White's dream about his past with Miss Elsa dissolved like thin smoke, leaving him completely surrounded by an oppressive, pitch-black darkness. A heavy, suffocating silence pressed tightly against his ears—until a familiar, melodic voice slithered out from the shadows directly behind him.
"My, my… that was quite a touching little story. Elsa truly is an extraordinary girl, isn't she?"
He spun around on his heel. Aisha emerged gracefully from the gloom, her vibrant violet eyes gleaming with an eerie light, her long silver hair cascading over her shoulders like liquid moonlight.
"…What was that just now?" White asked, a thick thread of confusion and vulnerability weaving through his voice.
"Nothing more than a stray fragment of your precious memory with her," she said casually, waving a pale hand as though discussing the trivial weather.
Her unbothered tone made his skin prickle with an intense, defensive anger. She knew entirely too much about his life—and this time, he couldn't afford to waste precious words on her riddles. White clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, forcing his cracking voice to demand what he truly needed to know.
"…Where is Bell? Tell me exactly where I can find her."
Aisha tilted her head, her lips curling into a sharp, mocking smile. "Bell is currently resting at the very place of her origin… the exact place where she was created."
Her words dug into his mind like barbed hooks. Origin…? The crosswalk. The accident site from that night. The very place where my first wish was born.
"…Then tell me something else." His voice hardened as he stepped toward her. "If Bell's original drawing was depicting Elsa's fall, why did Shu also try to jump from the school rooftop? Wasn't her tragedy supposed to be the 'price'?"
Aisha's eyes gleamed with pure, mischievous amusement. "How utterly strange you mortals are. Always so desperately begging for neat explanations. Very well. Let us clear up your confusion. Shu's suffering had absolutely nothing to do with Bell or your foolish little wish. That was entirely her own battle—a grim coincidence woven from the fabric of her family's misery. Your meeting with her at that specific moment, however… that was pure chance." Her sharp smile suddenly faded, softening into something much darker, much more profound. "…But you completely changed her fate, White."
"…Changed it?" White's voice faltered.
"Shu was born into what should have been a warm, loving family," Aisha said, her tone dropping into a smooth, rhythmic lullaby of pure venom. "Her parents—especially her father… well, perhaps I should leave that specific tragedy for you to discover on your own. But I will say just this: a fragile child shouldering a mountain of anger and expectations that are not her own, if left entirely alone in the dark, will eventually break. Just like what was destined to happen to her on that roof."
White trembled, forced to stand and listen as her voice curled around heavy, devastating truths he desperately wished weren't real.
"But thanks to your clumsy intervention," Aisha chuckled softly, the sound echoing in the void, "for the very first time in her isolated life, she actually cried onto another person's shoulder. Tell me, White—how does it feel to single-handedly alter the destined fate of another human soul?"
He gritted his teeth, his jaw aching from the tension. "…Just who the hell are you? How do you possibly know all these things? I understand Bell—she was born from my own desperate desires. But you…" His fists clenched even tighter. "…What exactly are you?"
Her wicked, breath-taking smile returned in an instant. "I cannot reveal that just yet. Be patient, little boy. For now… all you truly need to know is that I am here to help you guide the scales. But—time is rapidly slipping away from you. If you truly wish to save your precious sister… you need to wake up, White."
Her mocking laughter echoed through the darkness, light and terribly cruel, before her physical figure began to unravel into wisps of purple smoke.
Looking at her disappearing form, White swallowed his pride. The realization that she had given him the location of his only hope forced the words from his throat. "…I don't want to say it, but… thank you."
For the first time since they had met, Aisha's smile shifted. The wicked, teasing edge completely vanished, replaced by an expression that was shockingly soft, quiet, and entirely genuine.
White blinked his eyes open with a sharp, involuntary yawn, his exhausted limbs feeling incredibly sore and heavy. The harsh glare of the morning sun filtered through his window, and a faint, familiar voice hovered anxiously near his bedside.
"White. Thank goodness, you're finally awake," Shu said, her face flooding with an immense, uncharacteristic wave of relief.
"…Where am I?" he asked groggily, blinking against the light as he scanned the familiar layout of his own bedroom.
"You completely fainted while you were talking to Zen about Miss Elsa," Shu explained softly, her hand resting on the edge of his mattress. "He panicked and went out to the local pharmacy to buy some medicine and fluids for you."
White looked at her, his voice low and raspy. "…And you," he asked gently, his eyes tracking her tired expression. "Are you… doing alright?"
Shu's eyes lowered instantly, her long lashes casting shadows over her cheeks. "…Better than I was before," she whispered, her fingers curling into her uniform skirt.
White let out a long, heavy exhale. The memory of his conversation with Aisha rushed back into his mind, and the reality of the situation pressed down on his chest like a physical weight. Elsa's life was ticking away with every single passing second. I can't afford to waste another moment lying in this bed.
"There's somewhere I absolutely need to be right now." He pushed himself upright, aggressively ignoring the profound weakness shaking his muscles.
Shu's hand shot out instantly, her fingers firmly gripping the fabric of his sleeve to anchor him down. "Wait! You're completely exhausted, White. You need to rest. Zen will be back at any moment, and you can barely even stand—"
"I'm incredibly sorry, Shu. But I can't stay." His voice tightened with an absolute, unyielding resolve as he gently but firmly pried her fingers away from his arm. "Please… take care of things here for a bit. And thank Zen for me when he gets back."
Before she could form another argument to stop him, White slipped past her, bolted out of the bedroom, and ran out into the street.
The evening air was thick, heavy, and damp by the time his feet finally carried him to his destination.
The place where it had all begun.
The massive city crosswalk. The wide, gray asphalt road. The exact spot that had been violently soaked in blinding headlights and the screeching of tearing brakes. It was the place where he had nearly lost his life, and the exact coordinates where Bell had been born from the depths of his desperate, dying wish.
White stopped at the edge of the curb, sucking cold, sharp air into his burning lungs. Looking out across the empty pavement, he threw his voice into the quiet evening, shouting into the urban silence:
"Bell! I know you're out here somewhere! I can practically feel it! Please—you have to listen to me! I've wronged you more than anyone else in the world. I accused you unfairly, I shouted at you… I was so incredibly cruel to you. I'm sorry. I am so truly, deeply sorry, Bell! I need your help… Miss Elsa desperately needs your help… so please! Come back to me!!"
Silence. There was absolutely nothing but the hollow echo of his own voice and the frantic, heavy pounding of his heart against his ribs. The sheer weight of his helplessness crashed down on him; his knees buckled, slamming hard against the rough concrete of the sidewalk. Hot, stinging tears poured freely down his face, helpless, raw, and unbridled.
"…Please, Bell…" he choked out, burying his face in his trembling hands. "…I can't lose her too… I can't be left alone again…"
And then—softly, faintly, breaking through the low hum of distant traffic—a tiny voice drifted over the concrete.
"Pa…pa…"
White's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. Slowly, almost terrified that his mind was playing a cruel trick on him, he turned his head.
She was standing just a few feet away from the curb. Her stark white hair was glowing with a faint, ethereal luminescence, and her large crimson eyes were shimmering heavily with a fresh well of tears.
"Bell…" His voice broke completely as he stumbled blindly forward, his legs shaking. "Bell!"
He threw himself down, rushing directly into her small arms and holding her fragile body against his chest with a terrifying, protective tightness. His hot tears soaked right through the shoulder of her dress. "I'm so sorry! I should have never said those awful things to you… Please… please find it in your heart to forgive me!"
Bell's tiny, soft arms wrapped tightly around his neck, providing a sudden, overwhelming wave of the gentlest warmth. She began slowly, rhythmically stroking his messy, sweat-soaked hair with her small hands. "Papa… I don't hate you. I never could hate you…"
"Bell…" A heavy, ragged sob tore straight from his throat. "Then… then please. Listen to my very last wish… Save Miss Elsa. Please, save my big sister!"
Bell stepped back slightly, breaking the embrace, and looked up into his eyes before nodding softly. Without warning, her entire physical body began to violently shimmer with a brilliant, blinding light.
Her white hair fanned outward, floating in the air as if suspended in water, charged with pure, radiant energy. Her crimson eyes glowed like twin burning stars in the twilight. She slowly pressed her small hands together in front of her chest, her lips moving silently as she whispered a wordless, divine prayer.
The sheer brightness of the manifestation engulfed the entire street in a dead, unearthly silence. For that brief, frozen moment, she no longer looked like a regular little girl playing pretend; she looked like something entirely divine—an ethereal, ancient entity existing completely beyond the constraints of this mortal world.
And then… the light suddenly fractured and snapped. It ended.
The brilliant aura faded back into the dusk, leaving the street dim once more. Bell's fragile body swayed dangerously on her feet, her strength completely spent, and White lunged forward, catching her in his arms before she could crash against the pavement. She was entirely unconscious, her small face pale, but her chest rose and fell with a steady, quiet breath.
"…Thank you, Bell," he whispered, his heart swelling with a profound sense of gratitude.
Shouldering her small, limp weight gently onto his back, he turned around and raced back toward his apartment. When he arrived, Shu and Zen were standing outside the building complex, both of their faces entirely pale with a mounting, anxious worry.
"There you finally are!!" Zen exploded the second White came into view, lunging forward and grabbing his arm. "White, damn it, you always completely vanish when things go south! Where the hell were you? And what on earth is this about Elsa being in the hospital?!"
"She was in a terrible accident…" White whispered, his body still trembling from the residual adrenaline, but a desperate smile tugging at his lips. "But… she's going to recover. It's going to be alright now, Zen. I promise."
Before Zen could open his mouth to question him further, the phone inside White's pocket rang sharply. He pulled it out with shaking fingers.
The hospital.
He swiped the screen, pressing it to his ear. "Hello?"
"She's suddenly woken up," the nurse's voice whispered urgently on the other end of the line, sounding completely breathless. "It's a miracle, young man. Miss Elsa is completely conscious."
The entire world felt as though it spun in a dazzling wheel of relief. An overwhelming, suffocating wave of joy flooded White's chest until his knees nearly failed him again.
Without a single word of explanation, he grabbed Zen and Shu, and the three of them sprinted together through the city streets, pushing past pedestrians until they finally reached the hospital and threw open the door to her recovery room.
Miss Elsa was sitting upright in her hospital bed. Her quiet gaze was directed out the large glass window, her silhouette beautifully bathed in the warm, golden rays of the evening sunlight. She was alive. She was awake. She was breathing.
White's chest felt as though it would burst with sheer, unadulterated relief. "Big Sis!" he choked out, his eyes burning fiercely with a fresh wave of tears as he rushed toward the bedside. "You're completely safe… thank God… I was so incredibly scared that I lost you…"
At the sound of his frantic voice, she turned her head slowly away from the window, looking directly at him.
But her eyes didn't light up with recognition.
Those familiar, warm eyes simply blinked at him, completely puzzled. They were confused, distant, and entirely unfamiliar.
"…I'm terribly sorry," she said softly, her voice gentle but completely detached. "Do I… do I know you from somewhere?"
The words felt like an impossibility. They were syllables that simply should not have existed in this reality. Not from her lips.
White froze dead in his tracks, his pulse hammering like a war drum in his ears. "W-what are you talking about? Big Sis, please don't joke around like that right now… it's me, White! Don't you remember—your little brother? The boy you found in the rain under the stairs, the one you completely saved?!"
But her gaze remained entirely blank, perfectly sincere, and devastatingly merciless.
"…I'm truly sorry, young man. I really don't know who you are."
The remaining breath completely left White's body. It felt as though his entire chest had been violently torn open into a cold, hollow silence.
"…N…no… no, that's… that can't be…" His throat locked up, starving his brain of air. His miracle was standing right in front of him. She was smiling, she was alive, and she was breathing perfectly.
But she… had completely forgotten his existence.
"…Zen," Elsa turned her attention past White, her expression instantly shifting into something much warmer, much more familiar as she recognized the boy in the doorway. "These two people… are they friends of yours from school?"
Zen's breath hitched sharply in his throat, his face turning an ash-gray. Standing beside him, Shu gasped quietly, her hand flying to her mouth as she looked at White's rigid back.
And White?
He couldn't move a single muscle. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe.
Miss Elsa had survived the impossible fall.
But he… had been completely erased from her heart.
Bzzzt.
The sharp, vibration of his mobile phone rang out from his pocket, cutting through the heavy silence of the hospital room. With a numb, robotic motion, White pulled the screen to his face. A single new notification from an unknown sender stared back at him through the glass:
-PRICE RECOVERED, BALANCE RESTORED