I had a dream.
It was a place I knew.
It was the academy hallway. But the colors were wrong. There wasn’t enough light. The walls were gray, the floor was cold, and the ends of the hallway melted into darkness. It was like a monochrome world.
I felt, in the dream, that it was inside the game I played in my previous life.
Lian was at the other end of the hallway.
She was wrapped in light-attribute magical power, dazzling. She was laughing, surrounded by the romanceable targets. Loved by everyone. At the center of the story.
I was watching that scene from the edge of the hallway.
As I watched—something welled up inside me.
It was jealousy.
A burning, cold, overwhelming emotion I couldn’t control. It’s always you, I thought. You’re always in the light. Even though I’m here. I’ve always been here. No one sees me.
My hand was moving.
I was deploying dark magic.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
A dark mist headed toward Lian. Lian noticed. She turned around. But I didn’t stop.
“Big Sister—”
I heard Lian’s voice.
Light exploded.
Lian’s light magic swallowed my darkness. It reversed course. The dark mist came back toward me. It hurt. It was bright, yet cold. I felt something crumbling from deep inside my body.
“Big Sister, Big Sister—”
Lian’s voice grew distant.
My body sank.
A death rattle escaped me.
When I opened my eyes, it was the ceiling of my own room.
I breathed. It was ragged. My chest was moving fast. Sweat was on my neck.
It was a dream.
I knew. I knew it was a dream. But my hands were trembling. The emotion I felt in the dream was still lingering in my body. That sensation of jealousy. The sensation of directing dark magic at my sister.
I sat up.
I looked out the window. It was still night. The moon was at its zenith. Probably just past midnight.
My hands were trembling.
In the game from my previous life, Rune tried to harm Lian. That was the end for the existence called Rune. A villainess, defeated by jealousy, who ultimately vanished.
I was reborn so I wouldn’t walk that path.
But tonight, in my dream, I walked it. I didn’t stop. I directed dark magic at Lian.
It was a dream. It was just a story in a dream.
But my hands were trembling.
There was a knock.
I froze.
A knock, in the dead of night.
“…Come in.”
The door opened.
Lian was standing there.
She was in her nightclothes. Her hair was slightly disheveled. She wasn’t in her uniform, but wearing a thin nightgown. Simple indoor slippers were on her feet. She must have come straight from the first-year dormitory building.
“Lian.”
“Big Sister,” Lian said. Her voice was a little small. “You were awake?”
“I was awake. What is it, at this hour?”
“I had a scary dream.”
I froze.
“A scary dream.”
“When I woke up, I couldn’t get back to sleep,” Lian said, gripping the door a little. “I was scared to sleep. I ended up coming to your room.”
“You came from the first-year building?”
“Yes.”
“Alone, in the middle of the night?”
“Yes,” Lian said, looking down slightly. “Was I a bother?”
Before I could answer the question of whether she was a bother or not, I remembered tonight’s dream.
The dream where I directed dark magic at Lian. The dream where I woke up with a death rattle.
On the night I had that dream, Lian came here.
“You’re not a bother.”
“Really?”
“Really. Come in.”
Lian entered the room. She closed the door.
“What kind of dream was it?” I asked.
“It was a dark dream,” Lian said. “A dream where Big Sister… wasn’t Big Sister anymore.”
Something stirred deep in my chest.
“…I see.”
“That’s why I woke up,” Lian looked at me. “When I came here, my usual Big Sister was here.”
“I see.”
“I’m glad,” Lian let out a small breath. “I’m glad you were here.”
I also had a dream tonight. A dream where I hurt Lian.
But Lian dreamed that I wasn’t myself anymore.
On the same night, we had similar dreams.
“Can I sleep with you?”
Lian asked. Her voice sounded both shy and earnest. “I’m scared, and I don’t think I can sleep alone.”
“Of course.”
I got into bed. Lian did too.
We shared the blanket. The room was quiet. Moonlight filtered thinly through the window.
We both looked at the ceiling.
“Big Sister too,” Lian said. “Did something happen?”
“Why?”
“Because you were awake. Because you looked like you’d just woken up.”
This child always notices.
“I had a dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
“…A scary dream.”
“I see,” Lian paused for a moment. “We’re similar, aren’t we?”
“We are similar.”
“On a night when we both had scary dreams, we’re in the same place,” Lian said. “It’s strange, isn’t it?”
I felt the word ‘strange’ wasn’t enough, but I couldn’t find any other words.
“Big Sister.”
“What?”
“Can I hold your hand?”
Under the blanket, Lian’s hand was offered.
I held it. It was warm.
The coldness of the jealousy I felt in the dream grew distant. Tonight’s warmth seemed to tell me that sensation was only in the dream, that it would never become reality.
“Goodnight, Big Sister.”
“Goodnight.”
Lian’s breathing gradually deepened.
She must have fallen asleep.
I didn’t let go of her hand. If I let go, Lian might notice and wake up. That’s what I thought. I knew that thought was an excuse.
I didn’t want to let go.
That was all.
I looked at Lian’s sleeping face in the moonlight.
I thought of the dream I had tonight. The face at the receiving end of that dark magic. But now, the Lian before me was asleep. Peaceful. Unharmed.
I didn’t walk that path.
The path Rene from my previous life walked, I, in this life, did not walk. I didn’t want to walk it. I had no reason to walk it.
The emotion I should direct toward Lian was not jealousy.
If asked what it was then—the warmth of tonight’s hand was part of the answer.
I closed my eyes.
I could hear Lian’s breathing.
It became regular.
Listening to that sound, I fell asleep.
In the dead of night, just the two of us. This time, I didn’t dream.