Chapter 1756 - 243.5 - Akane's And Shredica's Feelings (2)

I glared at her, trying my best to make it clear that I really wasn't in the mood for whatever she was about to say next.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been glaring at me so much that I'm starting to feel uncomfortable," she said with an amused expression. "You do realize that this is my face too, right? Making my own face look ugly like that is starting to give me the ick."

She said it so casually that I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Of all the things she could have focused on, she was apparently more concerned about me making her face look ugly through my expression.

"You know you can't really hide anything from me, right?" she continued, completely ignoring the look I was giving her. "I don't think you can hide your feelings for him either, especially when it's already pretty obvious that you have feelings for him."

"Me? Love him? Are you actually being serious right now?" I asked, staring at her as though she had just said the most ridiculous thing imaginable.

"Oh, I absolutely am," she replied without hesitation. "It's really not that difficult to notice, you know? I honestly don't understand why you're still denying it when your feelings are already so obvious."

I gritted my teeth.

Then, without thinking much about it, I punched her.

Or at least, I tried to.

My fist stopped against an invisible force before it could reach her, and the familiar resistance immediately reminded me of the obvious problem with what I had just attempted.

I wasn't actually punching another person.

I was standing in front of my own reflection.

"I don't love him," I said firmly, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me hesitate.

"Do you honestly think you're going to fool me with that?"

Her expression remained calm as she stared directly at me.

"I am you, remember? I might not appear before you very often, but I know for a fact that your feelings for Leon are real."

She really doesn't know when to stop talking, does she?

"If you're only going to appear here just to talk about things like this, then you shouldn't have appeared at all," I said. "I don't need this kind of conversation right now, especially when I already have enough things to worry about without having my own reflection lecture me about my love life."

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, sounding almost amused by my response. "Because I think this is something you actually need to hear right now."

She paused for a moment, and the playful look on her face slowly disappeared.

"Tsubasa-kun and Leon."

The moment she put those two names together, my expression hardened.

"I've known for quite some time that they're the same person," she continued. "That's why I've been trying to give you as many of my memories as possible, hoping that you'd eventually remember him properly."

She watched me carefully before continuing with what she had been trying to explain.

"Of course, I wasn't completely certain back then that Leon was Tsubasa-kun. I couldn't possibly know that for sure, but there was something about his mannerisms that reminded me of him. The way he acted, the way he spoke, and even some of those little habits he had were enough to make me wonder if it was really him."

She took a small breath before continuing.

"Because of that, I tried to make you remember the past as much as possible. I wanted you to slowly put the pieces together yourself instead of simply forcing the answer into your head and telling you everything outright."

She looked at me again.

The way she stared at me felt different this time.

It wasn't like she was simply looking at my face anymore.

It felt as though she was looking directly into my soul, seeing through all the excuses I had been using to avoid admitting what I already knew deep down.

"I never told him this while he was still alive back on Earth, but..." she began, her voice becoming noticeably quieter. "I had feelings for him."

She smiled faintly, although there was something painful hiding behind that expression.

"I loved him."

Her words remained hanging between us for a few seconds.

"That's why when he died, I was devastated. I couldn't even begin to explain how much it hurt, especially because I knew that he died because of me."

Her expression became more serious as she continued.

"I didn't have enough courage to tell him how I felt, and that hesitation ended up costing me everything. I kept thinking that I would tell him eventually, that I would find the right opportunity and finally say what I wanted to say."

She lowered her gaze slightly.

"Then I lost him before I ever got the chance."

I remained silent while listening.

"That's why I don't want to make the same mistake again," she continued. "Since I've found him again, I don't want to waste this second chance. I've already spent one lifetime regretting what I didn't say, and I'd rather not repeat that mistake."

"You say all of that as though it has something to do with me," I replied.

The past was the past.

I was different from the person I used to be.

I wasn't Akane.

For years, I didn't even know that I had once been Akane in the first place. I had spent so much of my life fighting without understanding where those strange memories came from or why certain things felt familiar when they shouldn't have.

I was Shredica the moment I started thinking for myself and remembering everything.

That was the person I knew myself as.

"You do have something to do with it," she answered.

Her voice was calm, but there was enough seriousness behind it to make me stop arguing for a moment.

"If Tsubasa-kun hadn't saved me from being hit by that truck that day, I probably would have fallen into despair and eventually killed myself."

I went quiet.

"But he saved me," she continued. "Because he was the one who gave me another chance to live, I couldn't bring myself to throw that life away afterward. I couldn't simply take the life he had risked himself to save and end it myself as though his actions meant absolutely nothing."

She looked directly at me.

"And if that hadn't happened, you might not even exist."

I couldn't find anything to say after hearing that.

For once, I didn't have some argument ready to throw back at her.

She was right.

If Akane had decided to kill herself that day, then I wouldn't exist.

If her life had ended at that moment, there would have been no future for me to inherit.

I was her in the future, after all.

The future couldn't exist without the past, and regardless of how much I wanted to separate myself from who I used to be, that connection was something I couldn't simply erase.

"Tsubasa-kun didn't just save me that day," she said softly. "He saved you too."

She stepped closer to the reflection, her eyes remaining fixed on mine.

"And right now, he's here with you."

Her expression softened as she looked at me.

"That's why I want you to follow your feelings."

She paused briefly, giving me enough time to understand what she meant.

"Otherwise, just like me, you might spend the rest of your life regretting that you never had the courage to tell him."