NOVEL NEXT chapter 91
91
47, Miyamura Eien (Happy End)
That man!… To think I wanted to die for having feelings for him.
It was all my naivety…
The first person who spoke to me when I moved and felt anxious, I thought maybe he was my destiny…
I let my guard down.
I wanted to draw his attention, so I tried having conversations.
I poured out all my anxieties.
Not to Takeru-san, who would’ve accepted everything, but to that despised scum I had my first love for…
That man, he’s rewriting my memories with a gift…
“Goodbye, caged girl. This time it was quite an entertaining farce.”
“No, stop!! Please, stop it!!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make you forget all the unpleasant things. [■■]”
“aaah!”
Touched by a beast wearing human skin…
“Ugh…!?”
That man… he touched me so much…
“Eien… hey! Eien!”
“Takeru-san, I… I…”
To think everything I do for you is just a second choice…
I didn’t want to know that my feelings for you were also a second choice…
“I don’t want to live anymore…”
“Eternity…”
“Kill me… please, kill meeee!”
“No… Don’t die! I’ll take it all on! So, live for me, Eternity!!”
“Mr. Takeru…”
“Please, tell me what happened… Look at me and let me hear it in Eternity’s own words.”
Tears brimming in his eyes, Mr. Takeru stopped me.
He was the only one who looked straight at such a tainted me.
“I, I remembered… Mr. Akechi, he… he tampered with my memories…”
“What?”
I told him everything about the truth behind my parents’ murder.
How I had been manipulated by the Gift and my memories had been altered until now.
“So that’s why… Even though we talked during middle school, you had no memory of Eternity! That was the reason!”
But…
—
“Huh? What?”
I had summoned Mr. Akechi to the ruins that served as our secret base.
Perhaps due to the sudden call, Mr. Akechi didn’t even bother to hide his irritation.
“I left a girl lying in my bed to come here, spit it out already!”
“The case of Eternity’s family murder, you and Sasaki did it, didn’t you?”
“Huh? Why would you…”
Mr. Akechi looked at Mr. Takeru and me with a face full of shock.
He seemed clueless about why such a thing was happening.
However, after exhaling, he quickly regained his composure.
“No way… It’s your Gift’s doing, isn’t it, Takeru?”
“Gift? You know the true nature of my Gift!?”
“Tch… Your obliviousness pisses me off! You live so carefree, unaware of the power that’s making me irate, and that very fact is what’s driving my murderous intent towards you!”
“Hideyori, if you’re going that far, let’s settle this with our fists.”
“Oh, look at the small fry Takeru talking big.”
Mr. Akechi stood up, cracking his knuckles.
It was at that moment Mr. Takeru was about to respond in kind.
“Takeru!!”
A voice cuts through the onset of battle, causing everyone to turn towards its direction.
“Yoru-chan!”
“Yo, sorry to keep you waiting! Kept you waiting forever, Takeru! Though it seems there’s some trash that didn’t wait.”
Yoru-chan’s voice deliberately provokes Mr. Akechi, who clicks his tongue in response.
“It’s all spewed out by this guy.”
“Sasaki!?”
“!?”
Mr. Akechi and another perpetrator, Emi Sasaki, were bloodied by Yoru-chan’s hand.
I still have memories of placing great trust in Emi.
Even if she was involved in wrongdoing, I can’t help but feel sympathy for her in such a pitiful state.
“Hey? Did you kill Emi?”
“Don’t worry, Emi’s still alive. She’s just been a little… tortured.”
“Torture…”
“Don’t fret, I grew up in a special way, just a bit accustomed to these rough practices.”
Relief washes over me as Yoru, flashing a V-sign and smiling, seems unbothered.
Yoru-chan is a girl with many secrets, and the uncertainty of what she might do is overwhelming.
“Alright, Takeru, let’s put a stop to Akechi’s rampage.”
“Yeah!”
It’s supposed to be her and me… but seeing Yoru-chan and Takeru acting like partners, I guess it’s okay.
Besides, I want to punch that piece of trash myself.
Mr. Akechi is now facing a three-to-one situation.
With these odds, we should be able to handle Mr. Akechi.
“Emi… you useless thing… [Cough up blood and die]”
“Geha…!?”
“Huh?”
It happened in an instant.
Emi suddenly coughed up blood.
What’s that…?
Akechi’s gift isn’t just manipulating memories…?
“Hideyori… you…”
“I can do that too. Next is Yoru Hikaru. [You will stop your heart and die.]”
“Ugh…”
“Yoru-chan!?”
An unknown attack, the nature of her gift still a mystery, strikes Yoru-chan, and she falls to her knees on the ground.
Akechi, confident of his victory, turns to me next.
Ah… I’m going to be killed…
The thought of death crosses my mind…
But maybe it’s okay…
After all, I couldn’t tell Takeru-san about what happened to my body.
I might as well die.
I was satisfied the moment Takeru-san accepted me…
“Idiot.”
“Ugh… you b*stard.”
Yoru-chan, speeding up suddenly, kicks Akechi in the head.
He takes the full brunt of her surprise attack.
“Yoru!?”
“Heh, tough luck, this trash’s gift doesn’t work on me.”
Yoru-chan then restrains Akechi on the ground.
Her movements are those of someone accustomed to fighting and brawling.
“What the heck!? Could it be you?”
“The ‘Anti-Gift’, right?”
“…Wait!? How do you know that name…?”
“Hahaha. The ‘Anti-Gift’, you named Takeru’s gift yourself, didn’t you? I won’t tell you how I know!
—Die! Scum! Pay with your life!! It’s time to break the chain of sorrow brought by gifts!”
With that, she thrusts a combat knife, pulled from seemingly nowhere, straight into Akechi’s throat—and then slashes it open.
“Gah…!?”
His mouth opens and closes as he convulses.
He tries to stand, but ultimately, lacking the strength, he succumbs to death.
“Hideyori! …Hideyori!?”
Takeru-san approaches the lifeless body with tears in his eyes.
He glares at Yoru-chan over the motionless form.
“Did you really have to kill Hideyori… Yoru!?”
“There was a need, what value is there in keeping such trash alive? Who did you want dead, me or Akechi?”
“If it’s between the two, it would be you, Yoru…”
“…I see. You’ve always been that kind of person…”
With a sad face, Yoru-chan approaches Takeru-san.
Takeru-san was nestled close to the remains of his best friend.
“This guy was a villain, a criminal. He even killed Sasaki right before our eyes, an irredeemable scum! …But he was my best friend… We were supposed to understand each other… Why can’t anyone see the pain Hideyori was in…”
“I’m sorry… Takeru…”
“He should have properly atoned and died… I only called him here because I wanted him to turn himself in…”
Takeru-san’s perspective of Akechi-san.
My perspective of Akechi-san.
Looking around, they should generally give the same impression.
But there was a clear and overwhelming difference that could be seen.
Takeru-san, who had been childhood friends and together since they were kids.
The mastermind who got involved in middle school and caused an incident.
The impressions, both visible and held, should be completely different.
“Takeru-san…”
“Eien… let’s go… I don’t want anything to do with Yoru anymore.”
“Takeru…! I wanted you to…!”
“Goodbye.”
A clear rejection.
From that point on, Takeru-san never spoke to Yoru-chan, his once close friend, again.
Takeru-san lost both Akechi-san and Yoru-chan, who he had been especially close with in class.
Despite what happened, Takeru-san gave me unconditional love.
I also responded to Takeru-san’s love in many ways.
But it was a relationship of licking each other’s wounds.
Such an empty, inertial romance, I can’t count how many times we talked about breaking up.
Yet, as if by some mysterious force, we never parted.
A son was born between Takeru and me.
Takeru named our son “Hideyoru.”
It went without saying, though never explicitly stated, that there were two models for him.
Even as we built a happy home, it was ultimately twisted, an extension of licking each other’s wounds.
I couldn’t understand what was missing.
There was family, love, and feelings.
Compassion, kindness, and happiness were all present.
There were plenty of things to describe it as a happy household.
But clearly, there was one thing absent.
Years passed, and I still couldn’t figure it out.
The answer came to me during an event one day.
On Akechi’s death anniversary.
Without fail, Takeru would always take leave from work to visit Akechi’s grave.
Was no one else visiting? He would silently clean up the grave, which was in a terrible state every year, without complaint.
He’d laugh and say he enjoyed this as he poured coffee over the grave.
He’d seriously, or perhaps jokingly, say he wanted to add mushrooms, Akechi’s favorite, to the offering.
When Hideyoru turned seven, he asked Takeru a question.
“Dad, whose grave is this?”
“It’s the grave of my one and only best friend. Always fooling around, getting into stupid fights—a bad guy, but we had so much fun together.”
“Really! Dad, you look so happy.”
“Yeah, I had a great time.”
Takeru smiled, a mix of loneliness and bashfulness.
Ah, I see…
It’s because Takeru’s smile is missing, that’s why it’s just licking wounds…
Takeru’s smile is monopolized by Akechi…
So, then…
It’s hopeless, isn’t it?
I watched the smoke from the incense Takeru offered rise to the heavens, for a long, long time…
―――――
Again, I had a strange dream today.
A very happy dream.
A faint, very bitter love.
An abnormal love that no one would aspire to.
But still, there was definitely happiness spreading there.
However, it was a cruel dream with too great a cost.
A love story like murky glass, turning my current feelings upside down, recognizing white as black.
I can never forgive him…
But it was you who kept me and him, who were about to break up so many times, connected… Trash.
It’s not here, in a different world, her (my) story.
I think you were happy.
Even if it was a second-hand experience, she (I) was certainly happy.
I will not deny eternity (you).
But knowing that, let me say just one thing.
“I am happier now.”
There is no happy home.
There is no connection with the person I like.
Just a childish, elementary school-like love.
But there, certainly, exists the circle of people I once sought.
I won’t let you call it a birdcage life anymore.
The birdcage has broken.
At last, it seems the bird can fly freely in the sky.
—Eternally.
†
It is unclear how much damage Hideyori caused to Eien, as it has not been disclosed in the game.
“Breaking the Chain of Sorrow” is a CERO D game.