Volume 5 - CH 19

The Paradise of Tanikawa Sakuya

———She saw me!?

This is clearly not normal since she called out to me immediately after I parted ways with the Birdcage girl.

Scary. What is she going to do to me?

My mind went pure white.

As though she’s trying to bore a hole into my head, Sasaki Emi is staring at me with a smile.

She then speaks in a bright tone of voice.

“Come on, Sakuya-chan! This is a school you know? There’s no way I can do anything to you here right. You are being too tense.”

With a smile, Sasaki Emi’s poking my cheek with her finger.

Don’t lightly call the name that my father gave me.

Don’t you dare casually touch the body that my mother gave birth to.

Are what I wanted to say but the words simply could not leave my mouth.

“Wh……., what do you want…….?”

“Nothing. I just thought that I should get along better with you, Sakuya-chan.”

She brings her face close enough that we could kiss.

The womanly scent she was emanating and the scent of her hair began to mix and it felt like I was being seduced.

I bit down on my lips.

On the other hand, she’s simply smiling at me.

“Pl,…….please don’t mess with me.”

“Ara Ara.”

I took a step away from Sasaki Emi and shouted back.

“W, What do you want with me? If you have anything today then please just say it! You don’t want me to warn that girl right!?”

“I’ve never said that you know. It doesn’t violate the Sakuya-chan’s pledge after all. That’s Hideyori-kun’s thing, not me.”

Saying so, she takes a step toward me.

I don’t understand, what exactly does she want me to do?

“You are so cute when you’re scared like this, Sakuya-chan. Ufufu, it’s so wonderful to see you trying to warn her and even challenge me. I do like a girl like you, you know. Do you want to be friends with me?”

Sasaki Emi lifted my face up

Friend……?

Who would want to be friends with this kind of monster!?

I immediately slapped away her hand on my chin.

“……………..!?”

Just like that, I ran away.

Faster, faster, faster——-!?

I need to get back to the shop.

She’s not chasing after me.

Still, the fact that I’ve been seen by Sasaki Emi sent chills down my spine.

A few days later.

A rumor caught my ears when I was wandering around the school hallway.

“I heard Miyamura-san’s mother stabbed her father to death and committed suicide you know.”

“Ehh? Like a double suicide? W, What about Miyamura-san?”

“She was fine. I heard someone saw her attending the funeral.”

I don’t know the name Miyamura.

But I’m almost sure that it’s the Birdcage girl.

In the end, my warning did nothing for her.

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Then, a few days passed.

For the first time in a while, I passed by the Birdcage girl in the hallway.

Her birdcage should have already been destroyed.

However, its obliteration must have been nothing like what she expected.

No light can be seen in her eyes.

[Someone who’s already dead despite being alive.] Such contradiction fits her image perfectly.

She lost her glamor and it doesn’t seem like she’s even taking care of her hair.

Even though she had so many friends before this, they all disappeared like bubbles. Even Sasaki Emi was not by her side.

Like bubbles, it was as though her friends did not exist in the first place.

Just like me, she has become alone.

“Sakuya, I’m begging you. You don’t have to sympathize so much with a stranger. Take better care of yourself……”

“I’m sorry, Otou-san.”

Seeing her all broken, I was also on the verge of breaking from the stress.

My physical condition deteriorates and I often take a break from school.

When I moved up to the second year, I stopped going to school altogether since the names [Akechi Hideyori] and [Sasaki Emi] were listed among my classmates.

My body is still mostly fine but mentally, I just can’t make myself leave my house.

I was completely treated like a dropout and a problem child.

Still, my father didn’t say anything and let me stay in peace at our home.

I didn’t attend high school either. No, I couldn’t.

I barely attended middle school and I didn’t study either.

It felt like I was completely discarded by this world.

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One day, surprising news came from my father.

[[Akechi Hideyori and Sasaki Emi are dead.]]

That was it.

It was karma I thought. There’s no way for them to have a good ending anyway.

But that was all.

Happiness.

Sadness.

Or even bitterness.

I didn’t feel any of those things. All I thought when I heard the news was [Oh, I see.]

It’s not like their death is going to change my past, my way of life, or the person I’ve become.

I can’t even leave my house.

I am now at my happiest being able to live with my father.

I probably won’t be able to find anything happier than what I have right now.

Miyamura-san (was it?) said that she wanted to break out of her birdcage. But for me, this life in a cage is enough.

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A place where time has stopped.

A relationship that will never change.

A life where I don’t have to do anything.

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After all, this birdcage is my paradise.

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Why would I ever take an interest in anything outside this paradise of a birdcage.

Author Note: In the routes of the original game, Tanikawa Sakuya’s mind was broken and she would normally die around the age of 20.

Her death came before Master’s.

Sakuya has no contact with the protagonist, Juumonji Takeru, so there was no route where he ended up saving her.

In a sense, she’s similar to Emi who always dies no matter the route.

The only difference was sooner or later.

Something might have changed if she became friends with Emi as she proposed but in the end, what’s waiting for her is certainly not a happy ending.

In the main story, in order to enter a happy route for Sakuya, Hideyori would have to take the right step in more than a hundred flags that would lead to her misery. It is kind of an impossible game.

The fact that she’s happy right now is nothing short of a miracle. (Even with one misstep, she would have been plunged into despair and die when she’s around 20 years old.)

Personally, I never thought that she would become a character with so many twists and turns.

TLN: That’s the end of flashback to the game’s timeline