“W-Wait!”
Unsure what to do, Rinko called out to the siblings, but she was quietly stopped by Shinichi. Even if she tried to call out again, her voice wouldn’t reach them any more, for the young girl had ran off by herself and the young boy had chased after her.
The young boy was relatively calm, but the young girl was clearly overwhelmed with emotions.
She knew from her experiences that it was dangerous to leave them alone in that state. Not to mention, she also couldn’t find it in herself to leave them alone.
But…
“Please go. It would be bad to leave them alone like that.”
“What are you saying!?”
Is that something you should be saying!? Rinko seemed to say as she grabbed Shinichi’s shoulders and looked him in the eye.
It would be a lot easier to just cry and let it all out, and yet… He just stood there like that with that emotionless mask of his, void of even the slightest hints of any emotion.
It was such a pitiful sight that she wanted to cry herself.
She was the only one who knew the circumstances of his former family, and she also wasn’t keen on leaving him all by himself in this complicated building.
She knew that she should look for those siblings, but she also knew that right now, the one most affected of them all was this boy standing right before her.
“They might look like that, but they’re actually the type to go wild when they don’t know what to do.
It would be best if you find them and calm them down.”
“Wait! Wait a moment, Shinichi-kun!
This is all wrong! A lot happened these past 8 years!
Everyone was desperately trying to get adapt… That’s why!—”
That’s why it’s not your fault!
Rinko desperately wanted to tell him that the girl wasn’t being truthful when she said the things she said.
This was all just a series of unfortunate events. The day he fell… The place he fell to… The day he returned… Even the place where he returned… Everything was just truly a series of unfortunate events.
“I know.
…I’m sorry. Actually, I want to be left alone.”
“…Fine. But I’m definitely coming back!
So you better not move even one inch away from here! Okay!?”
With how Shinichi faintly laughed as he asked her to leave him alone, there was no way she couldn’t comply.
Still… She made sure to remind him that she would return before hurriedly leaving.
When everyone was gone, the boy, who was left in the waiting room all by himself, quietly stood, then like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he fell down limply into his chair.
His face remained emotionless, but all strength had left his limbs.
“…Where are you going?”
But it was also because of that that his words echoed strongly when he called out to the unsealed ‘her’.
Though ‘her’ footsteps were without sound, such that it should’ve been hard to notice her, she still could not slip past the boy’s senses, and when she heard his voice, she could not help but turn with a jolt.
Shinichi’s head was rested against the back of the chair, his eyes gazing up toward the ceiling, but despite that he was still able to notice her.
“I’m happy you feel for me, but restrain yourself.”
“I-I can’t just let them go after saying that!
How could they say such thoughtless things without knowing how much master cares for them!”
Shinichi stopped her with a quiet voice, but the emotions he had been suppressing until now were already bursting.
He could tell how she felt because she raised her voice.
That painted a smile on his face.
Then – though cowardly – the next words he spoke completely sapped away any desire for her to leave.
“Thank you, but… Please… Don’t leave me alone.”
“!!”
There was no way she could leave after being asked like that.
Immediately, she ran toward him and jumped onto his shoulders, then she rubbed her cheeks against his.
When her soft and warm fur touched him, Shinichi’s expression finally softened. As he caressed her head, he thought back to how things ended up like this.
Half the reason Shinichi listened to their[1] words was because he wanted to know what they thought. He believed that it was only when people laid out their bare emotions that the truth could be seen. Because of that he was able to uncover the cause of everything.
Although no one explained anything to him… The attitude of the employees… The process of their search for him… The argument of his parents… The change in his mother… The words of his siblings… The intermingling and change with the otherworld… When he put together the various fragments of truth, he was able to discern the flow with which they came.
He thought it detestable that his mind was so powerful that he could piece things together in this way. If not that, then he found it deplorable how much of a coward he was for not thinking that way.
—So, in the end, everything is my fault.
The moment he fell into that hole, everything was set in motion.
If Shinichi wanted to go ‘home’, then he should’ve returned immediately.
Shinichi drifting into another world… The search team failing to find him… The difference in understanding between his mother and father… And the new knowledge and common sense from the otherworld, Garesto.
It was because of these cogs failing to mesh together that the current reality ended up like this.
Shinichi’s old family was truly just a victim of a series of unfortunate events.
The other reason why Shinichi quietly listened was because he’d already subconsciously understood all these, so he thought it would be better if his mother vented on him. Because if not, then his mother might have truly broken.
How ironic…
Because she – his mother – loved and understood him so deeply, she knew that she could not hope for his survival in that harsh world.
Meanwhile, his father did not try to understand that, and instead failed to support his bereaved wife, while falling into an unending cycle of arguments with her.
From the way they argued earlier, that was probably what happened.
That became the cause of their divorce, as well as the deteriorating mental health of his mother.
To remedy that, his siblings must have gone to great lengths.
But then… He came back—
—And reset everything back to the starting point.
—Ahh, I went and did something unnecessary.
[1] – Plural feminine.
Tl Note: At long last, this chapter is done! Yay! Banzai! Jiggly! Yay! 😀