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CLANG, clang, clang.
Some sort of gong was ringing in the dorm. But all I could do was sit on the ground with my back against the door.
Through a gap in the sheet over my head, the scene of my bleak room was like a weight on my chest. Dust sparkled in the morning light pouring through the window, but even that felt strangely unfriendly.
What can I say? I’m the one who locked myself in here.
Alice came to see me, and I pushed her away. They say that women anguish over how to act while men jump to action and come to regret it later—it seemed that was exactly right. My self-hatred was crushing me.
I was terrified that I would fail to hide my horns and my true, horrifying nature would be exposed. But Alice optimistically came to bring me sweets. She even told me they were from the other boys.
The cruel girl had no idea just how charming her smile could be.
On this island without any young women, Alice was like a solitary flower blooming in a wasteland. Some of those boys would do whatever was necessary to win her affection.
The Tweedles had grown and were still guarding her, but it was no weight off my mind.
I watched Dum and Dee cuddling up to Alice and learned they were still my rivals.
The twins had become beautiful but untamed adult men.
They had defined muscles, a subtle ferocity like that of carnivores, and they intimidated anything and anyone who tried to get close to Alice. If they directed that intensity at Alice, someone easily pressured like her would surely give them her heart.
That was if she hadn’t given it to them already.
Am I still the one who has your love?
Or does your heart belong to someone else now?
Had she moved on to another man?
Since I wasn’t brave enough to ask her out loud, I thought I’d kiss her to look into her mind.
But I couldn’t do it.
Fear overcame me the moment our lips were about to meet.
If I peered into her heart and didn’t see myself there…
If another man was there instead…
“…!”
Just the thought of it was bone-chilling.
Being abandoned by Alice would be the same to me as death.
“If only you were never born.”
The curse that was burned into my brain replayed in my mind.
It was a memory from years ago.
I was so happy when I learned how to hide my horns at the Liddell manor. I returned to the Knightley territory, feeling like I’d become a human at last. But that night, my mother said those last words to me right before she passed away—a death that was my own fault.
It was a mark seared into my soul.
That weakness—that trigger—lurked in the depths of my heart.
If I didn’t want to cause another string of tragedies, the least I could do was not allow the girl I loved to see me in this state.
I don’t want you to end up like my mother.
I wanted her to know, but I also didn’t.
Trapped in this state of indecision, I sat in front of the door until the commotion down the hall subsided.