When Kurokawa ran outside, my darling was already on high alert. He asked himself many times and wondered what went wrong with her that created such a sudden change. Immediately, C wanted to go after the bookworm to help despite fearing either Laura or me would come after him. Even when his life was, to C, on the line, he still could not refrain from wanting to do something for others. Perhaps his memories were wiped, similar to mine, but his personality was never to be broken.
I wondered if C noticed the uncontainable affection pouring out from me at that moment because I certainly was about to hug him with all my might. Honestly, somehow I felt like a proud wife.
And not long after the disappearance of Kurokawa, C was already standing up from his seat. Using his weird background character status that made none notice him, C snuck toward Laura and me. His purpose was simple: permission to follow the bookworm.
The whole time sneaking around, he was such an adorable little creature that I could hardly hold myself back from attacking him immediately! If it were the same world with just the two of us, I would have pushed him down on the spot. But this timeline was not mine, so I had to contain my thirst after a few breaths. It was still too soon to reveal what naughty thoughts I had in store for my love.
With everything running amok, C needed gentle and loving care rather than me going on the offensive too hard. Because of that reason, it would take me a very long time until I could make him look at me like he used to. Nevertheless, I would choose the first one between being patient to get him to understand me and having a massive trust issue. An eternity was long. A couple of days or years extra would not make a huge difference, especially when trying to achieve my goal.
C did not seem to realize this himself yet, but the reason I was in love with him was nothing too complicated. He was the man I fell in love with back from who-knows-when, from the time of a forgotten past. My darling was the same kind and caring person who valued the happiness of others more than himself, even if it meant he was going to get hurt by doing so in the process. C had proved it over again already, so I had no reason to find more evidence. And he was showing us that beautiful quality of him once again.
As for me, even when C considered the current Rachel to be different, in my heart of hearts, I knew nothing had changed. At the core, I still wanted to keep him for myself rather than wanting to share. All I used to do was try to get him the happiness he deserved. What I was doing now was similar. Albeit another approach was used, it did not matter much if things worked out.
Even if that new approach meant working together with the other girls.
"Are you going to do anything? Laura seems to be in a bad spot." Standing next to me at one corner and looking at Kurokawa arguing with C, the class rep asked. When she mentioned the name of our bookworm, I saw no light in her pupils.
It would seem Laura still harbored great disappointment toward Kurokawa. In a way, I could understand what she was thinking. She wanted to have someone she could trust but was betrayed in a heartbeat. Anyone would be pissed off, not just her.
"Now, now, let them be. I trust C. He knows what is best for her." I answered while hiding behind a corner, trying to lower my presence.
"So you are not going to intervene? Really? That does not sound like you one bit. Even when she was the one who saved you?" Laura's brown eyes widen.
"No." My short answer was followed by a heavy sigh. "It's not that I can not help her, but I feel like it is something she has to come up with on her own."
"Well, her story is certainly tragic. I personally would not know how to deal with it." The class representative looked at the couple from afar, her serious expression softened. "It was ridiculous to know that your own life was fake. I nearly had a mental breakdown because of it. In her case, it was even worse."
"So you forgive Kurokawa now?" I asked without looking at Laura.
"That would be impossible. For now, at least. However, I have more pity for that bookworm than hatred. After hearing what happened to Kurokawa, I thought...she had her circumstances, too." Her voice sounded a bit down. "In my case, the greatest threat, namely you, has been neutralized. And in yours, the event has been solved by C. In other words, we have not lost anything. We can still be by his side and proud of our own selves."
Laura stopped briefly and continued: "Kurokawa has already lost her face and skin. I am not saying this because I want to belittle her, but she was already inferior to us since her story was conceived. While we were robbed of our pasts, she was robbed of the future."
"We all had our circumstances. You, me, Kurokawa, anyone else who is yet to come, we are all born into this world under painful backstories." Shaking my head, I told her. "Because we escaped our fates, that does not mean our lives are any less tragic than hers."
"I know," Laura exclaimed. "I just... can't fathom how painful it would be to live as the bookworm. If I had to live with a scar on my forehead and other places across my body, I would not have the guts to walk outside the door, let alone go to school and socialize."
"Me neither. Kurokawa's mom is a true monster."
"Agreed."
At this point, we were looking at C and Kurokawa's confrontation. Although the distance between us was far, with the help of C's internal thoughts, we could more or less guess how their conversation was going.
Unfortunately, it was not good. Not even a little.
[I want to comfort her, but I cannot. To make her pain disappear, Kurokawa will need affection. Years and decades of constant loving will be required to slowly grind away all the damage that has been done to her heart. Yet, I do not know how I can give her that when I can not guarantee happiness to just one of the girls.]
C was struggling against Kurokawa's powerful hatred for herself. I could sense her depression seeping into him.
[There is no future for me. There is no future for us.]
That broke my heart. Of course, C was thinking like that, not saying it in words, but still...
If I were Kurokawa, I would probably break apart right away.
"It's like a rejection, but a heartfelt rejection that comes from the heart. C sincerely thinks he can't help Kurokawa." Laura mumbled.
It was then that Kurokawa finally lashed out at C. Even from a distance, we could still hear the despair in her words. Or perhaps, she knew we were following C, so she let us see a piece of her fractured heart.
"I wish to be like Rachel and Laura." The bookworm yelled. Despite crying profusely, her words were clear and sharp. There was little to no sobbing in her voice.
That made me think she had had experience in holding back her voice while crying.
"I envy them. I want to spend time with you, too. I want to hold your hands and cook for you, too. I want to be able to wake up next to you, too. I want to be the one you see after waking up every morning. I want to be the one to greet you when you come home every night. I want to feel loved by you! What do you think I feel when they have the best time of their lives while I can only look at you from afar?"
We both fell silent, unable to utter anything.
"But I know it's not their fault. We were born completely different, after all. I don't have their unblemished skin, their beautiful faces, their eyes, their expressions, and many, many more... All things about them scream beautiful. Everything about them reminds me of how disgusting I am. Underneath these clothes are scars, C. Scars! On my face is another big one. And underneath these rags are more scars."
Then, she kept crying and bawling, pouring her inner thoughts out for us to hear.
I never knew those thoughts, honestly. Then again, after hearing them, I could not help but feel a sense of empathy. Kurokawa was just like me. The bookworm wanted to be beautiful like everyone else but did not have the chance to do so. Perhaps, whenever she tried to fix something, her mother would come in and stop it.
In a world where law enforcers were but mere words, the existence of her mother would be the most powerful thing ever, with the exception of the system.
Back in my iteration, Kurokawa also died quite early in the game. From the beginning of the story to her death, she never mentioned what she thought of me. Her final moment was not the same as what C said, too. Rather than being entangled with Han and then forcing him to murder her during sex, C managed to talk with her after she killed her mother.
Sadly, she hanged herself, unable to live through that painful event. And C also held a deep scar because of it.
My darling never mentioned what was discussed during that critical moment. Yet, he would look sad whenever we talked about it during our short time together.
"It was too late. If only I was a bit sooner." That was the only thing C ever said about what happened.
"Rachel." Laura called my name.
"Yeah?"
"Can we...you know...do something about Kurokawa's mother?" She fidgetted.
I never thought of the day of hearing our precious class representative asking me to kill someone so bluntly.
"It's not going to solve anything."
"Haaaaa..." She sighed deeply. "I knew you would say that. It didn't make sense, anyway."
In front of my eyes, Kurokawa was about to storm off. C was also not trying to hold her back. He was...blasted by her words.
"Yeah. For someone like Kurokawa, who is always living in self-doubt and self-harm, the interference of outside forces will only make it worse."
"I guess the only option is our faceless hero." Laura looked at that lonely back standing in the middle of the hallway.
"Yeah, he will make it work. He always does."
(Break next week!)
Read 𝓁at𝙚st chapters at (f)re𝒆we(b)novel.com Only