Chapter 20 Fragile Girl who had Given a Broken Boy a Decade of Her Life

The sterile white walls, the hum of the hospital, the weight of his own despair—it all vanished. The only thing that was real was the warmth of her finger on his cheek, the softness of her hair against his skin, the light in her eyes.

The dam inside him, the one that had held back a decade of grief and guilt, shattered.

The grey static that had clouded his vision for years exploded outward in a shower of brilliant, kaleidoscopic color. The blood that had stained his hands crystallized and then crumbled into a million-glittering dust that scattered into nothingness. The oppressive darkness that had suffocated his soul was flooded with a light so pure and warm it felt like his first breath.

His blank, hollow eyes watered with unshed tears and glowing with a life he thought he'd lost forever.

With a choked sob that was equal parts agony and relief, he threw his arms around her, burying his face in the curve of her neck, clinging to her as if she were the only solid thing in a dissolving universe.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I let you die that day! I couldn't save you! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

She let out a soft, surprised sound, but her arms came up around him instantly, holding him just as tightly. She felt the tremors wracking his body and rested her cheek against his head.

"Silly boy. You don't have to feel bad about what happened to me. It wasn't you who killed me."

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes sparkling with a hint of her playful self.

 "Well, saying that... I think I still have a bump on my head from shattering your barrier with my skull. It was one tough barrier."

She watched the shock and fresh horror dawn on his face and quickly booped his nose again.

 "Silly boy, I'm just joking."

She pulled him back into the hug. 

"You have nothing to apologize for, my brave, kind Shota-chan. You were my little light in the darkness that day. And you still are. If not you, I would have died for real that day. Thank you. You saved me."

Hearing her speak, feeling the solid reality of her in his arms, broke the last of his restraint. The words he’d carried in his heart since he was five years old, the words that defined his entire world, came pouring out in an earnest rush.

“You were my hero, Miss Lycoris! You were my passion! I looked up to you more than anyone! Lycoris Noire. The Witch Queen. You were… you are… everything. You were ranked Number One for, forty-nine years! No one could even come close! Your monthly rating was over six thousand! No one else has ever done that! Even Grand Archmage Kenji only ever reached three thousand!”

“And your magic! The Black Flame! You were the only one who could use it! Everyone else is stuck with red, blue, or pink but you had Tier 4! You were on the news every week! You had your own merchandise, and action figures, and… and…”

His words tumbled out in a rush, the carefully memorized stats and facts of a devoted fan.

“You were undefeated. In every single fight. They called you the ‘Unbreakable Symbol’! You were the strongest witch in the world! Everyone loved you! You were… you were perfect. I had all your posters. I watched all your fights on the news. I… I wanted to be just like you.”

"Now, now, Shota-chan. You're overreacting, I'm not that great. There is nothing spe—"

 He shouted it, pouring every ounce of his being into the words that held his entire world.

“I always loved you! I still love you! And I will love you forever!”

The soft click of the door pulled Shota from the moment.

He turned his head.

And there, framed in the doorway, stood Mirai-chan.

Her right arm was in a sling, a small, white patch on her cheek. But in her good hand, she held a fragile, hopeful collection of treasures: a small bouquet of wildflowers, a bundle of homemade cookies wrapped in clumsily decorated paper, and a brand new, even prettier 'Get Well Soon, Sho-kun!' card, made with care and love.

Her eyes, wide and searching, found his. Then they drifted to the woman in his bed—the naked, black-haired woman he was clinging to, confessing his love.

For a single, heartbreaking second, her brain refused to accept it. Her wide, adoring smile flickered onto her face, a desperate, automatic defense mechanism.

"H-Hey... hey, Sho-kun... Look... I got you some... flowers. I made... you some cookies, even... was hard with... one hand."

Her eyes began to shimmer, pooling with tears. Her throat hurt as if someone was tearing it out. The smile on her face wavered violently, a mask fighting a losing battle against the agony beneath. A pained blush spread across her cheeks.

Her voice cracked, choked with sobs she could no longer hold back. 

"H-Hey... Sho-kun... w-why... why is that woman in your bed...?"

Her grip loosened. The flowers, the cookies, the lovingly crafted card—they slipped from her fingers and scattered across the floor.

"Hey, Sho-kun..." she whispered, the words barely slipping through her trembling lips, tears the size of raindrops now rolling down her cheeks.

 "Why... why are you confessing your love... to her...? You’ve never… you’ve never even said you liked me…"

She clenched her teeth, her small body shaking as she tried desperately to hold the flow of tears, wiping clumsily at her face with her sleeve, but it was useless. They fell, rolling down her cheeks, splashing onto the hospital floor.

"Say, Sho-kun, was I... not good enough? Wasn't I... the one at your side when you were broken? Wasn't I the one who kept you going? Wasn't I the one who stayed... when you pushed everyone else away... for ten years...?"

Each word was a piece of her shattered heart laid bare. This wasn't the playful, possessive Mirai. This was a fragile girl who had given a broken boy a decade of her life, only to watch him give his heart to a ghost in a single moment. 

She sobbed, her body beginning to tremble. 

“Wasn’t I the one who held your hand when you had nightmares? Wasn’t I the one who fought off anyone who looked at you wrong? I… I loved every part of you, even the broken, silent parts nobody else wanted! I loved your pain because it was yours! I… I devoted my whole world to you!”

She hugged her injured arm to her chest, her shoulders shaking.

“Was it all for nothing? Was I just… just a placeholder? A stupid, crazy girl you were just putting up with until she shows up?”

Mirai’s tear-filled gaze, blurry and swimming with pain, finally focused on the woman’s face. The serene features. The flowing black hair. The eyes that held the wisdom of legends.

It was a face she knew. A face that had stared back at her from Shota’s childhood bedroom wall, from the posters he’d never taken down. The face of the woman he had spoken of with a reverence he reserved for no one else, before the world went grey, and after.

The Witch Queen. Lycoris Noire. The idol. The symbol. The ghost that had always held his heart. And now, she wasn’t a ghost. She was here. In his bed. Real.

And in that single, horrifying moment, everything made a terrible, heartbreaking sense. She remembered the six-year-old Shota, his eyes shining as he talked about his hero. She remembered how, after the toy store, he would only ever whisper her name in his nightmares. She understood now that the hollow space inside him she had tried so desperately to fill… had always been shaped like her.

In that instant, every question of how—how was she alive, how was this possible—evaporated. They were meaningless. They were dust in the face of the cataclysmic, world-ending truth crashing down upon her.

He hadn’t just found someone new. He had been reunited with his one and only. The person who had owned his heart long before Mirai ever entered his life.

A broken, gasping sob was all that was left in her lungs. The world had narrowed to a single, unbearable truth: without Sho-kun, she was nothing. Just as he had been nothing without his Witch Queen.

The reason didn’t matter. All that mattered was the searing, white-hot agony that hollowed out her chest, a pain so vast and consuming she felt her very soul being torn from her body.

She couldn’t breathe. The air was glass in her lungs. A high-pitched, wheezing whine was the only sound she could make. Her legs buckled, nearly sending her to the floor.

He had his goddess back. He didn’t need his crazy, devoted, temporary Mirai-chan anymore.

The thought was a final, executioner’s axe. Without Sho-kun, she was nothing. She was an empty shell. A portrait of a girl who had built her entire existence around a boy who had only ever been waiting for a ghost.

She had to get out. She had to run before the pain physically tore her in half. She stumbled back. She tried to scream it, to hurl the words at him like a curse that could somehow make him feel a fraction of her agony, but her voice was a strangled, choked ruin.

“Shota… no baka…!”

It was less than a whisper, a breath of gentle, shattered heartbreak before she spun around and fled down the hallway, the sound of her sobs and fleeing footsteps the only evidence she had ever been there at all.