Chapter 54: Fantasy in the middle of the night

As they say, it’s always darkest before the dawn.

When I wake up from a long sleep and open my eyes, that sentiment suddenly comes to mind.

I force my stiff eyelids open, and a bright light pierces through the gap.

I frown as much as I can, taking a moment to adjust. Hazy shapes blur erratically, and the scenery melts into them.

Then, with a sound effect like a thud, my vision clears.

The sight of the dim room comes into view.

A refrigerator the size of a delivery box is left with its door open, and a pink king-size bed, out of place in this location, emits a fresh fabric softener scent.

The filament light hanging from the ceiling sways gently, shining alone.

Sia blinked slowly at the foreign scenery, like something out of a movie.

At that moment, a voice comes from the opposite side.

“Are you awake?”

“Izana?”

A Caucasian girl leans back languidly on a plush rocking chair, her blonde hair, somehow lighter in pigment than usual, shining faintly.

For a moment, her expression is blank, but Sia’s face immediately hardens as she recalls the moments before she passed out.

“What is this…?”

“Jean-Paul Sartre, do you know him?”

She throws out the question, but the answer doesn’t come, as if it were obvious. Instead, another story begins haphazardly. The rocking chair creaks as it sways.

Izana’s dazed eyes are fixed on the ceiling, not on Sia. There’s a faint, acrid smell in the air. Glancing around, Sia sees pill bottles rolling on the gray floor. All of them are empty.

“That person… Ah, what kind of person was he? He was definitely famous. Ah, I definitely read his books. Ah.”

“Izana.”

“Anyway, he said something like this. Love is inherently structured to inevitably fail. The wording might not be exact, but…”

Sia tried to get up, but lost her balance and fell. She stared indifferently at the thick shackles around one of her ankles.

“When we love, we want the other person to love us as much as we love them. While wanting the other person to love us of their own will, we bind them. Therefore, in the relationship between the subject and the object, unconditional love is just a vain ideal, and ultimately, love is a doomed endeavor – Honestly, what’s the big deal about that.”

“…”

“It’s a laughable story, isn’t it? Perhaps because he was a man who entered into a contract marriage before he died, he’s chasing after smoke. I sometimes try to catch the smoke above my head too. Is that why? By the way, this isn’t a dream, is it?”

Izana taps her head as she says this. Ignoring her, Sia pulls at her ankle with all her might, but the chain attached to the shackle doesn’t budge.

She reaches for her hands, but by then, both her hands are already cuffed. Sia gazes blankly at her reflection in the smooth metal surface.

“Does the other person’s will really matter? Can’t it be a one-sided relationship, like unrequited love?… It can’t, can it? That’s why you’re captured here.”

“…”

“You don’t love me. I know that too. Well, as a friend, maybe, but not as a lover. So I thought. While you were sleeping soundly, for minutes, hours, days. And finally, I came up with a good method.”

“”

“Do you know about operant conditioning? Skinner experimented to make rats inclined to press a lever.

But, can’t we do the same for humans? Can’t we ‘reinforce’ you to love me?”

Her pale cheeks suddenly turn rosy.

Her voice, like she’s drunk or feverish, rises, while her cold pupils, detached from it all, float alone. Slowly, slowly, she rises from the chair.

A figure walks closer. In one of her rough hands, a short but sharply gleaming knife is held.

Her hand trembles as if holding a liquor bottle. A scene from a thriller movie flashes in Sia’s mind, but Sia’s eyes are solely focused on Izana, calmly taking in her appearance.

If she held a cigarette instead of a knife, would she become as docile as a child with a candy in its mouth?

“Free will? What does that matter? As long as you love me, I can be satisfied, I can be happy— So, I’m going to train you starting now.”

“…Izana.”

“So that you love me, or rather, love only me. So that you do to me what I do to you—”

“Stop it, Izana.”

At the short remark, the steps that had been approaching without pause come to an abrupt halt.

The terrifying blade glints a deep blue right before her eyes, but Sia is neither angry nor frightened. Just expressionless, a face like a mirror devoid of emotion, looking at Izana.

Izana’s thoughts momentarily halt, then grasp at the edge of sanity again.

Suddenly, a thought like a bee sting pierces her heart.

If only I had shouted, ‘Why are you doing this?’, or cried, ‘Please stop, you’re scaring me!’, perhaps this gloomy feeling would have eased a little.

But no, that’s impossible, impossible, impossible. She buries the faint smile that surfaces on the water’s surface in her heart. Familiar lies, the triangles of a dulled conscience. It’s been too long to feel pain.

“If you stop now, I won’t say anything. I won’t hold you responsible for anything, and I won’t cut ties with you… Stop it here.”

“…!”

“It’s not too late, Izana. I consider you a friend—”

“Shut up. Shut up, I said shut up, you fcking btch!”

The anger, pooled like rotten water in her chest, erupts. She had held back, but tears instantly stream from her eyes. Izana kicks the nearby wall hard. As the throbbing pain rises from her toes, the tears flow even more.

At the same time, her cold self judges her own actions. Like a spoiled child.

“Izana…”

“It’s your fault… It’s all because you tempted me. Because Isaka has never done anything wrong in her life. She did do drugs a little, but that’s all. I even gave her my virginity, which I had saved, so why, why… do I have to suffer like this.”

Yes, like a child.

Unable to bear the rising irritation, like a spoiled child, she tears at her hair.

A few strands of her luxuriously styled hair fall out, and her unkempt nails scratch her scalp, drawing blood.

Her wide eyes are bloodshot, and the hand holding the knife trembles like a Parkinson’s patient.

The clear black eyes watching the raging Izana are tinged with a faint color.

Sympathy, and tightly pursed lips. Are you suffering like me? But it’s not love or anything else.

It’s just self-reproach. Self-reproach that I made this person like this. There is no affection, no love, anywhere.

That’s why I’m even more angry. Those eyes, those eyes! Why are you looking at me like that? Why don’t you look at me like you look at her—

-But I’m going crazy because I like even that part of you. Izana laughs and raises the knife.

This is not the behavior of a modest young lady, a familiar murmur.

“Damn it, who cares.”

She has already decided to throw away all pretense.