Her humor was beyond me. Because that was what this was, right—a bad joke? Those earnest violet eyes of hers, they were just part of her act. Any moment now, she would burst into laughter, revealing the punchline.
No?
Her phone alarm sounded. “Ah, it’s time. Mio, can you see the crosswalk where we first met from where you are?”
“Oh, um, sure,” I replied, slightly bewildered. Peering out the window, the familiar crosswalk appeared much smaller from our elevated viewpoint.
“An elderly man with a cane will start crossing as soon as the signal changes. You know how short the signal is. A young girl will approach to help him with his luggage, and they’ll cross together.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“This is how the game starts. The prologue, so to speak.”
“You’re serious?” I shot back.
“Deadly,” she countered, an ironic smile playing on her lips. “It’s all right, take your time. It took me a while to accept it myself—that I have memories from a past life, and that in this life I am a character from a game I once played.”
She could say that with a straight face all she liked, but I was still skeptical. “You’ll excuse me for finding this hard to believe.”
“Why not? Stranger things have happened. But I get it, there’s no acceptance without denial. You’ll see, the events in this world unfold exactly as they did in the game. Look, the light is about to change.”
Shizuki was fixated on the crosswalk below. Despite my doubts, a part of me couldn’t resist joining her in observation. The far side of the street was visible from our vantage point, and there, just as she had described, was an elderly man with a cane being assisted by a young girl carrying luggage.
“Am I dreaming?” I muttered in disbelief. This was definitely some elaborate ruse a rich girl concocted to try and pull a fast one on little ol’ me. But to what end? Lacking context, I decided to play along, seeking more information while feigning belief. “What happens next?”
“That man is the head of the Nagura Group, a name you might recognize. And the girl is Nonoka Hiragi, the protagonist of the otome game that this world is based on. She’s his granddaughter, though she’s unaware of her lineage.”
“How is that possible?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Nonoka is an orphan. Her mother—her blood relation to the Nagura family—married a commoner and left her high-society life behind. As a result, Nonoka grew up ignorant of her heritage. Her grandfather knows she exists, but that’s about the extent of his knowledge. Look, he’s about to give thanks and ask for her name.”
As if on cue, the pair began to converse. From our distance, their words and expressions were indecipherable, yet the elderly man’s reaction was distinctly recognizable—a look of profound surprise. It was surreal, as if the scene below was being directed by Shizuki herself.
“The scene goes a little something like this,” Shizuki continued before slipping into her best impression of a seasoned storyteller. “And so, it came to pass. On that fated eve, when the chimes tolled thrice and thrice again, a Christmas miracle unfolded.” Exactly then, the nearby clock tower rang six times, marking six o’clock in the afternoon. A Christmas miracle? I glanced at my phone—it was the 24th. How had that detail escaped my mind?
As I returned my focus to the elderly man and young girl below, the scene really did take on an almost cinematic quality. “Is this world really based on an otome game?” I wondered aloud, my skepticism waning in the face of these uncanny coincidences.
“I can make several more predictions about the future if you’d like,” she replied nonchalantly.
Was her confidence a natural extension of her personality, or was it something I projected onto her because I was so desperate for her to be right? “So, your knowledge about the cure…”
“Is derived from the game,” she confirmed with a knowing smile. “In the game, there’s a character who suffers from the same condition as your sister. She is cured by the treatment I spoke of.”
My very soul shook. If Shizuki’s claims were true, then her foresight wasn’t just a vague prediction—it was a precise, prophetic vision. It implied a tangible hope, a real possibility that Shizuku could be saved.
I couldn’t ignore this chance. But I needed clarity on one critical aspect. “This…villainess of yours. Does something bad happen to her at the end of it all?”
“Yes. Ultimately, she meets a…less than desirable fate, let’s say.”
“But can this fate not be avoided? If the game has just begun, why not simply avoid the actions that lead to her downfall?” It seemed illogical. I understood trying to find a person to take the fall for wrongdoings already committed, but for wrongdoings yet to be committed?
Her smile widened. “Indeed, I intend to do just that. In fact, I’m leaving for overseas. I won’t even be enrolling in the school where the main events of the game take place.”
A hint of skepticism crept into my expression. “Yet you’re still looking for a fall guy?”
Shizuki nodded. “Simply put, if the game’s protagonist does not end up with one of the love interests, Japan will be devastated by a financial crisis the likes of which the country has never seen. And if that happens, there will be no cure.”
“So, the goal is to ensure our heroine finds her happily ever after?”
“Indeed. Nonoka needs to end up with one of the male leads to secure her happy ending. And for that to happen, she needs her foil.”
The logic in Shizuki’s explanation was now clear, albeit harsh. If she assumed her role as the villainess, her downfall was inevitable. Controversially, if she abstained, the whole of Japan would suffer. As a member of a financial empire, she couldn’t allow the latter. Yet, to avoid her own grisly fate, she needed someone to take her place. “Ms. Shizuki, if I understand you correctly, you are asking me to give up my life and face certain doom, all to hook Nonoka up with her boyfriend of choice?”
“Essentially. You will be trading your life for your sister’s,” she replied without a hint of sentimentality. “As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
But her words, stark and unapologetic, were the greatest assurance I could have asked for. “Oh, that’s a relief,” I sighed, a hint of a smile finally finding its way onto my face.
Shizuki’s eyebrow quirked in surprise. “What’s a relief?”
“If I may be honest, Ms. Shizuki, your proposal seemed too good to be true; I wondered if you weren’t trying to swindle me. But now, with the true cost to me revealed, I feel a lot better about the whole premise.” There was no free lunch, as Shizuki had so aptly put it. The transparency of the trade—my life for my sister’s—made the proposition seem more genuine, made her seem more trustworthy. And if I could trust her words, then I no longer had any reason to refuse.
“I’ll do it. I’ll be your villainess.”
I didn’t hesitate. Any opportunity to save Shizuku was an opportunity I had to seize—even if it resulted in my own death.