Arc 2 - Chapter 4: Building Family Ties (1/3)

Neko had managed to fall asleep a few hours before sunrise, but Yu had been up all night. No matter how still he lay in bed, sleep was nowhere near his eyes.

He hated it. With no one to talk to and nothing to occupy him, he was left alone with his own thoughts, and it pained him.

"Fraud. Why do I want to do this?"

The job offer he was going to present to Marino Swann was a fraud. Yu was afraid of being involved in a crime, but when the idea of fraud entered his mind, he couldn't resist it.

"To make easy money? I'll cheat thousands of people, steal their money."

If he had someone to talk to, he wouldn't have to think about such things, he could talk to her and forget all the negative thoughts.

"I will do it to be happy... Right? Because I don't want to think about negative things anymore, I want to live a good life. If I have a lot of money I can do it here. I can go to a different country and live a luxurious life as a rich person. That's what I want, I can live away from all my pain."

He thought of last night, Lucie was being close to him. Her closeness had even warmed Yu's heart.

"I could marry someone, even have a harem since this is a fantasy world. Which man could refuse? I would be surrounded by beautiful women, maybe have children. All this would keep me busy and I would be free of all the memories, all the regrets that cause me pain. Maybe even forget who I am."

Money was everything. If one had money, one could find comfort, peace and happiness, and love.

"Even if money cannot buy love, it can be the means to reach it. First World or Second World, either way, money will lead me to a life that will make me happy."

When the light of the rising sun entered the room through the curtain on the window, it was time for Yu to go to sleep, but he couldn't sleep this morning, he had to go to the municipality early and get an ID card.

When it occurred to him that he needed to get an ID, he turned around. Neko normally turned her back to Yu before going to sleep, but in her sleep she moved and turned to face him.

She was holding the blanket with her small hands, her mouth slightly open to breathe. Yu found her long black eyelashes aesthetic and her snow-white hair was beautiful.

"She... is my responsibility."

He reached out to touch her hair, his fingers were about to touch her hair when he stopped himself and pulled his hand back.

"Like me, an orphan. I killed her mother and I can't just abandon her."

Yu would never forget Rie's eyes at the moment of death.

He wiped the tears from his eyes with his hand.

"Why am I such a terrible person? Why don't I try to be a good person? Why don't I? Why can't I?"

He didn't want Neko to wake up and catch him like this. His cheeks were flushed, he stood up to wipe his runny nose and walked over to the water buckets.

He took a handful of water from the full bucket and brought it to his nose, then washed his nose over the empty bucket.

He also washed his face to wipe the tears from his cheeks. Then he wiped his wet face on his clothes.

"I am a murderer. What is fraud compared to murder? Should I worry about getting more mud on my already muddy hands? One way or another, no amount of water can wash my hands clean."

He looked at Neko again. Looking at her made him feel even lower. He was being consumed by the dark pit inside his chest.

"I want to believe her, but my thoughts, my feelings are all mixed up. The chance to make up for all the mistakes is too good an idea to be true, but even if what she says is true, I'm not the man to do it. I'm just fooling myself and her, as I always do."

After examining his face in the mirror, he dressed. When he put on her black dress made of quality fabric and looked in the mirror again, he was satisfied with his appearance.

"Neko, Neko, Neko." He called three times but Neko did not wake up. "Neko, we have to get up." He took the girl by the shoulders and shook him gently.

"In a little while," Neko said. She hadn't even opened her eyes and her lethargy made Yu smile.

"The longer you put off waking up, the less likely you are to wake up. Come on, get up."

He had learned from YouTube that the longer you put off the alarm, the less likely you are to wake up. Since it was Yu who was acting as an alarm right now, Neko shouldn't put it off.

Neko rubbed her eyes and got out of bed. She was still sleepy, having spent most of the night awake. She yawned and stretched, then was about to go back to bed when Yu stopped her.

"Don't go to bed, don't go to bed... Get up, we'll have breakfast and go to the municipality. When we come back you can sleep again."

Neko got up with a groan and washed her face. While she dried her face with a towel, Yu was still looking at himself in the mirror.

"I'm very handsome, aren't I?" he asked. Now that she was awake, he could talk to Neko.

The little cat-eared sword fairy started to change her clothes, ignoring the young man who was talking. Yu continued talking.

"I don't say this to flatter myself, but if God is an artist and humans are his art, then I must surely be his masterpiece. I mean, look at my face, my eyes, my voice, the natural shape of my body. He must have created me with the intention of making me a masterpiece. Although my sisters were absolutely no less than me, they were both very beautiful. I guess it's a perfect genetic inheritance from the perfect choice of mates our ancestors made in the past. Yes, the natural heritage of the Valarfin is extraordinary beauty."

Neko changed her clothes, not caring what Yu said. Yu just wanted to escape his thoughts today by telling someone something, so he didn't mind being ignored.

"Did you cry?" asked Neko.

"Why should I cry?"

"Your eyes are red."

Yu put his hand to his eyes, he had been examining himself in the mirror so much that he hadn't noticed his eyes were red.

"I was awake all night, that's why they're red." Instead of confessing, he chose to dodge it with a white lie. He didn't want to say he had been crying.

He picked up a comb and sat on the bed. Then he motioned for Neko to move the chair in front of the bed.

"Let me braid your hair," he said.

"No need." Neko reached for Yu's hand to take the comb. Yu held up his hand and snatched the comb away.

"We're going somewhere formal, and after that we have some work to do. We need to look good."

Neko could be as sensitive as Yu when it came to looking good. She pulled out the chair and sat down, letting Yu tend to her hair.

Yu had a hard time understanding her; sometimes Neko pretended to be disgusted by Yu, but sometimes she let him take care of her. Yu wanted to know what she was thinking.

"What are we doing?" Neko asked as she sat opposite the full-length mirror in the room, watching her hair being done with an emotionless face.

"We're going to do some research."

"Is it about the job you're going to offer the person from yesterday?"

"Yes."

He needed to find out details about the population, the betting system, the dates and times of the games, the details of the games, and go to Marino equipped.

"What business?"

"Hope... Chance... Hope marketing or something like that-" He was happy to be able to chat with Neko while combing her hair, happy that he could be free for a moment to give her a hint about what he was going to do.

"SCAM-MMMH!"

"Don't yell!"

Neko turned out to be smarter than she expected and immediately realized the plan Yu had in mind. Yu acted fast and immediately covered Neko's mouth so that the people in the next rooms wouldn't hear anything.

After Yu removed his hand, Neko wiped her mouth with the back of her own hand. Yu was hurt by her doing that.

"Are you going to cheat? Are you going to cheat him?"

"No, I'm not scamming Marino." Even if he tried to swindle him, there wasn't much he could get from a man who was already finished, and if he somehow took his house away, Marino's debtors might get to him this time. "Look here, Neko, you want to rewind time, don't you? If time rewinds, nothing we do in this world will matter because it won't have happened."

"But we will remember." 

"We will remember something that never happened, is that more important than your mother?"

He regretted saying that right after his sentence, he had given Neko a little more hope.

"Every time you use this..." Neko clenched her little fists. Meanwhile Yu had started braiding her hair.

"There is no risk of death, we are not considered guilty by the law until the last moment, and we can leave Rolderhelm immediately when the job is done. If things go the way I think they will, we have an estimated two-month window in which we can take care of other business."

"Other business?" said Neko, still not convinced.

Yu was relieved to deflect the topic from the fraud.

"Sigma Tower. Who hired the assassins and what we need to do to achieve our goal. We'll look for answers, I guess."

Rewinding time seemed like an impossible goal to Yu, but he was going to work on it a little to ease his conscience by saying 'I tried'.

He hoped that once they had tried a bit and the impossibility of rewinding time was understood, Neko would accept her mother's death and look to the future.

"All right," he said. He had knitted a beautiful braid for Neko. "We can leave after we have breakfast."