalking to take you out of here. I have an idea about what Asato… no, Yuusuke-kun told you. But I’ll refrain from commenting.”

The girl stood up and set the red parasol on her shoulder. In that instant, I remembered something: wasn’t she the one I wanted to ask something about?

I have to hear it from ****-san.

I have to ask ****-san.

“I will not answer any questions,” the girl said, grinning like a cat.

I couldn’t see her face, but I knew. She always wore that nasty smile.

“You must wake up on your own,” she said with a teasing tone.

She would never give the answer that people wanted to hear. And yet, she would ramble on even when no one asked her.

“If you don’t wake up, I’ll die.”

My eyes grew wide.

The girl looked beautiful under the cherry blossoms. White flowers danced around the red parasol.

There’s bodies buried under the cherry trees. Who said that?

“I don’t really mind either way.”

No way. How could she not mind? I tried to scream, but no voice came out. The girl turned her head softly and squinted at the cherry blossoms.

“Odagiri-kun.”

She smiled. I absolutely despised how she would make a face like that despite only being fourteen.

“The cherry blossoms look beautiful, don’t they?”

The flowers in full bloom eventually vanished, the girl fading and disappearing with it.

I thought it was her face that looked beautiful.

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