I Start with a Bad Hand!

“I want to change something, even if I have to die. What do you mean by that?”

At those words, the girl merely wetted her dry lips once without answering. Hayden suppressed the smile tugging at his lips as he grasped her thin shoulders. Despite his repeated questioning, there was no response, so he cautiously pulled out a letter from his pocket.

“Dietrich, is it because of this?”

“This…?”

There was a faint flicker of emotion on Dietrich’s face as she looked up at the crinkling sound, but Hayden didn’t mind. He handed the letter to her, who took it with a puzzled expression.

“This is…”

Seeing her just holding the letter dumbly without opening it, Hayden hurriedly spoke. In fact, he even took the letter back and opened it for her. Damn it, he was getting impatient. Was it the anticipation of having what he wanted within reach? He felt more excited than usual.

“Don’t ask how I got this, okay?”

“…What?”

“I thought about it for a long time. Whether it was right to give this to you or not. But in the end, it belongs to you.”

The girl read the letter with trembling hands, then remained silent for a long while.

“Why… are you giving this to me?”

Her reaction was more dry than he expected. He thought she would cry immediately or run to Roxanne in a fit of rage. Instead, she spoke in the same empty tone, her eyes still void.

“It’s already too late. There’s no way to change things unless I borrow some inhuman power.”

“Why say such things?”

The pretense of kindness masked his subtle incitement. Her voice, which had been trying to stay calm, began to tremble quickly.

“Then how am I supposed to change anything? I have no family, no friends, nothing. If I knew it would turn out like this… I wouldn’t have started in the first place.”

“Actually, it doesn’t matter. I’ve never been particularly lucky.”

“That being said… I’ve never given up before trying, not once.”

A soft, bitter laugh escaped from someone, uncertain from whom it came.

So, it was just talk. It was just bluster. If it was going to crumble this easily, you shouldn’t have said anything. I was right. You were always like this. Someone destined to play the role of the loser, having their cards taken away in this game forever.

As he watched her face, Hayden spoke calmly. It felt like he was slowly cornering his prey. The dizzying thrill gave him a slight sense of vertigo.

“Dietrich, do you remember what I told you back then?”

“…What did you say?”

Her voice was thick with sorrow. She hesitated, not saying anything, until she finally clung to him desperately, her rough hands pleading, “Please, senior.” He found those rough hands repulsive, though he couldn’t say why. The calloused hands, rougher than a maid’s, felt unpleasant whenever they touched him.

“The clock tower.”

Her gaze shifted to the clock tower, then slowly returned to him. The urgency in her voice had given way to a calm, leisurely tone, as if she had made a decision, as if she too had been waiting for this moment.

“The clock tower… right.”

“Yes.”

“…I remember. You said if you wish for something desperately, you can achieve it.”

“More precisely, if you offer your ‘soul,’ you can make a wish.”

As he emphasized the word “soul,” her wavering eyes finally focused.

“Soul…”

He hoped she wouldn’t get too scared and run away now. Mesmerized, he matched her pace as they walked towards the clock tower. This had to end completely. There was no more delaying it. Everything needed to be tied up perfectly, just as he always did.

As they climbed the tall stairs, she strangely walked ahead of him. Hayden kept a close watch, ready to react if she tried to flee or suddenly said, “I can’t do this.” But she did not falter.

When they finally reached the top, she gripped the railing so tightly that her knuckles showed, staring at the academy’s sports field bathed in the sunset with an unreadable expression.

“It’s really high. It must have been terrifying.”

Not “must be terrifying,” but “must have been.” Her cognitive dissonance in the face of the situation was almost pitiful. To prevent further hesitation, he handed her the cigarette he always carried. Her face fell into a deep, unfamiliar expression of despair.

“I’m sorry that this is the only way I can help you.”

Even after he lit the cigarette, she didn’t take a single puff.

‘…What’s this?’

Somewhere below, a light must have reflected, for a flicker of brightness entered her otherwise dull gray-blue eyes. The black-haired girl frowned slightly and looked down. Hayden had a fleeting urge to push her over the edge but decided to wait patiently.

Someone kept flashing a light persistently, as if playing a childish prank or trying to blind the girl from a distance. She gripped the railing tightly with both hands and bowed her head. Just as Hayden took a step closer, he heard nothing but a deep sigh. Then, her thin body slightly swelled, and she let out a piercing scream.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”

Was she finally losing her mind? The strange behavior made Hayden instinctively recoil, and the prolonged scream abruptly stopped. After another short sigh, she turned her head, and something was odd. The face he had been staring at all along now looked unfamiliar.

“I’ve been really curious.”

She muttered something incomprehensible with that unfamiliar face.

“Diet… I mean, how did she find out about it? She must have known, given the circumstances, but I couldn’t figure out how.”

Laughing intermittently during her speech, she clenched the letter in her hand tightly and then burst into laughter. The low sound of her laughter spread out into the air and vanished. What was so funny? Hayden couldn’t understand any of it.

“Yes. Knowing this was here, how did I miss it?”

At that moment, Hayden felt a sense of dissonance. The posture of the girl he thought was standing precariously had straightened. When did it happen? Her body, which had been leaning on the railing, had started moving inward. Startled by the half-mad girl, Hayden maintained a certain distance, following her movements. Her expression, highlighted by the setting sun, was clear.

‘Setting sun? Wasn’t she facing away from the sun?’

While he was frozen by the feeling of unease, he realized he was the one now standing at the railing. The eyes he faced reflected the sunset in an intriguing light.

“Let’s stop this.”

The girl, once so frail, was no longer trembling. She wasn’t stuttering, nor were her eyes filled with tears.

“What… are you talking about?”

“The only reason I tolerated you until now was because I was curious about what you would tell me, or rather, tell her.”

Now that I’ve heard it, it’s even more… disgusting. Her black hair, which had grown to reach her shoulders after being cut in a crude fashion last fall and winter, was swept back as a wave of lightheadedness hit her. What should I say? Somewhere, something seemed wrong.

“I went through a lot because of you, traveling all the way to the sweltering Sereti in this summer heat.”

He couldn’t understand what she was saying at all.

“I’ve even met your grandfather. Or was it your great-uncle? Your uncle? Anyway, he didn’t look anything like you.”

Her expression was nothing but a thinly veiled smirk. A smirk? At me? She was definitely much shorter than him, but somehow she seemed to be looking down on him. Finally, the girl couldn’t hold it back any longer and spilled her words. Unlike before, it wasn’t a sigh but a voice tinged with laughter.

“Yes, I knew too.”

Her words were vague, leaving out a lot, and Hayden couldn’t figure out where he had gone wrong.

“You seem to have a lot of questions… Let me ask you one more thing. During the break, did you get unusually close to Roxanne?”

“…What?”

“She said she wanted to be with you, that her fiancé made her feel suffocated, and that she wanted to be alone in an unfamiliar place… alone.”

Every word she ticked off on her fingers were things Hayden had stored carefully in his heart. The expressions, even the wording, matched perfectly. As if Roxanne… it couldn’t be, but as if Roxanne herself had told her.

“So she wanted to be with you on your ‘island.’ That’s why you didn’t go back to Sereti like you do every year. You.”

Your island. Roxanne had whispered shyly about wanting to be with him on the island of the duchy, lying in the flower field. Hayden’s breath started to hitch as the stupid girl recited such private words, words she shouldn’t possibly know. His expression hardened while hers grew more animated. Her face, her eyes, they lit up brilliantly. For a moment, he wondered if she had ever looked this vivid before.

“Yes. That’s right.”

Roxanne knew too. Her voice, mixed with a hollow yet refreshing smile, was bathed in the glow of the sunset.