Chapter 91: Girl And Girl

“That guy?”

“Yeah, I heard that his family died and he lived alone…”

“If even the magical girls won’t help him, then maybe he’s a monster.”

“He looks really creepy.”

I heard voices.

Voices mocking me.

Voices feeling sorry for me.

Voices looking down on me.

Voices treating me as if I were beneath them.

‘…You’re stupid.’

I wanted to get up and run at those kids right away, but all I could do was look down on them.

Untouchables.

The lowest class in the school hierarchy.

It would be better to just stay still than to step forward and embarrass myself.

Interest tends to fade with time.

Ding-dong-daeng-dong-

“…Haa.”

I sighed at the sound of the bell ringing in my ear.

I somehow made it through today.

Only when the laughter in my ear felt like it was mocking me did I finally grab my school bag and get up from my seat.

Let’s go.

Into a quiet house with no one – a lonely space.

“…”

I looked at the people who were leaving school chattering away and briefly recalled the past.

I remember that I once had one friend – no, two.

Those were really fun times.

I let out a slow breath, recalling memories that I could no longer return to.

“It would be better if we all died.”

If everyone shared the pain of loss, there wouldn’t be any more instances of people criticizing each other for their losses.

Honestly, there were some aspects that felt unfair.

Why did I have to lose everything?

I clenched my fists so hard that my fingernails dug into my palms, but the moment I realized that this was my fate, I gave up.

“Catch me if you can~”

“Seriously, stand there!”

It’s really peaceful.

Unlike me, who was living in a hell of peace.

Maybe because it was close to winter, the sun was slowly setting even though it was school time.

If every day was night, I wouldn’t have felt this loneliness.

Today, the bag on my back felt so heavy.

“Mom, Mom! Buy me this!”

“Oh my, this kid too… I can’t help it. Are you buying me something special just for today?”

There was a time when I was like them.

Holding my parents’ hands, singing about everyday life, and expressing happiness out loud.

But what about me now?

‘Just breathing is painful.’

‘Why are you the only one who survived?’

‘If you had just died, it wouldn’t have been this painful.’

‘You should have died instead of them.’

A voice echoed in my head.

A voice that scolded me, a voice that cursed me.

The owner of that voice was none other than me.

A being who had no regrets about my current life.

Even though the sun was still up, I felt like a shadow had fallen.

No, to be exact –

“… Ah.”

– A shadow was right in front of me.

“…”

A street where people walk.

A space where there was only blackness in one corner.

When I turned my head to follow the faint shadow, I felt breathless for a moment.

“…”

Guidance.

Is this what it means to be drawn by fate?

Even though I didn’t have enough to go home, I started walking down a dark alley.

Deeper, deeper, even deeper –

“Delicious despair.”

“You…”

There was a shadow in the alley.

No, there was a girl.

A girl much smaller than me – probably in elementary school.

Normally, I would have ignored her and walked away, but I was inexplicably drawn to the young girl in front of me.

“What brings you to this alley?”

“…”

Why did I come here?

The child lying on the neatly maintained sofa smiled at me.

If it seemed like the devil’s smile tempting an innocent lamb—no, a wounded lamb—is it because of my imagination?

I instinctively stepped forward and stood in front of the child, and the child lying on the sofa slowly got up.

“Do you want something too?”

“Who are you?”

A sense of discomfort washed over me.

An ominous feeling that even a normal person could feel.

The being before my eyes is not human.

I should not approach the being before my eyes.

Despite the warnings that were almost instinctive blaring in my head, my body reflexively moved toward the child.

As if it were fate.

“Don’t you know who I am the best?”

“…What is that—”

“‘Let’s all die.’”

“…”

“‘It would be better if this world were to perish.’”

The child’s voice pierced my heart.

The darkness in my heart that I always thought of.

That voice that stimulated the darkness—no, that seemed to embrace it—made me bite my lips reflexively.

It felt like if I let my guard down even for a moment, it would pour out all the hidden feelings in my heart.

That was why, in the end, I ended up keeping my mouth shut even at such absurd words.

“Will you make a contract with me?”

“A contract, you say?”

“I’ll give you your despair, and I’ll freely scatter your despair throughout the world.”

“…What’s in it for me?”

The child’s smile deepened at the question that could be called aggressive.

Despite the sharp reaction—or rather, because of that sharp reaction, it seemed to have made him like it even more.

I shouldn’t be caught up in that being, that thing.

The instincts that are fundamental to humans began to shout at me.

Never approach it. That thing is something that should not be approached.

“I can share your despair.”

“…”

“As you wish.”

What will you do?

Will you just return to the other side of the light and live in a state where you are laughed at by other humans?

Or will you become a being that makes them tremble in fear and despair?

A non-human being whispered to me.

There was only one answer to that whisper.

“I’ll make that contract.”

If I could crush those who laughed at me and ignored me—if I could draw despair on their faces, I’d do anything.

Even if it meant making a contract with the devil.

Even if it meant crossing a river of no return…!!

“Okay.”

The child’s hand reached out and lightly pushed my forehead with the tip of her finger.

It felt as if I was dreaming.

I felt as if my whole body was floating, and the moment I opened my eyes, all I could see was a world made of black.

‘Ah, that’s right…’

That was the color of the world I was seeing.

Dark, gloomy, cold, and burning at the same time.

“For you, and for me, please spread despair to every corner of this world.”

The black pupils began to glow red.

In the midst of the entire world painted in black and white, I couldn’t help but instinctively reach out to the only color I could see.

It’s beautiful. I want it.

In this damned colorless world, there is such a pretty thing.

“You made a contract with me, so I will grant you one wish. Not everything, but I can grant you everything I can,” the child said.

Sadism rose inside me as I saw the corners of her mouth twitching as if she knew what I was going to ask for.

I want to see that face distorted in pain.

I want to see tears flowing from those eyes—no, tears of blood.

And, I want that red.

“Give me your eyes.”

“Aha.”

A voice like the ringing of paper filled the alley.

The short hair, shaking to the sound of the child’s laughter, danced near her pure white shoulder.

It seemed as if she had heard an interesting story.

However, a strange certainty that her answer would not be a rejection had already bloomed in my heart.

“Okay.”

The child nodded and slowly closed her left eye.

The right eye was still red.

As I stared at her eyes with a playful look in them, the child’s hand grabbed my wrist.

Then she moved her hand to her right eye, urging me to take it quickly—

*slap—*

and then,

“Do you like it? What do you want?”

“…”

I closed my mouth as I looked at my stained hand.

The child showed no sign of pain despite having her eyes taken away.

The blood stain on her palm lost its color the moment it left the girl’s body.

Not red, but black.

A color I always saw, so cliché that it was tiresome.

“…I like it.”

But the moment I saw the eyes on the hand turn red like I had seen them for the first time, I could only nod my head like a broken toy after hearing the child’s words.

The red color placed in a world that only had black and white made people ecstatic just by looking at it.

It was as if it would not allow any judgment.

“You got what you wanted, now it’s my turn to get what I want.”

“…Fine. I’ll do anything.”

“A magical girl for me—ah, magical girl sounds like the kind of name that spreads hope, so I guess that’s not a good idea…”

Then, after a moment of silence, the child clapped her hands together.

“Please be a despair girl for me.”

A small whisper pierced through my eardrums and seeped into my head.

As if telling me not to forget the conversation we had just had.