NOVEL NEXT Chapter 41: Chapter 41
The chirping of birds outside the window woke Himeko from her deep sleep. The morning sunlight filtered through the curtains, pouring into the cozy little room. The gentle scent of rose tea and toast made her feel strangely peaceful.
"Get up, Himeko! Do you want to be late for work?" Her mother's voice rang out from the kitchen, both gentle and urgent.
Himeko sat up, her fiery red hair messy after a night of sleep. She gently stroked her face, feeling the warmth on her skin. No more cold sweat, no more haunting screams, just a peaceful morning like any other.
The room was the same, not a bit different from her memories. Family photos hung on the wall, a small bookshelf in the corner with a few old books she loved as a child, and a wall clock ticking nonstop.
"You don't want Dad to eat all your breakfast, do you?"
Her mother's voice pulled her back to reality. She smiled, stood up, and walked out of the room.
*Perfect Morning*
In the kitchen, her father, Murata Ryusuke, was sipping tea, his eyes scanning the morning paper. Her mother was busy preparing her daughter's bento box, humming a familiar tune as she did so.
"Dad, don't read the paper so much, or you'll forget that she has to wake up early today!" her mother scolded her lovingly, her hands quickly spreading jam on the bread.
Himeko entered the room, just in time to hear her father mumble, "If she's late, she'll have to run, because she's lazy!"
"I heard everything!" Himeko put her hands on her hips, teasing him back.
"Yeah, you're just encouraging me!" he laughed.
Breakfast was filled with laughter. Her father told a funny story he'd read, and her mother shared about the backyard garden she was tending. Himeko couldn't stop smiling. She wanted to engrave this moment into her memory.
A Chaotic Day of Teaching
St. Freya University was a small school but famous for its energetic and warm atmosphere. Himeko walked into the lecture hall with her mother's lunch box in her hand, a familiar feeling creeping into her heart.
In the classroom, a chaotic scene was unfolding:
Kiana Kaslana stood aggressively on the table, pointing at Yumeji Satsuki, a male student with slightly messy purple-black hair with blue highlights, and bright amber eyes. Obviously he has a handsome appearance, but always has an exaggerated and childish personality that makes others unable to fall in love with him.
"Don't talk nonsense! That calculation is clearly wrong!" Kiana shouted, her face red with anger.
Yumeji crossed her arms, tilting her head to look at her with a challenging expression:
"Where is it wrong? Can you explain it? Or do you just not understand anything?"
"You—!" Kiana roared, as if about to fight.
Behind her, Raiden Mei was trying to pull Kiana down helplessly. Bronya Zaychik sat in the corner, casually scrolling through her phone, occasionally glancing up at the two with a bored expression.
"Too noisy," Bronya muttered.
"Both of you are equally stupid."
"Yumeji, Kiana, stop it!"
A stern voice rang out.
It was Fu Hua, the class president, with a cold and murderous expression on her face. She stepped forward, cracking her fists with a murderous expression before hitting both of them on the head, causing Yumeji and Kiana's heads to swell up into a rather large lump. This was a literal head-slam.
"Aaagghh, it hurts, master!"
Yumeji cried out in pain as she held her head, while Kiana immediately shrank back like a scolded cat.
"Both of you sit down," Fu Hua growled.
"If you keep making noise, I'll make you two rewrite today's entire lecture, three times each!"
The air fell silent immediately.
Himeko stood at the door, sighing and smiling bitterly.
"Another normal day at St. Freya," she thought.
Class began afterwards in rare order. Even so, Yumeji and Kiana continued to throw challenging glances at each other from afar.
"What are you looking at?" Kiana whispered.
"Looking at an idiot," Yumeji replied, unfazed.
"Do you want to die again?!"
"Be quiet."
Fu Hua turned to look at them, his eyes sharp.
Both of them immediately lowered their heads to the table, not daring to say another word.
Himeko just shook her head, smiling to herself. Despite the trouble, she couldn't deny that these students brought a special color to her life.
*Sunset at the Cafe*
After class, Himeko decided to stop by a small cafe near the school. The cafe was surrounded by lush green trees, the sunset filtering through the leaves creating a gentle scene.
She ordered a latte and sat down at a table by the window. Looking out, she saw her students playing in the schoolyard.
"This is happiness," she thought.
A small voice echoed in her mind, very soft, like a whisper of the wind:
"Is this world real?"
Himeko shook her head, dispelling the thought. She didn't want to doubt. There was no reason to doubt. This was all she had ever wanted: a simple life, without suffering, without loss.
The sunset shone brightly, dyeing the space golden. In Himeko's heart, there was only satisfaction.
***************
"....."
I looked thoughtfully at the illusions that poured towards me like a wave.
They were the embodiment of Himeko-sensei's Ideal World, a simple world that was neither grand nor flashy, a normal world that a normal person would dream of.
'They must have opened the bowl with nightmares and then manipulated her consciousness into this illusion'
Nightmares, although they stimulate fear and cause mental breakdown, are not effective mental poisons because in some cases, strong resistance will arise in those with strong wills.
That is the consciousness to survive, which humans always carry within themselves and will erupt when they are oppressed.
So the strongest poison for the spirit is not a nightmare but a beautiful dream.
Everyone longs for happiness and peace, but reality is too cruel.
The more pain people experience, the more easily they are swayed by that unrealistic sweet dream.
It is a deadly sweet medicine.
Without pain, there will be no resistance, so the chain that binds the spirit to that illusion becomes even stronger.
Like a cradle that lulls us to sleep, but sadly, that lullaby is nothing more than a deadly seduction.
'Himeko-sensei probably can't escape on her own'
A dream but a real one, not magical, grand or ideal, just a dream of a simple life that we can find anywhere. No, more precisely, the kind of life that everyone had in my old world, something that this World, a world that is always on the brink of destruction, and everyone has to struggle to survive, can hardly have, and even if it does, it is very short-lived like a fleeting dream.
Wandering in Himeko-sensei's ideal dream world, after a while, I stopped in front of the scene of an empty classroom where all the students had left.
I silently found a seat and sat down, placing my hands firmly on the table and looking towards the podium, while my heart was filled with thoughts.
The sunset shining through the window frame illuminated my silent figure sitting in one place.
The shadow of the curtain fell down, hiding the expression I wore.
After thinking for a while, I leaned back and stood up, placing my hands on the familiar tabletop, a tabletop that I touched every day.
Because the place I sat down was my seat in this classroom.
In the ideal world that Himeko-sensei built, I was also there.
In this foolish teacher's heart, in the place where her loved ones were engraved, there was also a place for me,...for the person named 'Yumeji Satsuki'.
Even though he was just a stranger and suspicious person at the beginning of this summer to her, and they had only known each other for less than half a year as teacher and student.
And yet there was still a place for 'Yumeji Satsuki' in this place, a place where he could belong.
In the silence under the evening light, 'I' gave a vague smile along with a determined gaze and began to move towards the edge of the dream, where Himeko-sensei's memories were contained.