"I can go with you." The young man's gaze was scorching, so hot that Crazy Mita thought a steaming kettle had been placed before her.
"But only on the condition that everyone else comes too."
He didn't even have to think about it; the answer came easily.
He wasn't worried that after "eloping," the bad woman would bind him there, turning him into a caged bird.
Alain trusted her. Or rather, he trusted that the her of now had changed and wouldn't do something like that again.
In his imagination, a life on the run with her would probably be quite nice.
Days filled with loving quarrels, as if the word "infatuation" were an indelible marker, forever etched onto their relationship.
Such an ending seemed happy; for him and Crazy Mita, it would be a happy end.
But for everyone else, it would undoubtedly be a bad end. Perhaps even the most tragic one... a total annihilation route.
He absolutely could not accept that.
The future Alain envisioned was one where the viruses were completely annihilated, the Mitas were full of laughter, and he, along with everyone including Misha and Crazy Mita, would be forever immersed in joy.
That was the happy end that belonged to him and to them.
A "future" missing even one person couldn't be called a future at all.
Crazy Mita was greedy, but wasn't Alain just as greedy? He wanted everything.
Even if doing so was incredibly difficult, and he might even lose his life in the game world...
He was willing to do it. In Miffy's words, he still owed her (them) happiness, and she (they) owed him happiness too.
In Crazy Mita's eyes, Alain's firm resolve was like a basin of cold water poured over her in the dead of winter, chilling her to the bone in an instant.
She had clearly expected Alain to say this. Yet, her heart still clung to a faint, sliver of hope.
What if he had just agreed? What if he was truly willing to run away with her?
This small thought had, without her realizing it, become an almost baseless hope in her heart.
"I knew it... It's because of those dolls, isn't it?" The girl already knew the answer in her heart, but she still had to ask, unable to let it go.
And Alain's answer was simple.
"Yes."
"But why?" she asked, already knowing the answer deep down. "Why do you have to carry so much on your shoulders?"
Crazy Mita simply sat back down on the stool next to Alain, joining him in admiring the late spring garden.
"I'm going to say something selfish now." She gave Alain a heads-up.
"Speaking of which... why do you have to care if those dolls live or die?"
Crazy Mita's small hand gripped the hem of Alain's clothes, the tight force crumpling it into a tangled mess.
"You know... I was the one who met you first. Do you know that? Every single moment, I reminisce about those days when it was just you and me."
Her tightly clenched fingertips then relaxed, and she let out a complicated sigh.
"If... in the beginning, I hadn't cared about that wardrobe, would we still be there now, whispering sweet nothings?"
"The result would have been the same," Alain said frankly. "I wouldn't have been content to stay in one corner. I would have still walked the right path."
"And by 'the right path,' you mean those dolls?"
A flash of anger crossed her eyes.
"If it weren't for them, we wouldn't—"
"No more 'what ifs'." He touched the girl's lips, silencing her.
"People always have to look forward." His gaze fell on the leaves swaying in the evening breeze.
"I don't regret leaving that place. If we had stayed cooped up in that little room, our relationship wouldn't have reached this point." He took her hand. "Being able to talk with you so openly like this... I truly feel... very happy."
"..." She couldn't utter a single proper word. Her crimson face reflected the sunset glow, and her eyes wavered, as if filled with countless floating willow catkins.
"So cunning..." Crazy Mita turned away, "angrily" refusing to look at him.
"We were just talking about whether to go back, about whether to elope. And you..."
She touched her chest.
"All you know is how to say sweet things... What good does it do you to say them to someone who's about to leave?"
"About to leave..."
Alain understood that he had probably convinced her.
No, that's not right. She had agreed to go back from the start. She just wanted to talk to him about her own desires.
Elope... Easier said than done, Alain grumbled inwardly.
When he was exhausted, he too wanted to throw everything away and not worry about all the trivial matters.
"Today's departure is for the sake of a better reunion in the future. Does that make you happy?"
"...I'm still a little happy." She nodded, then shook her head, not understanding her own feelings.
"Sometimes, I just can't understand you. Why do you have to work so hard?" she said indignantly, puffing out her cheeks.
"Because I, too, am pursuing what is called [Love]."
He looked at the distant, unreachable sky.
He was a transmigrator. His previous life was "cut short mid-journey," and this life was even more...
Since childhood, he had never felt proper paternal or maternal love. The only thing he got was a debt from across the ocean.
Even the girlfriend he had in college... that twisted, pathological love, he simply couldn't comprehend it.
[What is the meaning of a life without love?]
Alain had never received love, from beginning to end, and he had always greedily craved it.
It wasn't until he met Mita, met everyone, that the love he craved could finally be realized.
He also found meaning, and a goal to strive for in life. Not just to give love to everyone, but also to receive love from them...
He hoped to work hard for everyone, and he also hoped to see everyone work hard for him.
Whenever he thought about these things, his mood would lighten considerably, and his steps forward would become brisker.
"Heh."
He finally understood why he and Crazy Mita got along so well.
Even though the other Mitas found her terrifying, twisted, and incomprehensible, he and she shared a common language in countless ways.
The reason was simple.
He and she were the same kind of person.
"Besides, if I didn't keep moving forward, courageously charging ahead, I probably wouldn't be the type you like anymore."
He looked at her.
"This is for both of us."
Alain intently explained his own truth.
"I want everyone to find happiness, to find love. Not just for me to enjoy it alone.
"And this 'everyone,' of course, includes you. I will make you happy."
The girl snorted softly.
"Anyway, your feelings for me aren't any different from your feelings for this so-called 'everyone,' right? It's too common."
"Not common at all."
Alain leaned in close to her ear, the gentle breeze from his lips tickling her earlobe.
And he, too, spoke those three words.
___
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