Chapter 81: Charlotte and the Connection of Hearts

Who am I, really? This isn’t the first time I’ve asked myself that.

What is a dead person even doing here? This isn’t the first time that thought has crossed my mind either.

"Hah… hah… hah…"

I don’t even know where I’m running anymore.

Part of me wonders if it would be the same no matter where I go.

"Whore—"
"All you ever do is fawn over someone else—"
"You always keep your distance—"

Words I don’t want to hear pierce straight through my palms, even though they’re pressed tightly against my ears, and slip inside.

They’re louder, clearer than the pounding of my footsteps, louder than my ragged breathing, louder than the explosive thud of my heart.

Where am I going?

Where am I supposed to go? Even if I escape this town, there’s nowhere left to reach.

No place for me. Nowhere at all. No refuge in sight.

"It’s your fault."

No.

"You’re the one who burned down your home."

No.

"Why are you the only one still alive?"

No. No, no, no!

At some point the faces in the street have changed.

They’re the villagers. My family. People dear to me, even if only for a short while.

It was an ordinary village. Nothing special, but nothing lacking either.

So why? Why did those soldiers—

"Hey, did you figure it out?"

A whisper right by my ear. I spin around, but no one’s there.

From the opposite side, another whisper:

"—that the village burned because you were there?"

"Ah…"

"Can you really say that’s a lie? Even after everything that’s happened in this town?"

—I’m not normal.

I can’t keep looking away. It’s true. Otherwise, none of this makes sense.

I don’t understand, but there’s something about me.

And if someone who knows that something sent those soldiers—

Then isn’t that the same as me killing them all?

My running feet stumble to a halt.

By chance or not, the place before me is achingly familiar.

"…The Stray Cat Tavern."

The sign is out, and lively voices spill from within.

It’s open. Of course it is, at this hour.

My breathing’s too loud. I’m scared. So scared it’s unbearable.

"Scary, isn’t it?"

The voice clings to my ear. I still can’t see you—whoever you are.

"If you’re rejected here too, then you’ll have nowhere left to go."

"That’s not… that’s not true…"

"You’ll be fine, right? We can just pretend none of this ever happened. If you don’t know, you don’t have to care!"

The voice sounds cheerful.

So cheerful I can’t even muster the will to ask what’s so funny.

"It’s okay, it’s okay. Just look away from the inconvenient stuff, plaster on a smile, and go back to business as usual tomorrow. …It’s what you always do, isn’t it?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

As if to shake off the voice, I push open the Stray Cat Tavern’s door—and step inside.

The first floor looks just like always.

Regulars at the tables. Alice-chan in her waitress uniform, darting about with plates and smiles.

The master, face as stern as ever, chatting with someone at the counter.

The self-proclaimed head chef poking his head out now and then to survey the diners with a satisfied grin.

All the same, familiar sights.

Alice-chan notices me as I enter.

"Big Sister!"

"Alice… chan…"

"Welcome back, Big Sister!"

She throws her arms around me with an unchanged smile.

Warmth. With trembling arms, I hug her back, gently.

"Did something happen? Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No… it’s nothing."

Tears well up. Such a kind warmth.

The eyes turned toward me hold none of the coldness from before.

The master’s expression I still can’t read—but that’s nothing new.

"Hey, I think I just had a bit of a bad dream."

"That’s awful!"

She gestures for me to crouch down, so I do.

Then Alice-chan’s small hands start patting my head.

Gently. Carefully.

"Alice-chan, you’re so kind."

The words slip out before I can think.

This warmth is such a blessing.

—Really, it was such a careless thing to say.

"Yeah! Because that’s the smarter way!"

"…Huh?"

For a moment, my brain refused to process what she’d said.

I must’ve misheard. The Alice-chan in front of me was smiling so openly, so innocently.

"That’s how you are, right, Big Sister? Because it’s smarter. Because it’s better. You think everything through, make your moves, and that’s how you’ve kept everything going until now."

"Th-that’s…"

"Yeah! I get it! You had no choice, right? If you’d dumped me, I’d have been back to being a slave, so I had to do it too!"

Without thinking, I slapped her hand away from my head and stepped back.

Even rejected, Alice-chan’s smile didn’t change. A smile like a cloudless sun—so bright it was almost eerie.

"I butter you up, make moves to feed your self-esteem, read your mood… That’s the only way I can survive!"

"N-no! That’s not what I—"

"But you didn’t believe it either, did you? —Even when you were the one hearing those words."

Old memories flare up.

Yeah… there were plenty of times I heard that kind of voice. Again and again, people saying they’d help me.

And I cut it all off as lies. Told myself there’s no such thing as pure goodwill. That I couldn’t trust it.

"That’s the only way to live dirty. Because we’re dirty creatures."

"Th-that’s not…"

Can I deny it? Truly? Me, of all people?

"Hoping to be accepted is asking too much. We’ll always stay filthy. The sin sticks to us and never lets go. We just have to keep living alongside it—me and my own parasitic self."

I’m scared.

Alice-chan’s eyes—those pupils—are staring straight through me.

"Well, yeah."

The voice comes from one of the regulars.

"Charlotte-chan. You’ve never really opened up to us, have you?"

"Th-that’s not true."

"You think we haven’t noticed? When you serve us, you’re always just watching our moods."

"T-that’s because you’re customers…"

"Is that really all it is? —Or is it because, deep down, you’ve been looking down on us?"

I’m speechless.

I never meant it like that. But I have no words to refute him now.

Is it true? I can’t answer. I don’t know.

I always thought of them as hopeless, drinking from noon. Even when I listened to their complaints, I thought of it as something I had to endure. Isn’t that looking down on them?

Wasn’t there pity in there? Wasn’t that the base of it?

I don’t know. Right now, I can’t answer.

"Didn’t you think you were different? Better than us?"

"N-no—"

"Really?"

Alice-chan cuts in.

Her pure, round eyes. With no hidden side, no mask—making them the very last thing I want to look at right now.

"You’re always like that, Big Sister. You build a wall somewhere inside, live in your own world. And yet you’re scared of being alone, so you put on a front."

Each word drops colder and colder.

The warm, familiar Stray Cat Tavern only makes the contrast sharper.

"You’re scared, aren’t you?"

"You thought people around you didn’t notice?"

"You turned a blind eye to your own shallowness and basked in feeling good, didn’t you?"

What is this? I can’t swallow the air right.

Their smiles terrify me. I’m the only alien thing in this space.

Smile.

The word flashes across my mind.

That’s right. I have to smile.

If I’m different, I should just blend in.

Just accept it.

That’s what I’ve always done. When it hurts, when it’s hard—smile and let it slide.

Once you blend in, it doesn’t hurt. Just accept that’s how it is.

It’s the same with everyone else.

From behind me, a voice. Clear, untouched by the surrounding noise.

"It only hurts because you’re rejected."

Then, don’t want it from the start.

"Yeah, just like always."

Match yourself to what the other person wants.

Don’t ask for anything.

Just be there, blending into the crowd.

Categorize people more by their traits. Turn yourself into a symbol.

Don’t show yourself. Just take on the colors around you.

"That’s right. We already inconvenience people enough as it is."

That whispering voice behind me—

Now I know who it belongs to.

When I turned around, the owner of the voice finally showed herself.

"…So it really was you."

"Of course. You already knew, didn’t you?"

Standing there was someone who looked exactly like me.

But it wasn’t me. I couldn’t smile like that.

In other words—

"Was the second life you stole from me fun?"

I was the one who took it. This body’s original owner.

I’d wondered so many times. I’d reincarnated into this body, but was that reincarnation truly natural?

Had I, perhaps, killed whoever was supposed to be born here?

Lived my life by stealing their place?

"Because of you, the real me can only appear in a place like this."

With her hands behind her back, almost like she was taking a pleasant stroll, she came closer to me.

"But thinking about it, your way of life was decided from the very beginning."

When she reached me, she stopped dead. She leaned in close—so close it felt like she might kiss me.

I could hear her breathing.

"Take someone else’s place, kick them down, and still live on with a straight face. That’s all you had left. From the moment you killed me."

Ah… so that’s it.

It had been decided from the start.

"So come on, stop reaching so high. Accept it and be free. …It was impossible from the beginning."

Like soothing a child, she slipped her arm over my shoulder and embraced me.

The voice whispering into my left ear held a sweet, coaxing tone.

"Just go back to the start. No—don’t even go back. Live the same as always, reading people’s moods. If you never open your heart, no one can hurt you."

Ah, yes.

The pain of all those words earlier—
It was only because I’d wanted to be accepted.

If I gave that up, nothing would hurt anymore.

She’s right. I believe that.

Every word of this other me slid straight into my ears.

Each phrase, each syllable—like the information was being poured directly into my brain.

Yes, truly right. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be taken in.

But I never lived that way. I can’t live that way.

Every time, it hurts. Every time, it scars me.

Then maybe it’s better to just give it all up and throw it away.

"Look, the final test is here."

"…Test?"

"Yes. A test to see if we can finally live in peace, with calm hearts."

With those words from my other self, a violent pounding slammed against the door, echoing through the entire tavern.

I raised my eyes toward the entrance.

"…Riven."

Standing there was Riven—out of breath, like he’d been running all this time.