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evelyns-writing-blog · 6 months ago

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell (Arc II) - Prologue

[Previous Chapter]

Back in my old world, when I was about 13, I went to my first, and last, funeral.

It was my grandfathers. The first time I had ever experienced death. I didn't even know it was a concept before that. I guess you could say I was a little sheltered. Needless to say, it left me confused and scared. I spent a whole month trying to grasp my own mortality.

In the end, I never really figured it out. I kept fearing death my whole life up until I turned 25, when I was just about ready to throw in the towel.

It's strange that I only ever started visiting my grandfather's grave after I started feeling suicidal. I'm sure he would have hated me all the same if he knew I wanted to be a guy, and yet he was the only family member I remember treating me with kindness.

It wouldn't be unfounded to say that the chances of him approving of my gender was about 50/50. I had expressed interest in masculine hobbies before his death, and he was kind enough to accept that part of me, at least.

Looking back, my parents had always complained that my hobbies weren't girly enough. They always said they didn't mind that I was playing football or something, but it was evident that they found it weird.

That's not really important right now though.

At my grandfather's grave, I always prayed, hoping I'd end up in the same place he was. Telling him that I'd apologise for being a failure of a granddaughter.

I wasn't religious, but it was something that comforted me.

The only place I was allowed to be myself and vent my feelings was in the middle of a graveyard.

So, as it happens, after being reincarnated after a successful suicide attempt, I find myself in a similar position.

Or would you call that unsuccessful?

I suppose the answer of whether my suicide was successful or unsuccessful doesn't really matter. I wasn't in my own body anymore, but I was alive.

I suppose that's really all that matters.

I was grovelling in the rain before the grave of someone I lost recently.

Freesia. I don't think she had a last name.

I knew her for two and a half days at most, but she had made too big of an impact on me. A part of me wishes I never ran into her. But I know if I ever said that out loud, Shiro would probably hate me.

Her funeral had long since ended, but there were still fresh flowers at her grave. It just made me feel worse about her death now that I knew just how loved she was. Her death was my fault, after all.

I prayed to her for forgiveness, my hands and knees were covered in mud, and I was drenched by the rain.

Shiro was behind me, probably looking at me with pity. For whatever reason he's stuck with me, despite me being nothing but a burden. He even went as far as to make the Mercenary Guild members understand that I was just trying to make myself look bad. Self-flagellation, he said. Apparently everyone understood that I was just painting myself in a bad light to forget the pain of Freesia saving me.

His words... not mine.

But despite that, I still hadn't visited the guild since that little incident.

It had been about a month since then.

I spent all my time in bed, keeping my distance from Shiro and eating just enough so I wouldn't die.

I had lost some weight, but not enough for it to be a health risk. I was probably going to be okay for now.

I wondered where I'd be now if Freesia was still alive.

Would I still be depressed? Or would I have gotten out of this mental rut?

No, I gotta stop thinking about stuff that will never happen...

Do you hear me, Freesia? It took me time to recover, but I'm going to focus on the present, not hypothetical scenarios like that.

I got up and looked up at the cloudy dark sky, letting the rain drench me further. It was like I was being cleansed by it. I certainly needed it after the stunt I pulled.

Seriously. Shiro deserves better than a good for nothing shotacon like me. I hope he doesn't hate me too much for forcing myself onto him. Though I suppose nothing actually happened...

He hadn't started keeping his distance at all during the past month though. Maybe it really was okay to keep being around him.

I slapped myself in the face as hard as I could, and turned to face Shiro. He looked just as depressed as I did. He had a bouquet of flowers in his arms, that he passed to me. And from there, I placed them gently at Freesia’s tombstone, making sure it didn't cover any of the text inscribed on it.

...

It just seems so strange. I know I'm in her crush's body, but to sacrifice herself for me... even now, I'm still doubting it. I know that's wrong. But I still believe that if anyone deserved to be sacrificed, it was me. I'll make sure her sacrifice doesn't go to waste, but I'll always think that she should have lived instead of me.

"Hey..." Shiro interrupted the long silence. The sadness was far from subtle. I think he should stop worrying, though. "We've been out here for an hour now. You're definitely going to catch a cold. We can always come back later, you know?"

"..." I stretched my arms up. "Right," I said. With a deep breath, I turned to face him once more, smiled, and said, "let's get going."

Freesia, you're undoubtedly in heaven. So while you're looking down at me, I'll show you just how thankful I truly am. I won't stay depressed forever, I'll bring back the original owner of this body, and whatever happens after that, if I get another chance, be it waking up in my original body in a hospital, or being put in another body in this world, I swear, I'll make the most of it. And if I'm to move on to the afterlife instead, well, at least I'll have died making sure you didn't die in vain.

I want to talk to you again, but I may never get that chance.

Thank you for everything.

***

I chucked myself onto the bed after stripping down out of my soaking wet clothes. I wasn't doing this to continue living the life of a hikikomori any longer than I already had, but to just get warm. I had been staying in bed for like one month, that surely couldn't be good. This would be my last time spending more than 8 hours in bed in a single day, trust me.

Having Shiro there for me this past month has probably helped me recover. I don't think I would have been up and raring to go quite this quickly without him. Talk about a miracle worker.

Not everything was going well, though. I still hated myself, I still felt intrusive thoughts about Shiro. I haven't changed at all...

But I'll make one thing clear. After experiencing what I have, I will never, ever, ever joke about ending my own life again. After Freesia, I guess you could say I finally understood what I failed to grasp as a kid.

Death isn't to be treated so casually. I will never let Freesia's sacrifice be for someone that cares so little about their own life.

I sneezed. "There it is..." I said, shivering.

Shiro pouted at me from across the room. "I told you, didn't I?" he said, disappointedly. "Let's not go out while it's raining ever again, okay?"

Rain was supposed to be really rare in this continent, especially during the colder seasons, which were rapidly approaching. So there weren't any umbrellas being sold here. Not that we knew it was gonna rain anyway. There's no weather forecast in this world, or so it seems.

Regardless, I don't regret spending an hour in the rain. I needed to give my time to Freesia no matter the weather forecast. It had been too long, if I put it off any longer, she might think I'd forgotten about her.

"I'm sorry," I replied, making sure I was completely covered in blankets, save for my head. "What's the plan for the rest of the day anyway. I'll be okay to help you with a job, if you want."

Shiro bit into an apple looking fruit and shook his head. "We're well off for the time being, let's just chill out for today."

"Really? I think I've chilled out enough this last month to begin with," I retorted, sarcastically.

"As if!" Shiro exclaimed. "I was worried sick about you the whole time! The entire time I was thinking you'd never get out of bed! I was worried you'd go catatonic!" His flustered explanation of things made me smile. Just having someone that worries about me that much is enough to keep me on my feet. I should have been thankful to him from the start.

We had become more casual in the last month. For a while there, it had become really awkward. Why wouldn't it be? I did almost sexually assault him. But after about a week, we got closer. Not by a significant amount, but he would pull me into casual conversation almost every day, and eventually I got used to it. It became a part of my daily routine of sleeping, rotting in bed, barely eating, and repeat.

Freesia would have probably been more forceful with taking me out of this depressive episode. It would have worked too, no doubt, but I suppose Shiro's method is more effective in the long run.

Thunder struck, and I practically jumped. "Jeez..." I glanced over at the window and saw some middle school aged kids running by, it made me remembered something. "Hey, Shiro, has that André kid bothered you about the princess and her... whatever that guy was?" I really couldn't recall what he was, just his name. Donovan, right?

Shiro leaned back in his chairs and chuckled. "Surprisingly enough, not really. Maybe it's because you're here. before you showed up, it was almost every other day. I have a lot more spare time now."

"Didn't you say you were curious about those two regardless? You haven't gone to check at all?"

Shiro raised an eyebrow. "And weren't you telling me it was a waste of time?" He got me there. " but yes, I went a few times. I was going to ask André to spy on those two for me, I've not run into him at all, so I only checked in on them once a week."

"And? Any new info, then?"

"Nothing relating to the princess's changed personality, but it looks like the queen has fallen ill."

"That so?" Recalling how obnoxious and unlikeable the princess was, the idea of her ruling this county doesn't sound very good at all. Not that I care for the politics of this world, but something about that girl would make anyone want to start keeping an eye on the royal family.

"Yeah. Donovan told the princess that it's probably incurable. She is getting along in years, so that's not really surprising to me." Shiro was perfectly balanced on the hind legs of the chair as he spoke. What a showoff. "It is concerning that they haven't announced this to the public."

My guess was that it was probably for political reasons. They didn't know what was causing her illness, and so they'll probably try and pass it off as dying of old age if the worst comes to pass. I remember reading a fantasy book where that happened once.

"Anyway, let's not talk about it, I'm more interested in how you plan to make your comeback from this shut-in lifestyle you have going on," Shiro explained with a wry grin.

I hadn't really thought all that much about it, so it took me a while to say anything. "Probably... After I apologise to everyone at the guild, I'll try getting some work done." That's a better answer than any, right? though, I'm still just an F-rank beginner. The jobs I could get probably wouldn't pay well. But I don't really mind. being put at the lowest rank isn't really good enough as a punishment for letting Freesia die, but it's something. It's probably all I'm going to get.

Let me be a little self-conscious about her death, at least.

It helps me sleep at night.

I snuggled a pillow and sneezed again. "Please. I barely count as a shut-in," I retorted. "I'm not that pathetic, you know?"

Shiro went back to sitting normally, and then rested his head on the table in front of him. He gave me a smug grin. "I'm surprised. So you've gone from the lowest of the low to better than a shut-in? That's quite the jump, hehehe!"

"..." This smartass. He tricked me into showing some self worth. How dare he!

"I'm proud you've started seeing yourself in a better light now. In such a short timeframe too."

Though... I was glad. But I also felt really stupid. Was a nice guy like Shiro all I needed this whole time? I'm far from cured of my depression, but it gives me hope. After I treated him so poorly, I probably don't deserve his kindness, but if he's insisting, I'll stick with it.

Freesia... I hope you're proud of my baby steps too.

Whether it was my cold forcing me to rest, or the comforting feeling of the freshly cleaned bedsheets that were still warm from being dried, I slowly drifted off to sleep, the sound of the rain and Shiro’s voice easing my mind.

———————————

Author’s Note: It’s been a while! I know barely anyone reads these, but if you’re someone that has been reading these, thank you for the wait. This arc will be much lighter in tone, but it’s not going to stop being serious. I’ve finished planning out the arc completely, so all that’s left is to write and upload the chapters. This prologue is sort of a recovery period between arcs. I don’t want to immediately jump into the action. This arc will be a bit longer, though I’m unsure by how much, definitely 2 chapters more than arc 1. I hope you enjoyed this prologue. I’ll try my best to get chapter 1 out in a reasonable amount of time. Please enjoy this more Romance-centric story arc.

[Song of the Day]

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evelyns-writing-blog · 6 months ago

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Update!

Book 1/Arc 1 has been fully edited! Mostly. I’ve yet to spell check the extra chapter, but I’m getting there.

All that is left is to find beta readers to weed out any more problems I may have missed. (I’ll get my friends to.

After that, I’ll look to try and publish it. Since I recently got a drawing tablet recently, I’ll be making the cover myself if I can get used to it in a timely fashion, if not I’ll draw it anyway and commission an artist to redraw the cover and use that version.

Arc 2 will be the next thing I post! Thank you for waiting, if anyone is.

#new writter #writing progress #update

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evelyns-writing-blog · 8 months ago

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Let Me Be With You (One-shot)

[CW: abuse, self-harm, suicide attempt]

Picture this; you're on a train, the evening sun is paining the world in an orange tint. The car you're in is pretty much empty save for you and one other person. You missed your stop, and you're drenched in sweat from the middle of summer heat. You aren't even aware you've missed your stop, that's how hot it is. It's messing with you. The heat will drive any man insane, let alone you, a fifteen year old who's just spent all day playing football and skipping classes.

That's your setting, it's not ideal, it's not enviable. But that's the situation that I have found myself in. I was staring into space for a while now, unaware I even existed. If I remained this way, I would have died without even realising it. Just kidding, obviously.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, I was able to snap back to reality because of the other occupant of this train car. They were crying. I suppose my dissociation couldn't continue as long as she was making that racket. I slowly, so slowly, looked over at them, not showing any particular emotion. I recognised her as a fellow student at my school. I've seen her around. Shes not just any old student. Everyone knows who she is. And I just happen to be in the same class as her. Rachael Santana. She keeps to herself, but she always seemed comfortable and happy. So what could have caused this, I wonder?

Rachael wasn't a rich girl, not even someone from the middle class. She's came from a low income household, like most of us at this particular school. She wasn't out of the ordinary at all to anyone who had just met her. So what set her apart, you may be asking? Well, for starters, she's beautiful, but beauty can only get you so far. There was more to her. Not only has her meek and introverted personality, despite her looks, given her an air of mystery, but she's also incredibly smart. Aside from PE and ICT, she's consistently been praised by the teachers and that she often gets perfect scores on tests and such.

Compared to someone like me who's only barely getting by, she may as well be our school’s very own wunderkind. I wasn't jealous or anything though. I already knew I was never gonna be getting anywhere in life, so I just stopped trying. I wondered if she struggled at all. It's pretty easy to make the assumption she doesn't, given the student body treats her like a damn queen, but we're getting close to our final years of school before becoming adults. Surely it must be getting to her by now. But I doubt that's why she's crying. You certainly wouldn't cry in front of a stranger like this if it was something as simple as that.

I watched her cry for a while before deciding to say something. She was annoying me. I wanted some silence, so I suppose this is the only thing I could think to do. "Rachael, you alright?" It came out dry and monotone. That could've been better but right now I just wanted her to quiet down. First impressions don't really matter that much in this scenario. I don't care much for Rachael either. I never fawned over her or anything like that.but seeing a girl crying like this, it'd make anyone worry.

She glanced over at me and her cries quietened. She sniffled. "I-I'm fine."

What an obvious lie.

I pulled on my shirt, which was sticking tightly to my body, to try and give myself better ventilation, and slowly walked over to my classmate. I sat down next to her and dropped my bag to give my arms a rest. "I'm not a snitch. You can tell me what's gotten you upset," I said. I'm not even sure why I cared. Perhaps it was because she's cute. Why else would I? I'm not particularly interested in being a good person.

"...Well..."

She didn't wanna speak. Perhaps she was getting bullied. There's no way she got rejected by someone, and she definitely didn't get dumped. People would know if she had a boyfriend already, and no one would dare reject her because she doesn’t have the balls to confess to anyone.

Therefore, it must be bullying. So who? Who'd have the balls to? I sighed and patted her head. She had one large hair antenna on her head. Idiot hair, ahoge, whatever you want to call it. I felt the need to push it down, but my patting did no such thing. The antenna just stood back up again. How'd she do that?

"Who did it?" I said, compulsively. "Want me to beat them up for you?"

Rachael didn't seem to like that. She panicked and shook her hands around. "N-no, what? Why'd I want to have someone beat up?" She whimpered pathetically.

"You're getting bullied, why else would you be crying?"

Rachael hiccuped. "No, it's nothing like that..." she wiped her tears away before continuing. "I just don't wanna go home today..."

"..." I rested my arm on my forehead while looking up the ceiling. I understood that. Sometimes you just wanna be alone. Maybe this was just stress after all... "Why don't you just wander around, then? That's nothing to cry over."

Rachael made a cute sound. A meek, quiet sound, like she was squirming, struggling to breathe. Then she bumped into me. It wasn't because of the train's movement. She did it intentionally. She clung to my damp shirt. "No... I-It's not that. I don't wanna go home at all..." she sniffled some more. "I just don't know what to do anymore... It's become too much for me to handle!"

I looked down at her and grimaced. Saying something like that makes people think the worst is happening. Don’t tell me she’s being abused by her family, now. I wouldn’t know how to fix that. I shot up and hugged her. I'm not sure why. I just felt immense pity for her. I'm pretty sure she had started crying again. "H-Hey, don't—." I tried to comfort her, but her cries just drowned out anything I tried to say.

So here I was, embracing a girl I barely knew, that I only conversed with because her whining was irritating me. I had no clue of how to handle this from here. I had intended to get her to calm down, but I think my intervention has only made things worse. What a bother.

If this car wasn't just us two, I'd be getting side-eyed aggressively by every one of the passengers. I've never felt more like a failure than I do right now. Admittedly it was more embarrassment I was feeling rather than failure. I didn't want to be in this situation at all and yet I put myself in it for no reason. I could have easily just moved to a different car.

This must be the consequences of my actions.

I stared into nothingness again, praying to whatever god I could think of to get me out of this mess.

Rachael was a girl I always saw as stoic whenever I caught myself looking at her in class, or if we passed in the hallways. To think that I'd gotten her completely wrong. Having her cry while clinging to me sort of froze me. I could not think up anything to say that could possibly calm her down.

But then... she just kinda... stopped. I figured she got it out of her system. She wiped her eyes and nose on my shirt before sitting up. Resisting the urge to show any sort of revulsion to that, I patted her on the back.

"Ugh..." she held her head in her hands. I could tell she was exhausted. "I'm really sorry." She was still sniffling. "I-It's nothing. I'm fine now."

"I don't think that's true," I retorted. "You wanna talk about it? I got nothing better to do. I'll even keep it to myself. I won't tell a soul."

"To be honest..." she pulled something out of her school bag. It was a knife. I jumped, but I didn't move from my spot. If she was going to attack me, I could overpower her quite easily. But what a stupid thing to do. "I want to kill myself."

I grabbed the knife from her and put it in my bag immediately. She didn't even realise it had happened. She had a very delayed response. "Please don't do that!" I exclaimed as I slapped her in a moment of frantic hysteria. "You'll be upsetting a lot of people if you do. Don't you realise how lucky you are?!"

Rachael merely tilted her head. She hadn't even reacted to that smack. I hadn't realised this since her tears were camouflaging it, but she had dead stare of a corpse in her eyes. Was she even fully here? "O-Oh..." she slowly rested back in her seat, and let her body slump. Now she looked like a a corpse completely. "I forgot."

Don't be so careless! "..." I grabbed her hand and stood up. "No matter what it is you're going through, don't you think suicide is a little overboard?" This was no longer something I could wash my hands of. I had to make sure she changed her mind on this, at least.

Society sees me as a delinquent just because I skip class often and act rude to my fellow students and the teachers, but that doesn't make me heartless. Me and this girl were total opposites, and normally I wouldn't ever dream of giving her a second of my time, but she's revealed herself to be a ticking time bomb. I'd have to defuse her. Who knows what she’d go off to do if I didn’t.

If you ask me, anyone who says they’re gonna kill themself publically like this, they’re really asking for help, even if they don’t realise that themselves. Though in Rachael’s case, maybe it really was just a stupid mistake and not even her subconscious intended it. “Stand up,” I requested. My heart was racing, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the heat or because of the risk of the school beauty ending her life.

Rachael kept her eyes off of me. She shuddered. “W-Why? We only just spoke to each other for the f-first time…”

“Maybe you’re just oblivious, which is damn ironic considering everyone treats you like a queen, but most people are gonna force you to talk to them if you say stuff like that!” I didn’t mean to yell, but I just couldn’t accept how little she seemed to care. Neither about herself, nor about those that care about her.

She flinched and curled up, shielding herself with her arms. Might I add, the squeak that she just produced was adorable. If this wasn’t such a dire situation, I’d have said as much.

Come to think of it, this is probably the most anyone’s ever heard her speak at any given time. That’s kinda sad.

Rachael’s presence at school aside, she didn’t actually have any friends. I never really thought about it before but if she had friends I wouldn’t have to be the one to make sure she’ll be okay right now. She always ate alone at lunch. She always spent free time alone, and whenever I went to class, she was always by herself, and never spoke up. I’m not really sure what the others found so endearing about her. She seemed more like a novelty to me to be honest. I’m not really sure why she continued being popular for more than a week after transferring here last year.

“Don’t sulk, dude, get up,” I insisted. “Let’s do something to keep your mind off things.”

Rachael only curled up further. She huddled her legs. “No. I’ve a-already ruined m-my self-image enough. I-I don’t wanna open up a-anymore than I have…”

“Dumbass,” I retorted. My voice was hoarse and unmotivated. It was way too hot for this. I wanted to get home and take an ice bath. “I have no expectations for you to begin with. The only way is up with me, so just hang with me for a bit.”

“…” she clammed up. She wouldn’t even respond anymore. Listen. I got it. I understood what she was doing. But I wanted her to get out of that mindset. Giving into despair like this wasn’t right.

I’ve had enough. I forced her to her feet, and she bumped into me, causing us to embrace each other momentarily. She locked eyes with me for a split second, and she gasped as she looked away, all red in the face. Did you catch feelings for me just now? What’s with that look?

Rachael was now in full panic mode, she tried to get away from me, but I grabbed her other hand and kept her close. “I was planning on going home, but how about we hit up an arcade or go to the cinema or something,” I suggested as the train went into a sharp turn. We nearly lost our balance, and I had to correct my footing constantly, and Rachael was only barely keeping up.

“W-Why would I w-wanna go anywhere with a stranger that c-can’t even respect my privacy?” she retorted, the first time I’ve ever seen her say something with so aggressively. She was mad at me, but I’d rather her be mad than depressed. I hadn’t even heard of her doing anything like this, though. I’d surely be considered blessed, or perhaps cursed, to see something as rare as this. “I-I won’t kill myself, o-okay? Leave me alone, g-good-for-nothin, troublemaking delinquent.” We moved back and forth, round and around. It was like we were dancing. But really we were just fighting for control. She wanted to leave, I wanted to keep her here. Am I such a bad person for that?

I laughed at her pathetic attempt at insulting me. “Hey, maybe if you just calmed down and followed me, you’ll consider becoming a class-skipping delinquent yourself, you self-loathing smartass.” I took a step back and pulled her in closer, our noses were almost touching, and that threw her off completely, she fell to her knees, but I kept her from staying there, I pulled her back up.

“I-If you keep doing this, I’ll call the police,” she said, sounding dizzy.

“Oh yeah? And I’ll just tell them what you were intending to do today. Do you want that?” Another turn came up, and I fell backwards. “Shoot!” Rachael’s head landed right on my stomach and it took my breath away. “Gah—!” I’ve experienced this before but it never got easier to handle.

Rachael rolled off of me to my side and just lay there. I looked over to her and she looked annoyed, like she gave up, but she wasn’t happy about it. “Fine.” She said, after the train stopped at a station.

I gave her a confused smile. “Huh? That easily?” I was planning to do this ‘til the sun set comepletely, but she caved basically immediately. Such is the life of an introvert like her, I suppose. Take the path of least resistance and you can live a happy, lonely life.

“Y-You’re not g-gonna leave me alone o-otherwise… so just drag me around to wherever you want. M-Make it quick.” I definitely hurt her feelings, but I was finally getting somewhere. Before I could reply to her defeatist statement, she raised one of her arms up, and pulled the sleeve down, revealing scars of varying sizes and varying stages of healing.

“…” No wonder she was wearing a blazer in this heat. I couldn’t respond to that quite quickly enough, but I felt disgusted. Who knew she did such a thing. I kind of expected it, though, since she’s planning on offing herself. As disgusting and unsightly as the cut scars were, what really horrified me was the bruises on her arms. It only made my fears grow stronger. Rachael sat up and rested against the seats. I followed her example and sat opposite her.

“The c-cuts are my own doing,” she mumbled, only just loud enough to be heard over the rumbling and clacking of the train’s wheels sliding against the tracks. That is to say, it wasn’t very loud at all. “The bruises are from my mother.” She wasn’t looking at me as she told me all this. She was complacent. She was definitely thinking something like, ‘I’m so much better than you. I bet you’ll just run off scared if you realise how pathetic I am.’ “H-Heheh, th-this isn’t even the w-worst of it,” she smiled awkwardly. She was certainly thinking something like, ‘go away already.’ “My brother protected me, b-but since he’s going to c-college soon, i-i-it’s gonna get worse, heheh!” She lifted up her blazer and shirt, revealing burn marks on her stomach. “M-Mother and father often pour s-scalding hot water onto me if they’re especially a-angry at me. Y-you should see my b-big brother’s body, heheh. It’s way worse.”

I gritted my teeth. This rage wasn’t normal for me. I believe this isn’t something I can handle on my own. “I get the picture… cover yourself up…” I said, demoralised, feeling a headache coming along. What could I do about this? “Let’s call someone,” I suggested after some deep thought. “The police, or some sort of hotline for this sort of thing.” That’s all I could think of. I’m sure an adult would be able to do something about it.

Rachael smugly retorted my suggestions. “A-As if m-my brother hasn’t a-already tried those two, but there’s n-not e-enough evidence for the charges to stick. Because I cut myself, i-it just makes it look like i did it to myself…” She hid her injuries and folded her arms. She was insistent on pushing me away. “Besides, it would j-just make my parents more mad at me. They’ll hurt me harder than before. They did that last time too… S-So my brother d-didn’t give it another go.”

“But we have to try,” I said. “Otherwise, how am I supposed to help you?”

“…” Rachael got to her feet and sat back down in the seat she was originally in. “Then I guess you’ll just have to leave me alone once you’re done dragging me to your stupid distractions…”

Quickly, I searched my brain for ideas. She couldn’t stay at my house, could she? My mum would never allow it, no matter the reason. What about sneaking her in? I guess not. I’d have no way to feed her unless i gave her my meals and just stuck to one meal a day. I didn’t mind that, but that doesn’t solve the issue that she’d be hiding there. My mother would definitely realise someone else was in our home eventually. Rachael had got me. If she’s sure the police or social services or anything like that wasn’t going to work, then what options did I have?

Rachael picked up her bag and walked to the closest doors and waited. She looked back at me, as if to tell me, ‘aren’t you gonna come with me?’

When I felt like there was nothing to do, I suddenly had an idea. Not one that solves the issue, not even one that Rachael would even like. It was a solution made of false hope. A substitute to a solution. An idea that was the only one available to me as a mere adolescent.

I got up and put my arms around the poor girl, and locked her in place with my embrace. “What are you doing?” she asked with a groan. She tried shaking me off, and I couldn’t blame her for that, but I wouldn’t let go of her, I never would. It wasn’t a possibility.

I locked my hands with hers and spoke directly into her ear, which twitched with every one of my breaths. “If you don’t want my help in stopping the abuse,” I explained. “How about I keep you from killing yourself instead?”

“…W-What are you talking about?”

“I’m selfish by nature. As the big bad delinquent of our school, I propose this idea. You should be my friend, spending every second you can with me from this moment onward.” Rachael made a strange sound, but didn’t respond, so I continued. “I’ll spoil you, I’ll treat you with such care that you’ll never be able to go through with ending your life out of fear of upsetting me. I’ll do anything you want. This is all I can do. I’ll try to make your life away from home as happy as can be.” I frowned, realising how unhelpful this was. “You have no friends right now despite your popularity, so how does that sound, huh?”

The train came to a complete stop once again. Rachael shivered, and i felt her tears drop onto my arms, mixing in with my sweat. She wasn’t pushing me away anymore, and she wasn’t denying this idea, this pathetic solution, I took her tears as acceptance of my request. Then she finally replied as the doors opened. “You fool,” she whimpered. “Look where all your meddling has gotten us…”

“Huh?”

An announcement rang out through the train’s speakers. “This stop is x-station, where this train terminates.”

“Ah-!” I cringed and let go of Rachael, backing off in embarrassment.

Rachael looked back at me, and laughed at me through her tears. “Now we’ve missed both our stops by a long shot.” I suddenly felt at ease. It was the first time I’ve ever seen her laugh. “Now we’ll have to go all the way back. How did I end up getting such a careless person as my first friend? Ahahaha!”

I face palmed and picked up my bag and hopped out of the train. “It’ll be faster to switch to the other platform, let’s get going then.” I said. I reached out my hand to her and gave her my best smile. “Let’s get going, then.” Come on, ive still got plenty of energy in me! It’s like I wasn’t even dying from the heat at all.

A false solution like this…

I just hoped it gave her the will to keep living.

***

In the end, Rachael never killed herself.

I felt relieved, but this didn’t solve the issue at hand. As long as I remained a child, there was nothing I could do to save her. Maybe I should have risked calling the police or something, but she told me not to, so maybe it wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t smart enough for that.

Regardless, Rachael has opened up a lot. People heard her starting conversations more. She smiled more. Let her personality shine a bit more. The only problem was she slowly lost popularity due to her friendship with me. Though she didn’t appear to like that attention in the first place. Maybe she was happy about this.

But I couldn’t forget. No matter how happy she was when she was with me, it doesn’t change the reality of the situation. This solves nothing. By all accounts I’m a failure. But I don’t think speaking to her on the train was an incorrect decision. If I didn’t, I would have never seen her again afterwards. To be alive and miserable is better than being dead.

All things considered, I still looked for a way to save her from this abuse. I wanted to dedicate my youth to it.

Rachael is stronger than she appears or thinks. I knew she could hold out and deal with my incompetence. There’s hope for her, I want to believe that. She’s wonderful. I don’t deserve her, to be honest, but she’s told me I’m everything she’s wanted. If she thinks that, then I suppose my opinion isn’t worth all that much.

And with this melancholic tale at an end, I feel as though I can’t leave it at that. Let’s skip ahead and leave some hope to Rachael’s case.

I can proudly tell you that we did sort out her abuse, but that wouldn’t happen for a whole month after I met her. A short amount of time, but for her, it must’ve felt like an eternity.

After that, she was so happy that you’d never think she was abused in the first place. Her adaptability skills were incredible. She’s truly incredible. I would have cracked under all that pressure and abuse, but she lived. She survived.

And as for me? I no longer feel angry when I miss my stop on a train. And why should I? Without my lack of awareness, I would have never met my girlfriend.

Keep living, Rachael, compared to all you’ve gone through so far, life should be a breeze.

The end.

———————————

Author’s Note: It’s another angst fest! My goal for this was to write a story in under 4000 words, but I think it’s over 4000 by a little bit. This story came to me in a dream, sort of. Expect to see more of Rachael and the protagonist of this story in future works. The protagonist’s gender isn’t known, I wrote them with the intent of leaving it up to the reader, but if I’m to bring this character back for another story, I’ll have to think about what their gender will be. That’s future me’s problem!

Thanks for reading! Hopefully it wasn’t complete dogshit!

[Song of the day]

#short story #fiction #angst

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evelyns-writing-blog · 8 months ago

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Update!

With arc 1 of Catch the Wind finished, I’m going to proof read it a few times, and work to get it published as an ebook. So while I work on that, obviously I won’t be working on arc 2 for a while, so I plan on releasing a few short stories. And by short I really mean short.

The first to come out will be a mere 4000 words. It’s not connected to Catch the Wind, and is ultimately less problematic, despite the heavy topics it’s about. So I’ll probably put tags on my posts for once starting now, since I don’t have to fear getting harassed over my deranged toxic yaoi/shota content.

I’m coming up with a second short story now. But that won’t come out for a while.

To make a long story short, I probably won’t be releasing any new chapters of Catch the Wind until next year. I’m looking forward to it though.

Also These short stories I’m working on are all connected in some way, and I intend on leading them into a larger story eventually, but that will wait until I finish Catch the Wind. Whenever that may be.

‘Til next time!

#writing #writing progress #fantasy #new writter #proship

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evelyns-writing-blog · 9 months ago

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Side Story: Effect

[Previous Chapter]

I had been sitting on my windowsill, observing people as they passed by below, when I heard the news of Freesia's passing. My wife told me. I asked her to leave me alone for a while. I couldn't let her see me crying.

My parents always told me that men weren't allowed to cry in front of women they plan to date or marry. It's nothing but sexist conjecture, but it's conjecture I've taken to heart and I haven't cried in front of her ever since I met her a year ago. My wife told me that she's not the type of look down on a man for crying, I'm sure she worries about me, but old habits die hard.

The biggest pain for me was what the others would think of this. The boss... I think he'd be upset, but I don't know if he'd cry over her. But Soren? He absolutely would. He was supposed to be back from his latest mission any day now. I'll have to make it a point to ease him into this information instead of just hitting him with it right out the gate.

Surely he's exhausted.

The sun was setting, and I felt a harsh chill starting to seep into my skin. I jumped off the windowsill and made it over to my work desk. I think, with this news, it was time to call it quits. We all decided on coming here as kids. Our revenge is justified, but unrealistic. There's not much we can do, and now that we're actually adults, I just want to settle down with my wife. I don't have that same anger in me as I once did.

I'd write my letter of resignation and send it to the boss. That's what I wanted to do. But when it came to actually putting pen to paper, I couldn't decide on the words I should use. I sat there, perplexed, as if I'd died then and there, stock still, for what seemed like hours, but had clearly only been roughly 30 minutes. I let out a shallow sigh and stood back up. I put my pen and paper away and closed the curtains and decided to join my wife downstairs.

My wife was sitting at our dining table, her face in her hands. She was a mercenary too, so it's only natural she knew Freesia as well. Hell, they were practically best friends.the two of them would do jobs together all the time, and on the nights they went drinking together, none could ever win against them in a competition. Everyone would tap out before those two even started feeling tipsy.

My wife stopped drinking as often once we got married, but her and Freesia never stopped hanging out.

They'll never see each other again.

I sat beside her and put my arm around her, letting her rest her head on my shoulder.

I'll be honest, her crying nearly made me cry again.

"Th-They said she died protecting some newbie from a dragon," my wife said.

A dragon, huh? That brought back memories. Me and the boss had seen a captured one back when we went to Franelisa years ago. The boss claims he doesn't remember because we were so young, but I remember it vividly. Only someone like him could forget something like getting to see a dragon...

She actually had to see one without the safety of magical and physical barriers... I wonder how frightening that must've been.

"That sounds like her," I replied. "Someone like her... doesn't deserve that sort of fate, and yet it fits her to a T."

My wife silently cried, while I did my best to comfort her. Though I feel I'm not good enough to properly calm her down.

What a terrible day for this sort of news.

***

It looked like no such letter was needed. The boss came to visit me anyway. He looked tired. I couldn't imagine him crying. He was a very stoic man. But I knew that this news drained him emotionally as well. You know a guy for your whole life, you're gonna notice his emotional reactions to things no matter how well he hides it from others. It was that subtle look of agony in his eyes, as if apathy had overtaken him, as if he was already dead. That was his tell that he wasn't doing alright.

I decided to let him save face and just greeted him normally. I bowed and said, "it's a pleasure to see you again, Boss." His name was Donovan.

He raised his hand slightly, but quickly put it back to his side. "...Likewise, Sill," he replied, as awkward as ever. It seemed like the only one he could properly communicate with was the princess and Soren.

Hey, aren't we still best friends? Why aren't Freesia and I included in that list?

"I've made arrangements for time off from work," he continued. "I was wondering if you'd be able to make it to her funeral as well..."

"Hah, like you even need to ask. Of course I'm going. I wouldn't be a proper friend if I didn't."

My efforts to put him at ease fell flat. His eyelids narrowed slightly and he looked away from me. I think he was embarrassed or ashamed about something. "Do you think... Soren will forgive me for letting this happen?"

"Huh?!" Where the hell was this coming from? "Why'd he blame you to begin with? It happened all the time way out in the middle nowhere."

Donovan leaned against the wall. I think he was gonna fall over. "I'm the leader. It's my priority to keep everyone safe. Now they..."

I pouted in annoyance. "Listen, no matter what you think, it's not your fault she died. Soren for sure won't blame you." More importantly, this wasn't like him to blame himself so harshly. I started feeling anxious of what was going through his mind. Was he acting so self conscious now because he feels that him bringing us along to this country caused this? Is that it?

My wife came over to us, all out of tears to shed for now. Her eyes were red, but she was otherwise okay. "Is everything alright?" She asked. She must've realised we were taking too long. "Donovan, you really shouldn't keep your coat on in here, you'll start sweating. It's not like that dreadful castle laboratory you work in. We have heating throughout the house." She hugged him and he just awkwardly stood there frozen. He raised his hands to pat her on the back, but my wife backed off before he could go through with it. "It's been too long. I don't think we've spoken since the wedding."

"Y-Yeah..." Donovan replied, "I'm sorry that we're meeting again under such conditions..."

I sat down on the staircase, which was right in front of our front door, and sighed. "Boss, once you get settled down, I wanna speak to you about something," I said. "For now, let's all try calming down and sort out our feelings. Just know, Donovan, before being your subordinate, I'm your friend. And my wife is your friend too. Don't feel so antsy around us, it'll just make us feel awkward."

My wife nodded in agreement. "That's right. You're always welcome here. So why don't you take a seat in the living room, I'll make you something to drink." She did her best to seem like nothing was wrong when she was around others. I admired that strong spirit. She didn't know what we were really doing here. I felt guilty keeping it from her. If she ever found out, she'd probably despise us.

Oh, her name is Lily, it wouldn't be right to just keep calling her "my wife," would it?

Donovan finally let show a small smile, and he took off his coat. Under it was a cape/cloak, so he took that off too. To be honest I never liked that cape. It gave off an ominous sort of vibe. No wonder that André kid and that Shiro brat seem suspicious of him. But then again, he seems very fond of that cape. I can't bring myself to ask him to change his fashion sense.

Even for our country of origin, that sort of fashion is really weird, let alone in Ferrum.

Lily kindly made tea for us. That was usually my job, but I suppose she wanted to seem like a "proper wife" to the public despite my objections. It wasn't the first time she's taken my housework. I just let her do it because I'm not very fond of conflict with women. It is just harmless fun for her anyway, right? I should just let it happen. I don't wanna be too bossy.

Soren always told me that was my weakness, my lack of authority. Though I'm sure he wasn't saying I should treat my wife like shit. He meant in terms of my work when I still worked in the Mercenary Guild. Sometimes a party would want to work with me and I'd just go with the flow instead of suggesting any ideas of my own.

Freesia had disagreed with that sentiment when I brought it up with her, though. She thought that it's best to play it safe in those sorts of circumstances.

I haven't figured which side I agree with.

...

"I don't think I said it at the wedding," Donovan said, while we waited. "But I really do pray for your happiness as husband and wife..."

"Must be why things have gone so well for us," I replied. "Thank you."

We fell silent again, so I thought of something to say. "How the princess?" Better question than any.

"She's... a handful. But I think I'm managing," he explained. "I wasn't expecting her to change her tone so quickly. It's like it comes naturally to her. You never would have guessed she was your archetypical goody two-shoes princess."

What we were doing here needs some serious effort to explain, but the short of it was, we'd mess with the princess, so that when she ascends to the throne, we can control her. This country is responsible for countless crimes of war, we thought we ought to fix it...

But to be frank, I've lost motivation for it. I'll always hate this country, but this is way out of scope, and I don't want to continue living a double life while hiding that from Lily.

Plus, the fact Princess Sherri is just a kid, it just makes me feel worse. She wasn't even born when this country went to war with ours. I wondered if Donovan felt similarly, or if he didn't care at all. If you ask me, he seems more enamoured with her than she's supposed to be with him. I've seen how they act together. If it's not an act, he's almost like a brother figure for her. If I didn't know any better, it was as if he was just messing around.

But anyway.

"Sounds like there's never a dull moment with her, huh?"

The conversation fell short.

"Soren probably won't make it back in time for the funeral, will he?" I asked. It didn't feel right to ignore the situation completely. I didn't want to pretend like everything was normal. It wasn't. This was far from normal.

Donovan stayed silent for a long time. Did he not hear me? Just when I felt as if I should ask him again, he responded. "A part of me hopes he never comes back," he said. "I don't think I could handle his reaction to her death. You know what he's like. Those two got into a fight before he left. He'd be full of regret..."

"..."

He was right. It wasn't going to be easy to tell him lightly what happened. Soren had a heart of gold and was very sensitive to people's feelings, and very in touch with his own.

The first day we arrived in Nix, he was excited, he wanted to stop at every place on the map along the path to our inn of choice. And when we finally had a chance to sit down, he mentioned if we should just negotiate with this country instead of seeking revenge. He had tears in his eyes as we ate this city's food. He told me he felt hopeless when he saw the homeless of this place. He spent the whole day trying to come up with a scheme to make it easier for them, and when he failed, he got into a depressive mood.

Honestly it wasn't the least bit surprising to us. He even wondered if we should just go back home. He went off about how it was wrong to try and ruin this place for our own benefit.

I had to be the one to convince him to keep moving forward. That was my job in our group. Mediator and information gatherer. Needless to say, I convinced him. But I felt bad about it. Soren is the youngest in our group. I felt like I was manipulating him. Really we should have left him home, but Donovan insisted that he was important.

...

I just hope he's doing okay. He should have been back here by now, and for a couple days too...

A dreadful feeling filled my heart.

What if he had died as well? We haven't received another letter from him. That didn't necessarily mean he was dead, but it was cause for concern. I decided not to bring that up though. I didn't wanna ruin Donovan’s day any more than it already had been.

Lily finally finished making us drinks. Tea, by the way. She sat down beside me and held my hand. She was really beautiful. Not to get side tracked, but I don't think there's a more beautiful woman in this whole world. Her light brown hair was tied up in buns, and her face was free of any blemishes. She wore cute glasses. Her eyesight being poor was a defect at birth, so it couldn't be cured. But I didn't really care. I think people who care about stuff like that don’t deserve their partnerms love. I say she has no blemishes, but even if she did, she'd still be the most beautiful woman. I cared about her more than anything, and she felt likewise about me. I could stare into her blue eyes for hours if I could. Sometimes I think she's too good for me. She probably is.

Where was I?

"Do we at least know about who it was she was with when she died?" My wife asked. She seemed to have caught on that we were still talking about Freesia. "Maybe we could find out more about what happened..."

I shrugged. "All I know is Shiro was there. I don't know the actual person Freesia was tasked with judging."

Donovan took a sip of his tea. "I heard their name was Marisa. It's a strange name for a man, but it's all we have to go off of," he added, sounding confident for the first time today.

"The next chance I get, I'll ask around for this 'Marisa' guy, then." I said it without thinking. I cringed. I can't be doing something like that if I'm planning on quitting. Whatever. I was curious too, so I might as well go along with this anyway.

Lily clung to me tightly. She pouted. "Are you sure you wanna go see them?" She asked, anxiously. "That weird name makes it seem like they're bad news. I think it'll be dangerous," she explained. I could understand where she was coming from. There's no such thing as a guy that calls himself Marisa. It's definitely a fake name. I should really be cautious about it.

"You think they're a bad omen, huh? Maybe you're right," I replied, mixing some sugar into my tea. "Let's save it 'til after the funeral, though. Now's not the time to be working. Let's just take our time here."

In the end, we just ended up talking about our lives since we last met. Donovan’s explanation of his life was full of lies and half truths. I wonder how he could be such a good liar when he's so awkward. One of the many mysteries of him, I suppose.

"She was the first person to support our marriage," Lily said. "Even though neither of us could really afford it, she chipped in the most for my wedding dress and even the wedding costs..."

That's true. Compared to back home, the wedding market here was a total scam. 200 anbers for even the cheapest wedding dress, our taxes per month on average cost 100 anbers, to put it into perspective. And that's just the dress. Suits are relatively cheaper, but the wedding itself, the venue, the food, the ring. Everything. For us, it cost about 800 anbers. If it wasn't for our connections to the Mercenary Guild, it would've taken us well over a year to prepare everything, but in the end it only took about a month. We're very fortunate—we're very lucky—to have such kind people as our friends. They all said it wasn’t a big deal, but I feel as though we’ll be forever in their debt.

That's not the only scam here, though. It seems the entire culture is made to benefit the rich, but not enough to fan the flames of a revolution or anything. And thus, not enough people really care enough about this inequality.

"She saved my back so many times when we teamed up," Lily continued, I could tell she was about to cry again so I put my arm around her. I bit the inside of my mouth and tried to fight back my own tears.

"It's not fair..." Donovan said. He looked down and gritted his teeth. He was clenching his fists so hard, I saw a little blood. His nails were stabbing into his palms.

I had to calm these two down... "Sh-Shiro killed the dragon..." I said, stumbling over my words. "So... at least we know she was avenged rather quickly..." It was good for them to grieve, it made them human, but i didn't want to see one of my best friends and my wife crying. It hurt me to see that, I worry, I don't want these two to be hurt, because that hurts me as well. And I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

That didn't seem to help much. Donovan silently cried, covering his face. He didn't wanna be seen crying...

Lily's tears came immediately after I had said all that. She looked up at me and tried her best to smile. I didn't understand... "I-... I'm trying my best to put on a brave face but I-!" That smile was faltering, bit by bit. "Sh-Sh-She was h-happy with her life, w-wasnt she? ...She died with no regrets, right? ...Right?!"

"...I..." I couldn't say for sure, I just had to guess. Well I suppose there really was just one answer I could give... "I think she-... she lived her life to the fullest..." I was unable to keep it together, my tears were already flooding out.

Lily... burst into tears once again, crying Freesia's name. She rested her head on my chest and dug her nails into the back of my shirt. "Freesia!!! Why??!!! Freesiaaaaaa!!!"

Oh... I'd made things worse, and now for the first time, I was crying in front of my wife. This was just too unfair...

Well...

Screw my prideful superstition of a habit. Freesia is dead... I've known her my whole life, she was one of my best friends, and now she's gone! This wasn't fair...

None of this is fair! If we had just stayed home, I may not have been able to meet my wife, but...

No... I can't think like that... I can't start acting like this is my fault. It's the dragon's fault! Plain and simple...

Even whoever this Marisa guy is, he isn't to blame either, even though I'm sure that's what's going through all our minds, we also know that he was just a witness to it, right?!

Oh! I don't know anymore! Why did this have to happen?! Why??!!!

I'll never see her smile again... nor hear her cheerful voice... my friend is dead... all I can wish for now... is that she's in heaven...

***

"After I find out who Marisa is, I want to quit."

After an exhaustive group crying session, Lily fell sleepy and she decided to go to bed early. Honesty, I was feeling like I should sleep the rest of the day off as well.

This was the perfect time to have a private conversation, though.

I had declared my resignation after a few deep breaths, and that was it.

"The idea that Freesia is dead makes me realise this whole plan hasn't been worth it. Even if it's unrelated, we still joined the Mercenary Guild for the sole reason of acquiring funds and fame for you, boss... no, Donovan... I suppose I have no reason to call you my boss anymore."

It hurt to say, but it needed to be said.

Donovan looked down at his feet and simply replied with, "oh..."

I panicked and elaborated further. "I-I wouldn't quit if I thought you weren't capable of achieving revenge with just yourself and Soren! Honest! I still support you, and you're welcome to come visit whenever you want."

Donovan sat down and sighed... "I don't... well..."

I didn't like seeing him in this sorry state, and this was probably a terrible time to be telling him this, but I couldn't stop now. I already said I'd quit without thinking about his reaction. "Trust me... you don't need a mediocre spy like me. To be honest, Soren was better at all that stuff to begin with. He's just better than everyone else at-."

"It's fine... Don't bring up Soren's name... please..." A tired, dull expression. Matching his tired, dull voice. I've really been a failure today. I can't do anything right. He shouldn’t be this down in the dumps. I feel like I just made everything worse.

"..."

"..." This silence was deafening.

Donovan eyed our empty cups before saying something strange to me. "Can you keep a secret, Sill?"

I was surprised. Not because he asked me that, but because he asked it as if he was guilty of something. I began worrying, but I remained visibly calm. "I'll take any secret with me to the grave, if it was an order from you," I replied calmly. "That still applies now that we aren't working together as well."

He nodded. "I see..." He got up and put an arm around me. I think he was attempting to hug me. He's never been good with these sorts of social interactions. He whispered something to me, and it sent a chill down my spine. A sharp one.

I backed off and almost screamed. "Wh-wha-?!" I hit my leg against the sofa and fell back into it. I looked at Donovan, thinking it was some sort of joke, but that look in his eyes told me it wasn't. "Th-That's going too far..." I said, trying to keep a hold of my composure. "Why? Why'd you do that?!"

He sat back down with his head lowered. "Because it was unavoidable..."

"..." I was starting to sweat. "Why didn't you tell us first? W-We could have figured something out..."

I received no answer.

This wasn't fair. "...Donovan."

He gave no reply. He just lowered his head further, shielding his head with his arms.

***

I sent Donovan off, and went back to my room to snuggle with my wife. I had a lot to think about.

One thing was for certain, once I investigate Marisa, I'm out. I don't want any part of this anymore. I don't even want to think about Donovan.

It'll be a hard sell, but I'll have to convince Lily to move away from here. I just have a feeling things are only going to get worse from now on.

It scares me...

"Soren..." I mumbled to myself. I took a deep breath, and hugged my wife tigher.

This couldn't be real, could it?

Donovan, what exactly are you planning on doing now?

Not knowing how to process my thoughts any longer, I cry again.

Catch the Wind - Arc 1: End

———————————

Author’s Note: thus concludes the first arc of this story. We’re introduced to Sill Leonhart and his wife, Lily Leonhart. Leonhart is actually Lily’s family name. Sill had no last name originally, just like everyone else in Soren’s group. With Sill’s Marriage, he finally got a surname. Hooray. Also in this chapter, something I contemplated about showing was that Donovan really is a villain, and by extension, so were Freesia and Soren. But I decided that this was the best place to reveal that. It was never really supposed to be a secret anyway. Arc 2 will be more lighthearted, I promise. After Arc 2, we will be half way done!

[song of the day]

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evelyns-writing-blog · 9 months ago

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Chapter VI: Ultradespair

[Previous Chapter]

[CW: self-harm, attempted SA.]

"F-, Beginner."

That was the rank I was given when we turned in my test job.

I expected as much. I didn't complain, but I wasn't jumping for joy either. I didn't feel one way or the other about it.

I took Shiro's advice for now and decided to continue living. But I wasn't happy about it.

I had to make Freesia's sacrifice matter.

...

I took my card and stared at it. Sure enough, it showed my rank and my name. I lowered my hand and turned around to leave, feeling no particular way about anything. I didn't care.

Shiro, however...

"What?!" He slammed his hands down at the reception desk, and I flinched. "After everything he went through, you're putting him at the bottom?!" He was fuming. "Maybe you didn't hear me the first time! He survived a dragon attack! He showed fearlessness in that cave when Freesia and I were too scared to move on! Please! Put him in the Average Ranks at least!"

Everyone in the room fell silent. I felt a lot of eyes on us.

The receptionist lady sighed. "All that amounts to nothing. Because of Freesia's death, we can't in good faith give him a higher rank than that. By all accounts, this is a failure."

The guild members around us started talking amongst themselves, even louder than before they went silent. "Freesia died on a trial job?!" "Shiro mentioned a dragon, you don't think the two of them used her as bait to escape that, do you?!" "What? That's impossible! Shiro's not the type of guy to sacrifice others!" "Then again, it is a dragon we're talking about..." "Freesia was one of the best mercenaries in town! How did this happen?!" "Look at that newbie, he totally looks guilty. I bet he convinced our precious Shiro into leaving Freesia for dead!" "Doesn't his face remind you of someone? I could've sworn there was a merc just like him that found work here a while ago! Soren was his name, wasn't it?" "I doubt it. He can't be that guy, I didn't know him very well since he always kept to himself, but this guy is acting complete differently."

I clutched my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up. It was all my fault.

Shiro must not have realised the conversation happening behind us, he just kept complaining to the receptionist. "This is complete bullshit! Freesia died on her own terms! She died protecting him! Isn't that her job as a judge for trial jobs in the first place?!"

The receptionist grimaced and glared at me for a second. "All the more reason to put this failure in the beginner rankings. If Freesia absolutely needed to die for his sake, then he belongs there!"

Shiro was unable to reply.

Then.

A commotion occurred in the crowd of people that were now gathered around us, listening in on the conversation. A man was pushing through everyone with an intimidatingly angry look on his face.

He had short green hair with blueish eyes, with a slight stubble growing on his face. I'd guess he was in his late teens, maybe early twenties. He was wearing a mostly black coat that went down to his knees, it looked perfect for the current weather. If I had one of those, the trip to the cave and back would have been more bearable.

He was taller than me too. So when he came rushing at me after making it through the crowd, I yelped and shielded my face, only to be grabbed by the collar of my shirt and slammed against the back wall. As I hit my head, I felt an incredible pain. I screamed.

The man didn't loosen his grip on my shirt at all. Was he expecting me to run? "Did I hear all that right?!" He asked. He was so pissed off that I couldn't answer his question. He slammed me against the wall again. "Answer me! Did you let Freesia die?!"

Shiro took notice of this and tried to push the man off me, but he wouldn't budge. "What do you think you're doing? Get off of him!"

The man pushed Shiro away quite easily, and then punched me in the face. "Do you have any idea how important she was to all of us?! What the fuck is your problem?!" He punched me again.

Again...

Turn my brains into mush already…

"What's with you?! Cat got your tongue?! Aren't you gonna at least apologise?!"

I decided to look him the eyes when he gave me the opportunity to. I saw Shiro in the corner of my eye, he was struggling up to his feet. I smiled. "I killed her," I said, matter-of-factly. Everyone in the room was glaring at me. "I was frozen in fear and she took the hit for me," I spat out the blood in my mouth. He really packed a punch. "Hahah, I mean, talk about pathetic. People that sacrifice themselves for others aren't worthy of living. She deserved it."

The man had a confused look on his face. Scared? Perhaps. It sure looked like he was. "...What is wrong with you?"

I chuckled and smiled, although it hurt to move my mouth at all. "What? You think I'm guilty about it just because I look traumatised? Anyone would be, seeing her get impaled on a dragon's tail. She went out pathetically. It was horrifically gory, hahahahah..." I wanted it to keep going, no matter what. "All her intestines fell out. She crawled on top of me and told me to keep living. What an embarrassment."

Shiro stumbled over to us and shoved us apart. "Marisa, please stop..." he said, out of breath. "Is this really how you want to be seen?"

I ignored him and stumbled over to the man that was punching me before. I kept eye contact the whole time. "Hah! You're all upset over her? What a joke! I can't believe anyone actually cares about this bitch! Was she a local whore or something?! I can't think of any other reason anyone would care that she died!"

The man's eyes widened. He was at a loss for words. Everyone was staring at me with disgust.

I chuckled. "Ahaha! Hahahahahahahahaha! What's with you people?! You're all insane! Don't worry though... We still have her body. We dragged her all the way here. Shiro killed that dragon so we got to bring her body back. You can still use her if you want, it's all yours!"

Shiro gasped and covered up his mouth. "Marisa?!"

The man gritted his teeth, and clenched his fists. He was tearing up. "You... You're a monster!" He punched me again, and I fell backwards, hitting my head once more against the wall.

Shiro came to my side and cast a healing spell on me. "What's gotten into you?! Hey-?!"

The man knelt down over me and kept punching me, over and over. Soon I couldn't tell what was happening. My brain was melting. It was melting! Hahaha! Melting! Melting!! Melting!!! This felt like heaven to me!

Beat me harder. Punish me more. Make me feel awful, make me hate it!

It's what I deserved.

My hearing was fading, but I could barely make out a bunch of people yelling and screaming. "Get off of him, Richter! That's enough!" I think that was Shiro...

"Y-Yeah, I think he's had enough," a stranger said.

"He clearly wanted to get a reaction out of you, don't let him win!"

"Yeah, he probably wanted you to punch him, if he wants it he doesn't deserve it!"

"You're better than this, aren't you?!"

"Th-This is freaking me out! Richter, I think he's dying! Someone stop him!"

All those strangers were worrying about me, it made me sick.

The man punching me, Richter, stopped, he was crying, I could hear it faintly, my eyelids were swollen shut, so I couldn't see him, but I bet he was holding his fist up, wanting to punch me some more, being unable to.

What? You think you're better than me? You wanna preach about how you're wrong for doing this? Pathetic. Don't stop. Keep hitting me until I drop dead.

"...I-!" Richter whimpered. "No, We all... We all love her! She was like an older sister to us!" He fell onto me. Crying into my chest. "You took that from us! Why couldn't it have been you?! You asshole!"

For a while, all I could hear was his crying, until suddenly, my face was healed. I opened my eyes, disoriented. I may have been healed, but the pain of being punched was still there.

Shiro had a horrified look on his face. It was the first thing I saw. He was looking at me with fear. So why did he heal me yet again. Just accept that I'm a bad person already...

Two strangers were lifting Richter off of me. They were comforting him all the while. Making sure that they sent disgusted looks my way, they quietly took Richter away. I was left with the view of at least 50 onlookers judging me. Shiro was the only one that seemed to care.

Why couldn't Shiro just leave me? Why couldn't he hate me like everyone else? This is all wrong.

Shiro sat me up against the wall, since I was kinda just slumped over. "I understand what you're going through, Marisa..." He took a deep breath. "But that was too terrible to defend." He gave me a weak frown. "Saying things like that to me is one thing... But... to others... I can't..." He was struggling to speak. Why? "I can't allow you to ruin yourself like this!" He finally said.

I stood up and used the wall for support. If I started walking now, I'd collapse, for sure. "I don't need your help..." I muttered in response.

All these eyes on me were starting to freak me out. After a minute of recovering my balance, I walked slowly to the exit. Shiro followed me, not saying another word.

Stupid, stupid me.

I went to the bathroom in our inn room to wash off the blood that was still stained on my face. It had only been five days since we last rested at this inn, but looking in the mirror I saw someone I didn't recognise. I was growing a bit of a beard, there were bags under my eyes and just in general I looked worse. I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't have the energy to shave, so I'm after I washed my face, I went back into the main room. Shiro was sitting on the bed in his casual wear, he didn't make eye contact with me, he didn't even say anything. He didn't look angry, just sad.

It pissed me off. I sat at our table and sunk my teeth into the fruit that was left there. It tasted terrible, but I didn't really care.

We both sat in silence for a really long time. It was deafening. I eyed the kitchen's cutlery drawer. I felt tired. So, so tired. I wanted to do it again. For the first time in this world, I wanted to slit my wrists.

I sighed and got up, walked over to the kitchen, and took out a sharp knife from the cutlery drawer.

I glanced over at Shiro. He hadn't noticed. I hid it from his view and went over to the bathroom again and locked myself in. I slumped down and pulled up my sleeves and stared at my clean wrists. Not a single mark on them. I took a deep breath and pressed the sharp end of the knife against my skin.

"Marisa," Shiro said from the other side of the door. "I need to pee."

I didn't respond, and just slid the blade across. I covered my mouth to stop myself from taking in a sharp breath as the pain shot through my arm. I accidentally went right down past the epidermis. I didn't mean to. I guess this blade was sharper than I expected. Blood quickly flooded out of the wound, and it stung like hell.

I tried to control my breathing, but it was just too much, I accidentally inhaled too loudly. Shiro definitely heard that.

"Marisa? Please respond! Are you okay in there?"

I gritted my teeth and cut myself again putting less pressure on the blade this time. It hurt.

Again.

I kept cutting until there were ten cuts up my arm. I dropped the knife and let the pain sink in. I grabbed the hand towel placed it under my arm. This body wasn't used to cutting. It felt pain like it a newbie. I couldn't cut more than that.

"Marisa, I don't know what you're doing in there, but please say something," Shiro sounded gentle. Why wasn't he angry? "I'll have to break the door down if you don't say anything. Please."

"..." I bumped my head against the door. "What do you want?" It came out weak.

"I need to pee. Let me in."

I looked down at my arm which was properly soaked in blood now. I grabbed the hand towel and wrapped it over my fresh wounds and pulled down my sleeve over it. I washed my hands and the knife of my blood and hid the knife behind me before opening the door.

Shiro looked up at me and he grimaced. You should get some sleep you know."

"..." that really ticked me off, but I ignored him and pushed past.

I didn't really want to have another pep talk. Sure. I'll go to sleep now. I've gotten it out of my system anyway, for now. It'll come back. It always does. And this crime is simply unforgivable too, I killed someone. Irredeemable. I really should die.

"Hey, wait a second," Shiro said just as I was about to leave. He grabbed me by the arm which I had just used to cut, and despite him being gentle, it stung real bad. I lost my breath and almost fell over. "Huh?"

I decided to yank my arm away , which hurt as well. "Why'd you do that for?!" I said, angrily.

Shiro just looked at me with terrified shock. "M-Marisa... Your arm..." he shakily rushed over and pulled up my sleeve. The towel fell off and I dropped the knife. I noticed that there was already blood dripping from my arm because I yanked it away from him so violently. He must've seen that...

I didn't really know how to respond. This is only the second time I've ever been caught cutting. I could do nothing but let out a scared giggle.

He walked up to me and slapped me, hard. He was tearing up. "How many times am I supposed to tell you that you have to live?!" He was angry at me. No, upset?

"... This is... living..." I muttered in response, rubbing my cheek. I felt so tired of this endless criticism of how I lived my life. You've already got me on a life line. If it's not killing me, who cares if I'm cutting?!

"It's not! No same person could call that proof that you're living! Give me your arm, let me heal-."

I've had enough of this stupid "healing!" Just let me do whatever I want! I grabbed him by the shirt and shook him around and screamed at him. "AHHHHHH!!! Shut up!!!" I retaliated. While I shook him, it looked like he was getting dizzy. I didn't want him to pass out without hearing me yell at him first so I reluctantly stopped shaking him, but I didn't let go of his shirt. It took him a while to regain his balance, it seemed. But I didn't let up. "You think keeping me alive isn't torture?! You think I give a shit that my body is covered in scars and abuse?! You think I care that I'll never get rid of my feelings for my abuser? Do you honestly think I'm at all thankful for this second chance?! No! I'll take life with my sister over this any day of the fucking week! You infuriate me! Your toxic positivity is a cancer! I'm sure everyone else thinks the same! You're a waste of space! You deserved your parents dying on you! Or what? Does seeing me suicidal remind you of your brother?! Huh?! You stupid cretin! Stop deciding what to do with my life without my consent! If I want to die! I will! You hear me?!" I coughed and lost my breath. I had no choice but to take a pause from my yelling.

"M-Marisa... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off like a toxic person, but I can't let you die..." he was struggling to talk, still dizzy, I guess. "T-The world would be a worse place without you in it... I'll gladly be hated by you as long it means I'm saving your life, but I really just want the best for you..."

He was obviously trying to patronise me. It pissed me off so much.

I laughed at him. "You're not saving me at all. You're completely worthless to me. Do the world a favour and kill yourself. Come on, we can even die together if you're not a fucking coward!" I rubbed my bleeding wounds on the side of his face. It hurt to do that but I wanted to get it through his thick skull that I didn't need him.

He grimaced, but he didn't stop me. "...M-Marisa..." He couldn't look me in the eye. It infuriated me. I laughed at his discomfort. But then he did something unexpected. With a pained smile, he gently grabbed my arm and rested his head on it, rubbing it up and down slowly. "Does doing this help you calm down? If it does then I'll bear with it..."

I freaked out and pushed him off of me. I forgot to let go of his shirt, so his shirt ended up getting torn off, he yelped as he fell backwards onto the bed. I didn't know my own strength. What the hell was that? It was creepy! How can he just casually let that happen to him?! Is he a masochist?! Huh?!

I got on top of him in the bed and pinned him down. "You're a freak!" I exclaimed in a blind rage. I couldn't think about anything but insulting Shiro. "You just couldn't let me cut, could you?! Why couldn't you just ignore it!" I put my left hand around his neck. While I used my other to support myself I held his neck lightly. Not to kill him, just to threaten him. But he did nothing in response.

He was flustered, and scared, but he wasn't doing anything. His breathing was getting heavier, and he had a dazed look in his eyes. He finally looked me in the eyes and said something. "If... If this is what it'll take, then... If taking your anger out on me this way is what you want, then I'll let you do it..."

"Hahaha! What are you talking about?! You're just making me angri-!" I spat.

I caught myself mid sentence. In that moment, I realised what sort of position we were in. With me over him, his shirt off... I... was drooling... I could feel an erection throbbing in my pants... Only Shiro knew what sort of look I had on my face. I was lusting over him in my fit of rage...

I took in a deep breath, and sat up. I felt like my head would split open at any second now. I tried to hold it together as my lips trembled. "Sister... don't hurt me. Why are you always doing this to me?" I said, feeling like my brain would explode. "Don't touch me. Don't hurt me! Don't kill me! Nooooooooooo!!!!" I closed my eyes and fell backwards. I hit my head against the end of the bed and then fell off it. "I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me! I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me! I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me! I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me! I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me! I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me! I'll be a good girl! Don't hurt me!"

I'm not like you! I wasn't gonna do that to Shiro! I'd never act on my love for him! I'm not like you!!! I'm not like you, so don't hurt me! I'll be complicit and obedient! I'll listen to everything you say, so just keep me safe instead!

"I'll stop pretending to be a guy! I promise! So don't make me like you! Don't paint me in your evil! Don't rub off on me! Don't kill meeeeeee!!!" I curled up and shielded myself while kicking my legs around. Truly sickening.

Blood was getting everywhere because of my cuts. I want it to stop! I don't like it! I wasn't going to rape him! Please forgive me! Don't punish me! I'm not my sister!

I caught a glimpse of Shiro getting off the bed. He walked over to me. And crouched down. "M-Marisa..."

I flinched and glared at him in a panic. "...!"

He smiled and petted my head as he whispered to me. "You haven't hurt me, see?" His hand felt so nice... "Your sister isn't here. You're not like her, either. You're safe."

...

I fell silent.

What was this? Why? Even now, why was he being nice to me? It just filled me with even more guilt. Why won't he let me push him away?! What's wrong with him?!

I thought once more about his vulnerable state. And I threw up in a daze. I couldn't say anything anymore. I felt like I'd stop thinking pretty soon.

I'm not like her, I'm not! I'm not my sister...

I must be worse... What was I thinking?!

Shiro healed my arm and dragged me away from my vomit. "It'll be okay," he whispered, still comforting me. "You've done nothing wrong to me. You'll never be able to hurt me, so don't worry."

"...aaah—..." I could only bring myself to cry. My tears wouldn't stop, even though it stung my eyes.

This was a harsh fact of this new life of mine. Shiro would never betray me. He believed in me, despite everything. It sent violent chills all throughout my body. It didn't make any sort of sense to me.

My sister was probably laughing while she looked up at me from hell.

I closed my eyes, but all I could see was Shiro. His body, covered in sweat. I was embracing him and caressing his naked form, and he had a look of pure lust on his face as I rested my hand on his ass. Why? Why was I thinking about this? I opened my eyes again before he kissed me, to rid myself of these thoughts.

No. I was thinking about this the whole time, wasn't I? But I was never intending on acting on anything intentionally lewd. What a fool I am! They weren't harmless thoughts, I was actually desiring his body for real.

I wanted to violate him, I wanted to make him mine in every sense of the word. I wanted to see him bouncing on my dick with tears in his eyes. I wanted to hear him moan my name, and say that he loved me more than anything else, and that I was all he needed. Everything else in his head would disappear, leaving just his love for me! I wanted that!

But I was just acting like it was all a joke to save the guilty feeling I would get otherwise... I'm a monster. I'm no better than my sister. I deserved her.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

What do I do?

Don't hurt me...

Shiro...

I found it in me to look up at him, and he looked down with a smile. It warmed me. I felt ever so slightly calmer. At the very least, it was like my fear was draining from me as I saw that smile. I didn't deserve him looking out for me, but I'm so glad. I'm so glad he isn't mad, even though he has every right to be.

"M-Marisa... were you..." he tried saying something, but he appeared lost. "Hmm... there's no light way to say this is there? ...Were you a girl before you woke up in that forest?"

I knew it... That's the nail in the coffin. He figured it out, and now he was going to hate me. He'd kick me out. I just meekly nodded.

"Did your... sister... Did she do something bad to you?"

I tiredly responded. "Yeah..."

He sighed. "Maybe... well, I don't know if I'm right or not, but did you like being a woman?"

My tears started welling up again. I tried to hold it back though. "No. It was hell for me... being a woman was exhausting." More than anything, it sapped my energy completely. "I was just a husk."

Shiro ran his cute fingers through my hair. "And you're happier being in a body like this, aren't you?"

"...Yeah... It's the best," I muttered, feeling like I was ready to explode.

I expected Shiro to freak out... but... "Then we better find a more appropriate name for you, shouldn't we?" He giggled. "Your days as a woman are over, and your sister isn't here anymore, so you have nothing to worry about!"

"..." I wailed. I couldn't hold it back now. Right after I just stopped freaking out as well... I'm a mess.

"Hehe. It'll be okay. Let all this out, and you'll feel a lot better," he reassured. He pulled me up a bit and hugged me from behind. "I haven't met anyone like you before, but I have heard of people that couldn't stand being the gender they were born with. You're not alone in this."

"...Oh..."

I really was worrying over nothing. Why would someone as nice as Shiro hate me for something like this? I was being foolish. But it doesn't change the fact I'm a monster. I said as much. And all Shiro had to say in response was, "Really? Then if you're a monster, I'll have to tame you, won't I?"

That sort of cheesy line would get you booed out of the room in my old world, but it felt so reassuring right now. I took in some deep breaths. "Thank you, and I'm sorry..."

Shiro laughed again. "Seriously. I'm fine. If I genuinely felt like I was in danger, I would have stopped you. And besides..." he pulled me up further and whispered in my ear. "I wouldn't mind if it was with you."

A chill went up my spine. That line completely grounded me. My tears stopped, my shaky breathing returned to normal. I got flustered. And after he made such a fuss the first time I saw him naked. He sure doesn't play around...

Still. He was just trying to make me feel not so guilty. I knew it could never happen between us. I must make sure not to let that boundary be crossed... I took in a long, deep breath. "I think... I'll be okay," I said.

After that? Shiro helped me into bed, and told me to get some sleep. Despite him being so young, he was way more of an adult than I was. "I have to go back to the Mercenary Guild," he explained, putting on a coat. "We need to make sure everything about Freesia's death is in order."

I felt bad. "I... I feel a little better, I can help."

He gave me that sweet smile. "No, you need to sleep. We can sort out what happened with Richter tomorrow, you've been through a lot, so just rest for now."

It pained me to be unable to help right now, but I should just do what I'm told...

I said goodbye then looked up at the ceiling. I may have calmed down, but I still felt guilty.

It's still my fault that Freesia died. It's still my fault that guy named Richter started crying. It's still my fault that Shiro demeaned himself.

...

I'm cold.

[Shiro]

My hands were trembling. It was like my body just stopped working.

I didn't expect that at all.

When Marisa pinned me down in bed, I wanted to kick him off me. I didn't want to hurt him, but it had to be done. I knew he wasn't in his right mind. I've kicked bigger people off of me during fights with bandits and whatnot.

But...

But I suddenly felt all weak.

It's ridiculous, I know, but having his hand pressed lightly against my throat, and that look of lust and anger staring me down... I felt like I should give up my fighting and let him have his way with me. My heart was racing. I wasn't scared, I was excited.

If he hadn't had a panic attack when he did, I don't think I would've been able to regain my composure. I think I would have given myself up to him... What was that feeling? I like girls, don't I?

I...

I feel so strange. Ever since I found him, I've been thinking weird thoughts. It's not like me to get flustered over a guy. Maybe I've just been overworked recently... I ought to take a break after this day is done.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. I just needed to relax. If I relaxed, I could rationalise this and move on. It made me feel weird to think about. When I had closed my eyes, I was flashed with an image of Marisa without a shirt on. His physique was truly admirable. I wish I had that sort of body. There's only so much I do at my age.

Hehehe! His chest and stomach looked like they'd be nice to rest my head on...

Ah! What am I thinking?! I shook my head and facepalmed, and when I did, I realised I still had blood on me. Marisa's blood. I frowned. To think someone would cut themselves on purpose... i looked back at the inn and wondered if I should check up on him to make sure he wasn't doing it again. But I changed my mind. Marisa looked tired enough to sleep for a whole day. I had nothing to worry about.

His blood was starting to dry. I summoned a water ball and a bit of fire underneath it to heat it up, then splashed it on my face. The blood came off clean, next, I dried off by summoning warm air.

Air magic didn't really have many uses, but for situations like this, it was perfect. If I just left the water on me, it would freeze. I've had that happen before, it's not pleasant.

Just then, I heard the city's clock bell ringing. I looked over to the clock tower. It was noon.

I put my hands in my pockets and got going. It was going to be a very exhausting afternoon.

———————————

Authors note: Seriously praying this chapter doesn’t get me banned 😬. Marisa learns some hard truths about himself. Must be tough. The title of this chapter gets its namesake from a song by Sewerslvt, a fantastic artist that now goes by Cynthoni. Anyway, I believe the worst is behind us. Thank God for Shiro, or the story would have ended already. Next chapter will be a side story, but be sure not to skip it. It’s actually important. The reason it’s a side story is because Marisa and Shiro aren’t a part of it at all!

[song of the day]

[Next Chapter]

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evelyns-writing-blog · 9 months ago

Text

Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Chapter V: Shiro II - Sacrifice in the Name of Love

[Previous Chapter]

When you're thrown into a situation you don't like, most people would choose to either run away or fight. A broken leg would not stop them. Their survival instinct would not allow it to stop them.

But for me, I gave up immediately. I didn't fight, and I didn't want to run.

I just let it happen.

Everything.

Every little detail.

It was all my fault.

Just when you think life will get better for you, it'll always get worse. There is no such thing as hopelessness either. Because you will never have the comfort of knowing this is the worst it'll get. You will not get a moments rest, you will not get salvation.

You will suffer until your dying day, and even then, you will not be happy about that death. You will die with regret and a wish to keep living. Dying will not grant you freedom from your struggles. Because you’ll go to hell.

It's all my fault.

God was facing me down, ready to make my life a living hell.

God had the final word. The only thing I feared more than God was my sister.

I'm not religious, but I couldn't bring myself to deny God.

A dragon named God. I was to die by its claws, and I wouldn't try and fight that destiny off.

I would accept it, despite wanting to live on.

I am a coward.

A coward...

The dragon seemed furious. It slammed its tail around in a berserk state.

It raised the tail up, and then locked eyes with me again. It was going to stab me with it.

"Marisa! Back off from it! What are you doing?!" Freesia yelled.

"Shit, I think his leg is broken!" Shiro responded. "I need to go and save him!"

"No, you stay here! If we lose you, then it's all over!"

What were they even talking about?

I didn't bother looking over at them. I was too preoccupied being frozen in fear.

The tail began moving rapidly towards me, like a bullet, and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

And then, just as it was about to hit me, the worst happened.

Freesia got in front of me, and took the hit.

The tail went right through her torso, and stopped just short of my own. She had grabbed it with her hands, stopping it from going any further. The amount of physical strength it must’ve took would make even the strongest of body builders feel inferior. It was just impossible. How did she do that…

"Freesia!" Shiro yelled in a shocked tone.

I looked Freesia in the eyes and found her crying. "You can't die yet..." she whispered. But it was clear she was trying to shout at me.

"...Ah-...!" I couldn't speak.

I watched the life drain out of her. Her intestines draping over the end of the tail, tangling. And snapping under the pressure. "So-... Marisa... You have to-..." she was struggling to talk. I didn't know how to process it. Blood was draining out of her mouth. It was strange, but it took me this long to realise she was dying.

My eyes widened, and I finally screamed. A hellish, visceral scream, that I couldn't control. My vocal cords were straining, I felt like I would lose my voice, but I couldn't help it.

A memory—no, a torrent of memories—came flooding into my mind at that point. More from the original owner of this body.

"Hey, Soren, do you think this necklace looks pretty on me?" A younger Freesia said. She looked to be only 18. If my guess is correct, this was seven years ago, the original owner must've been about 11... So she liked them young, did she? I can't criticise her for something I'm guilty of myself.

A much younger sounding voice from my own, barely recognisable from the voice I have now, responded. So I guess his name was Soren. "Hmm? I don't know much about that. Shouldn't you be asking your boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend? Are you kidding? I'm saving myself for you!"

"..." I remember feeling disgusted, despite not being there. It was a weird feeling. "Miss Freesia, I don't think that's a good idea. If [***] found out, he'd probably kick you out of our little adventure club."

The younger Freesia pouted. "Hey, it's not like I'm gonna put my moves on you at your age, don't fret about it, but you do think this necklace looks good, right?"

...

She may have been more depraved than me. Why was I being shown this just as she's about to die?

Another scene... She looks a bit older, and she's wearing a military uniform. I remember seeing the uniforms of the guards around the castle from Nix, but these look rather different, being green instead of blue. "Ha! You're still doing that adventure club thing? Aren't you a little old for that? Hahaha!" She was rather gruffly laughing, and I could see muscles though her uniform. She was rather girly in that last memory, but it looks like she changed after joining some sort of military. "I'm kinda busy, so I can't play little games with you anymore. But you're welcome to come and visit my room in the barracks, you're always welcome to hang out," she whispered in a seductive tone.

...

"Geez, I can't believe you three dragged me into this, but I suppose that military job wasn't paying very much anyway." She was yawning. I was yet again being shown a new memory. She glanced down at me and smiled when she saw my face. I had gotten slightly taller since the last memory. "This is your first time leaving home, isn't it? Didn't [***] and [***] go on vacation to Franelisa back before the war?"

Soren's voice was a little closer to mine now. "That hardly counts for them. They were like 4 years old. As if they'd remember anything like that. But you're right. It's my first time going anywhere outside our own town," he sounded nervous, but excited.

"And you're all grown up too, it really makes me kinda proud, actually. I've known you your whole life, I feel like a mother!"

Soren laughed at her. "Is that really all it is? I could've sworn you had feelings for me."

"H-Hey, I don't! Honest! I was just fooling around!"

...

"Hey, Soren!" "Soren, look at this." "Do you have a crush on anyone?" "You got a birthday present for me?! Ah, it's a scarf! I've been needing one of these! Thank you, Soren!" "I love you... Haha, just kidding! Ehhh?! You're actually blushing??? Hey, your nose is bleeding! Ahh! What do I do?! I didn't mean to cause this!" "Stay with me tonight... It's lonely..." "Today's mission was a great success! I even brought you a souvenir. Huh? What about souvenirs for the others? I guess I totally forgot, ahaha!" "It's unbearable... Soren, please drink with me for a bit. "Ah, Good morning, Soren! Did you get enough sleep?" "Ah! Soren! Harder! Get me pregnant!" "Don't get me wrong, it was just a one night stand. I was just sad and drunk... T-Totally just that..." "Join me for another drink, Soren!" "Hey, you look kinda sad. Take a break." "Fuck! Deeper! Make me your bitch!" "Don't you think it would be better just to settle down? We haven't made any progress with [***]'s plan. We should quit while we're ahead, don't you think?" "A-Another long mission?! Soren, it's bad for your health. I'll do it instead!" "God, I'm so drunk! Soren, lemme buy you another beer!" "Keep going! We aren't stopping until you ruin me!" "Ah! Finally! It's the holidays again! Soren, let's go meet [***] and get tickets to that new show that's on!" "If I lost you, I don't know what I'd do..." "Soren..." "Soren..." "Soren..."

...

I didn't understand why I was being shown all of this. Pieces of her life, but for what?

I started crying, and my focus came back to the real world.

The dragon pulled its tail out of Freesia, and she staggered forward, groaning in pain before falling on top of me. She managed to hold herself up, she was looking at me in the eyes still, her breathing was slow, and sounded raspy. I didn't wanna look at her, so I made the mistake of looking down. Her intestines, what remained of her guts, it was all splayed on top of me, and blood poured continuously from her massive wound. I could see a few bones mixed in there.

I turned my head. I couldn't handle it anymore! I screamed some more. Cried some more.

This isn't real! This can't be happening.

"L-Look at me... S-So-...Marisa..." she was barely able to string words together. "Let me see his... face... one last time...."

I whimpered, but I felt the need to listen to her... I slowly turned to face her. The light was leaving her eyes.she was starting to look incredibly sickly. But worst of all, she looked like she was regretting everything. I had to save her. "It's alright... I... I... You can call me his name. Soren!" I managed to say, completely out of my mind. Scared beyond belief. "Let me be Soren for you..."

Her eyes widened slightly. I don't think she could widen them any further than that. She was reaching her limit... It was all my fault... her tears intensified, though. They were getting redder. Blood was mixing into her tears. It must've hurt. "Thank..." Her arms gave out, and she landed on me. It almost took my breath away completely.

"Th-...Thank you..." she managed to speak, still. "Soren... I love you... with all... my heart... I love you... more than... anything..." she cried into my chest. "Ahh... I finally... said it... in... earnest..."

"Freesia..." I said, whimpering. "I love you too..."

I think I realise why my body showed me these memories of her... It was some sort of fight or flight response...

To fulfil her wishes, it made sure I could lie to her on her deathbed, to make her passing just a little easier.

"I..." Freesia grabbed my shoulders weakly, and she looked up at me through her tears. "I want... you to... live... no matter what..."

"Freesia-!"

She pulled herself up to kiss me, and I tasted blood.

[Freesia]

"When I go in to protect Marisa, please distract the dragon!" I told Shiro.

Heh, it looks like I didn't need to. This dragon appeared to have the sentience of a human. It was self aware... I could feel it sneering at us smugly, watching me and Soren's little moment together. It let that scene play out, it was enjoying itself...

All I could think about when I ran up to protect him... was my final interaction with the real Soren.

It was a rainy night. I was drunk out of my mind, and Soren was begging me to stop drinking.

"You always get moody when you're drunk, please, give me that bottle!" He exclaimed.

"Ah, fuck off, already! I don't need you babying me!"

"I'm not babying you! Please, just spend time with me tonight! I won't be seeing any of you for a good half of a year, so let's try and have some time to enjoy ourselves!" He grabbed the bottle from me and smashed it on the ground. "Honestly, you're such a child! This is no way to deal with your homesickness!"

He was right, and I should have listened to him. I felt like such an asshole after it was all said and done. I got up and stumbled over to him and slapped him weakly, almost losing my balance in the process. "Hey, don't give me that shit! Why should I listen to you? You're just a kid!"

"..." he looked at me with disappointment, but he didn't reply.

"Hah! What's the matter with you?! Can't fight back?! You think I'm weak just because I'm a woman?! You think you're tough shit just because I let you have your way with me sometimes?!"

"...Hey..." he tried smiling. At the time I thought he was trying to mock me, so I went for the throat.

"I mean... The only reason we all decided to travel here is because you couldn't save your parents! You were just too weak! You're the weak one! Failure! I hope you go to hell when you die, so that you'll never see them again! You asshole! I'll—!"

He slapped me, and then pulled me in closer by the collar. "..." we head-butted. It really hurt, I saw blood falling from his forehead. His smile was gone, and he was crying. "I'll take any insults you can throw at me, I'll let you abuse me, use me for sex to make you feel better... but you don't get to mock my parents..." he backed off and wiped his tears.

"I-..."

"Don't bother, I'm leaving in the morning. I never want to see you again."

And that was the last time I saw his face. It escalated too quickly. I felt as though I fucked up almost immediately after. I wanted to chase him and apologise, but I never did, and I never will.

I will never love him again.

I'll never speak to the real him again.

I'll have to live with that guilt forever, even in the afterlife.

I'll go to hell, and I'll never be able to forget. I'll never forgive myself.

...

If I'm going to hell, I might as well kiss him.

So I did.

But Marisa let me refer to him as Soren. I'm so happy. In my last moments, I wouldn't have to go out with regret.

It might have been fake, but in that moment I felt that it was the real Soren I was talking to. It was more than I could ever ask for.

Haha. Well, I do wish I could have at least celebrated with him when we returned to Nix. But that’s life, isn’t it?

"Thank you, Soren..." I said. Don’t you dare come visit me too soon, okay?

And I closed my eyes one last time.

[Marisa]

I stopped hearing her breathing the second those words left her lips.

I moved her off of me as gently as I could l, and she lay there, limp. Her face looked so peaceful despite her mouth still overflowing with blood, and the giant hole in her torso.

I found my own breathing to be unstable.

"Freesia..." I mumbled. My voice didn't sound right. It was so shaky that it was squeaking. It felt as though if I spoke too loud I would start bawling uncontrollably. Why was I like this? "D-Don't die yet..." I shook her and let out a scared laugh. "Eheheh—! B-B-But what about Soren? Y-You s-said we'd save him together! Ahhh—! No! No no no no no no!" I frantically looked around. "NO!"

I grabbed her intestines and tried to force them back into her body, they were slippery and gross to hold, but I didn't care! This can't be happening!

They kept slipping out, they wouldn't stay inside. I screamed.

I looked around for Shiro, but he was equally as shocked. He was frozen in place with a look of terror.

I looked at the dragon. It was almost like it was laughing at me.

How much time had passed? It felt like an eternity but it must've only been a couple of seconds given that no one had moved. I crawled over and tried again to help Freesia. She couldn't be dead yet! She had to live! She had to!!! Her intestines just wouldn't go back into her body!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!! AAAHH! HAH!!! AHHHGHHHHHHHGHH!!" I let out visceral screams, frustrated and scared. I couldn't help it. I couldn't breathe normally. "SHIRO!!!! HEAL HER!!! DON'T LET HER DIE!!!" I collapsed over her body and slammed my fists into the icy dirt below, over and over and over again. "SHIROOOOOOO!!! Gaaaaaahhhhhghhhhgggghh!!!"

I heard no answer in return. Not for a long time.

And then...

I looked over at Shiro. His once cute face turned creepy. An unnatural smile, his eyes were wide and his iris's looked like pinpoints. He had removed his hair tie, letting his long, perfect hair flow. Even with such a creepy look, he still looked beautiful. He started laughing manically. He unsheathed his sword and crouched down.

"Hehehehe!!!" He started sprinting toward the dragon. The God. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

The Dragon appeared to be surprised by this, it jumped backwards and hid its face with one of its massive wings, peering from behind it. Shiro jumped around erratically, and then latched onto the wing of the dragon by stabbing it with his sword. "Gghrrrrr!!!" He bit into the wing as well. The dragon roared and tried its best to shake Shiro away, but it just wasn't working. "They said... Eheheheheee! They said dragons were smart! Ahahahaha! But I never guessed it would have human intelligence!" He continued laughing as he stabbed his sword over and over into the wing.

The dragon wailed and roared some more, and decided to slam its wing down, attempting to crush Shiro under it. I heard him scream out in pain, but that pain was quickly replaced by elation. He rolled out from under the wing. "But with that intelligence, heheh, you probably have common sense, don't you?!" He said, excitedly running on all fours. His sword was back in its sheath for now.

I didn't know what I was watching. How could he laugh at a time like this? How could he joke around? Has he gone crazy? I wanted to run up to him and drag him away...

The dragon backed off a little, and looked like it was about to breathe fire. I saw its mouth start to light up.

Shiro didn't try to dodge, he just kept running towards the dragon at top speed. "Gahahahahaaa!! Common sense is your weakness! People with common sense fear the unknown! Nothing scares people like you quite like an unpredictable opponent!" Shiro looked like he was about to jump, and the dragon instinctively looked up, however, Shiro just kept going forward, and that split second saved him. The dragon didn't have time to look back down, so it raised its front legs and stomped down on Shiro just as he passed. But Shiro had apparently seen that coming, he put his hand flat against the ground, and seemingly in response to this action, large spikes grew from the ground and impaled the dragon's foot. A magic spell... It was like he didn't fear death at all. I watched in silent horror as the boy who, with the kindness of a saint that saved me from near death, fought like a monster. Laughing uncaringly. It was scary to me. He was risking his life to kill something in an almost sadistic manner.

Shiro rolled out from under the dragon's foot and jumped, he slashed his sword right through its leg, and chopped it clean off. The dragon, which was already in pain, roared louder and rolled over, agonising over its lost limb.

Shiro had a smug look on his face, like it was the easiest thing in the world. "Stupid fucking beast," he mocked it, and then kicked it. "Get the fuck up, ya stupid pussy!" He slowly walked around it, thst creepy smile on his face wasn't fading he raised his sword up to his mouth and licked the dragon's blood off of it. "We're not done yet. Keep fighting! I want to instil the fear of God in you! Ghehehehehehe! A reprehensible creature like you probably doesn't even know what God is!" He licked up some more of the blood.

The dragon rolled over and immediately sent flames Shiro's way, but as it did that, Shiro raised a wall of stone in front of him. He didn't even flinch. The dragon didn't stop breathing fire, though. Shiro looked bored. "Fool," he spat. "You're boring me. My mana output is far stronger than your ability to breathe fire."

He created a barrier of water around himself and strolled out from the cover. He jumped up into high into the air, probably using air magic to propel himself higher than normal. The dragon didn't stop shooting fire at Shiro. It kept it on him the entire time.

The water ball that Shiro was inside of moved forward, letting off a dangerous amount of steam. What was he doing now?

The fire started weakening. The dragon's mouth was closing. I heard muffled laughter coming from inside the water ball.

Shiro dropped the water ball the second the fire breath became unable to reach him, and he was just standing in the air, no, I suppose he was just keeping himself propelled with insane balance and magical ability. If I hadn't just watched Freesia die, I probably would've felt impressed. But I couldn't bring myself to feel anything like that right now.

"You'll tire yourself out if you do something like that, you freak!" Shiro yelled. He was roaring at the dragon.

The dragon ignored him and ran away.

Directly towards me...

"Shit!" Shiro sounded panicked for the first time since this fight started. He boosted forward, and then landed, but that didnt slow his momentum, as he ran, a pillar of dirt and stone rose up and shot out under his feet into my direction like a lopsided volcanic eruption. Shiro was shot forward faster than his air magic would have gotten him.

He got ahead of the dragon, jumped at it, and stabbed it in the left eye. And it came to a halt mere seconds away from me. Shiro wiped his brow. I'm guessing that wasn't a part of his plan at all. But after that, he giggled. "You tried pulling a fast one on me, didn't you? But you'll never outsmart me. You can't outsmart someone who's thrown away their humanity! Ahahahahaha!" He stood on its neck and continued stabbing the dragon's eye. How he was able to stay on the dragon while it was flailing its neck around, I had no idea. "Even if you did trample him, what next? Did you really think you could beat me? Did you think you could run away?" Shiro pulled his sword out of the mush that was once an eye and went over to the other eye. He didn't stab it. He just stared into it. "I know you understand my language, so I want you to listen to this before I kill you dead," he spat, he was speaking so vulgarly, it didn't sound like him at all.

The dragon stopped crying out in pain. It froze in place.

Shiro's smug grin came back. "What a good obedient puppy." He crouched down on the side of the dragon's face, making sure the only thing the dragon could see was him, I guess. "You sealed your fate when you killed Freesia. I would have let you run away after cutting your leg off. If you continued acting as if you didn't have the intelligence of a human, you may have succeeded in killing all three of us." Shiro tapped it on the head with his sword, and the dragon flinched. "You've probably never felt a moment of fear in your life, have you? You must be terrified of me. After all. I'm the first person to ignore their own safety in order to attack you. You've never had a real fight in your life."

If all dragons are like you, I had nothing to be scared of, Shiro added.

The dragon growled. I could tell that it was trying to intimidate Shiro.

It wasn't successful.

"Honestly. If only Freesia picked up on that sooner. She could have killed you in half the time I would be able to. That's why I can't let you live. You took the life of someone stronger than yourself by using cheap tactics." Shiro stabbed it in its only working eye and laughed once again. Just as manically as before. "I'm going to make you suffer. Haha! I won't kill you until you're begging for it. Hahahaha! Ahahahahaha!"

At this point. I was more scared of Shiro than I was of the dragon. The dragon that I was calling God, was being defeated by a little boy.

A boy that was no longer human...

Shiro jumped off the dragon and casually strolled over to its right hind leg. The dragon was crying in pain again, but it wasn't flailing about.

Shiro wasted no time slicing that leg off, and he moved on to the next one, and chopped that off too. The dragon only had one leg left. He noticed that the dragon was trying to take flight, so he quickly jumped and cut the closest wing off too... his sword broke.

Shiro spat, then chucked the sword away. "Stupid beast..." he created a large icicle and held it in his hand. He prodded the the tip of it, and his finger bled. "Perfect." He threw it like a spear, and it pierced the dragon's throat, and went all the way through. If it started melting, it would start bleeding like crazy. The dragon seemed to be aware of that too. It started looking around in a panic, not that it would do it any good since it was blind. It was unable to scream but it looked like it wanted to.

"I could leave you like this, you know," Shiro said, strolling back to one of the legs he chopped off, and he started dragging it towards the face of the dragon. "Asshole. Open your mouth or I'll kill you right now."

The dragon obeyed. Shiro forced the leg into the dragon's mouth and made it choke on it.

"The deadliest monster in the world, my fucking ass," Shiro said, full of disgust. He looked at me. "Wanna have a crack at this too?"

I didn't respond. I wasn't able to. I just stared. I couldn't react. "..."

The dragon tried crawling away, but Shiro chopped off its last leg with an icicle. It was basically just a snake-like creature now. "Now why'd you go and do that?" Shiro mocked it. "Humans are superior to dragons, but I suppose we never figured that out until now. How embarrassing for us. But now, your disgusting, inferior species can be hunted for sport without a care in the world! We just need more people like me!"

The dragon I had mistakenly called God... fainted out of fear.

Shiro gave off a disappointed frown, and kicked the dragon in its mess of an eye, and then walked over to me.

I felt scared. Only slightly, though. If I hadn't just watched Freesia die... I'd probably be crying and screaming for help. Was he going to hurt me? He'd lost his mind, did he hate me? Knowing I was the reason Freesia died?

He stopped in front of me and dropped to his knees, and started breathing heavily. He was scared... "C-Close one, huh?" He said, barely keeping his voice from cracking. "That was a total crapshoot, but it paid off."

"..." I just stared at him.

"It looked smart enough to have human level intelligence, so I acted in a way that would scare a human." He wiped his brow and laughed shakily. "That thing is too scary. I'm surprised I managed to keep that act up for so long, ehehahaha—! Shit... We were gonna die either way, so I had to try, r-rght?" He fell to his hands. Now he was on all fours. "W-We should probably get out of here before it wakes up again..."

...

Acting or not, it was psychotic and unnatural. No kid should be that way. "Why..." I said, finally. My eyes being drawn back to Freesia's body. "You should have healed her instead of..."

Shiro hmm'd. "I... Marisa... I'm sorry, But she died already," he said, awkwardly. "Even if I rushed over the second she was impaled, fighting my own instincts to do so, I wouldn't have made it in time."

"You're lying..." I muttered. Not taking my eyes off of her. "Heal her."

"Marisa..."

I noticed a few flies starting to land on her skin. "Heal her..." I shooed those flies away, but they came back...

"There'd be no point... we should go."

"Heal her..." I felt tears running down my cheeks again. I was going to start kicking and screaming. I crawled over to her. "H-Huh?"

"..."

It was at that point that I realised my broken leg had been healed. It wasn't Shiro's doing. It must've been Freesia before she died. "Oh..." I started crying uncontrollably again. I cried into Freesia's chest. "Heal her! Heal her! SHIROOOOO!!!"

"..." Shiro rubbed my back and whispered to me. "Alright..." he placed a hand on Freesia’s body and hugged me close. I looked down at him and saw he had a pained look on his face. Was this a super powerful spell or something?

The light that shot from his hand wasn’t blinding, but it still felt painful to look at, but at the same time, I couldn’t look away. It was mesmerising.

I clung to Shiro, and waited.

***

She didn't come back.

Her body was back to normal, but she didn't wake up, no matter what. Shiro forced me on my feet, telling me that we had to get out of here. He didn't actually know how to kill a dragon, so if it woke up, it might have a few tricks up its sleeves or something. He had no way of knowing.

I carried Freesia with me. Thanks to this body, it was a piece of cake.

...

If I never had those memories flood into me, I wouldn't have been as sad about this... No, maybe I would have been this sad anyway. Freesia was the second person to ever be kind to me. Maybe that was only because I was in Soren's body. Maybe she didn't see me for me, but she found out what I am, and she still respected my wishes. It made me wonder if Shiro would be similarly accepting... Probably not... It's best not to tell him my true identity. Not just because of my gender, either.

I glanced back at that dragon...

It wasn't moving at all. I think it actually died, but Shiro had kept that info from me to avoid making me scared of him. That dragon was probably not the God I was manically thinking about when it attacked us. But it was as terrifying as a God to me. Shiro was probably more scared than I was under that facade of insanity.

I still wouldn't be able to do what he just did, though. He's braver than I am. I'm pathetic.

...

We traveled for hours and took a break by a nearby lake. I hadn't said a word, but I had broken down into tears multiple times.

Freesia was unresponsive, but it took me so much effort to admit that she was never coming back.

It was all my fault.

I drank some sort of hot drink that Shiro prepared for us while we were resting. It tasted kinda like hot chocolate. While it warmed my body up, it didn't help warm my heart. I finished the drink and pulled my sword out of its sheath. My life was going to be just as shitty here as it was in my previous world. I'd be miserable. Maybe I wouldn't be raped or abused, but with monsters like that around, I felt as though my misery would skyrocket.

I'd remedy this. Quite easily.

I pressed the blade of the sword against my neck, then swiped it down as hard as I could. It cut open my neck, all the way to my throat. It hurt so much but it would be over soon. Besides. It didn't hurt as much as the mental anguish I was feeling right now.

"Marisa?!" Shiro noticed what I did far too late. He dropped his cup and stumbled over to me.

I threw away the sword and collapsed over Freesia's body. The wound stung so much, but the loss of blood was making me sleepy. I closed my eyes.

I saw a faint white light through my eyelids. "You idiot! Don't die on me, now!"

Shiro was healing me...

It's not fair. I wanted to die.

Let me die, Shiro... Why are you so insistent on saving me? It's obvious that I don't want to be here...

I didn't try again. I knew he'd just heal me again, I just lay motionlessly across Freesia's corpse.

Shiro dragged me by the back of my shirt snd forced me to sit up straight, he looked confused and scared. "What is wrong with you?!" he cried.

"..." I contemplated whether or not to reply, but decided it would be best to explain. "It's my fault she died... I should have died instead..." there was no emotion in my voice. I was too exhausted to even sound upset.

Shiro slapped me, took a deep breath, and then lowered his head, resting it on my chest. "She saved you... You need to live for her sake too. Dying isn't an option for you anymore," he said, whimpering. "To make sure her sacrifice wasn't in vain, you have to live a long and fulfilling life."

I fell backwards, unable to put in the effort to sit up now that Shiro was resting on me. "...It hurts too much..." I muttered. "Living isn't worth the pain... That Dragon didn't kill her. My inaction did." I looked at Freesia's peaceful looking face, and I felt nothing. "I could have just backed off... if I kept crawling, I may have survived."

"..."

...

He was just a kid, I suppose he couldn't explain away my desire for suicide in any way that mattered.

My life was meaningless. He was just going to have to accept that. One way or another he'll find out how weak and pathetic I am, and he'll wish I'd died in Freesia's place.

Whatever...

I fell asleep.

I dreamt of Freesia dying, over and over.

There was no difference in the way she died. I ended up stabbing her and watching her bleed out slowly every time. It was monotonous. I must've seen it happen at least a hundred times.

I opened my eyes but I didn't feel like sleep had helped me at all. I still felt exhausted.

The first thing I saw was Shiro looking down at me. He smiled. "Did you sleep well?" His tone of voice didn't scream confidence. It was obvious that he was still shaken up.

He had laid my head on his thighs again.

I couldn't feel happy about it, though. I got up and sat as far away from him as I could without losing the warmth of the campfire. "I still want to die," I told him.

"..." he sighed and pulled my sword closer to him. He was making sure I couldn't try again. "Eat your breakfast... I want to tell you something, about my family. I want you to live, so I'm hoping it'll help you understand."

"..."

He grabbed a stick with some sort of meat on it from the campfire and offered it to me. More like he forced it into my hands. "You haven't eaten anything since before we explored that cave, so please, it'll make you feel more energised, if anything." The poor kid cared way too much for a loser like me.

"..." I dropped the food and collapsed back down onto my back.

Shiro made a surprised sound and then crawled over to me. He picked up the stick with a frustrated look, pulled off everything on it, and then held me down while he forced it into my mouth. "I'm not having you starve on me either!" He yelled. "Stop being such a child and eat your god damned food!"

I tried to spit it out, I moaned about it, kicked and clawed at his hands, but he wasn't having it. Once he got it all in my mouth, he covered my mouth with his hands. I'd either choke on it, or I'd eat. Of course my survival instincts kicked in and forced me to swallow it, bit by bit, before I choked to death.

I couldn't respond at all to that. I looked at him after with tired eyes and said the following. "If you wanted to die, I'd let you. I wouldn't be torturing you like this..." It just came out a monotonous mess. No matter what I did, I couldn't speak with emotion. "Go ahead and tell your sob story if it'll make you feel better, it won't change a thing."

"..."

"Let me kill myself."

"... You'll listen to it, and you'll give me your full attention, won't you?"

"..." I didn't wanna deal with it, but it looked like he wasn't going to give up until I listened. Of course he wouldn't, given he just force fed me to keep me alive. "Okay..."

"Good..."

"About a year ago, me and my parents finally saved enough money to immigrate to Nix from a small nameless village south of here.

"We were impoverished, starving to death. It was a living hell. We only managed to make enough money to escape by under-eating... And the fact my brother had killed himself. With his sacrifice, I made it here.

"I did.

"But my parents weren't so lucky. On our trip over, we unfortunately ran into some trouble. A terrible snow storm, unusual for the time of year, had hit us, and we had no way to shelter ourselves from it.

"My dad did his best to save us, creating an endless supply of fire, if he ever stopped, the cold would attack us again. But unfortunately, my dad was very weak already. After just five hours of him using continuous fire magic, he collapsed and died.

"Don't give me that look. I'm okay. It's been over a year at this point.

"But without his sacrifice, we would have probably never made it.

"An hour after he died, me and my mother found a cave and we rested there. It was damp and wet, but it was far better than staying out in the storm.

“That was the extent of our luck, though.

"The cave was full of spiders, huge ones. My mother protected me and killed every last one of them. Not a single spider got to me.

"I didn't realise it, but my mother was dying. She had been stung by those spiders countless times, protecting me. And yet she gave no inclination that that was the case. She simply looked at me with a smile, wrapped me up in all our blankets, and then laid my head on her thighs.

"I asked her, 'aren't you cold?' And her only reply was, 'no, my heart is warmed by the fact you're safe.'

"Her thighs kept my head warm. It stopped me from dying of hypothermia.

"That stuck with me. I'd never forget that kindness until the day I die.

"After she said that to me, I noticed she was bleeding from her mouth. But I was too exhausted to do anything about that. I fell asleep.

"When I awoke, my mother was dead.

"I cried for so long that I felt as though my eyes were going to melt.

"I blamed myself and I wished that I'd learned how to use healing magic. I was sure to rectify that going forward though.

"I didn't move from that cave for a week. I had tried starving myself, but I couldn't fight the urge to eat. Eventually, though, I found the resolve to get to my feet and start walking.

"When I got to Nix, I spent my parents hard earned cash on a small inn room, I knew that if I brought a house, I'd have to work, so I just decided to live somewhere cheaper so I could shut myself in. That way, I could be alone for a while.

"Nix was everything I ever hoped for . It was actually better. It was unimaginable how much better it was. I couldn't have thought of it in my wildest dreams.

"But no matter how safe I felt, how luxurious the city seemed compared to my hometown, I couldn't forget that I got here with the spilling of my parents and brother's blood. My hands were stained with it, and wouldn't return to their clean state no matter how much I washed them. I felt that I should die for allowing that to happen.

"Of course, that never ended up happening.

"The innkeeper introduced me to the Mercenary Guild after getting sick of me never leaving my room, and I decided to start working. That's how I got out of my slump.

"I met so many people that had experienced similar things to me, everyone was so kind to me, and because I was so young, everyone stood up for me when things went wrong. One way or another, I felt as though I had found a new family. Not a replacement, not even one that could make me forget my biological family, just a new one.

"No one blamed me when I told them my story. They gave sympathy, and, something that was told me to me that really helped me stop viewing myself so negatively, said by none other than Freesia, was, 'your hands aren't stained with blood. Your family died making sure you could live happily. Your hands are stained with an unshakeable love.'"

"That's the short of it," Shiro explained, sighing.

"..."

"Freesia saved you because she wants you to be happy. She felt her life was worth giving up for yours, so don't you dare throw it away."

"No life is..." I started crying again. I covered my face with my hands and get my nails digging into my skin. "You're all crazy. No life is important enough to justify sacrificing another..."

Shiro patted my back. "Marisa... no one is saying otherwise," he said, hugging me tightly. "But self sacrifice is different. They died on their own terms. As foolish or unforgivable as you may think that is... it's even more unforgivable to let that sacrifice be in vain."

I clutched my chest. I was feeling a sharp pain there. I felt as though I was going to die. My tears wouldn't stop flowing, and my cries would probably attract monsters with how loud they were.

"Please live," Shiro said. "Even if it's miserable for you. Because I'll be there for you throughout all of it."

———————————

Author’s Note: I find it hard to kill off characters I like writing, but this was the only way for the story to continue. But even then, I had to figure out a way to have Freesia die in a way that wasn’t contrived. Ever since chapter 1 I’ve been thinking about it, and only came up with a solution to this issue midway through writing chapter 3. While I have my own story to tell, you also have to make sure characters are consistent. If their motives or characteristics don’t match up with the story, it can end up going in a completely different direction. Shiro’s battle with the dragon was also a pain to write. I meant for it to show the perseverance and courage he has, but I’m not sure I did a good job. His willingness to act inhuman and careless, fighting with an improvised style, I don’t think I’m skilled enough to do it justice. At any rate, Marisa is just sort of getting taken along for the ride at this point, his traumatising experience and failed suicide attempt is only the beginning. Please bear with his toxic self-hatred for a few chapters more. The next chapter is the true start of this story. Stay tuned!

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evelyns-writing-blog · 10 months ago

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Chapter IV: The Cave

[Previous Chapter]

Much to my distaste, the cave was incredibly cramped. The crawl spaces were way too narrow, and we had to go through three of them.

Shiro had no problem.

Freesia got through just fine.

But I cried and moaned the whole way. Completely failing to keep up my fake smile.

Listen, it wasn't as if I had to lie flat against the ground and shimmy my way through, but the height of these crawl spaces only gave about a foot worth of extra space. For me that's too little.

Once we were through that, though, we found ourselves in a huge opening. I couldn't see the ceiling, and I couldn't see the wall on the other side.

I could hear water flowing.

Freesia walked ahead of us and she cast a giant fireball spell and sent it up to the roof of the cave. It acted like a chandelier, and the room lit up. It's a good thing she did that, because I was just a step away from falling over a cliff that I couldn't see. I silently took a few steps back and fell to my knees. That was close.

Once I gathered enough confidence to look over the cliff, my eyes were greeted by a massive structure.

No, it was more like a small town that had been buried or something. No windows, no doors. No people, either. It looked extremely primitive.

At the back of the room, I saw a waterfall. It was really pretty. Maybe it was worth crawling through those crawl spaces.

I anxiously giggled. "Even if I get a low ranking, it was worth coming all the way out here..." I mumbled to myself.

Shiro hugged my arm. "It's pretty. But don't forget we're here for a mission," he said in a whisper. "Besides, this cave kinda freaks me out, beyond its breathtaking view, I swear it's haunted."

Ghosts probably existed in this world. So I was a little put off by that comment. I've never seen a ghost before, so I held the belief that they just didn't exist. However if I did see one, I'd probably faint.

I shook my head. "Even if it's haunted, I'll protect you from any ghosts that come our way," I said, confidently. I was probably going to scream like a girl if I ever saw one, though.

Shiro giggled and hugged my arm tighter and I found myself blushing. "Well, ghosts can't attack us and we can't attack them anyway, but I appreciate that." His voice calmed me down a bit, and I felt more comfortable being in this cave. I regret not talking much to him on the way here.

"S-So, ghosts are friendly, then?"

"Well, that depends, they may not be able to hurt people, but I've heard of people dying from heart attacks just by seeing them."

Fressia spoke up for the first time since entering the cave. "That's false, don't go feeding him lies, Shiro."

Shiro huffed and crossed his arms. "Don't blame me, blame the person that told me in the first place."

"And who would that be?"

"The leader of Mountain Wolves."

Freesia cringed. "Geh. That guy should know better than to spread rumours like that after what happened two months ago."

"Huh?! He was responsible for that?! Him and his party were just as shocked as everyone else, though!"

"Haha, yeah, he admitted to it to me a month ago. Apparently he didn't realise how dangerous it would have been at the time, that's why he was so surprised then."

"Huh. You think you know a guy. I should probably stop listening to him then."

"Hey, he's a good kid, just dont take everything he says at face value."

...

I felt so lost.

I hadn't really thought about it until now, but this really was another world. Stuff didn't just magically show up once I woke up in that ditch. It has a history. It's existed alongside my original world the whole time, and not a soul knew about it. I suppose I'm the only one that ever will. It made me feel weird to think about.

Well, at least that means it's real. I'd probably feel even weirder if this world was all made up specifically for me.

Shiro went back to clinging to my arm again. "Let's get going then!" I'd like to say he was trying to flirt with me, but I could tell by his shaking that he seemed to be really scared. That alone made me feel a little more comfortable. I get as though I could handle anything this cave throws at me as long as I get to protect Shiro.

Freesia stopped us before we even took a step. "Wait, something's wrong," she said, pointing down at the abandoned city. "Some of the buildings down there have been demolished."

I squinted my eyes, trying to see what she was talking about. "Freesia, this place is pretty rundown to begin with, maybe they just collapsed overtime..."

"No, that's not possible. This is technically a tourist spot, it's regularly maintained once a year. It shouldn't have been possible for it to collapse."

Shiro let go of my arm and rushed to Freesia's side, it must've been more visible from over there. "Hey, i think i see claw marks on that building," he whispered. I could still hear him, and he seemed to notice and lowered his voice even more.

Whatever he said next, it made Freesia's face go pale, she backed away from the ledge and gripped her staff tighter than she was already.

"What's wrong?" I asked, my anxiety was getting the better of me, I was super worried.

Freesia looked over at me, and then down the path leading deeper into the cave. She took a deep breath, and then started walking towards me. No, towards the exit. "We're leaving," she said, shakily.

"What?!"

"I'm grading you as an A-Ranked Average mercenary. Let's call it quits here."

I didn't understand. "But what about—?!"

"Don't just stand there, let's get going!" Freesia snapped at me. She gave me a panicked look.

Shiro patted me on the back. "I know we came a long way to get here, but in all honesty, it might not be so safe right now," for the first time in the time I'd known him, he sounded timid, afraid.

Truly timid. Truly afraid. Not just about some ghost stories or whatever. He seemed scared for his life.

I stayed where I was. I didn't move. Why won't you tell me? That's what was running through my mind.

I suddenly felt really angry. "Let's keep going..." I said, monotone.

Shiro held my hand and tried to pull me along. "It's not something that can be helped, the cave isn't safe," he said constantly looking around, anxiously. "It's a monster. I didn't wanna freak you out so I didn't tell you, but if you're insisting on continuing then I have to."

I froze up. I wasn't moving. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to. "We're just going to quit right at the end?" I felt myself trembling.

Shiro looked me in the eyes, annoyance taking over his fearful look. "Why are you being so stubborn? Let's go."

"I'd rather die here than run away like a coward..." I muttered. I felt tears welling up in my eyes.

Freesia flinched and turned to me, she walked right over, pulled Shiro out of the way and slapped me. "There is a monster that is completely out of our skill range in here, and you're telling me you want to keep going?! Get the fuck over yourself, dude!"

"Hey!" Shiro yelled at her while getting between us. "Don't resort to hurting him!"

...

"I can even understand where he's coming from, so cut him some slack!"

...

"It doesn't seem like that thing is here right now, anyway, we can at least talk things out rationally and calmly for a while."

I had been looking at Freesia the whole time. She had her fist raised, but she lowered it once Shiro was done talking. She took a deep breath. "S- I mean, Marisa, why do you want to continue?"

I put my palm on my forehead. I felt like I was gonna pass out. "If I stop now, I'll just be seen as a coward."

Freesia sighed. "There's no one in this country capable of defeating this thing alone. Even with just me and Shiro, it'll be almost impossible."

What even was it? A dragon or something?

I fell onto my ass and sighed. I was being selfish again. I really am terrible. My life was in shambles, I wanted to ruin it again. "I'll go by myself," I said, looking down at my knees. "You two can just wait here for all I care."

They fell silent, the both of them. Cowards.

I looked up at them and smiled weakly. "I'm not gonna let you two freaks stop me from actually doing something productive with my life. I'm gonna get that treasure and return to Nix with the highest rank I can achieve!" I stood up again, feeing more confident. I pulled out my sword. "I'm not scared of a dragon, or a demon, or whatever the fuck you two are scared of. If I run into it, so be it! I won't let a bunch of cowards boss me around!"

Shiro backed off with a confused smile, he gave a hesitant sounding giggle. "M-Marisa, calm d-," he spoke, gently, unthreateningly.

"Shut the fuck up!" I swiped my sword around dangerously. "Heheh...ahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!" I glared at Freesia next. "If you even try stopping me, I'll make it so you'll never be reunited with that man you like!" She grimaced and held herself back from retorting.

I could tell she wanted to say something. She wanted to tear into me! Like a snake! Just waiting for an opening! To destroy me just like my sister did! But I won't let her! I'll not ggivr her a single opening! She won't even be able to respond! I'll control my life this time! I continued to giggle and laugh to myself. "I won't be a failure like last time! I won't just be a slave like last time! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

I ran away, deeper into the cave. I'd do things the right way! My way! I won't have a repeat of my last life. I'd sooner die than allow that to happen.

Whatever awaited me, deep in the cave, I'd kill it. Even if it's impossible. I'll die trying. Because I'm not some fucking slave to someone else's decisions!

Never again.

Never again!

Never again...

The cave was dark, but not entirely. Small holes in the ceiling carried light from the surface all the way down here, so I could see where I was going with relative. This body had perfect vision. I didn't need to worry about a thing. "Stupid cowards. I'll show them."

I'd been walking through the cave for ten minutes or so at this point. I didn't exactly know where I was going, but I could only hope I'd get to another big opening soon.

Another thing about this cave was the temperature. With being out in the cold for two days straight, being down here was warm. I had to take off a few layers. Being shirtless in a cave made me feel uncomfortable, but it's not like those scaredy cats would follow me, so I had no reason to worry about getting spotted.

I'm not a nudist.

This light armour was easy to carry around anyway, it's not like I'd actually fight anything in here anyway. This cave was narrow. Whatever they're scared of can't be that big at all. At the very least it can't come through here.

I gritted my teeth. "Those idiots..."

It was then, that I came across a choice. Left or right.

I didn't move for a while, then I smugly grinned. Other people have probably done this exact same thing before. I focused on the floor. There was probably going to be some sort of hint. There had to be.

And I found it. The dirt on the floor was more flattened heading to the left, so that meant most people went that way. Even if I was wrong, it probably didn't matter much, but I wanted a perfect score, no matter what. As best as I can do.

I kept going, dragging my sword across the ground, it was making sparks whenever I came across a stone floor. "I didn't travel two whole days for nothing. I'll show them."

The next room I found myself in was a domed room, with a drinking fountain in the middle. It didn't look like anything special, but it was kinda creepy that it was still operational despite being in a cave. I didn't bother trying to drink from it, who knows what sort of illness I could get if I did.

It pissed me off.

I chopped it in half with my sword. It took quite a few swings. In anime and manga, it always looked so easy to cut through stone.

Not that it matters anymore.

I sat down for a bit. I'd already overexerted myself. I'm way too weak. "I'm sure I'm close to the treasure," I mumbled to myself. "I wonder what it is though. Probably fake gold or something."

I heard it start to rain outside, some of the droplets reached down here too.

I remembered the looks on Shiro and Freesia's faces when I talked back to them.

I suddenly felt really bad about it.

Why did I blow up at them? They were only trying to look out for me...

I got back up again after resting. "I should probably hurry."

The further into the cave I got, the darker it became, eventually I could barely see. It was scary, to be honest. I kept going onwards though.

Until I reached another room. It had a huge hole in the top, light shining through. I took a deep breath. If it got any darker, I might've gotten lost or something. I looked up through the hole, it went right outside. There were bits of dirt and rock still crumbling off from the hole... I guess this place must be collapsing or something. It's not very deep underground after all. The edges of the hole looked like it was charred. "..." my fears were gonna get the better of me if I stayed here any longer. I half-expected a monster to pop its head in from above through that hole.

...

Well. In the middle of the room was a treasure chest, and in that chest...

I sighed in disappointment. It was just a drawing of gold on some worn out paper.

I can't say I'm surprised, but I expected them to put a little bit more into the atmosphere of this trial job.

I folded it and put it in my pocket. Despite it being a pretty shitty piece of paper, I felt accomplished. Was it that hard for those two assholes to tag along? I would have felt more accomplished if they were here with me.

I felt better than them right now. I'm not a coward like they are. It's just an empty cave.

I laughed again. Maybe I overreacted a bit, but it just occurred to me back then that if I allowed myself to fall into that mentality of giving up, I probably wouldn't have been able to get out of it. Even if a serious threat was in the way, I had to keep going and complete this mission. Trial job or not.

To me, this job meant taking my freedom back. Freedom that I haven't had the privilege to use since I was 15. I wasn't going to let people I barely knew get in the way of that. Even if one of them is cute enough for me to want to give my life up for. This is my second chance at life, and I need to make a good first impression.

I'm someone that gets things done. That's who I want to be, I decided that. Suicidal thoughts and self hatred be damned.

Are you watching, sister? I'll prove you wrong, and I hope you're mad, I hope you never get a days peace knowing that I'm going to do better this time around.

I stared at the now empty treasure chest and felt terrible. I crouched down and groaned. "They're gonna be really angry at me when I get back, aren't they?" I muttered. Coming down from my temper tantrum, I realised that I was probably an idiot.

I came back to the entrance of the cave, making sure to put my shirt and armour back on beforehand, and was promptly slapped by both Shiro and Freesia.

"Seriously!" Shiro exclaimed in anger, he was pointing at me with his right hand, and had his left hand placed on his waist. What a tsundere. "You gave me all that crap for not letting that Donovan thing go and you're tellingg me you got all huffy about this stupid trial mission because you don't wanna just give up?!"

Hypocrite, dishonest, pervert!

Freesia was not equally as mad. While Shiro only slapped me once, Freesia decided to slap me non-stop. "I don't know what you're going through, but don't you dare bring my crush into this! I genuinely thought you were serious about that! And do you know how dangerous the stunt you just pulled was?! For crying out loud, Marisa! In some ways, you're just like him!"

This barrage of violence and hate being thrown my way was 100% deserved, but I felt like I was gonna die. "Ahhhhh!!!! Stop! Stop! Stop slapping me! I'm sorry! I know it was really shitty, but I've learned my lesson!" I jumped back and got to my hands and knees. I got as low as I could, grovelling as best I could. "I promise to never say something like that, even as a joke, ever again!"

Shiro got me up to my feet and hugged me. "Whatever Freesia might think, I'm just glad you're okay," he said. It was a shock to my system. I realised he was crying. "I wanted to go after you, but I was too scared, both of us were."

"..." I cringed. "Sorry..." I think I'm supposed to hug him back, but Freesia was glaring at me, and that glaring got worse depending on where I hovered my hands over his body. I settled for just patting him on the back and petting his head.

Freesia shook her head and sighed. "Well, he may be safe, but the fact that thing is still hiding in this cave is making me paranoid, can we just get out of here already?"

Shiro wiped his eyes, and didn't turn around until any hint that he'd been crying had vanished. He smiled and put a finger to his lips.

I finally cracked a happy smile too.

After a few more apologies, we went on our way.

I really am such a child aren't I?

I wouldn't be surprised if that little temper tantrum I threw was enough to dock points off my final score. I really should've thought about that. Now that I've calmed down, this all seems kinda stupid. I didn't know I had that type of anger in me.

I looked down at my hands as I waited for Shiro and Freesia to crawl through the first crawl space. I noticed that I had quite a lot of burns and calluses on my hands... why was that? What was the original owner like?

A memory flashed in my mind for a moment.

I was having a sword fight with someone. Wooden swords. They looked younger than me but their face was a blur. In this memory, I also seemed to be shorter. This must be a memory from the original owner.

I was winning the fight, blocking every single blow and landing a finishing blow on my opponent's shoulder.

"Again?" The opponent said, he sounded disappointed, frustrated. Definitely a kid. Maybe in his early teens. "How am I the leader if my second in command can always beat me?"

My voice came out lighter. Definitely a younger version of this body. "Hey, leading isn't all about physical strength, [***]. You're a lot smarter than me. I could never come up with such a crazy plan."

Were they LARPing? I did it at a young age too, so I'm not gonna fault them for that, but still.

The boy in front of me hopped back up to his feet and swung his sword around. "Don't be so humble, [***]. I know you have a few good ideas in that head of yours, I just happened to think of it first."

"If you insist," the original owner sighed. "Well, you up for anoth—."

"Marisa!"

Huh?

I snapped back to reality. I was crying again.

"C'mon, Marisa, crawl through!" I heard Freesia yelling for me.

I got flustered and hastily made my way through the first crawl space. "S-Sorry about that," I said. I felt as though I had to be obedient for a while to make up for the fact I just snapped at these two for no reason.

At any rate, we made it out of the cave, and that's mission accomplished. Felt kinda anti-climactic. And because of that, I was still on edge.

It's better that nothing happened, to be honest, because I would have been dead already if something did happen. So what if it was a red herring? That's a good thing. The less conflict, the less risk, the better.

I glanced at Shiro, and he was sweating despite it being so cold out.

"Shiro, are you alright? Do you have a cold or something?" I said it, semi-worriedly, semi-jokingly.

Freesia grabbed me by the head and forced me to look forward. "Don't look back," her voice was trembling. I glanced over to her. She was sweating too. "It was waiting for us, the whole time."

"...That dangerous monster you were talking about?" I tried to keep my voice at a whisper.

"Yeah. You were probably right to go looking for that treasure. By the fact the snow had melted outside of the cave already, it's been waiting ever since we arrived." She glanced at me, I've never seen her this scared before. "Your temper tantrum gave us a good half an hour more to live..."

She seriously noticed that? Shiro must've as well. I was too focused on other things to realise that. I guess that just goes to show you the gap between me and these two.

And half an hour? That can't be right. We could get away from this situation, can't we?

...Right?

Shiro squeezed my hand in his. He was hyperventilating. "It's gonna attack us. There was no avoiding this fight..." he glanced over to me, his eyes barely keeping steady, his lips trembling. "The best we can do is try and take it off its guard right as it attacks, but our chances of survival are low."

"..." I started feeling panicked. "W-What are we supposed to do now?" Stopped walking, but Shiro pushed me along.

"Keep walking, pretend like nothing's wrong," he whispered. I obeyed him. "You'll slow us down, so when I give the signal, please just run away as fast as you can."

I realised I was starting to sweat too. I nodded and kept my eyes forward. My walking had gotten really wobbly. My breathing was getting worse. The fact that Shiro and Freesia were scared was making me freak out.

What was behind me?

What was it?

I wanted to turn around so badly, but I felt that if I did, I'd die.

"Run, now!" Freesia exclaimed.

I booked it. I ran as fast as I could.

"Huh?! Shit!" Shiro yelled out almost immediately. "Marisa, jump to the right! It was aiming for you!"

I did as I was told. I ended up landing face first in the snowy dirt, and the next thing I heard was the snapping of something, and then something huge crashing into the ground.

I struggled to my hands and knees, but I suddenly felt a sharp and hellish pain in my leg. I couldn't even scream, my breath was taken away. I looked back and almost collapsed from fear.

The calf of my left leg had been snapped in two. I tried to scream but I couldn't.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream.

My vision was going blurry. I could barely handle the pain. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Not even my sister had broken any of my bones before. And those wolves in the forest had at least the courtesy of avoiding my bones altogether.

I couldn't move, if I moved it would hurt even worse. I tried to steady my breathing, but I couldn't at all.

I looked up, finally, and I saw what had just crash landed.

A dragon. It had red scales, sharp claws. Its tail had a sharp end. Perfect for stabbing. Its eyes were golden, and it was staring at me. Tears of blood were flowing from its eyes. It was boiling blood too. The smoke coming from its mouth. It looked just about ready to breathe fire at just a moment's notice.

It looked like it was smiling, almost. Mocking me.

It roared, spewing boiling, lava like blood from its mouth. Was it sick?

Or was it just like that?

I felt like my heart had stopped.

Such a simple and common monster in fantasy, and yet it always strikes fear into the heroes of the story.

A dragon is God.

That is the distance between humans and a Dragon. You couldn't hope to beat one on your own. Even an army would be better off fleeing.

It instilled fear into me. I felt like giving up. I wanted to get on my hands and knees and pray to the dragon in the hopes that it would spare me.

That wouldn't happen, though.

It was hopeless.

This was it.

I was going to die again.

———————————

Author’s Note:

This was originally supposed to be a part of chapter 3, which is why it feels sort of fast compared to the previous chapter. Again, that chapter was taking too long as is.

Anyway, things aren’t looking good for our heroes. But I’m sure it’ll work out just fine.

I watched A Brighter Summer Day by Edward Yang in the cinema yesterday, it was so good that it got me out of a pretty serious writers block. I finished a majority of this chapter two hours before I’m posting this. Great film btw, I highly recommend it.

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Chapter III: Travelling/Trauma

[Previous Chapter]

[Content Warning: Rape, Abuse, Incest, Self-Harm, Suicide. You’ve been warned, Abandon all hope ye who enter here]

A two day trip out of town to a place called Silk Cave. The mission was to locate a treasure chest at the bottom of the cave.

It was simple enough, but I still felt nervous, even with Shiro and another person with me.

This other person was a professional ranked mage. Naturally, she was wearing a black cloak over her clothes and had a big hat on her head. She had volunteered to judge my performance on this job. Maybe it was because of that that made me so nervous. I didn't like being watched at all. This fear was exactly why I needed to take my final exams of school three times just to get a barely passing grade.

Our judge/guide was named Freesia.

Shiro was in a fowl mood today. As we walked, he didn't even bother saying good morning to our guide.

"Y-You're not still mad about what I said yesterday, are you?" I asked, nervously.

"Huh?" Shiro was confused. "Uh, I guess so, but that's not what I'm mad about at the moment. We can talk about that when we get back."

"...I see." It upset me, surprisingly. I didn't want him to be mad at me, even if it was a little bit.

"Let's just leave any baggage at home. It'll affect your grade if we argue. For now, let's just pretend you didn't say anything rude to me."

Fair enough. I could get behind that. "What are you all grumpy over then?" I asked. Curiosity killed the cat, but it couldn't hurt to ask about this.

Shiro sighed. "It's about last night," he started. "I was staking out the Mercenary Guild's main building, and Donovan and the princess showed up. Obviously she was in a disguise though. The only problem was... They didn't do anything suspicious. They just had dinner and left! Three hours wasted!"

It made me wonder if Shiro would start talking about those two as if they were sour grapes if this kept happening enough times. Though, to be honest, Shiro wasn't the type to give up, I've learned that much.

Freesia patted Shiro on the back. "Did André set you up to that again?" She laughed. "You don't have to listen to him all the time you know?"

I've been saying this.

Shiro groaned and sped up his pace. "I don't care. I don't care!"

Freesia sighed. "Hey, don't run ahead! You need to preserve your energy, you know?!" She facepalmed and quickened her pace too, which meant I had to do the same. "You'd think a pro like him would understand that..."

I shrugged. "I've only known him for a little over two days, and he's as stubborn as they come. I've never met someone so stubborn before."

"I know, right?"

Maybe I was being too mean. Shiro was kind to me. Calling him stubborn felt like bullying. I really didn't want to do that. Given my own history, I felt like a hypocrite for shunning him for wanting to help everyone he meets.

I wanted to apologise, but he said to leave it until the job was done. Was that really okay though?

...

It was cold, by the way. Freezing. I felt like if I stopped moving, I'd die from the cold. Luckily there wasn't any snow, but the further away we moved from the city of Nix, the worse it got. The stone road turned to dirt, then the dirt was covered in a thin layer of ice, pretty soon, we had to go off road because of how dangerous it had become. If it wasn't for Freesia's fire magic, there would have even been a few times where I could've died from falling into small bodies of water accidentally. Our path was filled with obnoxious puddles that were deeper than you'd expect just by looking at them.

Of course, Freesia scolded me. No doubt that these mistakes would deduct points from my overall score.

Shiro did eventually slow his pace, probably thinking I was getting tripped up all the time because of how fast we were moving. But that really wasn't the case. It kept happening.

What am I gonna do? I'm definitely gonna end up as a beginner!

"Hey, hold still!" Shiro pouted, healing my ankle, which I just twisted. "Honestly, what was the guild thinking? Silk Cave is too far away for someone like you."

Apparently I couldn't change my trial job. How frustrating. "Are you saying I'm helpless?" I retorted. "Back in my youth, I went hiking with my entire class. I crossed the country. It took three weeks! Two days is nothing." I may have been over exaggerating. I was crying and moaning a day into it, and felt like I died fifty times over by the time we were done.

"Youth? You're not that much older than Shiro," Freesia chided, she was glaring at me with a fire in her eyes that felt a little bit like an overreaction. Seriously. Why was she so angry about that. Be that as it may... She was 25, so that would make her five years younger than my old self. I almost forgot that I was only a teenager in this world.

"Ah! You get what I mean, Freesia! I meant when I was 10 years old!" A bald faced lie like that wouldn't pass in my world. What school would make 10 year olds travel the country? But luckily, this world seems like its kids can become adults much earlier.

Shiro patted me on the back when he finished healing me. "I guess that rules out you being native to Ferrum completely. There's no school in the entire country that would allow something like that."

"You could say that, but I don't exactly remember from where it was I came from."

Explaining my situation was a pain, so simply just saying I'd forgotten most things was a handy catch-all. It's not like most of what I know about my original world matters much here, anyway. My cover up was obviously a cop out, but I was honestly pretty scared of being found out. What would Shiro say if he found out I was originally a woman?

Scary.

Would he cut me off? Find me disgusting? Maybe he'd even kill me. This was a strange new world after all, it's basically the Middle Ages, no doubt, I'm a criminal by the standards of those days, a sinner.

"It's so weird. I've only read about amnesia in books, I would have assumed you'd remember nothing at all, but it seems to be more specific stuff you've forgotten," Shiro said in a mumble.

"Well, I'd be a vegetable if I forgot everything," I retorted, trying to shoot down this conversation already.

"Vegetable?"

I'd be brain dead, I explained. I guess that wasn't a term here.

...

I closed my eyes as we all continued walking, the conversation drifting off into awkward silence. Shiro must've understood then and there that I didn't want to talk about it.

I was starting to get used to having Freesia's eyes on me, and the cold itself wasn't too bad now that I'd been walking for a few hours at this point.

Something flashed before my eyes.

A vision? No, it felt more familiar than that, but I don't believe I've ever seen it before.

I was looking through the eyes of someone. A small boy, maybe. An older looking kid was dragging me around a large field of tall grass that went up to my chest.

He was smiling... I felt like I knew him from somewhere.

And the scene faded.

Odd.

That was all I could think of to describe what I just saw. I didn't really get it. Was I really day dreaming at a time like this?

Freesia patted me on the back, and Shiro quickly asked me a strange question. "Why are you crying?" His worried tone was enough to make me hard.

Having a good little shota boy consoling me during a moment of sadness was a big turn on for me, and— Wait, I'm crying?! Why? I quickly wiped my eyes and found them wet with tears. I grimaced and wiped my eyes some more until it stopped. "S-Sorry..." I said, feeling dazed.

Freesia sighed. "Do you need a break... Marisa?"

I shook my head, suddenly felt dizzy, and fell on my ass. Of course, both her and Shiro came to my side.

"I guess that's a yes, then."

Not even noon, and we're already taking a break. For some reason, I felt embarrassed. I was gonna cry for real now, really.

Shiro made a camp fire within a matter of seconds with a few twigs and a flame spell. "Downtime doesn't count towards your ranking, by the way," Shiro said. Resting his head on my shoulder.

"It's really nothing, I just experienced a weird vision. It disoriented me for a second." I stumbled back up to my feet and smiled at my two companions. "I can keep going for at least another hour."

It was an another lie. Whatever I saw just now was weighing heavily on my heart. I felt as if I was going to die from sadness.

Shiro and Freesia seemed to buy it though and put the fire out. But a part of me wished they hadn't. That's the thing about me. If I want to, I can just hide behind a fake smile and say that everything is alright, and because I'm not important, people will just believe me.

I kinda just want to go home. This was a bad idea.

"Say, do you know anything about Shiro?" Feeling like a pest, I decided to ask Freesia about something that wasn't any of my business.

She shrugged. "I don't know much personally about him, he likes to keep to himself, but he is a strange kid, isn't he?" she explained. "He just showed up one day and quickly started making a name for himself. Within a year he was a professional A-ranked Mercenary."

"He's that good?" Why was he out collecting sticks then?

"Uh-huh. He raced through the ranks, but once he reached A-rank in the professional rank, he stopped going for harder missions and just helped around town instead. You only need to be an average ranked mercenary at best to do all those menial jobs."

"Then what's the point of getting to a professional A-rank?"

Freesia laughed. "He actually told me that before. Apparently it's a safety net. In case he needs to help anyone in the city that has a job that dangerous. He doesn't actually care all that much about dungeon raiding or fighting in wars or whatever."

"... I guess that could be pretty frustrating for the guild, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty much. The higher-ups have been considering changing the rules to Professional ranked mercenaries can only do as low as F-ranked Highly Skilled jobs."

"..." I didn't really know what to say, but I felt somewhat sad about it. "Hey, if you make that a rule, can I still work with him? I doubt I'll get into even the Average Rankings from this, but I'd like to have him as a guide. Maybe even a bride."

Fressia had to do a double take. "Yeah, there's nothing stopping two people from different ranks from—wait, what did you say?!"

"Nothing, ignore that. It was a slip of the tongue."

Freesia bonked me on the head. "Don't even joke about that. You said it on purpose!"

I sighed as I self-deprecatingly made light of my dark desires. "Don't worry about it, I just love making jokes that would get me imprisoned for life."

Freesia raised an eyebrow. "You're a strange one, I tell ya what."

"I get that a lot..."

In that moment of awkward silence that followed, Shiro yelled out at us. "Freesia, Adamantia Wolves are coming this way!"

Freesia immediately ran ahead and pulled out a staff. I didn't exactly wanna be left alone, so I followed her.

I didn't even need to ask what was happening, because the second I saw what it was that Shiro was talking about, my heart sank. And I felt dizzy.

It was a pack of wolves. The same type of wolves that had nearly killed me a few days ago. I took a few steps back, there was no way I could fall over now. I had to keep standing. If I embarrassed myself any more than I already have, I'd have deserved to have died back then.

Shiro pulled out his short sword and got ready to fight. "Freesia, protect Marisa, I'll take care of it," he said. I felt like I was being babied.

Freesia tilted her head. "Huh? I get that he's a beginner, but these things aren't particularly that difficult to fight, even when they're in a large group like this."

So I almost died to some cannon fodder enemies? The tutorial enemy in an RPG, huh? How pathetic. It kinda made me mad. Platinum mad.

"I-I'll deal with any stragglers," I said, nervously holding my sword up. "Don't worry about me." I put up a fake smile too. I had to.

Freesia gave me a worried look, but there wasn't any more time to talk. Shiro rushed ahead.

He shot out balls of fire from his palm, which sent about half of the wolves flying, and right after that, he used his sword to slice through the wolves closest to him, he was so fast I could barely keep my eyes on him. It was so impressive that I almost forgot that I was absolutely terrified of these things. Almost. Watching him move like that took my breath away, to be honest, my heart beat was returning to a normal rhythm. Watching Shiro, I felt safer.

It was over in a matter of seconds but I could have watched him fight like that for hours. I was nearly killed by things that a child had no problem dealing with. Freesia didn't even need to protect me. Shiro was doing a good enough job on his own.

He turned to us and waved, a big smile on his face. "It's okay now!" He said, running back to us. He defeated about 20 of these things within five seconds.

I gotta be careful around him, definitely need to keep my thoughts in check. If I act on anything, I'm finished.

Maybe it would be worth it, though. Dying by the hands of a pretty boy like him. Few would be lucky enough for it.

I sighed in relief, though. The wolves were gone, I was safe again.

Freesia seemed to understand why she was tasked with defending me after I explained. "I see, that must've been really traumatic. But don't worry, once you fight a few for yourself, you'll realise there nothing to be afraid of." Really, I didn't deserve such reassurance.

Anyway, by this point, I was starting to feel really tired. "How long do we have left?" I impatiently asked.

"We should get there by the end of the next day," Shiro said, drinking from a flask. "Do you need another break?"

I looked up at the sky. The sun was right above us. It was only noon. I sighed, but then kept pushing forward. I wouldn't stop walking until I physically couldn't anymore. I decided that. I wanted to seem at least somewhat competent.

I felt like it was going to only get worse from here, for some reason.

10 minutes later, I collapsed, unable to walk any further. Pathetic!

Shiro forced me to drink water from his flask. And he only forced me because I couldn't move anymore, not even my mouth. I couldn't speak, that's how exhausted I was. If I could move, he would not need to force me. I'd make sure to savour the flavour of his saliva that had been left on it. I could live off that stuff. An indirect kiss to top all indirect kisses.

I apologised profusely once I caught my breath. "Despite the muscles I have, I guess I'm not built for walking long distances."

Shiro laid down next to me and sighed. "It's not as if there's a time limit on this, right, Freesia?"

Freesia joined in. "If it means anything, we're actually ahead of schedule. No, there's no time limit, but you are graded on time as well." She giggled. "Might as well take a break here." She raised her hand and summoned a few balls of fire. They started floating around us. "There! That should keep us warm too."

"You say that, but I still feel like I'm underachieving..." I replied, feeling like shit.

Shiro put a hand on my head. "More like overachieving. To a dangerous level," he groaned. "If you push yourself too far again we're going right back home."

"I think I'd start cutting again if I couldn't at least make it to this stupid cave," I pouted.

"The heck are you talking about? Anyway, we can just try again even if you fail, I'm pretty sure, but you'll get a lower grade by default."

Did the concept of self harm not exist in this world? I may be an invasive type of person then. I better keep it to myself from now on. Besides. If I hurt this new body, it would make me seem ungrateful. If I had my old body I'd probably have been cutting myself as soon as I woke up.

.... Too dark? It's true though. That old body, my original one, really was a pain. I cut right down to the bone more than a few times. I was hospitalised too many times to count because of it.

I cringed. For some reason, I felt disgusted by the idea of cutting myself despite feeling nothing back in my old world.

It would help if I felt disgusted by the idea of killing myself too...

"Lower grade is fine, it's not like I could fight monsters anyway. Wood collection and looking for missing cats is fine by me," I mumbled.

Shiro laughed. "That barely pays. You'd have to work yourself to the bone in order to live off those jobs," he explained. He sat up and decided to sit on me. Right on my crotch. "Tell you what. Next time we come across some monsters that aren't those wolves, I'll leave some to you." His angelic smile was so pure. I grabbed him by the waist and picked him up before he felt my quickly hardening "sword" rubbing against his crotch. It was really a matter of life or death. "H-Huh?! Awawawa! Put me down! Did I do something wrong?!" His flustered appearance was a reward in and of itself.

"Sorry, I just wanted to test my own strength," I lied in a monotone voice. You're pretty easy to pick up though, I think I should try picking up Freesia instead."

Freesia let out an unexpected laugh. "Hahaha?!"

Shiro slapped me. "Y-You'll do no such thing! If you must, keep using me as a weight!"

Ah, that slap was wonderful!

I put him down. I felt kinda bad for embarrassing him.

"W-What was that all about?!" he cried.

I closed my eyes. "I could ask you the same thing. Why were you okay with being used as a weight?"

Shiro took a while to respond. He kept stopping and starting. It's like he was looking for a good enough excuse. "It's okay if it's with you." He ended up going with a cheesy line like that. "B-Becuase I trust you, you know? It's not anything weird."

"It's fine, Shiro, I get it, heheh."

"Sheesh! Please don't mention this to anyone! You as well Freesia!"

Comical. We ended up chatting about nothing in particular after that.

I didn't like the idea of walking for another day and a half, but that's life.

I better enjoy these moments of downtime whenever I get them... I couldn't shake the feeling that I should be doing something else though.

"Mum, dad, it's taken a lot of courage to tell you this, but I feel like I'm really a boy!"

Given how much I've bitched about it, I think now's a better time than any to talk about my past. As much as it hurts to reminisce, I find it important.

Upon hearing my confession, my parents didn't kick me out, but they started treating me awfully different.

"You're my daughter, and that's that," my mum said. "I've raised you for 15 years at this point, I won't have you ruining that over some stupid delusion."

"..." My dad didn't even respond with words at first. He just slapped me and took away my phone. I wouldn't be able to call my friends or anything. He snapped it in half. "You're grounded for a week. Apologise to your mother before then and I'll buy you a new one."

I couldn't fight back. I was frozen with shock. I was even still holding up my nervous smile. I couldn't react. It was like I was stuck in that single moment. Time itself must've stopped for me. But not for anything else. I was left alone with my younger sister in our living room.

My sister didn't comfort me after the humiliation I just faced, but she did keep quiet after that. She was usually loud and obnoxious. It made me snap out of my frozen state when I realised how quiet it was, though.

I looked over at her, and I blinked a couple times. Still taken aback from my parents' response. I told myself beforehand that it was a possibility that they'd reject me, and yet I found myself at a loss. I couldn't quite believe it. I sat down next to my sister and just stared into nothingness.

I wasn't disillusioned because of this, at least not quite yet. I started crying.

My sister patted me on the back, finally. "I'll call you brother, if you'll calm down," she said, apathetically. "That crying is pretty annoying."

I tried my best to do so, but I just couldn't calm down at all. It felt impossible. "W-What do I do?" I cried, not able to say anything else. I was scared more than anything.

My sister kicked me lightly. "Come on, Marisa, don't you see yourself as a guy? What's all this crying for then? If you're not gonna shut up, then just go to your room. You're being annoying right now," she chuckled. Back then, I thought she was just joking, trying to get me to fight back a little, but it's clear to me now, it has been for over a decade, that she was just bullying me.

Despite that, though. I couldn't stop myself from hugging her. I thought she was trying to cheer me up in her own way. What a stupid child I was. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I'm sorry for being so annoying! I'm a terrible older bother, aren't I?! I'm sorry! Please let me stay with you for a moment until I gather my bearings!"

"Ah-." My sister was taken aback. "Dude... get off me..." she bonked me on the head. It hurt a lot. "..."

I didn't let go. I just kept crying into her shirt.

"Christ. You're pathetic." She kicked me off her. And I landed on my ass on the hard wooden floor. It hurt so much that I stopped crying. It quite literally took my breath away. I could do nothing but wince and hold my stomach. "What sort of man gets their ass beat but a woman?! Their younger sister of all people?! You're pathetic! You've always been pathetic! For god's sake! No wonder you have no friends at school."

N-No... Don't hurt me... haha... Please. Don't yell... Please... Treat me nicer, please... Thats what was going through my head at that moment. It was like receiving a gut punch directly after getting told your dog has died.

I was hyperventilating, but I looked up at my sister, and I forced a smile through my tears. "Y-You still care about me," I stumbled over my words as I spoke, refusing to accept the truth. "You still love me." I grabbed her by the legs and looked up at her. "Please!"

She towered over me at this angle, obviously, it made her look imposing, it creeped me out. She grimaced and gritted her teeth. "You weirdo!" She kicked me right in the neck, and I lost my breath once more, this time for much longer. "Mum, dad! Marisa's being a creep! Maybe she is a man after all! Hahahahaha!" I was struggling on the ground trying to gasp for air for a full minute. I couldn't hear anything after that, and my eyes were watering so hard that I couldn't see either. I just struggled.

No one helped me.

No one was even there to see it happen. My sister had already left the room.

I was there, alone, writhing in pain. Pain that I deserved, because, despite that, I felt closer to my sister. That was the first time I'd interacted with her for years. I didn't hate her at all for it. It's pathetic, isn't it? I had no one else to turn to in my life, so I grovelled at the feet of my abusive sister. I'm a coward.

That was my life for the next five years.

My sister would abuse me more and more, and my parents would grow distant.

My sister even...

Raped me.

More than a few times.

I would even look forward to it, because it was the only time in my life where someone would pay attention to me.

My life... quickly spiralled.

I started cutting myself when I turned sixteen. A habit I wouldn't be able to break until I turned twenty-seven... no matter how hard I tried to. Of course my sister used that against me too. She'd even cut me herself, and then put out her cigarettes on them. Im pretty sure she was mentally unwell. After her rape sessions, she'd force me to apologise. She taught me to believe that I was the one in the wrong just because I was older. I grew dependent on her. I couldn't live without her.

"Come on, you stupid bitch," she whispered. "You think you can be a man if you're so lame at pleasuring me? Stop crying and get back to licking my cunt, you whore."

I was licking her crotch. My tongue hurt, but I knew what would happen if I stopped. I never wanted to experience it again. I felt like I'd never recover from this. Not ever.

She pushed my head down. "If you do a good job, I'll call you a good boy..." i started licking her even more intensely. I had to. Even a little bit of recognition for my true gender was enough for me to degrade myself as best I could.

"Hehehe... How does it feel? Isn't my tongue amazing? Ahahaha!" I said through my tears. I was an object before I was a man. I was an object before even being a woman, either. I was just an object, simple as that.

"Ah~! You fucking bet it is, you slut!" My gender didn't actually matter to my sister. When she wasn't horny, she'd refer to me by whatever gender would benefit her. So she saw me for my body and nothing else. But was it really that? No, she once told me she isn't a lesbian. That meant she was only doing it to keep me in my place. It was fun for her to watch me degrade myself.

I made sure to get my tongue as deep as I could into her vagina. It tasted terrible. I didn't understand how people in porn could do this. But I did it anyway. I'd grow accustomed to it over the years, as I wasted my youth.

When she came in my mouth, I nearly puked it back up, but I wouldn't get what I wanted if I did, so I always had to swallow it.

As I grew older, it would just get worse and worse. My sister eventually moved out of our parents house, and she took me with her. And it would only get more hellish from there. I don't even want to remember it.

When she didn't rape me, she'd beat me, and when she didn't beat me, she was out working or hanging out with her friends while I was tied up at home, left alone with my thoughts. Those times were the worst, I actually preferred the beatings and the rape. Because at least I didn't have to think. I didn't have to be alone.

I fell in love with being abused. People talk about stockholm syndrome like they know what it’s like. They think they know how tragic it is, but they don't think it's tragic enough. They underestimate it. I couldn't leave, even when my sister let me roam her house freely while she was gone.

"Marisa, I'm going out," she said, with sigh. It looked like she'd been called out by her friends. She didn't seem to like them but I guess she wanted to keep up appearances. "Let's try something new. I won't tie you up and lock you in, how does that sound?"

"..." I didn't move, I remained lying on the floor. "..." I had to look at her though, otherwise I'd get kicked, so I turned my head. "..." she was smiling at me. It was a warm smile, it calmed me down whenever I looked at it, because it signified that she was going to be "nice" to me today. She wouldn't beat me, only rape me, and after she was finished she'd let me wear boys clothes for the day. "Aren't you worried I'll run away?" I managed to mutter, my throat was dry, so I ended up coughing heavily.

She squatted down in front of me and ruffled my poorly cut hair. "If you run away, I guess I'll be in trouble then, wouldn't I..." She made sure I was looking her in the eyes before continuing. "But I trust you. You won't leave, because I have what you want."

"..." I gave it some thought, and decided to struggle to sit up. I clung to her arms for support. "But it's... not really worth the pain. If I left, I could get it elsewhere, without having to hurt."

My sister put her hands around my neck lightly, she rubbed the back of my neck. "I see, I see..."

"Ahh—!" I tried to scream. Because of how fragile I was, just this light massage was enough to make me feel like I was being choked. "I-I-... S-S-Sorry...!" I kicked my legs meekly in retaliation.

My sister licked her lips. "I bet if you really were a boy, you'd be popping a boner down there wouldn't you?" She pressed her knee against my crotch. "Though it's still easy to tell how much you like this. You're already wet."

"N-No... It's not like that." I coughed some more, struggling with every word. If she hadn't strangled me every time she raped me, my body wouldn't have a sexual reaction to it.

"Heheheh," she laughed, still keeping up that smile. "Then I suppose you should leave then. Go on, as soon as I'm out of the house, you go ahead and leave. Find the life you want that has no pain at all." She let go of my neck and got up.

I coughed, coughed, coughed...

"Goodbye, Marisa, you have five hours to make your choice." And she was out the door, and I was alone.

I couldn't stop coughing. It hurt so much, and eventually... I saw blood splatter over the floor in front of me. I covered my mouth to try and stop coughing, but it wouldn't work. I just gave up and dropped my hands. They were covered in blood. I laughed through my coughing. "I'm gonna die! Ahahahahaha!!!" I hit my head on the floor over and over. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!!! Die! Die! Die! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

I ran out of breath. I genuinely felt like I was going to die that day.

...

My life was probably over the second I came out to my parents.

When my coughing fit was over, it took me about an hour to get off the floor. The first thing that came to my mind was the fact that if I didn't clean up all my blood, my sister would kill me.

I cleaned it up, of course.

After that, I picked out the only set of men's clothes in the house. They were locked in a box under the bed. I didn't have the key, so I just broke it open by smashing it on the floor. It worked after five attempts.

I looked at the clothes, picked them up, and hugged them. It's the first time I'd be putting them on by myself. I savoured it, and once I was all dressed, I went to open the front door...

Only to hesitate. I backed off, and took a deep breath. I went to the bathroom, took a piss, washed my hands, and then looked in the mirror. Aside from my chest, these clothes did make me look more like a guy. I nervously smiled at myself. I let out a creepy laugh. I looked like total shit. The more I looked at myself in the mirror, the more I felt disgusted.

Eventually, I threw up into the toilet. I hated how I looked so much.

I flushed it as soon as I could, and then opened the window to make sure the smell didn't stay.

Now, I was ready to leave... right?

But as I opened the front door, I was frozen. I couldn't take another step. A voice in my head was telling me to go back inside.

She'll be mad at you if you leave...

"But I... She said it was okay..." I mumbled.

You don't want to get your sister in trouble, do you? She's all you have. The only one that'll house you, the only one that will call you a man if you behave well enough.

"That isn't true... heheh..." I tried to force a smile, but it wasn't working.

Oh, but it is, if you leave, you'll be sent to a psych ward, no doubt. They won't treat you like a man at all. You'd lack freedom.

"I lack freedom here though."

What sounds better to you? Lacking freedom with people that will never love you, or lacking freedom with a sister that will let you play pretend every now and then?

"I..."

.....................

"..."

I let the door close. I locked it, and I stripped myself.

I sat down by the bed, huddled my legs together, and I waited.

I was too scared to leave. Too scared to defy my sister. I'd be a good girl.

A girl... Nothing but a girl. A real man would have ran away in my shoes. That's what I thought...

When my sister got back, she stopped before entering, looking down at my clothes. "Hmm..." She picked them up. She smiled when she saw me. "You're still here."

I looked away and closed my eyes. "..." Her footsteps made my heart start to race. I was terrified. What was she going to do to me? I should have left. Oh, God. Help me... Her footsteps stopped. I heard her sit down next to me. I was trembling.

"I was worried you'd actually run away," she said. "But I'm glad you didn't." She put an arm around me and my whole body twitched. I was terrified. Was she gonna hurt me? "I'll have to reward you later, you know?"

I nervously looked over to her, but all that greeted me was a warm smile. "I... tried to leave... but I chickened out..."

"It's okay," she said, hugging me closer to her. I think she was drunk, she was slurring her words a bit. "Get on the bed."

I did as I was told, and she proceeded to rape me, as always. "..."

...

"Okay..."

That was the day I realised I had developed feelings for her. It sickened me to my stomach.

I would be free of those accursed feelings eventually, though. My sister was depressed same as me, and she ended up killing herself in front of me, and I was honestly convinced she did it just to spite me.

She just came home one day, so drunk that she couldn't keep her balance at all. I tried to keep her upright, but she'd just push me away. "God, you're such an annoying cunt, you know that?! Stay away from me!" She hit me on the side of the head with a bottle, and I fell over. I couldn't see anything for a few seconds after that. "Those whores at work! They think they can just treat me like dirt like that?! Fuckin' assholes!" She smashed the bottle on the floor and stumbled over to the kitchen. This was one room apartment, but it was quite spacious. I could see everything she was doing. She pulled out a knife from a drawer, along with some bandages.

I instinctively held out my arms and put on a fake, weak smile for her. Not including rape, this was her favourite type of abuse. She only started doing it once she found out I had been cutting myself. She could do it without me even instinctively fighting back, that's probably why she liked it so much.

At this point in our relationship, I'd embraced my abuse. It hurt like hell, and I wanted it to stop, but I kept coming back for more, I couldn't help it. She had me on a leash. This abuse was all I had.

It was the only consistent thing in my life. I could cling to it for safety, despite it slowly killing me.

My sister stumbled over and slumped down in front of me. She grabbed my right arm and sliced across my wrist, harder than she'd ever done before. My wrist started spewing blood, and I let out a sharp breath. I watched my life drain from the wound. I laughed through the pain. "Give me another one, please."

My sister complied to my request, and she cut my left wrist. From there, she cut my arms until they were completely covered in blood.

I felt so close to death, and only then did she stop. "Th-Thank you..." I said, meagrely. Barely clinging to my consciousness. So much blood.

I realised that my sister had said nothing to me the entire time, when she was normally very talkative.

"C-Could you put the bandages on now?" I mumbled.

My sister suddenly stabbed herself in the stomach.

"Ah—...!"

She looked me in the eyes as she pulled the blade out, only to thrust it back in. "I despise you... Kill Yourself…”

She collapsed, and bled out, she kept her eyes on me until the end.

Her blood was mixing with mine on the floor.

"Don't leave me..." I mumbled under my breath. Still in shock. I barely remember what was going through my mind at this time, but it surely wasn't anything pleasant. "Don't... AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! AHHH!!! NO!!! NO NO NO NO NO!!!! DON'T LEAVE ME! DON'T LEAVE ME!!! DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE DON'T LEAVE!"

PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

...

It ruined me. I couldn't comprehend it. My mind went blank, and eventually the police were called on us.

I was forced to tell other people for the first time what my sister had done to me, but most people blamed me for it.

When things settled down, I was sent to live in the apartment that my sister owned. My sadness wouldn't go away, though...

So I cut myself as deep as I could, and kept going deeper. There's plenty of permanent dents in my bones. Or I guess there used to be. I doubt that stuff carried over to my new body.

I couldn't work, I couldn't sleep. Living off government benefits and rotting in bed all day.

Until I just... stopped.

My depression got worse, and I stopped cutting. It wasn't helping. The cutting was just not burying my mental pain. It was worthless.

I was worthless.

Everything...

...

My late 20s were less hectic. I landed a job, even. But I couldn't feel anything. I was completely numb. I wasn't living, just existing. It was exhausting.

I ran into my mother one day, and it went as well as you'd expect. She blamed me for the death of my sister, that it was my fault for getting raped by her. And once more, she refused to acknowledge the fact I was a man. It didn't even hurt to hear that.

"You drove my daughter to suicide, and you're still insisting on this nonsense?" she said to me, angrily.

"..."

"What is wrong with you? Why won't you say anything?!"

I looked her directly in the eyes. "I-..." I couldn't say anything.

"Sheesh! I regret ever giving birth to a freak like you!"

In that moment, maybe out of anger, or just out of desperation, I reached my hands out to her neck, and squeezed tightly... only to give up after a few seconds. I was so frail that I could barely hold a bag of groceries, let alone strangle someone to death. Still, I tried. My mom didn't even realise I was trying. She thought I was just threatening her. It's laughable.

She just awkwardly said goodbye, and I never saw her again. Last I heard, she was living the good life with a new boyfriend. When I got home that day, I cried for the first time in years. It hurt beyond belief.

And now, my suicide.

On that bridge, in the middle of the night, I stared into that darkness that was the river below, and decided then and there, with no prior planning. No note, no goodbyes. I climbed up, and closed my eyes. I heard the voices of some bystanders. "She's not gonna jump, is she?!" "What are we doing standing around for?! Someone grab her!" "Shit! Someone call an ambulance! "Why is no one stopping her?!"

I wasn't scared like these strangers were. I was going to embrace death, once again obeying my sister like a good girl. I looked back at the bumbling crowd of morons that were too scared to move, and I looked down on them. I despised them. Cowards…

The strong wind that night did the rest.

My last memories of that world was the view of the lights of the city through the water. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Thus ended the life of Marisa Emery. I don't want sympathy, I don't want pity. Just leave it be. Laugh, if you must, but don't feel bad. I just hope this life will be different, is all. I never want anyone in this world to know how pathetic I was back then.

I'll take that last life with me to the grave, my second grave, to be exact.

God must’ve given me a second chance. But I’d say I don’t deserve it.

Back to the present. I woke up in a cold sweat. Not because of that nightmarish memory I just shared, but because of something entirely different.

I had a nightmare of my new body dying by the hands of some stranger in the middle of the forest. I don't really remember much of it now that I've woken up, but for some reason, it felt more like a real experience I had rather than a nightmare.

So weird.

Nevertheless, my heart was beating like crazy, and I could barely breathe properly. I guess it must've been a pretty scary dream to get me like this.

I heard snoring. Of course, it was Shiro, sleeping in a cute little sleeping bag. His snoring had woken me up before, maybe it snapped me out of my dream this time too... I wonder... I tried to stealthily unzip his bag. There's no way he was sleeping naked again, right? And not all the way out here too, right?!

"If you try anything with him, I'll make sure you're stuck as a beginner forever," a voice from behind said. Obviously it was Freesia.

I looked back at her and grimaced. "Allow me to explain myself," I said, my voice accidentally cracking. "He has a tendency to sleep with no clothes on. I was going to scold him and make him get dressed if he was still doing that way out here..."

In any other situation, that'd be a lie, but I really was gonna scold him if he was naked when it was freezing out here, even with the fire next to us.

Freesia wasn't buying it, it seemed. "Well, since you're up, do you mind sitting with me for a chat? It's lonely having to sit out here by myself," she said.

I might as well. Since she was sitting out here, I was guessing the night was nearly over. Shiro told me he'd be on night watch until three in the morning, so it had to be at least 3. I wonder how they calculated the time out in the wild like this when it's night time. They didn't have wrist watches. I suppose the stars worked. There wasn't a cloud in the sky right now. Talk about beautiful...

I shifted over to freesia and put my hands up to the fire. "How long do we have left, do you think?" I asked, still kinda half asleep.

"Mm... well, we're still ahead of schedule, so probably by sunset tomorrow instead of by midnight like I was betting on," she replied.

"So that's probably like five hours ahead... not bad..."

"You were rushing it yesterday, so please don't feel like you have to do the same today, alright?" She was serious. I guess I was being reckless. "There's nothing wrong with rushing things, but you looked damn near ready to die before you fell asleep. It's for your own safety. I'm not gonna dock points for it though."

Honestly, I might take her up on that offer. Yesterday really was the worst.

I yawned and looked up at the stars again. Similarly to my world, the sky had a massive band of stars reaching across the sky, though this one was slightly more curved. I could spot a lot more variety in colour too compared to pictures I've seen of the Milky Way before. I wonder what this one was called.

"So um, what do you want to talk about?" I asked.

Freesia sighed and poked the fire with a stick. "Have you really lost your memories?"

Of course not. But I might as well have. I knew nothing of this world. "What do you mean?"

Freesia eyed me with intent. "Don't play me for a fool. Why are you going by a female name? Why are you acting so weird all the time with Shiro?"

... What? I don't understand. What was she getting at? "Uhh, haha, what do you mean?" I raised an eyebrow.

"..." she sighed in disappointmen and backed off. "Oh, never mind, I guess you really have."

Wait... doesn't that mean... "D-Do you perhaps know who I am?" What a revelation to wake up to.

"Of course, we're close friends. Just like—... No, forget I said that." She suddenly got really suspicious of me and glanced over at Shiro. "Listen, if you start getting any of your memories back, let's talk when this mission is all over and done with."

"..."

I came to a conclusion that I probably would have came to earlier if it didn't scare me so much.

This body, this life that I had been given... it belonged to someone else, didn't it...

I awkwardly laughed. The reason I know the language, the reason I've been remembering things I've never experienced, the reason my Guild card was corrupted.

I've stolen someone's life, haven't I?

"Freesia, what's my real name? It's definitely not Marisa, right?" I asked. "In fact..." I lowered my head, I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. "Please just tell me everything..."

Freesia kept eyeing Shiro. "No, I can't. Not while Shiro's nearby. He might be listening." Why was she so paranoid all of a sudden?!

The answers were right within my reach, and now it's just barely out of it. Oh, what to do?! I feel so shitty about this?

Freesia smiled. "Honestly, let's just save it 'til after this mission," she said, happily. "I'll tell you anything and everything there is to know about you so long as Shiro isn't around."

This made me more suspicious of her than she was of me, to be honest. How frustrating...

I suppose there's nothing to be done about it. "C-Can you at least tell me my name?" If it was cool, I could ditch Marisa right now.

Freesia tilted her head. "Huh? Why would I tell you that? There's something I've deduced just now, and it's telling me I should keep all information like that to myself." Oh, okay. I see how it is. I'm being cut off. "You're not really the man I know are you?"

I tensed up. Did she seriously realise I'm from another world? No, that's ridiculous, obviously she just means I'm a lookalike or that I've used some magic to take over this body. Neither of those things are correct... well, the former could be, but still. "What do you mean? How did you figure that out?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Because you just told me." Damn it. "I was simply prodding for information in a vague way, though that would explain why you go by such a girly name and act nothing like him."

"I—... Alright fine, you got me, but who's to say I'm not just a lookalike? There's no way I'm in your friend's body, you know? That'd be silly." I tried laughing it off. I was hoping I was just a lookalike so I didn't have to bear the weight of having stolen someone's life from them.

Freesia sighed. "Well, as much as I'd hope for that, you really are in his body." She looked angry. "When you collapsed that one time, I saw it," she tapped the back of her neck. "You have a brand right here. The same as me. Look." She turned her back to me and slightly pulled on her shirt, which revealed a tattoo, quite a complex one, at least for a word like this. It was a heart shape, with chains wrapped around it.

My eyes widened. I felt the back of my neck to confirm for myself. It stung when I touched it, but sure enough, a bumpy feeling area on the back of my neck in the shape of a heart. I'm sure if I stood between two mirrors I'd be able to see it clearly, but I'd just have to make do with feeling it. I felt myself sweating. "..."

"Hah, gotta love it. Looks like you had no idea yourself, a guilty man wouldn't give off such a weak look after being caught." Her vibe was total different. Was she an actor or something? I suppose it makes sense though, she thought I was pretending, I guess she felt like she should just play dumb, huh? She continued "Marisa huh? Are you a girl then? It must be pretty disorienting but you seem to be having some fun."

I stood up. "Excuse me." I started walking. Not in any particular direction. I just walked until the firelight didn't reach me, I got onto my hands and knees and threw up. The pressure was just too much for me to handle. I'd stolen someone's life! I'd replaced them! And to make matters worse, my secret is out... What do I do?! I'm a murderer. I killed myself, and like a child, I clung to life, sacrificing another so I could live.

Where was his soul now? Was he a good person? A villain? Maybe he had a girlfriend, or a wife! What about the rest of his friends? Freesia seems calm, but it's definitely upsetting her, right? It's all my fault!

I bashed my head on the cold, icy dirt, over and over until I couldn't handle it anymore. "Think rationally about this, Marisa..." I said to myself. "You had no control over this... it's not your fault." I took in some deep breaths. I sighed and facepalmed. "Even if it wasn't in my control, it's still my fault..." I looked over to the camp and wondered if Shiro would be angry at me if he found out. He was a righteous person, he'd probably do more than just scold me.

I stumbled up to my feet again and made my way back to the camp, sitting down next to Freesia like I was before. "..."

"My, you look like shit, what did you do out there?" she asked, half joking. "I'll say this, whatever it is you did, it's worthless, I don't blame you at all."

I gritted my teeth for a moment, but then slapped myself. "Freesia, you're right about almost everything, but you made a single mistake."

Freesia gave me a wry grin. "And that would be?" Was she taking this seriously at all?

"I'm a guy, just like the original owner of this body. A guy."

She raised an eyebrow, and then seemed to gasp, only to stop herself half way through. "I see how it is, right. A guy, of course."

She laughed. "Then I suppose you must've yearned for this body, then. I wonder if the person that put you in that body was aware of that. I wonder if that's why they put you in it. Nah, couldn't be, hahah!"

"..." She figured me out completely, hadn't she? Just who was she, really?! But putting that aside for now, she just said something strange. "Someone put me in this body? Are you sure it wasn't just some sort of freak accident?" I realised my voice had become timid. I was still pretty scared, I guess. I mean, for someone less of a scumbag than me, it's probably nothing to worry about, but I really am the worst, so this'll be keeping me up at night for a while.

"Accident? Something like this could only happen on purpose." Freesia paused. She glanced over at Shiro again. "That boy is pretty perceptive, make sure to keep this a secret from him, alright?" She whispered. "Personally I don't trust him at all."

"..."

This was all too much for me to take in one sitting. I decided to take this step by step. "Who did it then?" I asked, keeping my voice down. It's not that I didn't trust Shiro, but I wanted to respect Freesias wishes, even if it's silly to be weary of a little kid, even if it's Shiro.

"You're trembling," she sighed. "I don't know who did this to you, or why. But we share a common enemy. Or at least we should. I don't know if you returning to your original body is what you want, but you do, at the very least, seem upset at having pushed out the owner's soul. If we work together we should be able to find a way to reverse it."

Track down the culprit, and have them reverse the results—Freesia explained. That was all well and good but...

"Don't give me that look. Don't worry, there's an easy way to make everyone happy in this situation. We can simply wait for another man to die, and transport your soul into that one when the time comes. Easy as pie!"

... I couldn't argue with that, but her being so ready to do some grave robbing or something was creepy, and besides... If I can be so selfish... "R-Right... Back to my old body..." I want to keep this body to myself... it's too good.

I didn't say that part out loud, though. But I probably let it show on my face that I was disappointed, because Freesia once again showed off a smug grin and patted me on the back.

"Don't be so anxious, we'll find a corpse that looks even better than this one, I'm sure!"

Don't call this body a corpse just because the original owner is out for lunch, please. Aren't you his friend? I was starting to think she had a couple screws loose. "Thanks, I think," I nodded. "Can you tell me anything about the original owner yet?" I must've been getting desperate, because I blurted out that line despite already knowing the answer to that question.

"Nope," she said. "Boy, you really need to pay attention. His identity must remain a secret. Not just for his sake, but for other people's sake too."

"Ugh." I facepalmed again. This was getting tiring. "Sorry..."

"Relax, how about I tell you about myself instead?"

I guess we have a shared trait. Narcissism. Though her narcissism seemed to be far more positive than mine. "I-... Sure, go ahead." I felt like I was being used like a puppet. I had no control in this conversation, it was all her.

Her giddy expression made me realise this story of hers was probably going to take a while too.

Now that I've seen the true face of Freesia, I can safely say she's a psychopath. She reminded me too much of my sister. Of course, I was gonna have to be weary of her from now on.

"Hey, now, why are you backing off?" She pouted, putting an arm around me.

I felt a chill go up my spine.

"When I first saw you, I was lounging around in the Mercenary Guild, unable to find a job to kill time with. They say it's lonely at the top, and they mean it. Professional ranked jobs are actually a rarity, even more-so the jobs you actually want.

"Just settle for a lower ranked job? No way. Why would I do that? Those are boring too!

"Anyway, there I was, sitting by my lonesome in a corner, drinking fine wine. Red, to be exact. White wine just tastes too bland, you know? I never got why people liked white wine. They're crazy!

"Well, as it happens, as I was praying for all white wine lovers to go to hell, you stepped in, with Shiro, no less.

"I almost went over to talk to you, even for some idle chatter, because I hadn't seen you in five months. You looked healthier, happier. I couldn't help but smile from my corner of the room but I decided against going to see you. Not because you were with Shiro, but because you didn't recognise me. With my big hat and all. Your eyes were wondering around the room, but you somehow didn't even lock your eyes on me for a second.

"Like I wasn't even there.

"Relax, you're forgiven, don't look so sorry about it. Seriously, you're so depressed all the time, try to just take it easy.

"My first thought was to worry. Worry that you had forgotten about me, I have low self-esteem, so I had no choice but to resort to that worse case scenario. Don't worry about it. I soon realised something else was amiss, so I didn't exactly have enough time to worry about having been forgotten.

"When I saw you heading over to the registration desk, I dropped everything and went to eavesdrop on you. I feared that your party had been wiped out. That would be the only logical reason you'd not recognise me and also go over to that desk. Though I guess I was wrong. Because when I heard you say you'd like to sign up, my heart froze for a second. I really thought you lost your memory.

"It's strange, isn't it? What a whirlwind of emotions I was going through! I suppose you can call the whirlwind of emotions you went through just now payback, heheh.

"Sorry, that's not funny.

"I listened in on your conversation with Shiro while you ate too. That's when I came to the conclusion that you were faking losing your memory. Of course I know better now, but the things you said in guild restaurant was a little far fetched. I knew the original owner of that body didn't talk like that.

"We may not have met for five months, but he still sent me letters. He wasn't timid like you, and he certainly wasn't one to show interest in magic.

"I guess this counts as me telling you a little about him, doesn't it? Well, personalities don't just change once you lose your memory, so I thought to myself, 'is he on some sort of secret mission?'

"I was so curious, I had to figure it out, so I begged the guild receptionist to let me overlook your trial job. I'd ask you what you were doing then. You'd be bound to talk to me.

"But you kept avoiding me. I was forced to put up an act. I thought that maybe I'd messed up by reaching out to you. So I pretended I didn't know you either.

"It was a little alienating, but knowing that you weren't really him, it just makes me feel stupid.

"This other friend we have is pretty similar to how you are now, to be honest. He acts tough but really, he's a massive introvert. It's a wonder how we ever became friends.

"I can tell you're bored, so I won't get sidetracked again.

"Honestly, the biggest giveaway that you weren't the original owner of that body that I completely ignored was the way you reacted to those wolves.

"Genuine fear.

"Not an act.

"I rationalised it as an act all due the simple fact that I thought it was impossible for a grown adult to be fearful of them. You sure showed me, though. I won't judge, but it's certainly a rare fear.

"I was starting to get pretty pissed off by the time you fell asleep. Not even the way you slept was anything like him. So that's why I asked you just now to quit the act.

"Yay, we're back where we started!

"Still. I'm mad beyond words that the real you is missing.

"To be honest, we didn't get along all that well, and I'd said some rather shitty things to him the night before he went off to do his job, and he got mad at me in return. I was calm about it after the fact though. I kept a cool head. I would only have to wait half a year at most.

"I didn't know where he was, and he was moving around constantly, so I could never send him any letters. But I did of course get sent some by him. I treasured those. I couldn't tell if he was still mad or not based on those letters. They were pretty neutral, but I didn't really care. They kept me from getting paranoid.

"And just knowing he's been stolen away from me...

"I'm starting to wish I just kept my mouth shut that night.

"I'll be honest with you. I loved him. I wanted nothing more than to say that to his face.

"I guess I just got my wish just now, haha...

"That's not funny.

"I was too much of a coward, so instead of just saying that I loved him, I decided to hurt him instead. There's not a day that goes by without me thinking about it.

"So, you'll help me, right? It's a lot to ask when you don't exactly benefit, so all I can do is beg you to.

"Please..."

I was in a lot of pain right now.

It was worse than I expected. I wasn't expecting her to tear up. What was I supposed to say to all that?

Apparently, I thought it was a good idea to go with, "that's a lot."

I knew this was all too good to be true. I'll have to return this body to its original owner. I can't not do that after hearing what I've ruined by being here.

Freesia wiped her eyes. "You're not too good with words, are you?"

"I guess..." it was more that this was just too awkward to properly explain my feelings to her. I don't think I'd be able to tell her that my previous body was at the bottom of a river in another world. The original owner of this body is probably dead if he also switched over to my original body. Or maybe his soul was just waiting for me to leave, and my old body has nothing to do with this. But the fact I had no idea was just causing too much stress for me.

"Freesia..." I said, keeping my voice as quiet as possible. Like I didn't want to say it. "How does this work? Swapping in my soul into another's body. How does it work?"

Freesia took a moment to regain her composure before answering. "Well... It depends on the person that did this. It's a taboo so there's not many recorded cases of it, but the most common is to just push the soul of the original owner out of the body. Who knows what happens to it after that, but as far as we're all aware, it's not lost. People have gone years without regaining their original bodies, and they came out of it with just mild dizziness." She put on a more lighthearted smile, probably try and stop me from worrying about her.

Her explanation made me realise I had been holding my breath that entire time. I took a sigh of relief and let myself nervously laugh. "That's great," I told her. "That's less stressful for me, then. I can help you without the need to rush things."

Freesia raised an eyebrow, but then shrugged. "Don't count on it. After all, there are plenty of more dangerous ways to go about swapping souls around. That's just the most likely option."

"Can we please just go into this assuming it's the most likely option?" I asked, feeling like I was just going to be crushed by more metaphorical weight if we didn't.

Freesia nodded. "If it helps you calm down." She stood up and stretched. "Hey look, the suns coming up. We should probably wake up the brat and get going."

I looked at the horizon, the sun had just barely shown itself. Because of where I lived before, I never got to see the sunrise like this before. It's all blocked off by the tall buildings. It made me realise just how closed off my life had been back then, and I winced. It could have all been avoided if I just ran away. I was a coward. That's why I became content with being raped and abused. That's why I put up no resistance to my parents. That's why I killed myself. Cowardice. Plain and simple.

I should probably stop looking at the sunrise if it's just making me feel like shit.

I should probably stop looking at it in general if I wanted to keep my eyesight.

I came out of this experience feeling disillusioned by my circumstances. I was completely at a loss and realised that keeping this body wasn't an option anymore. It was temporary. I'd learn some sort of lesson before I have to give it up, like maybe that life is worth living or some other bullshit, I'm assuming, and I'll return to my real body, and die. It must've just been a ploy by a higher power. A trickster god or a well-intentioned demon. Or was that the other way around?

I slapped myself again and got up. "Let's get this over with!" I said, forcing an optimistic smile.

Freesia laughed at me while she packed her things. "You sure you're gonna be okay?"

I giggled and made a peace sign. "Oh, I'm sure it's gonna be just fine!" I lied.

"If you say so. Go wake up Shiro and we can be on our way." She didn't sound convinced.

I walked over to Shiro, and he was as cute as ever. I felt like my HP and MP were fully restored just by looking at his face. I unzipped his sleeping bag, and (un)fortunately, he was fully clothed. I gently shook him. "Shiro, the sun's up," I whispered. He looked so adorable while he was sleeping. I wanna take him home!

He stirred and tried to cover himself up again but I didn't let him. He let out a girly moan, and mumbled, "give me another five years."

"You'd wake up the same age as I am now if you slept for that long," I retorted.

He wouldn't wake, but he seemed restless.

...

I had an idea.

I pinched his nose lightly so he couldn't breathe. A mean trick, but it should work.

...

He didn't react. His face just got redder and redder. I was about to let go, but he started making a strange noise. Until eventually—

"Pwaaah!" He sat up, gasping for air. It took him a while to calm down.

"Good morning," I said, feeling a little ashamed that I just did that.

"Oh," he blinked and looked at me, yawning. "It's just you. Good morning!" He was back to his normal cheery self after being pretty moody yesterday. That was good, at least.

"Did you sleep well?" I said, patting him on the back.

"Well," he started, tilting his head. "Sure, but I had this strange dream that you were holding my nose shut. I couldn't breathe, it was really weird."

"Huh? I'd never do something like that. Dreams aren't accurate to real life, you know?" I lied. I'd been doing a lot of that recently.

"Well, that's certainly true. You're more of the type of person that would kiss me in my sleep instead."

"That's true but I'd never actually do it."

Shiro looked at me with disappointment. "Uh, no, I was joking, I didn't realise you'd actually think that way."

"..." I bit the inside of my mouth to stop myself for cringing. "I was joking too."

Shiro burst out laughing. "God, this is so stupid, isn't it?" He hopped to his feet and looked down at me. "Enough joking around. We'll be walking less than we did yesterday! It only gets easier from here!" He said, trying to pump me up, I guess. I could say no to that face.

I got up and stretched. "Let's get going then."

At the end of this rather uneventful day, we finally reached the cave!

Tomorrow, we'd enter and find the treasure I was to bring back to the Mercenary Guild. I wasn't looking forward to the return trip but it would all be worth it for the chance to get to work with Shiro all the time! Ah! I love that boy! I wanna cuddle him! I wanna take him home! I wanna ruin him! What a wonderful life it's been! Suicide? Who cares! I can creep on Shiro and that alone makes life worth living.

...

I'm getting carried away.

To be honest I was terrified of this cave. I just hoped it wouldn't have that many tight spaces.

I had to keep smiling though. I had to act like everything was fine.

I'd feel as though I'd become non-verbal if Shiro and Freesia realised I was feeling depressed.

I wish I never heard about that whole soul swapping thing.

Just keep smiling, Marisa...

Keep smiling, and everything will be okay.

Keep up the act for as long as you live.

Goodnight.

———————————

Author’s Note:

I hold the belief that there is no correct way to write in abuse or rape. It can never be tasteful because it’s inherently evil. I did try my best, but I’m fearing that my best was not good enough. I agonised over it for days about how to write it, but eventually decided to go with this. Of course, since this is a story told in the first person. I cannot be objective. I have to write with the same subjective mindset of my character. A self hating man that has grown apathetic to what’s been done to him. Because of that, I’m worried about releasing this chapter. Still, thanks for reading. I promise I wasn’t procrastinating with writing this, it just went through a lot of rewrites and I had hit a writers block many times. It was originally supposed to be 20,000 words long, but it’s only around 12,000. I decided to release it without the events that take place in the cave. That’ll be the next chapter instead. Freesia was a very annoying character to write, but I hope it paid off. Please look forward to the rest of her arc.

I’m also sorry for any errors during this chapter. It’s so long that obviously I cant find everyone wrong with it unless i scrub through it more than I already have. I’ll get back to this once I’ve released all the chapters.

I promise to not take so long for the next chapter.

[Song of the Day]

[Next Chapter]

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evelyns-writing-blog · 1 year ago

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Chapter II: Nix

[Previous chapter]

Despite leaving me by my lonesome yesterday, today it appeared that Shiro didn't want to leave my side at all. After we settled in in our new inn, he dragged me all over the city to different clothing shops to find something that fit me. It took all morning. Personally, I would have worn anything, but Shiro was really particular about it.

"You've gotta dress up in a way that expresses your personality, Marisa!" He said.

But of course, that made sense completely. If we're playing dress up with my personality in mind, then we should ditch these clothing stores and start finding a trash bag that suits me!

In the end, he settled on an outfit comprised of light armour and dull colours, with the exception of a cape that was dark red. When I asked him why he picked out this sort of outfit for me, he just said, "because it looks cool."

It's not as if it wasn't a practical getup, but Shiro really should get his priorities straight. But given that he paid for all of it, I couldn't exactly complain. Especially when it was, admittedly, very cool looking.

Along our shopping trip, I learned that this city was called Nix. It was surrounded by water and had this massive cathedral looking building in the middle. I couldn't see it from the inn we stayed at before. But it really was beautiful, and massive. Extremely so. It even had this huge stained glass window that depicted a really pretty woman with a crown on her head. Didn't take a lot to figure that it was a depiction of a queen.

According to Shiro, this was the capital of Ferrum, a country that was in a near-constant winter, and that giant building in the centre of this city was where the queen and her family lived.

Most of this country was uninhabitable, but due to some recent wars, it managed to innovate and chip away at that uninhabited land, building underground cities and weather barriers. Apparently the latter of those, whatever a weather barrier actually entailed, weren't needed here in Nix, as the weather in this region wasn't deemed dangerous, but it couldn't have hurt to implement one anyway, right? That wind was seriously not good last night.

War was brought up a lot in Shiro's explanation of this country, and most of it went over my head, but it wasn't exactly painting a pretty picture of the place. But since it was peacetime, it looked like I didn't need to worry about being dragged into some war. I was happy about that, at least.

The history of this place seemed very deep with lore, but I'd rather talk about Shiro himself.

The more I stuck around him, the stranger he got. The reason it took us until mid day to finish buying me clothes wasn't because he actually had that much trouble finding something for me, and more so the fact that he kept getting sidetracked.

Any time he saw someone in even a mild amount of trouble, he would go over and try to resolve it. I guess that proves he didn't save me because I was special or anything. He'd save anyone. It was admirable, but if he stopped for every little thing, he'd end up wasting his youth. I didn't stop him. He was doing a good thing, after all, but I'd be lying if I said that all these diversions weren't ticking me off.

I felt like if I told him no, he'd hit me back with a, "so I shouldn't have helped you out either," and that was the last thing I wanted to hear.

Seeing Shiro with a ponytail during the day was much better than in the dark of that forest. A sight for sore eyes. How I wish I could openly dote on him. I wanted to spoil him rotten seeing him like this. (Shiro Ponytail Edition, as I call it.) But alas, I had no money, in fact I was relying on him. The very opposite of spoiling him. Is there any greater irony than that?

Needless to say, Shiro was also pretty bossy, making sure everything went as he wanted it to. I objected to getting a cape with my new clothes, but he just pouted and looked to be on the verge of tears. So I caved and accepted it.

But that's okay! I'm a sucker for his cuteness so I'll put up with anything!

...

Ahem.

All of that excitement aside, I really did find Shiro to be a great guy. With someone like him, I think I can easily slip into society in this world without much of a struggle.

Oh, and one more thing. When that innkeeper said Shiro was famous, she meant it. We were getting all sorts of looks. Or rather, he was, and I was completely ignored. On the other hand, he didn't seem too happy about it. He kept his head down and always seemed to rush through busier areas.

He seemed so upset, in fact, that I didn't feel like it was my place to really ask him about it.

At any rate, we made it to a restaurant near the front gates of the town, and it had an engraving on the door that said "Mercenary Guild Associated Business," with a little check mark underneath. I had noticed this same engraving when I tried searching for Shiro in that tavern.

It looked as though this "mercenary guild" had locations tons of locations. I suppose it was only natural for a big city like this, but this restaurant was huge. And considering it was so close to the entrance, it might have even been the main guild building. At least for this city.

The plan for today was to get me into this guild so I could stay by Shiro's side. This wasn't my idea, but his.

"I've joined other people's parties before, but I've never had a partner of my own," he said, "and who else but you?" That cheery smile gave me little confidence, surprisingly. "Oh, don't worry, We'll take easy jobs. You'll be completely safe from danger! You have my word!"

That's what he said, but it was still annoying scary experience. Enough to make me want to hid back at the inn. The only reason I didn't was because I felt grateful towards him.

The mercenary guild had four ranks. From lowest to highest it goes:

1. Beginner

2. Average

3. Highly skilled

4. Expert

I didn't know what any of that meant, but I figured I'd learn as I went. Though it didn't take a genius to understand that a being an expert meant you're the best of the best.

Shiro guided me through the process, but I probably could have figured it out myself.

Something of note that isn't too important, but moreso just really strange, before I signed up, the receptionist at the front desk of the guild half of the restaurant had taken a blood sample from me and injected it into a small plastic card.

"This is how we make verification, sir," the receptionist lady said. "These cards are connected to a magic network, but it requires a small, one time activation, using your blood links the card to you. And because of that magic network, if you were to ever lose this card, you could simply buy a new one and give it your blood. This will of course erase the other card's data, so to speak. So no one who finds it one day could impersonate you."

What a complicated system! Explain it in English!!! I wanted to say that, but I just nodded.

"Oh, that's odd," she said. "It appears you're already signed up to the..." she paused, looking confused. I glance at Shiro but he didn't seem to have a clue either.

"W-What's wrong?" I asked, timidly.

"Your details aren't showing up. It's corrupted," she explained, showing me the card. The letters were all warped, unreadable. The card even had my face on it, well, at least I assumed so if this really was my card, because this picture was also corrupted. The top half of it was missing.

I sighed. "That can't be right though. I've never been here before."

"It's really not an issue, sir, we can easily erase this data and sign you up from scratch."

It went something like that. The fact that it happened was inconsequential though, since, as the receptionist said, I can just sign up again, but something bugged me about that, I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Rather than getting frustrated by trying to rack my brain around it, I just pushed it to the back of my mind.

The receptionist handed me a form that I needed to fill out, and told me I should fill it in by the end of the day. So me and Shiro took this opportunity to order something for lunch and then sit down at an unoccupied table.

I filled out the information, but stopped when I reached putting my name on it. I thought about it for a moment, and then went to Shiro for some advice. "Is it alright if I skip out on putting my name on this for the time being?"

Shiro tilted his head. "Why'd you wanna do that?"

"Well it's... I was thinking of changing my name," I explained, keeping my eyes down. "Marisa doesn't suit me at all. It makes me sad that I have a name like that..."

I didn't look up even for a moment. I faced this situation before. It scared me. Shiro would probably deny it too. Everyone in my life did. It's something I'm used to. "Well, you've gotta put something in there, but if you can't think of a name right now, it's fine, because you can change it as many times as you want," he said, casually.

I looked up at him, and was greeted with that same warm smile that he gave every time I looked at him. "As many times as I want?" I repeated his words in a meek whisper.

He chuckled. "Well, maybe not too many times. The receptionist lady might get angry at you for bothering her about it too often. But yes. There's no limit on how many times you can change your name."

I sighed in relief and wrote down my name. It confused me as to how, but I could write in this world's language as if I'd been writing in it my whole life. It sure was convenient.

"What sort of name do you want anyway?" Shiro asked, going over my form to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.

"Well, there's plenty of options, but I haven't really decided on one yet. But at the very least I want a normal name. One that fits," I explained, twiddling my thumbs. A normal name over in this world might be a strange one, though. So I'd have to think even harder for a new name.

"Let me know what it is as soon as you figure one out, okay?" Shiro said, folding the form and tucking it into his pocket. "If your current name is making you uncomfortable, I'll try to avoid saying it unless it's necessary."

It's really not that big of a deal at this point, since I'm used to it, but I really wouldn't mind if he decided to call me Marisa until I come up with something else. There is such a thing as being too nice. Isn't it a both to avoid calling me by a name?

Being nice... Especially to me. The amount of niceness that I deserve is minimal.

...

The food arrived, finally. Come to think of it, this was my first meal since I got here. Since this was a different world, I was expecting the food to be vastly different from what I normally ate, but on our plates was essentially just the breakfast of someone who wasn't lazy and had the funds to cook for themselves (even though this was for lunch.)

I took my time eating it, but shiro wasted not even a second. Surprisingly, he didn't make a mess. To be honest, I still wasn't that hungry, most likely because I slept for so long.

"Hahaha! That was tasty! Way better than the food at that Inn!" Shiro exclaimed putting his plate aside.

I suppose now was a better time than any to ask this. "What were you doing in that forest before you found me?"

Shiro shrugged. "Multiple things. Mostly just collecting wood though. It's only gonna get colder from now on, so wood is more in demand."

"Makes sense." It sure was lucky that he ran into me. Maybe it was fate. Being realistic, it was just a coincidence. "Hey, do you think you could teach me magic?"

Shiro's ears twitched as soon as I said that and he got up and giddily shouted his response. "Really?! What type?! I'm at least at an above average level for all types of spells, you name it! I'll teach you!"

Everyone glared at us, and for some reason, I felt like I didn't want to be here anymore. "Ah... uh, fire magic, maybe..." I mumbled, trying to keep a smile on my face.

Shiro excited gasped and grabbed my hands, causing me to drop my knife and fork. "Thank you!" He exclaimed. Guess I found out about his favourite topic. "I've been wanting to teach someone how to use magic for months, but most people around here already know!"

Now I just felt even more out of place. Not knowing magic seemed like a rarity based on that. But that exactly why I wanted to change that. Magic seemed like it would be at least interesting to learn. I don't imagine my life in this word will be very different from the last one, but it should serve as a distraction at least. If I got really good at it, I'd have bragging rights too if I ever felt as though I was lacking in vanity.

Shiro held his hand out, and soon after, a ball of flame quickly grew out of thin air above his hand. "All you really need to do is imagine the spell you want to cast, and it should appear," he explained, being less reckless now that he was holding something that could very well burn this place down. "Though for a beginner you'd probably need a magic staff to stabilise your magical energy. As someone who's basically a pro, I don't need one. How about I buy you one and teach you the basics of magic when we get back from your trial job?"

Trial job? The receptionist didn't mention anything about that. But I could guess that it was essentially a test of my abilities to decide what rank I should start out at.

"I mean, if it's not a bother, then sure," I said. "But what sort of trial is my trial job?"

"Oh, that? I believe it's based on what you do with the form you fill out," Shiro explained, turning the ball of flame in his hand into a ring. Show off. "For me, it was a fake escort mission, but if I had to guess, yours will probably be the typical cave raid."

What I wrote in my form was that I was good at a memorising anywhere I went, like a human map. Which actually was true, once I've been somewhere once, I could get there without any help the second time. My one achievement in life. I guess I could understand why that would correlate to going into a cave to (probably) look for treasure. It would be hard to get lost if I had a good memory for these things.

"I'll be with you in case things get too rough, so don't be intimidated. You won't actually be in any real danger. These trials really are just test runs." Shiro made the flame disappear and giggled.

That laugh... that laugh, that laugh, that laugh... it's too cute. I gotta kiss him. I gotta grope him! One day! That laugh is just too cute! Drives me crazy! Does that make me so bad? I wonder what his reaction would be if just went in for the kill right now.

...

Forgive me. I'm terrible, aren't I? A bullet to the brain would fix this. I contemplated attacking one of the stronger looking guys and getting them to kill me. Just fucking bash my skull in.

"LARPing, then?" I said, accidentally. I doubted that was a term here. Shiro, as expected, didn't understand. "Uh, it's not important, forget I said that." Facepalming from my own failure, I took in a few deep breaths to try and counteract the psychological pain.

"I'm starting to worry about your head, y'know..." Shiro said with a sigh. "But I kinda like the way you act. I've never met anyone else like you before. It's a nice change of pace."

I think that was a compliment. But he's right, I'm not right in the head at all. I'm a complete mess! "If anyone's a nice change of pace, it's you!" I replied.

At any rate, I finished my meal. Compare to the instant ramen I usually eat, this was much better. I felt good eating food for once in my life. With a fulfilling meal and a fulfilling conversation. All that was left was to give the form back to the receptionist lady.

I was nervous that I'd be denied by the Mercenary Guild, but that ended up not happening, they accepted me and told me that my trial would take place tomorrow.

Shiro treated me to drinks after. Dragging me along to another location. I felt great full to have someone like Shiro looking out for me, but this amount of dedication to "treating" me was getting out of hand. If I wasn't careful, he'd end up planning my whole life out. I'm not that helpless, now.

It was a little shocking to see Shiro downing a pint of beer like it was nothing. What a lawless world, kids shouldn't be allowed to drink that stuff. But even as an adult I just ordered a glass of water. Getting drunk at 2 in the afternoon wasn't for me.

I really had to question whether or not Shiro was actually as young as he said, or maybe it's just that I'm so childish. It's the latter, definitely. Shiro proceeded to down two more pints and I just sat there, stunned. What's more, he wasn't drunk. Not even a little tipsy. What sort of power was that?!

"Ahh, that hits the spot!" he said happily. "I'm kinda disappointed you didn't pick out a drink, are you allergic or something?"

I shrugged. "Im absolutely terrible when I'm drunk, so I only drink when I'm alone so I don't piss anyone off." That was just an excuse. I was an alcoholic in my previous life, I'd drink until I stopped thinking. But for whatever reason, I didn't feel like drinking at all. Maybe because this is a new body. It doesn't have a taste for alcohol yet.

"That's a shame, really." Shiro frowned. "Why didn't you tell me? We could've gone somewhere else."

"I didn't want you to feel weighed down by me," I said, laughing it off.

"Oh, that's nonsense, there's plenty to do, it's not like this was somewhere I just had to go to. You're fine." Shiro stood up and put some money on the table before reaching his hand out to me. "Why don't we go somewhere more interesting!"

Pulled in by his niceness, I put my hand in his and got up myself. "If you're sure," I replied, timidly smiling back at him.

"Well then! Let's head off!" Shiro, unchanging in his gleeful attitude, pulled me along out of the bar.

As it turned out, we never ended up going wherever it was that Shiro wanted to take me. A boy around 15 years old by the name of André came rushing up to us, yelling Shiro's name. He wanted Shiro's help with something, so we were set on another side quest.

He kept going on and on about a man named Donovan. What were his exact words again?

"It's terrible! He's flirting with the princess again, I think he's really going to do something bad to her this time!"

Shiro had awkwardly laughed in response. "You say that every other day, André. I have my suspicions about that man myself, but I guarantee you he's not some sort of playboy."

André was agitated the whole time. Anxiety ridden. "But—!"

Shiro patted him on the back. "But sneaking into the castle's gardens is always a good thing, so I'll check on them for you anyway."

It's better than what I had planned anyway, he added.

André thanked Shiro on his hands and knees before we departed. That's all was said. Shiro was easily swayed.

"What do you mean by 'sneaking into the castle garden'?" I asked.

"It's exactly what you think it means," he relied, simply. "You don't have to come in with me, by the way. Not that I've ever been caught doing this, but you seem on edge about it."

As if. "No, I'm fine with it, I was more worried about you than myself," I replied, scratching the back of my head. Back when I was a teenager, I'd break into school every night with my friends and mess around in the computer room, so I'm not a stranger to this sort of thing.

However, a castle is a little different from a school. But if Shiro's done it before, that definitely helps.

Shiro pouted. "Hey, don't think so little of me just because of my age."

"There's not a thing about you that I think little of," I retorted with a sigh. "Anyway, who is this Donovan guy? Why's that kid got it out for him?"

"Oh, it's just pure jealousy," he stated, a-matter-of-factly. "Princess Sherri's got a crush on Donovan, a high ranking knight that's in charge of the magic/science development team they've got in the castle."

"And what about Donovan? Does he reciprocate those feelings?"

"As far as I can tell, he doesn't. From what I've gathered, they always meet around this time for the princess's magic lessons. I've met Donovan, and he definitely has an aura about him that scared me at first, but he definitely doesn't have any ulterior motives or anything. The only thing suspicious about him is the fact that he so quickly rose through the ranks despite being a commoner. He showed up a year ago."

If he's not acting strange with the princess, it had me wondering why Shiro is going out of his way to check up on this. That much was enough to make me curious about his own goals here.

We stopped in some alley and Shiro looked around for something. "It's less so Donovan I'm spying on here, but Sherri," he said, picking up a ladder from a hole in the back of one of the nearby houses, and placing it against the castle walls. "She's nice enough, there's nothing wrong with her, some would even say she's acting like a normal teen. It's just that... something bugs me about her."

"Why's that?" I asked. "Don't tell me you caught feelings for this princess and haven't realised it yet."

Shiro shrugged. "It's not her looks either. What bugs me is the fact she's a royal. Or rather, her lacking a royal attitude. She's entirely selfish, but she wasn't always this way."

Supposedly, whenever she met her people, the citizens of Nix, of Ferrum as a whole, she was soft spoken, polite, and selfless, speaking as the next in line to the throne, she sought to make the lives of citizens easier, but recently, she's not bothered with those sorts of meetings, and has even started gaining a foul mouth.

I had to interrupt Shiro's explanation. This was actually a fairly easy thing to explain. "Sounds to me like she's going through a rough patch in her life," I told him. "Teenagers get like that. How old did you say she was now?"

Shiro started climbing the ladder, and I followed. "She's 16. And it's definitely not just some rebellious phase, these changes only started happening four months ago. It wasn't even gradual. It's like she changed overnight."

... Now that was something to be concerned about. "What do you think caused it? You don't think this Donovan guy has something to do with it?"

"It's too early to tell, I can't get close to either of them, so there's really no way to get solid proof. And staking them out like this hasn't yielded any results."

"Why not just get André to ask her. He seems to be close to her if he came just now asking you to save her."

Shiro stopped. "I..." he said, struggling with his words. "Did not think of that..." he hit his head lightly against one of the steps of the ladder.

Still just a kid, aren't you? "Dont beat yourself up about it. I forget obvious stuff like that all the time."

Regardless, we continued up the ladder and we reached a ledge. Climbing onto that, we crawled across it until we reached a gap in the wall, sidled through, and came out into a larger gap, and past that, a bush. Shiro put a finger to his lips and sat down by the bush. I followed suit.

I couldn't see the other side of the bush that well, but there was still some visibility. This gap behind the bush was covered by a bridge much higher up in the castle, making it dark enough that visibility from the other side would have been even harder. No one would have been able to see us even if they stood right next to it.

"Can you see them well enough?" Shiro asked in a whisper.

"It's a little difficult, but I can," I whispered back. For some reason I was feeling even more nervous. If we got caught, I'd probably die.

I got a good look of what these two people looked like.

Sherri, the princess, dressed nothing like an actual princess. While very fashionable looking, she looked more like the medieval variant of a punk rock girl. In other words, she was tomboyish, wearing a shirt and trousers instead of a dress, the trousers were actually ripped too, ironically enough. Even a lip ring. Her blonde hair was cut short and messy too. I could definitely understand it now, why Shiro is worried. I'm all for people dressing how they like, but a complete disregard for your surroundings like that is just incredibly outrageous. I could kinda respect it, if it wasn't a princess.

As for the man, Donovan, he was dressed far simpler, a black cloak around him, I couldn't see much of his body because of it. As for his face, though, he was dark skinned, had red eyes and spiky white hair. He was young and beautiful looking, but for some reason, just one look at him caused my heart to tremble in fear. I didn't want to be here at all now that I was really thinking about it. But there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. I wondered why I was so scared.

We listened in.

"Come on, tell meeee~..." Sherri said, hugging Donovan's arm. "What was it like?"

Donovan chuckled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head. "It really wasn't that big of a deal, your highness," he replied. Something about his smooth and deep voice annoyed me. "It's certainly not something someone of your status should have to deal with."

"Pretty please~~~~~!"

"Your mother would have my head on a pike if I told you about it any more than I already have."

Just what are they talking about?

"They're already getting on my case about your looks. That's not even my fault. I wish you weren't so reckless, if I may be so bold, your highness."

"Huhhh?! Fuck that stupid bitch! I won't tell a soul that you told me! Tell me what it's like!" Sherri suddenly got really aggressive and pulled on Donovan's arm.

"A-Alright, alright, hahah," he replied, patting her on the back. "But only if you behave, okay? Be good for the next week."

"Ugh! So annoying! Fine, but take me out to those tasty restaurants later! I wanna try that new item on the menu at the main Mercenary Guild location!" I felt like if I had to listen to this girl's whining any longer, I'd die on the spot.

Donovan sighed. "If you insist, your highness. But please don't wander off this time. Honestly, you drive a hard bargain, princess. If you push this any further, the queen might cut my funding."

"And I'll simply raise it back up once the bitch is dead!"

"W-well..." Donovan seemed to not know how to reply to that. What a pushover.

Shiro whispered to me. "You see what I mean? This isn't right at all."

"I kinda feel bad for that guy," I replied. "I guess André was just over-exaggerating."

"As I said, he sees Donovan as a rival in love, but Donovan is anything but a lover, he told me this himself, the only thing he cares about is his work." Shiro yawned silently. "Looks like they're about to leave. But I can stake them out later if they're going to that restaurant."

I forgot to ask him, but... "Why are you so adamant on eavesdropping on them if you can't find anything of interest from it?" It really didn't make much sense to me.

"... Because she's not really herself right now..."

"But isn't this out of your hands? I don't think you can do something about this without talking to her, you didn't even think to get someone else to do it for you before I brought it up."

Shiro sighed and got up. "I just wanna help people..."

"..."

"Even if I found nothing the last time, I might find something this time, or the next time, right?"

Persistence like that that is too scary. Shiro was definitely naive about the world. He thinks he can do something about anything. It kind of made me feel bad for him. It's way easier to not bother. That's what I thought. "Quit while you're ahead," I said, nonchalantly as we shuffled our way through the tighter gap in the wall.

"W-Why you," Shiro sounded like he wanted to shout at me. He grabbed my arm and bit it. Hard.

"Aaa—!" I covered my mouth and nose as I quickened my shuffling. "What the hell was that for, man?" I said, my urge to scream rivalled Shiro's own.

"Shut up and keep moving, I'm not in the mood to talk."

"Jeez, you don't take criticism well at all..."

Despite our arguing, I couldn't see us falling out over this, but I do kinda feel bad. Maybe I shouldn't have spoken up. Instead of saying sorry though, I just stayed quiet until we got back to our in room, feeling too awkward to speak up again.

On our way, we did run into André again. Shiro told him that nothing happened. He also asked André to ask Sherri directly about her sudden change. He was apparently a servant of the royal family, which is why he even knew the princess to begin with.

Shiro was in a bad mood but he could have at least credited me for the idea.

Before reaching our new inn, Shiro stopped, turned to me, and handed me a few silver coins and a map. "Buy yourself a sword, I'm going back to the Mercenary Guild."

...

He was definitely mad at me.

As always, I'm a fuck up and a moron. I must've struck a nerve.

I decided to just go with the flow and look at the map. Shiro had already drawn out a path

to a weapon's store.

Whatever...

I felt like a total piece of shit.

[Donovan]

It appears that the garden is no longer a safe place for the princess to visit.

I noticed only one person's presence while I cured Sherri's boredom, a young man. Though I could not tell who it was through that bush, it's someone inexperienced with eavesdropping.

But it's because of the fact I only noticed one person that is cause for concern. A child was with this man, and they were completely hidden from me. The only time I noticed him was when they were leaving. It could be that this child has come to spy more than once.

I'll ask to have that part sealed up. What awful architecture this country has.

The princess didn't seem to notice, so it was not cause for concern. If they were here to kill her, they would have done so, a gun or any projectile magic would have been fatal even from behind a mere shrub. They would not have succeeded, but they would have tried. I did nothing to shield her. But it would be problematic if she died. My cloak is bullet proof, and I have incredible speed. A bullet would not reach the princess.

If they were assassins, then perhaps they've simply heard of my abilities. I am, of course, aware of my fame in this city. The reason I know they weren't assassins was because the young man was scared, I could tell. He was scared and confused. He didn't even know why he was there. The kid must've dragged him along.

Eavesdropping is the most likely reason, so it must be so.

Nevertheless, what a foolhardy pair.

As humorous as that would be, given there's nothing worth eavesdropping on, I couldn't laugh about it. It reminded me of my childhood too much. It's all so pointless. And anything that's pointless is a pain.

I made my way to my lab, and kept my eyes down. These foolish nobles I had to live with hated me, so I had no choice but to if I wanted to keep my status as high as it was. Their glares didn't affect me, but it was best that I appear meek and subservient to them.

Perhaps they're jealous that I have the princess's favour. And with a princess as emotionally driven as her, it could turn out bad for them once the her majesty, the queen, dies. I wanted to avoid that conflict. Unnecessary deaths are worthless to me, and the risk of being assassinated for setting my sights too high wasn't a risk I was willing to take.

For the years the queen has left, I want to live in peace and without being the target of suspicion.

If I can do that successfully, maybe I can find meaning in this meaningless thing we call life.

[Marisa]

I got a longsword.

It was heavier than I was expecting it to be, but with my new body it was no problem at all.

I practiced swinging it around in our Inn room, but I wasn't very good at it. I thought it would be easy based on movies and anime that had sword fights in them, but it looked like muscles only took me so far. I could barely aim the sword at all, so maybe I should have gotten a shortsword instead.

The idea of fighting didn't really appeal to me. But it would be good to have at least some sort of defence just in case. If I ran into those wolves again, I could probably die slower.

Guess I was going to have to get used to this longsword, because I doubt I could get a refund. This is a fantasy world, I don't think refunds exist.

I put it back in its sheath and crashed into the bed. It wasn't as comfortable as the inn we were staying at before, but it was nice enough.

...

It's just about dinner time. I should probably eat something. But all we had in this inn was fruit that looked weird to me. It was shaped like a hand with four fingers. I didn't really want to put that in my mouth...

Enough, I'll just wait for Shiro to come back home! I'm not eating anything weird until I saw him eating it himself!

But he didn't come back until late, so I ended up going to bed without eating.

I'm starting to wish I kept my mouth shut.

———————————

Author’s Note:

World building is hard, so I tried to keep things light here. Sorry if you were expecting deep lore, but I’m not that good of a writer. I’m not that good at writing in general. Still, my biggest worry is spelling mistakes rather than figuring out a complex world. If you notice any errors, please send me a message about it.

The next chapter will be a significantly longer one, so please be patient and pray for me as I go through the pain of writing and editing that monster.

[Song of the day]

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evelyns-writing-blog · 1 year ago

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Catch the Wind: Reincarnated into an Idealised Shell - Chapter I: Shiro

[Previous Chapter]

The sound of flickering flames as I woke up. It felt somewhat nostalgic. Though I couldn't recall ever having experienced this, I've never been around a campfire, nor have I ever had a fireplace, so it's strange to feel nostalgia over it.

Though I suppose nostalgia doesn't necessarily mean re-experiencing something, and more so the reminder of the feelings you felt long ago.

Therefore, it must have been the calmness the sound of the flames brought that made me nostalgic. Though I haven't felt calm for years, I didn't think I remembered what it felt like, even subconsciously.

You think you know yourself, but you really don't.

I felt something soft under my head. It was softer than that pillow that young boy put under my head before I passed out.

I groaned as I turned my body on its side, really burying my face into this softer pillow. It really was something else, I've never felt something so soft before. I giggled to myself in a drowsy stupor as I hugged it.

Hmmmm... the shape was kinda strange, but it felt nice regardless.

I didn't wanna wake up, if only I could stay here forever, all my problems would go away.

...

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," a voice called out to me from above with a joking tone. It was the voice of that cute boy from back then. Am I still dreaming? Or was all that real to begin with? "But now that you're awake, could you get off my thighs for a second? They're going kinda numb, heheh."

I returned back to long on my back and put my maximum effort into opening my eyes. "Thighs?" I replied, my tearful yawning might suggest that I just woke up from the best nap of my life, though the nap I just had was anything but, given what happened just prior to that. I did, in fact, have a nightmare.

What greeted me was that boy's face, upside down. He smiled gleefully at me.

...

Wait.

I rolled to the left, fell off the edge of the bed, and got up to my knees and stared at him, trying my best to keep my eyes fully open. He was so cute.

But that's not the issue here! He got up and sat on the side of the bed, no longer wearing that suit of armour from before I passed out, instead wearing a white shirt and shorts, thighs exposed, it was like he was ready to go to bed himself.

I eyed his thighs with intent before shaking my head and looking at him in the eyes, feeling an awkward expression crawling upon my face. "I was sleeping on your thighs?" I asked, my voice still sounding odd. What was with that?

He nodded, still smiling.

"So that means..." I opened and closed my hands, trying to remember the sensation of it. "I was hugging your butt..."

The boy laughed, clearly trying his best not to. "It was kind of adorable, Marisa, I couldn't bring myself to tell you directly."

I facepalmed. Just my luck, making a fool of myself like this. Honestly, what was wrong with me?

Seeing as I felt like I could die of embarrassment, I lowered myself, prostrating. I slammed my head onto the floor to fight back the cringeworthy feeling in my mind right now. "I'm sorry," I said, in earnest.

I heard the boy move closer to me, probably crawling. "You really don't have to be so on edge. I'm not royalty or anything, even if my family was somehow connected to the royal family, it's not like I'd want to be a part of that anyway," he explained. Though I didn't see the reason as to why.

Royalty is a little much for that hypothetical, isn't it?!

I looked up at him, and he put his index and thumb on my chin and kept eye contact with me. It wasn't intimidating at all, given his cute face, but I doubt that intimidating me was his intention either, he was looking at me as though he saw a cool bug under a rock. "C-Cute..." I thought out loud, blushing.

"Cute?" The boy tilted his head. "That's not the aesthetic I'm going for at all," he mumbled, frowning. "Anyway, I can't believe a handsome guy such as you has such a girly name like Marisa," he said as his smile returned to his face. "You look more like a royal than I do. What's your skincare routine?"

"Well it's not like—..." I froze. Like an old computer running new software that's too complex for it to keep up with.

A handsome guy, he had said.

That was the last straw. A lot of weird crap had been happening with my body ever since I woke up in that ditch. A flat chest, a different voice, someone being confused by my name being Marisa, and now...

A handsome guy...

I sat up and resisted the temptation to kiss the boy in front of me. "D-Do you have a mirror?" I asked. I could have easily checked my pants, but I didn't want to do that in front of someone I just met.

Come to think of it, I was in different clothes again, this time it was some large nightgown. Did he change my clothes himself? Don't tell me this boy has already seen me naked!

I blushed.

The boy nodded and pointed to a door behind me. "There's one in the bathroom..." he happily explained. "You're acting a bit odd, Marisa, you can go back to sleep if you want." He patted his thighs, seemingly unaware of how dangerous those things were.

I did consider the offer but I was far too wide awake to sleep now, even if using his thighs as a pillow again was something I definitely wanted to do. "M-Maybe later..." I meekly replied. "Actually, before I go anywhere, what's your name?" I couldn't just keep referring to him as "the boy."

I hadn't mentioned this yet, but he had such beautiful grey eyes, and long brown hair. When he was wearing that armour from before, he was wearing his hair in a ponytail, which was equally as cute. One could say cute things were my lifeblood.

When people talk about beautiful eyes, though, they often think of blue or green eyes. Brown and grey eyes don't really fall into that category for most people, but personally, grey eyes were the most beautiful. So this boy might as well have been beauty and cuteness incarnate.

"The name's Shiro Seifer," he said. "I'm just a small time mercenary."

"Mercenary? Aren't you a kid?" I asked, worry was overtaking me.

"Huh? No, boys can start work at age 12. I'm 13."

Something was seriously wrong.

Mercenary? Work at 13?

I awkwardly chuckled and cleared my throat. "What country am I in right now?" I asked, trying to keep my cool.

Shiro raised an eyebrow to my question, but answered it anyway. "This is Ferrum," he said, flicking me on the forehead playfully. "Did you lose your memory? This country is probably the most notorious in all of Monolith. There's no way you'd not know of this place, even if you were a hermit that lived deep in the mountains on the other side of the world."

"Ahahaha... ha..." I laughed as if I agreed with him, or at least I tried to. But his current facial expression didn't fill me with confidence. He was definitely suspicious of me. Or maybe that was more of a look of concern. All that to say; it all clicked once I heard him say that. I should have understood this earlier, given those weird wolves, and that language I referred to as gibberish, as well as Shiro's armour.

I got up and went into the bathroom.

I'm in another world, aren't I?

If it wasn't such an outrageous idea, I'd have realised it sooner. Even now, I was finding it hard to believe, but given there's no such thing as a country called Ferrum, no such thing as wolves that looked like the ones that almost killed me. And I suppose that's the biggest give away, the fact that I survived that attack.

Magic, it's gotta be. Maybe magic is the reason I can understand what Shiro is saying.

And as crazy as all of that is...

I wanted more than any of that, I wanted to know what I looked like right now. So that revelation could wait.

Call me selfish.

I clearly wasn't in my old body, but I wouldn't believe it with 100% certainty until I saw what my face looked like for myself.

I took a deep breath, and made my way over to the mirror.

...

I didn't make a sound, I just stared.

I was definitely a man. There was no ambiguity here, no room to argue.

My facial structure was something I could really only dream of before, but I actually had it now. Forget passing, it would be impossible to not pass.

I had black, spiky looking hair that was the perfect length, and green eyes.

Not only was my face perfect, but it seems I'm no longer a 30 year old. I was closer to being an older teen. Maybe 18? My skin was clearer, and not a spot of acne.

It was what I've always wanted.

Perfect.

I took off my nightgown and checked what the rest of me looked like.

It looked like I was blessed with relatively good muscles. I could probably carry not an insignificant amount of weight around. As for down there, I'll just say that it didn't disappoint.

It's safe to say I won the genetic lottery in all respects. And while I was happy about these changes, anyone would be, I just got hit with an immense rush of guilt. Like I cheated. Like I didn't put in the effort for this.

And upon feeing that guilt, I was hit with shame, feeling like I was being ungrateful for not just accepting it.

I was starting to sink into self-doubt and self-hatred.

Doesn't this belong to someone less fortunate than I?

What? You're seriously not thankful at all?

It's not like that, I just... I'm such a horrible person, is it really alright?

Hah! Maybe you're right, you should have just died for good instead of being given this second chance! Anyone else would jump for joy if they had this chance and you're throwing a fit over it? Why don't you just throw yourself off another bridge!

I don't mean to complain... You're right, I should kill myself again.

Well said, let's ditch this kid and get it over with as soon as possible.

I'll try hanging myself this time.

Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.

Enough!

I splashed cold water on my face before those dark thoughts got any worse. The pain of the cold water not only distracted me from my own thoughts, but also help me wake up entirely. I did it a few more times, and after taking another look at my new face in the mirror, up close this time, I realised I didn't have bags under my eyes.

I was completely healthy.

I stepped back and put my nightgown back on. Frowning at myself in the mirror. I decided. I'm so ungrateful.

Standing defeated by my own thoughts, I took a few more deep breaths before leaving the bathroom.

To my surprise, Shiro wasn't there anymore.

Though, the clothes I saw him wearing just a moment ago were piled up neatly on the bed. (Why'd he make me use his thighs as a pillow if there was a bed right here, I wondered? Not that I minded at all.) And on top of those clothes was a note. I suppose it was for me. Who else?

It was written in a language I shouldn't have been able to understand, and yet it all made sense as I read it. Why was that? Come to think of it, I can also understand the spoken language of this world too, it's not as if I was hearing them speak English all of a sudden. It's like I became fluent in it.

Marisa,

Since it's still early in the afternoon, I'll work some jobs to procure some additional funds. Food at that inn doesn't come cheap, nor do the rooms.

I'll also ask around to see if anyone knows about you as well. It's worrying me that you may have lost your memory.

Please stay at the Inn, I may have healed you but you still need rest!

I'll be back before the sun fully sets.

—Shiro

I chuckled to myself.

Despite Shiro being a kid, it was more like I was the kid in this relationship. But I really am that pathetic that a kid would be more mature than me, nursing me back to health.

It can't be helped I guess.

I wonder why he didn't just tell me this all to my face. Was I that lost in my own self-loathing that I just didn't respond to him? For how long was I like that? Jeez, you'd think I'd be happy about this new form.

It's not that I'm not happy about it, though.

I'm such an asshole.

If I wasn't so lost in thought, I could have told Shiro to not bother with asking around about me. It's not as if anyone would know who I am in this world. To be more strict about this, not only would no one know about me, I shouldn't exist here in the first place.

It got me thinking. Why me? Why was I the one that got to be sent here after I died. Surely there's billions of others out there that deserve it more than me. I can think of a good 110 billion people, rounding up.

There was a great chance that this was all just a coincidence, and getting reincarnated in another world means nothing. Just an accident by some higher power or by the laws of the universe. A glitch in the system.

Trying to brute force my way to the answer as to why I got reincarnated seemed a little pointless. Especially when I just got here.

I just can't sit still and take a blessing that any other person would be happy about. That's just who I am. I have to make excuses for it before I can be content with a good thing. What a joke.

But even I knew that trying to do that with something as monumental as reincarnation was getting a little in over my head.

My, how narcissistic I am.

Ugh.

I opened the blinds of the sole window of this room and opened the window. My intent was to see what sort of environment this new world was, but instead, I was hit with an intense coldness. Not quite freezing, but enough to make me want to dress in a few more layers.

Regardless, the sun was setting, so everything had a nice reddish-orange shade to it, which totally underplayed how cold it was.

Settling for just looking out the window without opening, this inn was in the middle of a city. Not exactly modern looking. It was more like the 1500s or maybe a little before that. As a kid, I had visited old castles and stuff. This place definitely gave the same vibe. A majority of the buildings had smoke coming out of their chimneys. I couldn't say it wasn't giving off a cozy feeling.

This room seemed to be relatively high off the ground too. Looking down at the street, the people passing by were all covered in thick clothing, and I saw a few horse-drawn carriages pass.

Like it or not, I was going to have to get used to living a life without technology. That didn't have to be a bad thing, but for an introvert like me, it was a bit discouraging.

With nothing much else to do, I collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I wasn't going to be disrespectful and go against Shiro's wishes, so all I could do at this point was stay in and do nothing.

The room itself was really nice. Not only did it have a nice bed and a fireplace, but it even had a pretty expensive looking dinning table.

If this was supposed to be an inn, it was a rather high class one. What sort of money was Shiro raking in to afford this?

He said he's a mercenary, but given what type of world I'm in right now, does he slay monsters right out of a fantasy world? It's not out of the question.

A fantasy world. What sort of world was this? Did fairies exist? I'd like to meet one, if I'm being totally honest here.

Dragons are out of the question though, I don't want to see one of those at all.

I say this is a fantasy world based on my very narrow-minded view of things, having only been conscious in this world for maybe two hours at most, but if I'm actually here then does it really count as a fantasy world? Isn't it just the real world?

Enough about semantics. From my point of view, it's a fantasy world, and that's that.

I was quickly growing bored. I wonder how long Shiro was gonna be?

So I waited, and waited, and waited.

The sun had long since set, and I was starting to feel hungry, but more importantly, Shiro hadn't returned yet, and I was starting to worry. To add to my worries, the wind was getting so heavy that I feared it would break the window open.

And so, it had to be done, I had to go out and search for him. I may be a good-for-nothing waste of space, but I wasn't gonna just sit around and hope that he's safe. I needed to actually make sure as soon as possible.

The glaring issue with this was that I had no clothes that were suitable for the weather outside, I didn't even have shoes.

I didn't want to waste any time, do I just put on an extra nightgown, there were two others hung up on the front door, so it looks like it was the property of the inn. As for my feet, I just had to make do with socks.

Not anything else to do but go, I suppose.

I rushed downstairs and went out into the streets, prepared to do whatever it took to make sure Shiro was safe. He saved my life, after all, so I owed him this much, at least.

And only after making it this far, I realised I had no idea where to start looking, so I ended up feeling pretty stupid about myself.

I went back inside and did the sensible thing of asking the innkeeper about it.

"Shiro? Oh, you're that fella with the strange name that he dragged in with him," she said in response. "Well, he's not a regular so I've not had the opportunity to talk to him much, but he's famous around here. I'd bet he's gone to the tavern just across the street to look for some jobs. This is the first time he's left the inn in the three days since you both got here."

So I've been sleeping for 3 days? How lazy can you get?

"I wouldn't worry too much about him, he's plenty capable if the rumours are true, maybe he just got unlucky with a hunting job or something."

"I see," I said, unable to keep eye contact with her.

"If you need owt else, just let me know. As the Innkeeper, it's my job to make sure my patrons are comfortable."

I awkwardly laughed, asking her to point me to which building across the road was the tavern, as they all looked the same to me, before quickly making my escape once more. Overly polite people like that kinda scared me, and I'm glad she didn't try and trick me into a longer conversation.

Despite it only being, quite literally, right across the street, with how windy it was, it took me a while to get there. It was hard to keep my eyes open so I had to take it slow to avoid tripping or getting blown away.

I wasn't even surprised to see that this place was completely packed with people avoiding this shitty weather. And getting through the crowd of drunks was even more of a challenge.

But when I eventually got to the front of the bar, I asked the bartender, "do you know where Shiro went?"

And her answer was unfortunately the worst possible response.

"I haven’t seen him in this bar for weeks.”

Which meant he either went to a different place to get a job, or he lied in his letter.

Yeesh.

This was beyond me. I left and made my way back to the inn. There was no chance for me to do something heroic here. I just went back to our room, ashamed of myself.

I felt annoyed. Despite all that effort I put in, I was blocked by the fact that I had no idea where to look.

...

Back to doing nothing while staring at the ceiling.

I can't stress enough how awful the weather outside was. It filled me with anxiety. If Shiro didn't come home soon, I'd start blaming myself for it.

But even so, despite my worries and anxiety, eventually, I drifted off to sleep once more.

I woke up in a cold sweat. Some nightmare that I had immediately forgotten had made me sleep restlessly. But what really woke me up wasn't the nightmare, it was loud and obnoxious snoring.

Shiro had ended up returning on his own, despite the weather, he was sleeping naked, hugging a pillow.

...

I ceased my glaring and cuddled my legs. As always, I was worried about nothing.

Still. What kept him from coming back when he said he would? The more I thought about it, the more mysterious he got. Maybe this was normal for this world, but it just didn't seem right that he was working jobs that young.

At least let me go with you next time, damn it.

"Mmm... Marisa... do you know Marisa...?"

I flinched after hearing my name being spoken so softly. I looked back over to Shiro, who was still sleeping. It looked like he was talking in his sleep. "Shiro?" I whispered.

"Please... if you know him... tell me please... even if it's just..."

I cringed. Was he really just out so late because he was trying to find out more about me? That's way too scary, no one should subject themselves to that sort of weather just for me, even if I did exist in this world in the past. There's just no reason to do that. We barely knew each other.

Frustrated, I got out of bed and sat by the fireplace, staring into it wishing I could jump into it.

So stupid...

I yawned. Clearly I still needed more sleep, despite sleeping for well over 3 days at this point. I fell back, deciding to sleep on the floor, and while I was expecting to see the ceiling, I was instead met with Shiro looking down at me, smiling gleefully.

…Déjà vu...

I jumped back up in surprise, almost screaming. I covered my mouth before said scream could escape my throat, and spun around on my knees so I could face him. "You can't just sneak up on people that are brooding like that... jeez..." I didn't mean to sound mad, but I ended up doing so anyway.

Shiro pouted. "That wasn't my intention," replied. He was still naked, so as I looked at him I got a glimpse of his—. "Huh? Marisa, why are you drooling?"

I looked up at the ceiling and wished death upon myself once more. "That wasn't my intention either! Put some clothes on!" I retorted, flustered beyond belief.

Shiro made a cute "eep!" sound and covered his crotch. "What are you, some sort of pervert?!" He said, blushing like crazy. "Why's a guy getting turned on over another guy, huh?!"

"Sorry!"

What's wrong with me?!

Such a childish bit. I really am horrible.

After having a little squabble where Shiro ended up putting me in a headlock telling me he wouldn't let me go until I apologised a hundred times over, (a simple task for a wimp with no backbone like me), I turned around while he got dressed. "Why'd you come back so late, anyway?" I said, wanting to confirm my suspicions.

"Hmm? Oh it's nothing serious, I just lost track of time trying to find someone who knew you," he said, slightly muffled. I sneaked in a a glance at him and saw him struggling to put his shirt on. If I wasn’t scared of making a fool of myself again, I would have gotten up and helped him. Anyway, my hunch was right. But why? "Oh, and I ran into a friend of mine on the street. He was waiting for me and ended up dragging me along to solve some of his own problems. I never ended up getting my hands on a job." He sounded kinda disappointed. "So unfortunately, we're gonna have to change our base of operations. But that's okay," he said, giggling. "This was just for your recovery anyway. I wanted to make sure the room was warm enough and the beds were comfortable enough."

And yet you used your thighs for my pillow? I looked back at him, less sneakily this time. He was fully dressed! "Why, though? We just met! There's no reason to be doing all this for me!" I said. Seriously, talk about stupid. Almost as stupid as me!

Shiro gave me a weird look. Like I just said something blasphemous. "Isn't it obvious?" He said, walking over to me. He squatted down and gave me a look of disappointment, hit me on the head lightly, and, like it was the simplest thing to understand, said, "it's because you looked like you didn't want to suffer all alone, dummy."

I was taken aback.

I blushed at that corny line, and found myself smiling in response.

———————————

Author’s note:

Introducing our second character, the deuteragonist; Shiro! This chapter was mostly a lot of set up, but I hope you enjoyed it. I felt as though a character like Shiro needs to exist to avoid this story getting too grim. I struggled coming up with how to make him so joyful without diminishing the protagonist’s struggle with depression, but I think I found a good way to handle it. But in the end, it’s up to you, the reader, to decide if I did a good job, not me.

—Evelyn

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