"Umm..."
The first thing I noticed after waking up was how soft the bed felt.
I didn't remember my bed being this soft. I shifted slightly, then again, but no matter how I moved, it stayed wide and unusually comfortable.
Did someone change my bed without me realizing?
Did someone move me somewhere else while I was asleep?
Slowly, I opened my eyes, trying to understand where I was.
But the first thing I saw was someone I didn't expect to see.
For a moment, my mind went blank.
Manaka was lying on the bed in front of me.
She was resting on her stomach, her elbows pressed into the mattress, her hands supporting her chin. Her legs were lifted slightly behind her, unmoving, as if she had been there for a while. She was watching me quietly.
Her gaze was gentle.
And on her face was a small smile-soft and unfamiliar, something I had never seen before.
Morning light streamed in through the window beside her. It washed over her light blonde hair, making it glow as if it were touched by gold. The strands shimmered under the sunlight, framing her face in a way that almost didn't feel real.
Her eyes looked different in the light. Not distant. Not empty.
Just calm.
warm.
Her eyes looked different in the light, no longer distant or empty like usual.
[IMAGE]
Because of the light, Manaka looked like an angel that had descended from the sky.
She felt so different from usual, and with that small smile on her face, she looked genuinely beautiful.
"Wait a minute! Manaka?? Why are you in my room?"
The smile on Manaka's face disappeared instantly after I said that. Then she replied calmly, "This is my room."
"Your room??"
I looked around, and only then did I realize she was right. I didn't recognize this place at all. The room was much bigger than my room in the orphanage.
"How did I end up here? I remember sleeping in my room last night..."
But as soon as I said that, flashes of memory began to surface in my mind.
"Ugh!"
I clutched my head as strange visions filled my thoughts, everything tinted in red.
My hand gripping a knife.
My vision drowned in the color of blood.
At first, I thought what I'm seeing was just a dream.
That was the easiest answer.
But the more the scenes flashed through my head, the more real they started to feel.
Too real.
And worse than that... I remembered how I felt.
For just a moment, there was a quiet thrill. A numb, empty kind of excitement that didn't belong to me.
The warm blood on my hands, the way the knife sliced through him so easily like butter, and that brief ecstatic rush when I did it, then the pool of blood spreading out, and the inside of the man spilling out after I cut him open.
Too much of it.
My stomach twisted violently.
I gagged, my body leaning forward as I held my head, dizzy and sick, my vision spinning. I felt like I was about to throw up.
My hands were shaking.
My chest hurt.
Then suddenly, something warm and soft wrapped around me.
Arms.
They pulled me close before I could fall apart.
A familiar calm voice reached my ears.
"Shhh... calm down. That's just a dream."
Manaka.
She held me tightly, her presence steady, unmoving, as if she were anchoring me in place.
I wanted to believe her, but I couldn't.
I shook my head hard, trying to push the memories away, but they kept coming back stronger. The blood was warm and sticky on my hands, the knife cut so easily, the way his body fell apart in pieces... I could still feel it all, every single detail, and it made my stomach twist so badly I thought I'd throw up right there.
"No, that wasn't a dream," I whispered, voice shaking. "I felt it. I really did it. I killed him."
Manaka didn't say anything at first. She just kept stroking my hair slowly, fingers gentle, moving in the same soft rhythm over and over. Her touch was warm, steady, like an anchor keeping me from falling apart completely.
"It was just a dream, Rikka," she repeated quietly, voice calm and low, almost like a lullaby.
I wanted to argue, wanted to scream that I remembered the weight of the knife, the sound of his screams, the way the blood pooled under him...
but the more she spoke, the more her words slipped into my head like cool water. The memories started to blur at the edges, like ink dissolving in water. The red faded. The screaming grew distant.
She kept patting my hair, never stopping, and kept repeating it the words softly. Not insisting, not forcing, just saying it again and again. And somehow, each time she did, the chaos in my head weakened a little. The images started to blur. The red faded.
I didn't understand why it was happening.
I only knew that her voice made it harder to hold on to the memories.
Little by little, the visions disappeared completely.
The dizziness faded.
The nausea settled.
By the time I finally pulled back slightly, the reason for my panic was already gone.
I blinked, confused, and looked up at her. "Why... why are you hugging me?"
Manaka smiled a little, small and soft. "You had a bad dream. That's all."
I nodded slowly, still feeling fuzzy, like my brain was wrapped in cotton. Yeah... a bad dream. That made sense. Nothing else felt real anymore.
I leaned into her a bit more, too tired to think anymore, and let her keep holding me. The room was quiet again, just the sound of our breathing and the soft morning light coming through the window.
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A few minutes in her arms, my heart finally started to calm down. The dizziness faded too, and my breathing slowly returned to normal.
Once everything felt steady again, I pulled away from Manaka's hug.
"Weird... why did I do that? My whole body is soaked in sweat. Can a bad dream really do this?"
"Hm." Manaka nodded. "Human psychology. When fear is triggered, your body enters fight-or-flight mode. Adrenaline and cortisol increase your heart rate, your breathing becomes rapid, and your sweat glands activate to cool your body."
"I see... I see. I understand now." That explanation made sense. No wonder my body felt so strange after waking up.
Then I froze.
"Wait a minute-that's not the problem. Where am I?"
Manaka tilted her head slightly at my question, like she didn't understand why I was asking it now.
"No, no, Manaka. Of course I need to ask. I clearly remember falling asleep in my room, but now I'm waking up in yours-or at least, what I assume is your home, since you're here too."
After hearing that, Manaka finally seemed to understand. She calmly explained why I was here and where I was.
"You were sleepwalking," she said simply.
"So... I was sleepwalking, and you found me wandering outside in the middle of the night, so you brought me to your home?"
As soon as I said it out loud, something strange happened. A soft, fuzzy feeling passed through my head, like warm air brushing through my thoughts. The unease I'd been feeling faded without me really noticing when it disappeared.
That didn't make much sense. I had never sleepwalked before in my life. Still, I couldn't think of any other reason for why I would be here.
The only other possibility was that Manaka had kidnapped me from the orphanage-but that felt like a ridiculous thought. She had no reason to do something like that.
"Really? Sleepwalking... that's strange. I've never done that before..."
Manaka looked at me for a moment, then said again, calmly, "You were sleepwalking."
For some reason, hearing it a second time made my thoughts settle. The lingering discomfort in my chest loosened, like something inside me had been gently smoothed out. The explanation started to feel... acceptable. Not completely convincing, but no longer something I wanted to question too deeply.
"...I see," I muttered. "If you say so."
After gathering my thoughts for a few seconds, I decided to stop overthinking it and focus on a more important problem: how was I supposed to get back to the orphanage?
First of all, I was still wearing my pajamas, and they were drenched in sweat. The fabric clung uncomfortably to my skin.
I could use magecraft to make myself invisible, but that required an equivalent exchange depending on how long I stayed hidden. It wasn't something I could casually use.
While I was lost in thought, I felt the bed shift as Manaka got up. She walked to her wardrobe, pulled out a set of clothes, then returned and placed them neatly on the bed.
"You can use my clothes," she said.
"The bathroom is there." She pointed toward the door.
"Really? You don't mind me using your clothes?"
I guess it made sense. We were about the same height and size, so it wouldn't be strange for me to wear them.
Manaka simply nodded in response.
"Well, I won't complain," I said. "Anything is better than staying in these sweaty pajamas."
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Manaka watched Rikka's back as the girl happily hopped toward the bathroom door and disappeared inside.
She let out a quiet sigh.
It wasn't only because she had seen Rikka crying earlier… though that was part of it. The real reason was simpler and heavier at the same time. All of this was probably her fault.
If she hadn't forcefully awakened the other personality inside Rikka months ago, things might not have turned out this way.
She had done it out of curiosity. A person with three personalities living inside a single body was rare, fascinating even. At first, it had seemed harmless. When Denial had just awakened, the separation between them had still been clear. Their memories were divided.
But as time passed, something began to change.
Rikka's body was adapting.
Instead of maintaining two separate streams of memory, they were slowly starting to overlap. What Denial experienced now reached Rikka in fragments—visions, dreams, vague sensations. And if this continued, it was only a matter of time before the barrier between them disappeared completely.
Manaka remembered Rikka's expression from earlier.
So vulnerable.
Shaking, crying, overwhelmed by memories that weren't truly hers.
She placed a hand over her chest. She could feel her heartbeat, stronger than usual, and the unfamiliar sensation that came with it.
She didn't understand what this feeling was, but she knew one thing clearly.
She didn't want to see Rikka like that again.
During the breakdown, she had used suggestion and a small amount of hypnosis to calm her down and erase the dream. Normally, it wouldn't have worked on Rikka. Her mental resistance was too strong. But in that fragile state, it had been just enough.
Then she remembered the end of it all—how Rikka had clung to her, as if she were the only one Rikka could turn to.
Manaka was silent for a moment.
A faint smile slowly appeared on her face.
"…That's not bad," she murmured softly, her tone unfamiliar even to herself.
After that, Manaka decided to get out of bed and bring a change of clothes too before opening the bathroom door and getting inside.
After all, she needed to take a bath too, considering her clothes had been damp with Rikka's tears earlier~.