“Ah, here it is!” Serra’s voice was a triumphant, excited whisper from the back of the small, exhausted group. She held her notebook open, her finger tracing a line of frantic, scribbled text. “Miss Lily, here you go.”
Lily, who had been grumbling under her breath about the indignity of running, snatched the notebook from Serra’s hand. Her eyes skimmed the page, her earlier irritation melting into a flicker of genuine curiosity as she read the journalist's detailed notes on the owner of the name. Her gaze sharpened. “Oh,” she murmured, the sound a low, dawning realization as the pieces of a story she hadn't realized she knew clicked into place. “It’s her.”
But before Serra could ask what she will do, Raito had already reached for the café door, his hand closing around the cool brass handle. He pushed it open.
The familiar, cheerful jingle of the bell was the only sound that greeted them.
The scene inside was one of strange, unsettling stillness. Emile stood behind the counter, his posture relaxed, wiping down an already pristine espresso machine with a clean cloth. A warm, gentle, and utterly calm smile was on his face. A few feet away, Mary was bent over, picking up the last glittering shards of a shattered porcelain plate from the wooden floor, her back rigid, her movements sharp and angry.
“Is everything alright?” Yukari’s voice, full of a genuine, if cautious, concern, cut through the heavy silence.
Mary’s head snapped up. The furious, flustered expression on her face vanished in an instant, replaced by a bright, professional smile that was so sudden, so complete, it was almost jarring. It didn't quite reach her eyes.
“Welcome! Welcome!” she chimed, her voice a warm, practiced melody as she quickly straightened up, dumping the shards into a bin behind the counter. She wiped her hands on her apron, her gaze sweeping over the four disheveled figures who had just stumbled into her café. “Table for four?” she asked kindly, as if she hadn't just been moments away from breathing fire.
The shift was so abrupt, so obvious, that even Serra and Lily, who were still hovering in the doorway, exchanged a look of bewildered, silent communication.
“Yes, table for four,” Raito replied, his voice a little hesitant as he and Yukari stepped inside, Lily and Serra following warily behind. “But… I’m sorry,” he continued, his gaze drifting to the small, glittering pile of broken porcelain in the bin, “we heard a commotion from outside. Did something happen?”
“Oh, that!” Mary let out a high, brittle laugh, waving a dismissive hand. “It was nothing! I just… slipped!” she explained, her voice a little too bright. “Clumsy me, dropped a whole stack of plates. That must be what you heard.” She beamed at them, her smile wide and unwavering.
“Yes, everything is quite alright,” Emile supported from behind the counter, his own smile just as gentle, just as calm, and now, to Raito and Yukari, just as unsettlingly unreadable.
Raito and Yukari looked at each other, a shared, silent conversation passing between them in a single, fleeting glance. They knew a lie when they heard one. The anger they had heard in Mary's voice had been real, visceral. But this was not their fight. This was not their home. And after the day they’d had, the last thing they wanted was to intrude on someone else’s clearly very complicated, and potentially very sharp-object-filled, domestic drama.
However, there was someone in their group who did not care one whit for social niceties or the concept of ‘minding one’s own business.’
“So,” Lily’s voice, sharp and laced with a theatrical, probing curiosity, cut through the fragile peace. She strode past Raito and Yukari, her gaze fixed on Mary, her earlier exhaustion completely forgotten in the face of a new, unfolding drama. “What, pray tell, is an ex-actress doing hiding away in such a… run-down shop?” She tapped a finger thoughtfully against her chin. “Throwing plates and shouting at, what I can only assume, is thy co-worker?” Her gaze flickered to Emile, a silent, analytical assessment, before snapping back to Mary. “Tell me,” she demanded, her voice no longer a dramatic boom but a low, serious, and utterly unnerving purr. “I shan’t bite.”
Emile stepped forward slightly, his gentle smile never wavering, a calm, steady presence against Lily’s sharp intrusion. “Miss Mary just slipped, little girl,” he said, his voice a soft, placating melody. “She meant no harm, and she certainly wishes no harm upon herself. I can attest to that.”
“I am not a little girl!” Lily shrieked, her composure instantly shattering, her voice a high-pitched, furious sound. The insult, delivered so calmly, had hit its mark with devastating precision.
Raito and Yukari, who had been watching the scene with a mixture of horror and fascination, quickly turned their heads away, their shoulders shaking with suppressed, silent giggles. Lily saw the movement. Her head snapped towards them, her eyes blazing with a fresh, redirected fury.
“Is that so?” Emile continued, his voice still impossibly calm as he seamlessly steered the conversation away from the impending explosion. “Then pardon me. I must have been mistaken.” He gestured politely towards the counter. “May I take your orders?”
“It’s alright, Emile,” Mary interjected, her own voice returning, now tight with a strained, weary patience. She shot Emile a look that was both a silent thank you and a clear, non-negotiable command. “Why don’t you go to the back and play with Anise?” she said, her smile brittle as she forced a gesture towards the curtained doorway.
Emile, sensing the shift, simply nodded, his smile returning to its full, gentle warmth. “Very well,” he obliged. Without another word, he turned and disappeared behind the curtain, leaving the four women alone in the heavy, charged silence.
“May I take your orders?” Mary asked again, her professional mask firmly back in place, though her knuckles were white where she gripped the edge of the counter.
“You sure you dont need your bodyguard?” Lily asked, her voice a sweet, venomous purr. She leaned against the counter, her earlier outburst forgotten, her gaze sharp and calculating.
Mary’s polite smile didn’t just falter; it vanished. A flash of something cold and hard passed through her eyes. “I don’t need a bodyguard, Miss Lily,” she said, the name pronounced with a pointed, deliberate emphasis, letting the celebrity know she was well aware of who she was. “Now, may I take your order, please?”
The tension in the small café was so thick it was almost suffocating. The two women glared at each other, a silent, high-stakes battle of wills playing out over the aroma of coffee beans. “Two café au lait,” Yukari interjected, her voice a bright, cheerful, and utterly desperate attempt to cut the tension. “Just like before.” She practically dragged Raito, Lily, and a still-scribbling Serra towards the counter, forcing them onto the empty stools. “Please,” she added, her smile wide and slightly manic.
“Uh, uh…” Serra finally looked up from her notebook, her eyes wide and slightly frantic, as if just realizing she was part of the scene and not just observing it. “Black coffee. Ten shots of espresso. Please.”
The order, so absurdly, suicidally strong, hung in the air for a moment. Raito, Yukari, and even Lily turned to stare at the small journalist, their expressions a mixture of shock and a new, profound respect. Mary just blinked, her professional composure momentarily cracking before she quickly schooled her features.
“And you, Miss Lily?” Mary asked, her voice now holding a faint, almost imperceptible tremor of irritation.
Lily, never one to be outdone, leaned forward, her earlier probing curiosity now replaced by a bright, cruel, and utterly theatrical smile. “Oh, I’ll just have your best,” she purred, her voice a silken, venomous thing. “What was it called again? Ah, yes.” She tapped a finger to her chin, her gaze locking with Mary’s, her smile widening into a predatory grin. “The ‘Genius Rookie.’ The ‘One-in-a-Million Star Potential.’ I’ll have one of those, please.”
Mary flinched. It was not a physical movement, but a sudden, sharp intake of breath, a tightening in her shoulders that was so profound it was almost violent. The polite, professional mask she had worn so carefully didn't just crack; it shattered. Her face went pale, her knuckles white where she gripped the counter, her eyes wide with a flicker of a pain so deep, so old, it was almost terrifying. But she didn't scream. She didn't shout. She just… stood there, her composure breaking apart in the sudden, heavy silence.
Then, just as quickly, she rebuilt it. She took a single, shuddering breath, her gaze falling from Lily's triumphant, cruel smile to the polished wood of the counter. When she looked up again, the mask was back, brittle and strained, but in place. “Sure,” she said, her voice a flat, hollow thing. “Two café au lait. One… black coffee. With ten shots of espresso. And today’s special.” She nodded, her movements stiff, almost robotic. “Coming up.”
Her body, moving on a familiar, practiced autopilot, turned to the espresso machine. But her mind was a thousand miles away, lost in a past she had spent a decade trying to bury. The steam wand hissed, the grinder whirred, but she didn’t see them. She saw a stage. She saw bright, blinding lights. She saw a face, a memory so painful it stole the very air from her lungs.
Her hand trembled, her focus completely gone, her body just a shell going through the motions. She reached for the kettle of boiling water to prepare the espresso shots.
“Kyahh!”
The shriek was a sharp, sudden sound of pure, unadulterated pain. Her hand had shaken, the stream of boiling water missing the cup entirely and splashing directly onto the back of her hand. She dropped the kettle with a clatter, clutching her rapidly reddening skin, tears of pain and humiliation springing to her eyes.
Raito and Yukari were off their stools in an instant, their earlier amusement gone, replaced by a surge of pure, instinctive concern. “Mary!” Yukari called out, already moving towards the counter.
But before either of them could even take a step, a blur of motion exploded from the curtained doorway at the back of the café. Emile moved with a speed that was almost impossible, a silent, fluid grace that was a world away from his usual, gentle amble. He was at Mary’s side in an instant, his own hand, cool and steady, enveloping hers before she could even register his presence.
“Are you alright, Mary?” he asked, his voice the same calm, gentle murmur, but now laced with an undeniable, urgent authority.
“I’m fine!” Mary’s response was a sharp, visceral thing. She shoved him away, stumbling back, her uninjured hand held up as if to ward him off. Her eyes were wide, her face pale, and her gaze was no longer fixed on the man before her, but on something far away, something only she could see. The sharp, coppery smell of rust and old blood, a phantom scent from the warehouse, seemed to fill her lungs, a sudden, suffocating memory. “I said I’m fine!” she shouted, her voice trembling with a fear that was a world away from the simple sting of a burn.
“But you are hurt,” Emile insisted, his voice still impossibly calm, though his brow furrowed with a flicker of genuine concern. He took a step forward, his hand outstretched, not to grab, but to help. “We need to sterilize the injury. The water was boiling.”
“I said I’m fine! Just leave me alone!” she shrieked, her voice cracking as she scrambled further back, her posture that of a cornered, terrified animal. The man in front of her, the one with the gentle smile and the impossible strength, was no longer a kind lodger. He was a monster. He was a part of the nightmare.
“Pathetic.” The word, spoken with a cold, almost bored indifference, cut through the tense, chaotic scene. Lily, who had been watching the drama unfold from her counter stool with a look of detached, almost academic curiosity, finally spoke. She walked slowly towards the trembling woman, her movements a picture of languid, theatrical grace. “To think,” she mused, her voice a low, mocking purr, “that the journalists, those buzzing, ignorant flies, used to call you my ‘rival.’ The great ‘Genius Rookie,’ the ‘One-in-a-Million Star Potential,’ the only one who could ever hope to topple me from my throne.” She let out a soft, delicate, and utterly contemptuous laugh. “And all I see now is… this. A pathetic little girl, broken by some long-forgotten scandal, run away to hide her tail in a box.” She circled Mary, her gaze sweeping over the small, trembling figure with a predator’s casual disdain. “What a truly pathetic sight.”
Emile’s head turned, his gentle smile gone, his gaze now fixed on Lily, sharp, cold, and utterly unreadable.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Lily, oblivious or perhaps indifferent to the silent, sudden shift in the room's temperature, continued her monologue, her attention now turning to the quiet man who stood between her and her fallen rival. “And you,” she began again, her voice full of a new, probing curiosity, “who are you? What are you?” Her gaze, sharp and analytical, swept over him. “How did you get in here? What is your purpose?”
Emile met her stare, his own gaze as calm and as deep as a winter lake. When he spoke, his voice was not the warm, gentle murmur of the florist, but a quiet, clear, and utterly chilling monotone. “You should know best who I am.” The words were not an answer. They were a reflection. A vague, unsettling echo of a truth Lily hadn’t even realized she knew. She froze, her playful, cruel smirk faltering for a fraction of a second. A flicker of something—recognition? fear?—passed through her eyes before she quickly masked it, her theatrical instincts taking over once more. She knew. Or at least, she had an inking, a terrifying suspicion that was now beginning to solidify.
“You don't know me!” Mary’s voice, a raw, guttural, and utterly broken scream, shattered the tense, quiet standoff. It was not a plea. It was not an argument. It was a dam of a decade’s worth of pain, of fear, of unspoken, suffocating trauma, finally, irrevocably, breaking. Tears, hot and furious, streamed down her cheeks, washing away the last, fragile remnants of her professional mask. “You don't know what I've been through!” she cried, her voice cracking, her gaze flitting wildly from Lily’s stunned, silent face to Emile’s calm, unreadable one. “You don't know anything!” The raw, honest agony in her voice filled the small café, a sound so profound it silenced everyone.
“Is that so?” Lily’s voice was a quiet, considering thing, her earlier mocking tone gone, replaced by a sharp, analytical curiosity. “Then amuse me. Tell me why you, hailed as someone who could catch up to my display, suddenly ran away and disappeared.”
Lily plucked Serra’s notebook from the journalist’s unresisting fingers. She strode to the counter, slamming the book down, and spun it around for all to see, the pages already open to the correct entry. “Last I heard,” Lily continued, her finger tapping the page, “was this.”
The page was a detailed summary of Mary’s life, a journalistic tapestry of triumphs and tragedies. The talent she showed in performing. Her instant, meteoric rise to stardom. The scandal with her manager, the man whom she eventually married. And then, her complete, utter disappearance from the public eye. Everything was laid bare for the small, stunned audience in the café to see.
Emile, his expression unreadable, took the notebook. He scanned the contents, his eyes moving with a quick, detached efficiency. “There are no lies here,” he stated simply, his voice flat. He looked up, his gaze meeting Mary’s, his calm eyes holding a simple, direct question. “Is this all true, Mary?”
Mary was now the center of everyone's gaze—Lily’s cold, probing curiosity, Serra’s frantic scribbling, Raito and Yukari’s wide, bewildered sympathy, and Emile’s quiet, unreadable stare. It was a sight she used to dream of—the rapt attention of an audience. But now, it was a nightmare.
“Everything is true,” she finally declared, her voice a hollow, broken thing. “But it was nothing but a foolish girl’s dream. I don’t care about any of it anymore. That is all in the past.”
“Really?” Lily’s voice was a soft, dangerous purr. She saw the lie, the tremor in Mary’s voice, the lingering, bitter regret that she couldn’t quite hide. “But why,” Lily pressed, her word a stiletto heel on a fragile memory, “do you sound so regretful?”
The words pierced the last of Mary’s fragile defenses.
“Because that man took everything away from me!” she finally broke, the words a raw, agonizing torrent that poured from her. “Everything is because of him! I thought he was kind! I thought he was honest, he was sincere! I thought we shared the same dream!” She laughed, a high, brittle, and utterly joyless sound. “But I eventually learned. A dream is nothing more but a dream!”
She was sobbing now, her body wracked with a grief she had held inside for a decade.
“That man…” Emile’s voice was a quiet, prompting murmur. “Is he, perhaps…?”
“My ex-husband!” Mary cried, the words torn from her. “The one I called my manager once! The person who discovered my talent, someone who stood by my side, someone who lied to my face!” She finally looked up, her tear-streaked face a mask of raw, desperate agony, her gaze locking onto the one person in the room who embodied everything she had lost. “There, I said it!” she shrieked at Lily. “Are you happy now? Are you happy that you finally get to humiliate me?! That you get to see me at my lowest?!”
She wanted Lily, the unrivaled celebrity, the icon she had once looked up to with a mixture of awe and a secret, burning rivalry, to gloat. To confirm her victory.
But when Mary scanned her face, Lily’s expression was the furthest thing from happy. It was cold, distant, and utterly, chillingly indifferent.
“No,” Lily replied, her voice flat, devoid of all emotion. “Not in the slightest.”
“Why?” Mary whispered, the quiet, confused question a stark contrast to her earlier shriek. “Is this… is this not enough?”
Before Lily could answer, a small, furious blur of motion erupted from the back of the cafe.
“Don’t bully my Mama!”
Anise stood there, her small arms spread wide in front of Mary, a tiny, defiant shield against the world. Her small face was a mask of pure, childish fury, her bright blue eyes, so like her mother’s, now blazing with tears as she glared at the blonde woman who had made her mother cry.
“Oh, who is this?” Lily asked, her voice a low, curious murmur, her gaze shifting from the broken woman to the defiant child, an analytical, almost predatory light entering her eyes.
“Anise, please go back!” Mary pleaded, her voice a raw, desperate thing as she tried to pull her daughter behind her. “Mama is just… talking to these people. Please.”
“No!” Anise insisted, planting her small feet firmly on the wooden floor, refusing to budge. “Mama is crying! That girl is a bully!” Her small, accusing finger shot out, pointing directly at Lily. “Anise hates her! Don’t bully my Mama!”
“I see,” Lily surmised, her voice a soft, dawning realization. Her gaze drifted from the small, defiant child to Mary’s tear-streaked, terrified face. “She is your daughter. With that man.” Her gaze sharpened, the pieces of the puzzle clicking into place with a cold, almost surgical precision. “Is this, perhaps, your reason?”
The question, so direct and so devoid of pity, seemed to shatter the last of Mary’s defenses. “Yes,” she whispered, the word a final, broken surrender. She pulled Anise into a fierce, protective hug, burying her face in her daughter’s soft hair. “Anise is everything I have now. She is all I have.” Her voice was a low, desperate murmur against her daughter’s skin. “Even if she is born from… from a part of him… she is innocent. And I love her.”
She looked up, her eyes, though red and swollen, now holding a fierce, maternal fire that was more terrifying than any rage. “I just want her safe. I want to keep her away from that man. That is why I left. That is why I disappeared. That is why I ran.” Her gaze locked onto Lily’s. “Do not drag her into this mess. You can berate me as much as you want. Throw insults at me. Humiliate me.” Her voice dropped to a low, pleading growl. “But please, do not involve her.”
“Mama?” Anise’s small voice was a note of pure, heartbreaking confusion as she looked up at her mother, her small hands clutching Mary’s apron, not understanding the dark, adult currents that were swirling around them.
Mary’s gaze softened as she looked at her daughter, but the fire didn’t die. It just banked, turning into a different kind of strength. “I had her when my relationship with him turned from professional to romantic,” she began, her voice a low, steady monotone, as if reciting a story that had been rehearsed a thousand times in the dark, lonely corners of her mind. “I genuinely thought he was sincere. Someone I could trust. I figured… if it’s him… I don’t mind settling down. So, I married him.”
With a slow, deliberate motion, she stood, her gaze never leaving Lily’s. She gently set Anise to the side, her hands lingering on her daughter’s shoulders for a moment, a silent, reassuring squeeze. And then, she turned around. Her hands, steady and sure, moved to the buttons of her blouse.
Yukari, her eyes widening in a dawning, horrified realization, instinctively shot her hand out, not to stop Mary, but to shield the one person who shouldn't see this. Her palm pressed firmly against Raito’s eyes, plunging his world into a sudden, surprised darkness.
Mary turned back around, her blouse now unbuttoned and hanging open, her back exposed to the stunned, silent cafe. It was not the smooth, flawless skin of a performer. It was a roadmap of old, forgotten pain. A grotesque tapestry of pale, raised welts and deep, puckered, long-healed scars that crisscrossed her back in a pattern of pure, unadulterated brutality.
“When I shared the news of my pregnancy with him,” Mary’s voice continued, still that same, dead, monotonous thing, “I thought he would be happy. That we would finally be a family.” She let out a short, bitter, and utterly joyless laugh. “But his mask fell off. Almost instantly. He started talking about how my career was over. How I was useless now.” Her voice trembled, the memory a fresh, sharp blade. “He… he beat me. Almost every day. While I… I tried to calm him down. I thought it was just stress. That the pressure of my rising career was getting to him.” She shook her head, a slow, weary motion. “But it turns out… it was just him.”
She looked down, her gaze falling to the floor. “Part of me hates him,” she whispered, the words a raw, honest confession. “But part of me… part of me also thought how much of it was my fault. For jumping the conclusion with him. For being so naive.” Her voice cracked, a single, hot tear escaping and tracing a path down her cheek. “Almost every night, I wondered if I could go back to the past. Change something. If maybe… maybe I could get the stardom, the peak that I wanted.”
Her gaze lifted then, finding the small, confused, and utterly precious face of her daughter. The darkness in her eyes receded, replaced by a wave of pure, overwhelming, and unconditional love. “But all those thoughts… they disappear. Every time I see her face.”
With a final, profound, and utterly weary sigh, Mary knelt. She pulled her blouse closed, her movements slow and deliberate, and then, in a gesture of absolute, final surrender, she pressed her forehead to the cold, wooden floor, a deep, formal bow directed at the one person in the room who held all the power.
“So once more, I plead,” she whispered, her voice muffled by the floorboards, a final, desperate prayer from a mother who had nothing left to bargain with. “Please… don’t involve this girl in my business.”
Everything that Mary had bottled up for a decade—the pain, the fear, the shame, the anger, and the fierce, protective love for her daughter—was now laid bare, a raw, bleeding wound on the floor of the small, quiet cafe.
Emile moved then. His earlier stillness broke, his movements slow and deliberate as he walked past the stunned, silent group at the counter. He knelt beside Mary, not to console her, but to shield her. He slowly took off his own simple brown jacket and, with a gentleness that was a world away from the violence she had seen in him, he draped it over her trembling shoulders, covering her. Anise, her own small face a mask of tear-streaked confusion, ran forward and wrapped her arms around her mother’s legs, a small, fierce protector joining the silent, enigmatic one.
A small smirk, a flicker of something—not amusement, but a cold, hard respect—touched Lily’s lips.
“What is funny?” Mary’s voice was a muffled, broken thing from the floor. “Is this so pathetic to you that you smiled? Is my downfall your amusement?” She looked up, her eyes blazing with a fresh wave of desperate, angry tears. “I just want to get by. To see my baby grow up safe. But you… you had everything. Of course you don’t understand! You don’t understand what it’s like when things are taken from you! You were always given everything on a silver platter!”
“My apologies.” The words were soft, but they silenced the room. Lily performed a graceful, formal bow, a gesture of profound respect that was a world away from her earlier mocking. “But I do understand,” she said, her voice quiet, her theatricality gone, replaced by a cold, hard sincerity. Her gaze flickered for a fraction of a second to Emile, who was still kneeling, a silent guardian beside Mary. “And perhaps… that man over there knows it as well. Knows what it’s like when things are taken from you so cruelly that you feel helpless to fight back.”
She straightened up, her expression no longer one of cold indifference, but of a quiet, profound understanding. “I did not mean to scoff or laugh at you,” she explained, her voice steady. “I meant to applaud you. You found your purpose at the bottom of the depths. Despite throwing everything away… you found your strength. That girl over there,” she nodded towards Anise, “she is your new purpose. Your strength. That is why,” she added, her gaze flickering to Emile once more, “that man is drawn to you. Whether he knows it or not.”
Lily turned then, her movements crisp and decisive. “Let’s go,” she said to Serra, Raito, and Yukari, her voice now a low, commanding thing. “Our business here is done. She wanted us to leave her alone, so we shall leave her alone.” She fixed Serra with a sharp, pointed glare. “And you, stalker,” she commanded, “everything that happened here is off the record. Understood?”
“For the last time, I am not a stalker!” Serra protested, though she quickly nodded, her journalistic instincts momentarily overshadowed by the raw, powerful drama she had just witnessed. “But… I understand, Miss Lily.” The four of them moved towards the door, a silent, weary procession.
“Wait.” Emile’s voice, quiet and steady, stopped them. He had stood up, his gaze fixed on the one person who had, in a single, chaotic afternoon, managed to pierce his carefully constructed calm. He pointed a single, steady finger at Lily. “You,” he said. “What is love?” He asked the question again, the same one he had asked on the steps of the Sunset Inn, but this time, it was not a philosophical musing. It was a demand.
Lily smiled. It was not her cruel, mocking smirk, nor her bright, theatrical beam. It was a small, almost sad smile, full of a wisdom that was as ancient and as weary as Sun Yoon’s. “Love,” she began, her voice a low, contemplative murmur, “is something that even I cannot comprehend. It is… illogical.” Her gaze drifted, just for a moment, to Emile’s blank, unreadable face, a flicker of something—recognition, a shared, terrible understanding—passing between them. “Even you… someone born in the cold… you probably will never grasp it.”
She paused, her gaze turning inward, as if looking at her own reflection in the eyes of the man before her. “But know this,” she continued, her voice a quiet, final pronouncement, “just as I devoted my entire being to my craft, to the smiles of those who come to see me, to those who wished for me to keep shining… perhaps you, too, will find your own way. You can feel it, can’t you? The change that is occurring deep within you.”
Her gaze sharpened, her words a final, cryptic, and utterly chilling parting shot. “IT may mold you into something that you are forced to be. But ultimately, it is you who can choose whether to accept that or not. And that,” she declared, her voice a quiet, powerful thing, “is what we call ‘free will.’ And that free will… it will lead you to the path, nay, the answer you seek.”
She gave him a final, formal, almost respectful bow. “So farewell, Monsieur Emile. I hope you will choose wisely where your stage will head next.”
With that, she turned and, without a single glance back, swept out of the café, Serra, Raito, and Yukari a silent, bewildered entourage in her wake.
Emile was left standing in the quiet, shattered remnants of the café, the bell above the door chiming softly in their wake. A third answer. One from the woman he had just met, a woman who seemed to know the very core of his being. One from his own fragmented, half-remembered past. And one from the woman he found shone as bright as the stars itself.
Emotions, as others called them, were incredibly complex. Unquantifiable. Illogical. And yet… he could perceive them. He could feel them stirring within him, a strange, new, and not entirely unwelcome warmth in the cold, quiet emptiness. And just as the blonde girl had said, it was now his time to choose. His time to decide what stage he would stand on.
