Kevin's Perspective
When my eyes finally drifted open, I wasn't greeted by the familiar, cracked ceiling of my studio apartment. Instead, I stared up at an overhead I didn't recognize—clean, sterile, and entirely foreign.
The soft rustle of fabric caught my attention. I shifted my gaze toward the sound and saw a woman, likely in her late twenties, busily tidying up the room.
"...Uh."
Confusion swirled in my mind. I tried to call out to her, to demand some sort of explanation, but my throat felt like a parched desert. The sound died behind my teeth, catching in a painful lump.
The only thing that escaped my lips was a harsh, guttural rasp—a sound like dry leaves scraping against pavement. It wasn't even close to the words I wanted to form.
Yet, the noise was enough. The woman stiffened, dropping whatever she had been holding. She whirled around and rushed to my bedside in a blur of movement.
"Are you awake?! You're finally awake!"
I could only watch in stunned silence as she grabbed my hand, her eyes shimmering with tears and an overwhelming sense of relief. I was completely bewildered.
'Uh, who are you exactly?'
I was desperate to ask, but my vocal cords refused to cooperate. My parched throat remained a barricade against my own voice.
"...Oh, right. You've been out for days; your mouth must be so dry. Just a moment, dear. Wait right here."
Realizing my predicament, the woman wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and hurried out of the room.
Left alone and utterly lost, I stared blankly at the door she had vanished through. Slowly, I began to scan my surroundings. My eyes landed on a full-length mirror standing against the far wall—and I nearly stopped breathing.
'What... what the hell is this?!'
If my throat hadn't been a ruin of thirst, I would have screamed.
The person reflected in the mirror wasn't a man in his twenties. It was a teenage boy. A total stranger.
Wrapped in layers of bandages and gauze, I finally felt the phantom weight of pain settle over my body. My limbs felt leaden, bruised, and broken.
'No, that's not the point!'
A place I didn't know, a body that wasn't mine, and a name I'd never heard. This felt like the setup to every trashy reincarnation trope I'd ever read. I desperately wanted to believe I was hallucinating.
But as I watched the boy in the mirror pinch his own cheek—perfectly mirroring my movements—reality hit me like a physical blow. It wasn't a dream.
'Did I... did I actually possess someone?'
In that moment, it was the only logical conclusion. I had woken up in a strange landscape, faced by a stranger, in a body that wasn't mine. All I could remember before the darkness was going to sleep in my own bed.
Of course, I wouldn't realize until much, much later that I had been completely wrong about what was happening.
*
Bianca's Perspective
Ever since the St. Freya Incident, every time I crossed paths with him, we were standing on opposite sides of a battlefield. We were enemies.
Eventually, we became allies, but at the time, the factions involving Overseer Otto and Kevin were in direct conflict.
It took a long time for both of us to recover our true memories.
I was the first to remember. But by the time I did, Kiana and Mei were already so close to him that there was no room for me to step in. He was already their world.
And of course, that included my younger sister, Kiana.
When we first met, I felt a twinge of jealousy, thinking she was the 'Kiana' he had been searching for. But when I regained my memories and realized the person he had actually been looking for was me, I couldn't bring myself to approach him.
Even if I hadn't known the truth then, I had been the one to push him away. I had treated him coldly when he sought me out, desperately looking for a trace of the girl he knew.
I had told him firmly that I wasn't Kiana—I was Bianca.
Since then, he had lived as 'Kevin,' his memories lost. To me, the person he had become was almost a different man from the one I loved, and that made it even harder to step forward.
In my memories, he smiled warmly and called me 'Bianca.' But the man standing before me now would wear that same smile while calling me 'Ms. Durandal.'
Every time I heard that name—so close yet so painfully distant—it felt like a fresh wound that refused to heal. I couldn't help but keep my distance.
Rita, my adjutant and my dearest friend, was the first to notice. But even with all her resourcefulness, she knew there was nothing she could do to fix it. She simply patted my shoulder in silence.
From then on, I watched as Kiana—the girl who inherited my name and everything else—fell in love with him. I cheered for them from the shadows, resigning myself to that fate.
But the cracks in my resolve began to shatter after the battle against the Herrscher of Finality ended.
"Ms. Durandal... no, Bianca. I suppose it's been a while since I've greeted you as myself, and not just as Kevin?"
He had regained everything. All the memories he had lost before living as Kevin had returned.
In that instant, the feelings I thought I had buried sprouted anew.
I tried to ignore it. I told myself those feelings were settled. I tried to suppress it, deciding to simply rejoice that our friendship had been restored. But that tiny sprout of emotion grew with terrifying speed, as if it were merely resuming a growth that had been interrupted.
Yet, I knew Kiana's heart. I knew the bond my sister had forged with him while I was absent. I couldn't bear to speak my truth; I tried to kill those feelings internally. My sister already had enough rivals; she didn't need to worry about me, too.
But the moment he announced his marriage to Bronya, my self-restraint finally exploded.
If he had married Kiana, I might have found a way to let go, living vicariously through her happiness. But a marriage with Bronya Zaychik? Someone I hadn't even considered? Something inside my head just... snapped.
In hindsight, it was likely my sense of reason breaking. By the time I regained my composure, I was already standing inside the Captain's quarters.
I wanted to demand answers.
—Why was it Bronya?
—Why wasn't it Kiana?
Even though I knew, rationally, that his choice was his own.
"...You're here."
But the man waiting there wasn't the man I knew.
He wore an air of dignified maturity, his attire more refined and slightly older in style. He definitely wasn't the Captain of the present.
Naturally, I had to ask.
"Who are you?"
"...It'll be hard to believe, but I'm Kevin from ten years in the future. Bianca."
I didn't believe him at first. How could I?
But then he started talking. He spoke of our time when I was still known as Kiana. He spoke of the secrets we shared during our journey through the Sea of Quanta—details that only the two of us could possibly know. I had no choice but to believe.
"...Then why is your future self here, in the present?"
It was a valid question. He had told me himself that traveling from the present to the future was impossible.
"Don't worry, you're right about that. However, from my perspective, this point in time is the past. That makes this possible."
"...You just read my mind, didn't you?"
"The future 'you' told me that's how I should handle you."
"The future me?"
"Exactly. And me meeting you right now... it's something that has to happen in this timeline."
He sighed, explaining that this encounter was a matter of destiny.
"Why is it a matter of destiny?"
"Because starting from today, you and I are supposed to conceive a daughter."
"...Excuse me?"
The words were so incomprehensible that I could only blink in shock. Expecting my reaction, he continued his explanation calmly.
"The future Bianca sent me here. She said I had to enter a relationship with you today."
"The future me... said that?"
"Yes. She said it's the only way for Selene—the daughter we have in the future—to be born."
I frantically tried to organize my thoughts. This man was the future him. He had traveled to the past to ensure the future exists. My intuition told me he wasn't lying.
Does that mean... today... my first time... will result in a daughter?
"...Honestly, this is hard to swallow. And given your personality, it seems strange that you'd go through with this just because you were told to."
"...You're right. If I were the 'me' of this era, I would have refused, since it's something that hasn't happened yet."
—But my position as the one raising Selene is different.
"I have no desire to see a future where my beloved daughter ceases to exist."
He spoke with a smile. Yet, I could hear the traces of a complex, lingering conflict in his voice that he couldn't quite hide. I realized that this 'conclusion' was something he had arrived at after agonizing over it for a long time.
And then, he added one more thing. He said that meeting me now was one of the greatest turning points of his life.
"A turning point?"
"Did you know that Schicksal allows for multiple marriage?"
"...Multiple marriage is allowed?"
"You didn't know? Rita definitely does."
"Yes, but I intentionally withheld that information. Watching Lady Bianca suffer and agonize while hiding her feelings was just too precious to pass up."
"Rita?!"
I stared at Rita in shock, but she merely gave me a serene, breezy smile, completely unbothered by my gaze.
"Haaa... So what does that have to do with this turning point?"
"It has everything to do with it. Because—"
He trailed off for a moment, his expression turning bittersweet before he forced himself to continue.
"—Because of Selene's birth, I ended up permitting the polygamy that I had so desperately tried to avoid."