"CHERRS!"
The jubilant clink of glasses echoed through a living room filled with five people sitting with mugs containing various drinks, each one different from the others. "I never thought we'd manage to defeat five members of The Seven Sins this quickly," Robin remarked, before letting out a long sigh of relief as the alcohol touched her throat.
"Five? Wasn't it six?"
"We didn't count Captain Hook."
"Oh, I see."
Juliet moved closer to her boyfriend and Romeo immediately put his arm round her and pulled her close to him. "Right, come on—can't you two get a room? There are three of us here who don't have partners!" Robin commented irritably, but Juliet just chuckled at that.
"Shame on you!" said the cheeky blonde girl. Snow, who'd been sitting quietly at the end of the table, didn't even crack a smile at this scene. "Come on, Robin, don't get your hopes up—even Alice, with a look like that, is still single."
"What do you mean by a look like 'that'?"
"Come on, don't make me say it..."
"I'll only understand if you say it."
"...You beau—"
"Oh, I'm beautiful, aren't I? Well, I am, actually."
I'd deliberately set out to annoy her, and it turned out I'd succeeded—Juliet looked absolutely furious that I'd played that trick on her, and it even made her own boyfriend laugh.
After that, the living room was filled with chatter, banter and laughter, but in the midst of it all, I caught a sharp glance from Robin in my direction, signalling that the secret plan we'd both been harbouring was about to unfold. "Juliet, could you help me for a moment?" I asked, and the girl looked curious as to what she was supposed to do.
"Let me do it!" said Snow and Romeo in unison. I'd never expected them to be in such perfect sync at a moment like this, but I knew they were offering to help for different reasons.
I stood up and glanced directly at Juliet. "No need, come on, Juliet," I said before turning and walking away—with Juliet following close behind. Robin and I had hatched a plan to address our suspicions from back when we were still working with Captain Hook.
Our feet touched the steps and we began climbing the stairs. "What exactly do you want me to help with?" she asked, as I hadn't explained specifically what help she needed—after all, with an Everafter like mine, I surely wouldn't need help with trivial matters; that must have been what Juliet was thinking.
"You'll see." After saying that, we stopped in front of a room with a nameplate that read 'Red', written in crayon; the handwriting was awful, as if she'd never been taught to write properly. "Does it feel familiar?"
"Hm? Isn't this my sister's room?"
"...It is."
My hand touched the round door handle, untouched for so long; I opened the door and we could see a room that appeared neatly organised. At the far end of the room lay various pieces of sports equipment, always used during the day by the girl who lived there.
We walked in and Juliet's red eyes immediately scanned every corner of the room, whilst I stopped right in front of the bed in the corner. I knelt down and pulled a box from under the bed; Juliet's interest was immediately piqued, and she came closer. "What's that?" she asked, but I didn't even spare her a single glance.
A blue light appeared and a card emerged from behind it; from inside the card came a golden key, which I immediately grabbed and used to unlock the padlock securing the box—CLICK—the padlock sprang open, and I flung the key into the air, where it instantly turned to blue dust before it could touch the wooden floor.
Juliet crouched down too, and she could no longer contain her curiosity as I slowly opened the box. Juliet's eyes widened instantly; my hand reached into the box and, carefully, I lifted out a red jacket covered in stitches. My blue eyes immediately glanced at Juliet, whose mouth hung wide open as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"That jacket…"
"..."
I simply remained silent, letting her finish her sentence; a sense of familiarity made Juliet's chest feel tight at once—her breathing became laboured and sweat began to pour just from looking at it. It wasn't the reaction I'd expected, but perhaps that was exactly how it was meant to be.
"Juliet—no, do you actually know who you really are?"
The question hung in the air and her red pupils narrowed; her breathing was still very laboured, and just as her hand reached for the buried light of truth—the door to her room burst open, startling us all as if we'd been electrocuted.
It was Robin who'd opened the door; his face was sweaty and panicked, as if he'd just seen a ghost—I wanted to tell him off, but I could see that this wasn't an expression he'd make without a clear and important reason. "Alice… You must come down immediately." His voice trembled; my eyes glanced towards Juliet, who had fallen silent, trying to keep chasing something that was racing through her mind.
"Come with me," I said, my hand grasping the girl's wrist as she clutched the jacket tightly, as though trying not to let go. I pulled her along, following Robin down—our feet hurriedly pounding the steps, whilst behind us the girl with the red eyes remained silent, continuing to follow as I led her on.
We stopped in the living room, and I spotted a figure sitting on the sofa. A girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and eyes as red as rubies—she was sipping the tea from my cup. Our eyes met, and I felt as though a gust of strong wind had knocked me back.
"Ah, I've finally found you, Alice." A girl in a white shirt with a tear at the hem; the wind blew against her right arm, making the fabric flutter as there was nothing to hold it in place beneath her right sleeve. "I wanted to check if there were any sweets left in the fridge, but they kept me here."
The face I'd longed for all this time was now standing right in front of me; I couldn't believe my eyes, because all my assumptions and theories were shattered in an instant by a fact that hit me like a slap in the face.
"Oh? Juliet, you're here too? It seems I won't need to go into too much detail."
"...Big sis, you're back?"
"Well, after we last met your boyfriend—I was heading off on my final mission, and now all my missions are complete."
Snow, who was utterly bewildered by the strange situation and atmosphere, floated in the air, unsure what to say, but Robin was the first to reply firmly. "You've met Red before?!" Robin's unintentional shout immediately startled Juliet.
"Y-yeah, actually whilst you lot were sailing, but… Big Sis asked me not to mention it and said she wanted to just show up out of nowhere because she wanted to make a cool entrance or something?"
Romeo, seeing his girlfriend was frightened, immediately ran over and stopped right in front of her. "Robin, don't be too hard on her," the young man said, but this only made Robin feel even more annoyed to see Romeo defending his girlfriend like that; his fists clenched tightly, yet he tried to act mature amongst the immature teenagers around him.
Robin's dark eyes were locked on me as I looked down, and she realised that I seemed to be holding back all the emotions I was feeling in my clenched fists. "Alice, don't you want to say anything to me? I thought you'd miss me," said the girl who called herself Red. My heart was pounding so hard, and after gathering all my courage, I immediately ran over and hugged her tightly.
My head was buried in her shoulder, whilst Robin looked startled because she could sense something strange was going on here; Red's hand touched the back of my hair and began to stroke it. "I… I've missed you so much, Blue," I whispered, and Red didn't stop stroking my long blonde hair.
"I've missed you too, Alice." Her hand stopped caressing me, and her reply immediately made it clear what I had to do—I pulled my hand away and immediately landed a hard punch right in Red's stomach, sending her flying backwards.
Everyone was in shock and frozen in disbelief at what I'd just done to Red. "ROBIN!" I shouted, and the man immediately rushed over, drew his bow, and aimed the arrow straight at Red's face—he knew I couldn't possibly have done that to my best friend without a clear reason.
My foot pressed down on her stomach and her face was a mixture of shock and panic. "What are you doing?!" The figure tried hard to act like Red, but she—they was only good at changing their appearance, not their demeanour.
Snow screamed in shock, and Juliet was about to lash out, but her shoulder was grabbed from behind by Romeo. "Alice! What have you done to my sister's?!" She shouted, unable to see any clear reason why I would do such a thing to someone I called a friend.
"Wrong answer," I said, causing everyone to fall silent instantly; I'd known Red for longer than I could remember—and I understood her demeanour all too well. "If you really were Red, you wouldn't have taken it well when I called you 'Blue'."
"If I'm not Red, then who am I?"
"Heh, there's only one person—or perhaps, more accurately, one figure."
"..."
"Neverkin."