DING-DONG, his doorbell almost never rang, and yet now it suddenly came alive with sound. Who the heck is it this early in the morning? Misaki decided to pretend he was out. He wouldn’t answer even if they were conducting a census.
Ding-dong, ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ugh, stop it. Just give up already. Misaki hid his head under a pillow and covered his ears. But then…
Click! The unmistakable sound of his door lock opening. He had to raise his head for that.
“Hey, Red! I know you’re there! Don’t pretend you are not, you fool!”
The door loudly opened, and in his hallway, with a black cape behind her back and a magic wand in her hand, stood none other than the Supreme Ruler of Evil Mia Oonari. Misaki gawked at the girl, shell-shocked, but there was something he needed to confirm, so he shot into action.
He stood up, barreled towards the hallway and pressed the girl for answers, “Y-You! You unlocked my door! How did you do that?!”
“Huh?! You would not open it for me, so I used magic to do that myself. A cylinder lock like that is a piece of cake for me!”
Forcing a lock open with magic?! Misaki’s facial expression changed to astonishment. Wow, nothing was impossible with her powers. If she didn’t need a key to open doors, she could commit all the crimes she wanted! …He knew very well from their time together up until now, that she would never do that.
Realizing that he had started blindly trusting Mia somewhere along the way, he hastily raised his voice, questioning her further, “Wh-What do you want? Actually, why aren’t you at school? It’s a weekday, you know!”
“I’m afraid to say, I shall be missing class today. Skipping it to be precise.”
“Hey, don’t you dare cut classes and then strut into my apartment like everything’s cool! Did you come so I could chew you out for this or what?”
“No. I came because there is something I have to talk to you about. Why else would I be here? Now, get ready, we’re going to Kyoto!”
Misaki’s jaw dropped. Kyoto? Why? He couldn’t understand what Mia was talking about. “I can’t come up with a single reason why I’d want to go to Kyoto though.”
“Oh, there is a reason all right. Sayoko will be meeting her fiancé today. We don’t know what time the meeting will start, so we best get there as quick as possible. Honestly, we don’t have much time. So, chop-chop!” Mia’s tone brokered no argument. She forcibly took Misaki by the hand and moved to step out of his flat, but he violently shook her hand off, taken aback by her actions.
“Wait just a minute! What’s this about Sayoko and her fiancé? I don’t get what you’re talking about!”
“Ugh, you irksome man! Sayoko is going to meet the person her father arranged for her to marry today. If we don’t go right now, we won’t make it in time. If it goes through as intended, your chances of having her will be destroyed for good. Are you all right with that?”
They would be meeting each other today. It was so soon. He felt Sayoko’s father’s hand in the arrangement progressing at a breakneck speed. It suddenly clicked in his mind why Sayoko had appeared out of the blue yesterday. She had been running out of time. That was why she had come to Tokyo so suddenly. She had boarded the first bullet train out of Kyoto and had come to see him. Had it been just to break up with him? Or—
Misaki stumbled back a step, his legs moving of their own accord. “I can’t go,” he uttered in a small voice.
Mia gave him a puzzled look.
“I can’t go. What am I gonna do there? Are you telling me that I should go to their meeting, spout some chick flick worthy line like, ‘No, that woman is mine!’ and sweep her off her feet? You know I can’t do that. Her father’s reputation and the company’s profits are at stake. Moreover, Sayoko has made her choice already. And even if I do whisk her away, there’s no way that’ll go well. It can only result in them tracking us down and taking her back, and that’ll be the end of it.”
Mia clearly looked incensed at what had just come out of Misaki’s mouth. Her mouth was curled down at the corners in annoyance. She’s like an open book, Misaki thought, but this time, there’s really nothing she can do. This is no fairy tale where there’s always a happy ending.
Even if they did manage to elope, what were they going to do next? Misaki had a life. Even if he quit the job he had now and they ran away to some faraway place where no one knew who they were, what were they supposed to do after that? Was he supposed to look for a new job, one which would let him support Sayoko? …The answer was “no”. This would only serve to make life harder for the both of them and bring them nothing but misery.
“Love conquers all” was nothing but a bunch of sweet words ringing hollow in the face of reality. Misaki didn’t expect Sayoko, who had enjoyed a life of luxury and privilege up until now, to get used to hardship, and even if she braved it with him, that would ultimately amount to him imposing self-denial on her. This wasn’t the happiness he envisioned for them.
“It’s fine, Mia. She was out of my league from the beginning. All that matters to me is that Sayoko’s happy. If she is, then I don’t care that it’s not me who’s by her side. So you can stop—”
“Argh! Stop talking! Her father, the company—whatever! Who cares! What do you want to do? You sure spoke a lot about how Sayoko’s happiness is your number one priority, but guess what, she is not happy! She was crying the other day. When you didn’t propose to her yesterday, she felt so forlorn she wept!” Mia snarled, flailing her arms around in a fit of anger.
Misaki, completely dumbstruck, helplessly gazed at the girl raging in his hallway. Sayoko had wanted him to propose? She had come to end things with him, what did proposing have to do with anything?
“Why would I propose to her? She made the choice to leave me, you know!”
“Admittedly, I fail to comprehend that part too, but Sayoko said something about how she was being unfair. How she wanted to test you, how she put selfish, one-sided expectations on you. And then she let out a defeated laugh and was gone, just like that. She said that she was swayed too much by the opinions of other people, and that was why this was the only way for her, or something along those lines. But, I hated that laugh so much I…” Mia mumbled on and on, but Misaki stopped listening halfway.
She had been testing him. She had wanted him to say, “please, be my wife”. She had imposed that choice upon him—but he was no better. Misaki had been testing her, too. He had hoped that she would choose him over her family and their company. He had wanted her to ask him to get married right away. However, unable to get his feelings across, he could only accept what the woman he loved had to say. It had been easier that way. If he took his anger out on her, shifted the blame to her inside his heart, then he could continue to avert his eyes from the ugly, dirty truth of his own feelings. He wanted to be the “victim”, so he had to push Sayoko into the role of the “victimizer”.
“…I’m the worst…” Misaki whispered, hanging his head and hiding his face in his hands.
If Subaru or Ren were here right now, he might’ve asked them to punch him.
“Huh?” Mia screwed her face up in exasperation.
“Sayoko said the same thing.”
“…Yeah, we’re two peas in a pod, all right.”
“I see. So, Kyoto. You are going, right?” Mia asked him as if it was a rhetorical question.
He felt almost envious of her childish neglect to imagine how their actions would affect the future. Misaki, though, was an adult. He now knew how Sayoko felt and had finally realized what had been brewing in his own mind all along, but he wasn’t easygoing or rash enough to rush into this gamble headlong without a plan.
When instead of answering her, he lapsed into silence, she frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Say, Misaki, what do you want to do? …Do you not want Sayoko anymore? If that’s the case, I’ll give up on it too. Ren told me that I should. He said that there is no point in taking someone who has no wish to do anything about the situation all the way to Kyoto, and I agree.”
If Misaki took Mia’s hand and let her take him to Kyoto, what would he do once he was there? What could he do, if not whisk her away, which was hardly realistic? What had he even been doing up until now? What had he been doing to make Sayoko his?
…Nothing. He had done nothing but stall—just a year more, just another year. He had never tried to talk to her parents in person, or put his wish to marry her into words. He had only been waiting for some impossible miracle to happen and change everything overnight.
“Misaki, do you really have no desire to go to Kyoto? …Did you, in your heart of hearts, actually want to break up with Sayoko?”
“Of course I didn’t! I wanted to be with her forever. I wanted her to marry me. I couldn’t imagine my life without her anymore! But then real life happened, and it was way harsher than I expected! I can’t wield magic like you do, I’m not a great fighter like Ren or Shou, I don’t have the monstrous strength of Subaru! …Even if I want her so bad it hurts, even if I go there and try to steal her away, how do you expect me to do that?!” Misaki yelled, unconsciously hurling all of his pent-up frustration at the girl standing in front of him, but Mia only leveled him with a neutral gaze, taking his tirade in stride.
Then, an inexplicably relieved expression overtook her face, and she uttered, “I’m glad to hear that. …Hearing you say all this and admit that you still want Sayoko is good enough for me. You can think about what you are going to do once we arrive in Kyoto,” Mia said, whipping her wand out in an instant.
Misaki tried to brace himself desperately, but it was already too late.
“O verdant green, turn into shackles!” As soon as Mia pronounced these words filled with intent, vines slithered from under Misaki’s feet, crawling up his legs until they were completely entangled in the green tendrils.