𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍. ʜᴀɴᴀꜱʜɪʀᴏ

0 3 : 決して来ない明日は

The Tomorrow That Will Never Come

—

Nene skips towards the front door of the manor, a smile on her face, giddy because of the accomplishment she has done. She dusts her skirt and notices the Butler, Fuji. She remembers her greetings and curtsys at him, "Good evening, Fuji."

"Good evening to you too, My Lady," he says politely, although there was something off in his voice as he greets her back. He does a nervous sideways glance before saying, "The Lady of the House has been waiting for you for two hours now. Please follow me to her study as she is there."

Her eyes widens as she lets out a yelp, "W-What?! Auntie is here already? I-I mean, isn't it just 6 o'clock right now?"

"Yes, indeed," Fuji replies as he nods. "But it seems as if their work has been done early and they have arrived 2 hours ago, around 4 o'clock."

Nene begins to feel her heart beating rapidly inside her chest as she follows the butler around towards the room where her aunt was. All she could think of was nothing but, "Shoot."

Fuji leaves her respectively after they reached the door. It took her a couple of minutes before she finally knocks on the door cautiously, letting out a small and shaky voice, "Auntie?"

And the answer was a cold, "Come in."

In all honesty, Nene would've never wanted to open that door. But she had no choice but to do it. She slips inside and sees the beige-haired woman behind her desk, looking at her directly with intimidating eyes, "Where have you been?"

Her breath hitched as she averts her gaze, turning into a stuttering mess, "I-I was just going around t-town, Auntie. I thought I should pay it a visit, after all—"

However, Yako wasn't the type to beat around the bush, as she was austere, frank, and serious, "Did you go to Tsuchigomori's shop again?"

The cream-haired flinches at what she said; wait, how did she know that? Although she always sneaks out every now and then, she never tells anyone where she's going. So how did she know that?

She clenches her fists; she knows that lying can never do anything good, so she nods slowly, her eyes still glued at the carpeted floor, "Yes, I did."

Nene never looked up, but she could feel Yako's eyes narrowing at what she said, "And why did you do that?"

"Because I wanted to show him the drafts I made last night," she finally decides to become brave and looks up. Yako's intimidating gaze scared her, but she kept her ground, trying her best not to falter. "Auntie, I want Mister Tsuchigomori to publish a book I made—"

She wasn't able to finish her sentence as she feels a sharp pain from her right cheek, making her face her left. It took her a moment to realize that the older woman just slapped her, making her eyes go wide.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop this kind of dream and start being realistic?!" Yako yells at her loudly, her eyebrows furrowed and almost knitted together. She was fuming mad at her, Nene knew that. "I've told you before that you can never reach this dream!"

"But this is the only one I have!" She counters back with a loud and clear voice, also shocking her as to how she responded. Upon seeing the disbelief in Yako's eyes, she covers her mouth and looks away, "I-I'm sorry, Auntie, I was—"

"I know that the book I created made you like this. But you have to forget all about that now," to her surprise, her voice was rather calm and composed. Yako puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "You know all too well that if you keep on pursuing this, everything will fall into ruin."

Nene looks at her with wide and terrified eyes.

She was right; since they were former commoners, it was fine then and free for them to write whatever they want—fantasy, romance, anything. No one judged them as their status are that of an ordinary person's, as poor as mice. No one would care. But now that their status have changed and there are several eyes that are watching them in this new world they're in, it's hard to keep on dreaming for something when everyone's keeping you down.

It was fatal.

The price that Yako had to pay the moment she said yes to Misaki's marriage proposal was to never write again.

Nene clenches both her teeth and fists as tears started rolling down her cheeks, "But I don't want to live in uncertainty."

Yako frowns at her and asks, "How is this uncertain? You have a promising future ahead of you, now that we are nobles. You can be married off to someone rich and fine. Then, you'll be guaranteed to have a good meal everyday till the rest of your life. Doesn't that sound certain to you?"

"Auntie, I do not wish to be married to someone I don't even love," the younger lass reasons out as her voice cracks. "I want to write till I finally fall in love."

The beige-haired woman fell silent. Soon, she roughly removes her hand from her shoulder and turns her back to her. It terrified Nene, but what she said was from her heart. It cannot be taken back as it was sincere and genuine.

"Fine," Yako finally speaks up with her voice, dripping icy cold. "If that's what you want, then do it. I don't care about you now. You're always so troublesome and I'm too tired to babysit you anymore," she glances at her from her shoulder, her bright green eyes, intimidating. "Get out of this house."

And so, with a strong sense of righteousness and betrayal in her, the younger lass turned away and slammed the door close. Nene wiped her tears away as she ran across the hallways and then arrived to her room. Frantically getting the other books out from her drawer, she finally found the one book she loved and favoured out of all.

「乙女の心」

It was the book that Yako wrote years ago that made her heart set ablaze—it was then that she found out what her dream and sole reason for living is.

And Nene vowed to never let that dream go, no matter what happens.

The cream-haired lass clutches it close to her heart and stands up. She looks around the room and sighs heavily. Although Yako said all that, she knows that she'll come back, still, tomorrow.

Yeah. Tomorrow can wait. They'll just talk about it again the next day and make up.

And so, she ran out of her room and away from the whole manor. It was already evening, but she payed no mind around her surroundings because she only kept on running.

And it was such a fatal mistake to do so.

Speeding down her way was a large carriage, that of a higher status. She was too late to react as the vehicle crashed onto her petite and fragile body, tossing her out further on the road, bloody and messy.