Even though the point was to meet and talk things through properly…
Sora Aratō and Aoko Aozaki didn't actually discuss much of that during the meal.
The real reason for meeting was simpler: to look each other in the eye, read each other's emotions, and confirm that this really was the end.
Once that dinner was over, both Sora and Aoko could be one hundred percent sure—
they had truly broken up for good.
But when two people who have been a couple since childhood finally separate, there's always a strange kind of awkwardness afterward.
Their social circles had overlapped for as long as they could remember.
The people closest to them—those who already knew about the breakup—were one thing.
But the people who didn't know…
"So this time, is it little Sora paying, or Aoko paying?" the owner's wife teased as they went to settle the bill. "If you ask me, you're going to end up together anyway, so there's no need to split things so clearly."
Sora and Aoko didn't even exchange a glance.
Yet with perfect unspoken coordination, neither of them argued or corrected her.
It was already well into dinner hours, and the little shop was busy.
From the main hall came the loud voices of drunk salarymen bragging about stock-market plays, constantly calling the owner's wife over to add more dishes.
Once she took Sora's payment, she didn't linger to chat.
After she left, Aoko and Sora looked at each other—and then, together, walked out of the shop.
The moment they left that lively, blazing-hot place behind, the cool night wind brushed their cheeks.
"Hey," Aoko said bluntly, "if you don't explain something like this… what are you going to do someday when you bring a new girlfriend here? How are you going to explain it then?"
The topic was supposedly over, yet she was still clinging to it.
"If we stop coming together for a long time, they'll figure it out," Sora replied. "And don't talk like it's only my problem—what about you? If you ever like some other guy and bring him here, you'll be the one in trouble."
"You can relax on that front," Aoko said. "Because of my family's requirements, I probably won't date again in my life."
"That was never very likely to begin with," Sora nodded. "With your she-tiger personality, nobody could put up with you."
"Getting dumped and then trash-talking me just makes you look petty." Aoko shot him a sidelong glance. "I answered you. Now what about you?"
"I'm not like you," Sora said. "I'm completely free. I'll get insanely rich, and maybe I'll even start a harem. Who knows? Anything could happen."
He said it openly—so openly it didn't even feel like it was meant to provoke her.
And, truthfully, it wasn't.
Sora didn't intend to let his life gather too many ties and bonds. Too many attachments would distort his decisions.
But he'd never said he wouldn't date.
Physical needs still had to be handled somehow.
In the past, Sora hadn't cared about that.
But now—if he used the coming "crazy era" to earn a fortune, then a mutually agreed-upon "transaction" didn't sound impossible.
Of course, with Sora's faint obsessive streak about "cleanliness," it would be the kind of deal where everything was bought out cleanly—exclusive, decisive.
After 1985, Japan would enter a few years of mania before the bubble began to burst.
In that era of people becoming "airborne" overnight—falling from wealth to nothing—
buying out an entire life… might not actually be impossible.
"You really dare to say that out loud," Aoko clicked her tongue, staring at him.
She knew her childhood friend's personality.
Sora was cold to people he didn't care about.
A stranger could get hit by a car and die right in front of him, and he'd probably still look indifferent.
And honestly, he'd said things like this to her before—versions of "what kind of life I'd live if you weren't here."
"...I'm going," Aoko said.
Her mood seemed to sour.
She turned, lifted a hand in a casual wave, and walked away without looking back.
Sora didn't linger either.
He turned and walked off in the opposite direction.
But after they'd separated for a while—
"This is the final ending?"
A cool, slightly chilling girl's voice spoke at his side.
Sora, walking near the park close to his home, turned toward the sound.
The park's lamps were sparse at night. Along the riverside path, only the public phone booth in the distance cast a faint glow.
Was it the environment shaping the person… or the person shaping the environment?
At that moment, the crescent moon slipped perfectly out from behind the clouds.
Moonlight spilled across the ground.
And a girl in a black nun's habit stood revealed before him—
Alice Kuonji.
The clean moonlight drew her shadow long across the path.
The instant she appeared, Sora's muscles tightened.
Touko Aozaki had told him about the "Fairy-Tale Witch."
A cruel witch. A cold witch. A witch who didn't belong in the world—one of the apex figures in the magecraft world.
She lived in the mountains, abiding by ancient rules of the hidden world.
She would erase ordinary people who learned of mystery—if secrecy demanded it.
A pure magus to whom killing was little more than a game.
And for Sora right now, the most important part was this:
As someone newly stepping into the world of mystery, he had no ability to resist her.
Not only him—even if Touko herself were here, being hunted by Alice, survival would still be unlikely.
"Miss Kuonji," Sora asked the figure under the moonlight, "what brings you to me?"
"Emmm…"
Alice bent her index finger against her lips.
For a moment, the cool witch looked almost like a child thinking—earnest, absentminded.
"I want to know about you and Aoko."
That was her answer.
Why had she returned to the mountain mansion with Aoko… only to turn around and come seek Sora?
Because the questions in her heart wouldn't settle.
Alice carried an oddly serious obsession with love.
In her eyes, Sora and Aoko clearly had feelings—yet reality had twisted them into this outcome.
Aoko's "barrier" between them—the idea of separating him from the world of mystery—was no longer a real problem once Alice had noticed Touko's traces on Sora.
"You've already opened your Magic Circuits. The agreement you made with Touko doesn't matter." Alice said this before Sora could speak, offering a promise. "If anything happens, I can protect you."
"My agreement with Touko is… fairly balanced," Sora replied. "If you intervene on your own, you'll force the sisters' conflict to explode."
"So your answer is refusal?" Alice's black eyes fixed on him as she asked again.
Her pale skin, delicate features, and expressionless face gave away no joy, no worry—nothing.
Sora: "..."
He had to consider something very carefully:
If he refused… would Alice Kuonji simply snap and kill him on the spot?
That was what the world looked like once you stepped outside the safety of "order"—
a weak person standing in front of an absolute strong one.
He'd expected this day would come once he learned the hidden world existed.
He just hadn't expected it to arrive so soon.
"If I refuse," Sora asked carefully, "will you kill me?"
"No." Alice answered. "Love isn't born under those conditions. I want to watch this to its ending."
Hearing that, Sora finally let out a quiet breath in his mind.
"Feelings aren't as sacred as you seem to believe," he said.
"I have leverage," Alice said calmly. "I know Touko used you to open your Magic Circuits. That's something you can't let Aoko know."
She paused, looking at him.
"Aratō-kun… you don't want me to tell Aoko, do you?"
In Sora's ears, her cool voice sounded… strangely off-kilter. Not threatening in the usual way—almost innocent.
The wind in the park stirred the trees, leaves whispering.
Sora was silent for half a second.
Then: "What do you want, Miss Kuonji?"
Alice shook her head at the clear resistance in his emotions.
"I only want to see the story's ending. That's all."
She emphasized it again.
The mountain witch—cool, lonely, out of place in the world—
was merely a quiet reader. A spectator.
She didn't "participate" in the story inside the book.
She wanted to watch the final chapter of the love story called Aoko Aozaki and Sora Aratō.
Maybe because Aoko had talked to her about Sora many times.
Or maybe because—
Aoko, forced into the hidden world, compelled to abandon everything to inherit the Aozaki magic…
carried a shadow of Alice within her.
It was luxurious—love that survived even in the hidden world, where such things were usually worn away.
Alice wanted the story to end happily…
the same way she hoped that one day, she too might obtain love.
Witches long for love.
Witches drown in love.
Witches die for love.
"Aratō-kun needs to quickly find a woman you're close to," Alice said. "Then I'll tell Aoko your story."
"Is that the kind of thing you can find immediately?" Sora shot back.
"If you can't," Alice thought for a moment, then answered, "you can fake one. I can assist you… and I will pay you appropriate compensation."
Her voice stayed cold.
Her face remained beautiful.
Slender limbs, skin so pale it seemed untouched by sunlight—eyes hollow and icy, yet still holding the faint warmth unique to a girl not yet fully out of youth.
The mix created a charm that was almost… enchanting.
Under the moon, Alice Kuonji looked like a dream that didn't belong in the real world—like she'd stepped into reality from a fairy tale.
Sora, from the first moment he'd seen her, had been compelled by her beauty.
But the way she was thinking now—the proposal she made—felt bizarrely like a child's wild imagination.
Naive child.
Cruel hunter.
True princess out of a fairy tale.
Staring into Alice's eyes, Sora genuinely struggled to tell reality from unreality.
And in the end, under her gaze, he nodded.
"Fine."
He accepted Alice Kuonji's proposal.
Rationally, the reasons were clear:
He couldn't refuse someone far stronger than him—especially when she was even offering payment.
But emotionally—
a fairy-tale girl with a bewitching charm tipped the scales in his heart almost by instinct.
After agreeing, he even found himself relaxing—letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Alice Kuonji's very existence was showing him the strange beauty of the hidden world.
"Then I'll come to you tomorrow," Alice said, giving a small nod.
And before Sora could reply further—
the black-clad girl vanished on the moonlit lakeside, disappearing from where she stood.
Only the rustle of leaves and the chirping of insects remained.
Everything that had just happened felt like an illusion.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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