Aochi
“Don’t you dare think about going in there. Once you get caught in the bloodstream, you’ll never make it out again.”
Everyone except Rhone turned back to look at me and the Harvester with puzzled faces.
Of course they did. Nobody would see that thing as a heart. If you’re told blood is flowing inside a building, you’d only be confused.
I took another look at the heart. It had to be over a hundred meters tall. Since it was wide, the whole length must be three hundred meters, maybe more.
Its surface was covered in beautiful white walls, with enormous vertical windows set about a meter apart. Only one section, on the upper central floor, was red.
The same red that ringed the Watcher Bird’s eyes.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
That bird had asked me if I would spend time with him inside this building.
I didn’t feel anything unpleasant. No oppressive sense of force, no sly bargaining. None of that.
Humbly, purely—purely as the darkness we had just passed through—it had asked me. “Meeting you has taught me loneliness,” the bird had said. “In my world, I thought being alone was natural. But now I feel the absence of you as loneliness. If this goes on, you’ll lose to the other two and be crushed in this world. It’s sad… Please, won’t you enter my heart?”
I couldn’t refuse. Placing a hand on Oomi’s shoulder, and with Oze laying a hand on me, I resolved to entrust myself to these two.
But the Harvester had refused. He too knew the loneliness of being alone, and with the same kindness that had led him to save the bird that devoured hearts, he had said no.
“Aochi-san, are you all right?”
At some point Oomi had stepped in front of me.
“It’s hard to believe that’s a heart. But maybe, as a precise and powerful container, it’s not so different after all.”
Oze was also walking toward us with Mamoru-kun. I couldn’t see Mamoru-kun, but from the way Oze held out his hand as if guiding someone, there was no mistaking it.
“Aochi, you’ve got a thing for old buildings like that. You’re the one who needs to be most careful—don’t even think about saying you want to go inside.”
That’s what he told me.
I wanted to stay with the three of them after all—so I pressed my face against the Harvester’s chest, letting it show that I was crying.