A new day knocks on the door of my life, the horrible sound of the alarm clock again indicating that it's time to repeat everything all over again.
Before my brain finishes processing the offense, I feel small feet walking on my chest. Small, but determined. Rory, with her characteristic morning bad mood, walks on me as if I were a bridge instead of a person. I can imagine her: the furrowed brow, the crossed arms, her expression of "I've made a decision and no one is going to stop me," the determination of a goddess of war facing her most hated enemy: my alarm. Her tiny boots went "tap-tap-tap" against my pajamas. I hear a small effort, the sound of her stretching to reach the edge of the nightstand, then a dry click, and the mechanical hell shuts off.
Silence.
Rory, her mission accomplished, turns around with all the calm of someone who has done nothing wrong in her life. I feel her steps back, the small lump of her body settling into the gap between my arm and my side, right where she spent the night. A sigh of satisfaction, and the silence is total once more.
"Good girl," I whispered, my voice hoarse with sleep.
"I know," she replied, without opening her eyes.
I opened one eye. The light filtering through the blinds was still dim. Too early. Too early to get up, too early to think about college, about work, about the endless routine that awaited me.
But today... today I didn't want to do any of that.
My gaze drifted to the pillow. There was Tamamo, still asleep, her small body wrapped in her bluish purple kimono like a silken chrysalis. Her face, at rest, had an expression of peace that reminded me why I had bought that figure in the first place. Why I had seen her die hundreds of times. Why I had wanted to save her.
And now she was here, Tamamo was here.
It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination. I had seen her wake up, talk, move. I had taken her to bed with us. I had felt her tiny weight on the pillow; I had heard her soft breathing while she slept.
And today... Today I had to go to college. And to work. And leave her alone again.
Like yesterday.
As if nothing had happened.
A knot formed in my stomach.
Rory, who was still sitting next to my chest, must have noticed something in my expression, so she immediately asked.
"César," she said, softer.
"What's wrong?"
"Tamamo," I replied.
"I can't leave her alone again. Yesterday was already... I don't know. Unfair. She woke up in a world she doesn't understand, and I left her here, alone, all day. If something had happened to her..."
"Nothing happened to her."
"But it could have."
Rory sighed. She stood up on my chest and walked to my chin. From there, she looked me directly in the eyes.
"Do you know what your problem is, César?"
"Having a twelve-centimeter goddess living on my chest?"
"That's not a problem, that's a privilege." She gave me a little tap on the nose.
"Your problem is that you feel responsible for everything. For me. For her. For the world. And you forget that you don't have to carry everything alone."
"But..."
"Tamamo is not a child. She's a goddess thousands of years old. One who, according to what you told me, massacred entire armies when she was bored."
"Trust me, she can survive a few hours alone in an apartment watching TV."
"But..."
"César." Her voice hardened.
"Are you going to stay home today?"
The knot in my stomach loosened a little.
"Can I?"
"It's your house. And your life." She sat down on my shoulder, crossing her legs.
"Besides, who's going to know? Luna? Tell her you're sick. Your job? Say you have a fever. Lie. People lie all the time. It's part of being an adult, isn't it?"
I sent the messages. To college: "Feeling unwell, I won't be able to attend." To work: "Fever, I'm staying home." Small lies, venial, necessary.
Rory, who had supervised everything from my shoulder, nodded in approval.
"Good. Now, sleep. There will be time to be productive later."
"Aren't you going to tell me I'm irresponsible?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow. Today I can't be bothered."
......
We woke up much later. Eight in the morning, according to the clock. Hours that my body thanked me with a lethargy I hadn't felt since... I didn't know since when.
It was Rory who broke the silence.
"Breakfast," she grunted, sitting on my chest with the authority of someone demanding what is rightfully theirs by divine right.
"Now. Or there will be consequences."
"What kind of consequences?" I asked, still half asleep.
"Divine. Terrible. Irreversible." She paused.
"I could hide the remote control."
"That's a real threat."
"I know."
I sat up carefully, taking her with me in the process. She grabbed onto my shirt with the ease of someone with martial agility, and in an instant she was on my shoulder, pointing towards the kitchen like a commander pointing at the battlefield.
Tamamo was still asleep when I left the room. I left her there, with the door ajar, just in case. I didn't want her to wake up alone and scared in an unfamiliar place.
In the kitchen, the same old ritual: take out the bread, the butter, the coffee. But this time, something was different. I don't know if it was the morning light, or the fact that I didn't have to rush, or the little goddess sitting on the counter watching my every move with those red eyes that saw everything.
Rory just watched me heat the milk for the hot chocolate.
"Does it bother you?" I asked, because I no longer knew how not to ask her things.
"What? That you stay? That you stay for her? That you prioritize her?"
"All of that, I suppose."
Rory shrugged. Such a small gesture that I almost missed it.
"I expected it to happen. Since you brought her home, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later."
"Rory..."
"Don't apologize," she interrupted me, and her voice had an edge I knew well.
"I've told you before. Don't apologize."
I said nothing.
"Besides," she continued.
"Today it's my turn to help you take care of her. Or do you think I'm going to let you take all the credit?"
"Since when do you share credit with anyone?"
"Since I discovered that being the big sister also has its advantages."
"Big sister?"
"Of course. I arrived first. I'm the official one. She's the new one. That gives me certain rights."
"Like what?"
Rory smiled. That smile that promised trouble.
"Like deciding what series we watch tonight. And making her eat vegetables. And telling her all the times you complained that her figure wasn't arriving on time."
"Rory!"
"Those are acquired rights, César. Don't argue."
Rory's coffee was ready. I poured a few drops into a small saucer for her. Rory approached, took a small sip, and closed her eyes with an expression of ecstasy that always made me laugh.
"Divine," she murmured.
"It's instant coffee."
"And it's divine. Your priorities are very messed up."
That's when I heard a movement in the hallway.
Tamamo appeared in the doorway with the slowness of someone still not sure she's welcome. Her Indigo royal kimono glowed faintly in the morning light, just like her golden hair, like magic too, her blue eyes scanned the kitchen with that mixture of curiosity and shyness that I was already starting to recognize in her.
"Good morning," she said, her voice soft as a whisper.
"Good morning," I replied as quickly as I could.
Tamamo approached the table, but stopped before reaching it. Her eyes went up to the edge, then to the chair, then to me. Rory, from the counter, watched the scene with a half-smile.
"Do you need help?" I asked.
Tamamo lowered her gaze, embarrassed.
"I don't want to be a bother..."
"You're not."
"But..."
"Tamamo," I interrupted her.
"You are not a bother. You never will be."
She looked up, and in her eyes there was something of Hope, perhaps. Or the echo of a hope that had been asleep for a long time.
"Will you... help me?"
"I had never felt so pleased to fulfill a request from my favorite girl and goddess personally."
I extended my hand, open, palm up. Tamamo looked at it as if it were an abyss, then took a small step, another, and finally placed a foot on my fingers. Her weight was almost nothing, but the feeling of having her there, of her trusting me enough to let herself be carried, filled my chest with an absurd warmth.
I lifted her carefully, moving her through the air as if she were a porcelain bird, and gently placed her on the edge of the table, next to the saucer of coffee I had prepared for her.
"Thank you," she said, and her smile was as small as it was shy, but real.
"You're welcome."
I stood for a moment looking at her, enjoying the image of her there, in my kitchen, on my table, in my life. Tamamo, the one who had died saving me — my character, the version of me that could be whoever I wanted to be — was now alive, was now here, was now looking at me with those blue eyes that had seen so much and yet seemed to see something new in this moment. Her face turned a little red when her eyes made contact with mine.
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"Oh..." Rory's voice cut through my reverie.
"So she's your favorite. Interesting to hear a direct confession from the criminal."
My heart stopped.
I turned to her. Rory was on the other side of the counter, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, an expression that I didn't know was anger or simple exasperation. Perhaps both. Perhaps something worse.
"Oh, shit..." the words escaped my mouth before I could stop them.
"Did I just speak out loud?"
"And how!" Rory pointed towards Tamamo with a nod of her head.
"Just look at the poor fox girl, she's as red as a tomato."
I turned. Tamamo was rigid on the edge of the table, her cheeks tinged with an intense pink that I didn't remember seeing in any figure, in any scene from the game. Her hands were clenched on her lap, and her gaze had fixed on an indeterminate point on the tablecloth.
"I'm sorry, Rory," I said, feeling that every word was a misstep.
"It's not what you think; I would never leave you..."
"No. Stop." Her voice was firm, but not harsh.
"Don't apologize."
"But..."
"Don't apologize," she repeated, and this time there was something in her tone that forced me to be silent.
"It's not something you need to apologize for. It's something I already knew."
"Rory..."
"I've always known." Her arms were still crossed, but her posture had softened.
"Since you brought her home, since you spent hours looking at her figure before buying it, since you put her new version on the main shelf."
"I knew she was your favorite. The one you always wanted to have."
"Rory, it's not what you think," I tried again, but she cut me off with a gesture.
"No, stop it." She paused.
"So, when will breakfast be ready? I'm starving."
I blinked.
"Sorry?"
Rory sighed. A long, theatrical sigh.
"Ugh... idiot..." she muttered, running a hand through her black hair.
"Fine. I'm going to explain it all so that even you, being as dense as a crappy anime protagonist, can understand it."
"I'm sorry..."
"Stop apologizing! I told you already! Don't apologize!"
The silence that followed was uncomfortable, charged with things neither of us knew how to say. Rory was staring at the counter, her fingers drumming on the marble. I didn't know where to put my hands. Tamamo, between us, looked like a spectator at a play she hadn't bought a ticket for.
"Just let me go step by step," Rory said finally, calmer.
"Just leave it as it is. I already know she's your favorite, that you wanted her. I'm tired of saying it all the time, but I've been living with you all these years; I know everything about you. I know how much she has helped you keep going."
"Rory..."
"See? It's simple."
"Do you think I'm going to leave because of that? Sorry, I'm a goddess. Being selfish is my nature."
"Sorry?" My head was spinning.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, but I genuinely didn't understand anything."
Rory looked at me. For a moment, her red eyes shone with frustration, perhaps. Or exasperated affection too.
"That I'm going to tease and joke about you loving her more than me, that I already know it, and I still plan to stay here." She made a dramatic pause.
"What do you think about that?"
"..."
"I really can't believe you're a writer and this much of an idiot at the same time."
"I swear I don't understand you sometimes, Rory."
"Well, same here."
"Do you know how hard it is to have you as a husband?" She began to pace back and forth, gesticulating.
"Just look at me. Having to accept being second in your harem despite being the one who arrived first."
"Oh, poor goddess Rory." Her voice became theatrical, exaggerated. She brought a hand to her forehead in a gesture of Greek tragedy.
"The most pleasant, sweet, compassionate, intelligent, beautiful, glamorous, innocent, lethal, of simple and refined tastes, thrifty and knowing how to live in luxury, so loyal..."
She let herself fall backward, extending an arm towards the ceiling as if reaching for an imaginary moon.
"...having to put up with a husband who doesn't understand hints, direct or indirect."
Silence returned.
I looked at Tamamo. Tamamo looked at me. Her expression was a perfect combination of "earth, swallow me" and "this is more interesting than any soap opera." She didn't know what to do. Neither did I.
Tamamo was the first to speak.
"Please, don't argue because of me." Her voice was low, hurried.
"It has never been my intention to separate a pair of lovers. I am not here to steal anyone's love."
Rory raised a hand. She seemed to want to say something and wasn't going to let anyone stop her.
"Stop."
Tamamo fell silent instantly. Her sapphire eyes opened a little wider, surprised by the firmness of that small gothic lolite figure who now walked towards her along the counter.
"Stop right there," Rory repeated, stopping half a meter from the fox.
"I'm not going to let you start with that 'I don't want to bother, I'll leave' script. Do you hear me? No."
"But..."
"There is no 'but,'" Rory crossed her arms. Her expression was serious, but not angry; it was time to talk for real.
"You haven't stolen anything. You haven't separated anyone. And you're not going anywhere."
Tamamo looked at her, confused. So did I. Because a moment ago Rory was pretending to be a Greek tragedy drama, and now... now she seemed like a different person.
"Rory..." I tried to say.
"You shut up," she cut me off without looking at me.
"This is going to take a while, and I need you not to interrupt."
I shut up.
Rory took another step towards Tamamo. Her tiny boots went tap against the counter surface.
"Let me tell you something, Tamamo. Something you don't know because you were asleep, or in that limbo of plastic and paint you woke up from yesterday."
Tamamo swallowed. She nodded.
"I've been with him for many years," Rory pointed towards me with her hand behind her.
"Years of watching him. Listening to him. Observing every one of his obsessions, every one of his joys, every one of his miseries."
"And let me tell you something: you have been in his life long before I arrived."
"What... what do you mean?" asked Tamamo, her voice full of doubt and pity.
Rory simply smiled.
"I mean that César didn't buy you yesterday, Tamamo."
"He's kept you in his heart for years, years before my arrival. And I've seen it. I've seen everything."
She began to pace back and forth, like a general haranguing her troops before battle.
"I've seen how he made you the main character in his novel. Do you know that? In War Dragon Chronicles."
"You are the main character of his novel. Did you know that? Do you know it, Tamamo?"
"You are one of the pillars of his story. You have dialogues, you have an arc, you have moments he has rewritten dozens of times because he wanted them to be perfect for you."
"And me?" She pointed at herself.
"I still haven't appeared. I've been alive for a week, and he hasn't written a single line about me."
"He always says 'later, later.' But you, he put you in from the first draft."
"And you know what? I don't care. Because I perfectly understand why."
Tamamo opened her mouth, but Rory didn't let her speak.
"I've seen how he spent hours searching for art of you online."
"Fanarts, illustrations, commissions. And not just looking at them, but saving them."
"He has a folder, you know? On his computer. 'Tamamo.' Hundreds of images. He looked at them when he was sad. He looked at them when he couldn't sleep. He looked at them when the world weighed too much on him."
I felt a lump in my throat. Rory was telling things I had never told her. Because she... she had seen them. From the shelf, for years.
"I've seen how he got angry when someone shared your death as if it were a joke. Viral clips of 'the saddest moment in the game,' but with ridiculous background music, or with comments like 'haha how stupid, she died for nothing.' Do you know what César did every time he saw one of those?"
Tamamo shook her head, hypnotized.
"He stayed silent. He closed the tab."
"And then he stared at the wall for a while. He didn't say anything. He didn't complain. But I felt it. His sadness filled the room like smoke."
Rory stopped. She turned towards me. For an instant, her red eyes met mine, and in them I saw something I had never seen before: gratitude. Not towards me, but towards Tamamo.
"But I've also seen," she continued, turning back to the fox,
"How he lit up when he found someone else who hated your death. When he saw comments on forums saying 'it was a forced death,' 'it didn't make sense,' 'they did her wrong.' He read those comments over and over again. As if every person who agreed with him was a small life preserver in a sea of indifference."
Tamamo's eyes were bright. She wasn't crying, but she was close.
"I've seen how he looked for extra information about you," Rory said, and her voice became faster, more urgent, as if she wanted to get it all out before it escaped her.
"Datamining from the game. Hidden files. Discarded dialogues. Videos of interviews with the developers where they talked about how they created your character, why they decided you should die, what they wanted to convey. He watched it all. He absorbed it all. Because he wanted to understand you. Because he wanted to save you somehow, even if only in his head."
The silence that followed was dense, charged with years of silent observation.
Rory took one last step towards Tamamo. Now they were face to face. The goddess of war and the nine-tailed fox. Twelve centimeters of contained history.
"And then," said Rory, and her voice cracked just a millimeter.
"Then came the worst night."
Tamamo blinked.
"What night?"
Rory didn't answer immediately. She looked down at her own tiny hands. Then she looked up at me. And then, very slowly, she looked back at Tamamo.
"The night César almost died."
The air thickened.
"What!?" I asked, because I didn't understand what she was talking about.
"Rory, what are you talking about? I never..."
"You don't know," she interrupted me, without looking at me.
"Because you didn't even realize it. But I did. I was there. On the shelf. Watching you."
She took a deep breath.
"It was in high school. The last year, I think. There was a girl. A real girl, of flesh and blood. Her name was... I don't remember the name. But César does. He remembers her very well."
My stomach clenched.
"No..." I started to say.
"Yes," Rory cut me off, this time looking straight at me.
"That very one."
She turned back to Tamamo.
"A girl confessed to César. The only time someone real, outside his family, told him they liked him. César, being César, didn't believe it. He thought it was a joke. But she insisted. She said it was true. She said she'd been wanting to tell him for a while. And César... César believed her."
Rory paused. Her hands, which had been gesticulating, fell to her sides.
"Turns out it was a joke. A bet between her and her friends. 'Let's see if I can get the weirdo to believe it.' When César said yes, that he liked her too, she laughed in his face. And then, so no one would think she could be interested in 'someone like him,' she reported him. She said he had harassed her. That he had followed her. That he had tried to touch her."
"It wasn't true," I said desperately, trying to defend myself against the accusations.
"I never did any of that."
"I know," Rory said softly.
"She knew it too. But no one believed you, did they?"
"After all, it was much easier to blame the strange, lonely man than a woman."
I didn't answer.
"No one ever believed him," Rory confirmed, answering for me.
"The teachers looked at him badly. The classmates moved away from him. Some even spat on the floor when he walked down the hall. And his home... his home wasn't a refuge either. Because his parents, when they found out, asked him what he had done to raise a harasser."
Tamamo had a hand over her mouth. Her golden eyes were wet.
"César was about to jump," Rory said, with total seriousness.
"That night, after everything exploded, he went up to the roof of the building they were living in then. And he sat on the edge. With his legs dangling. Looking down."
"Rory..." I tried to say, but the word got stuck in my throat.
"He didn't do it for you," Rory said, looking Tamamo directly in the eyes.
"It wasn't for me. It wasn't for anyone else in his life. It was for Tamamo."
Tamamo blinked. A tear rolled down her cheek.
"For... for me?"
Rory nodded.
"At that moment, on the roof, with the wind in his face and the void calling him, César remembered your words. The ones you said to him in the game just before dying. 'I wanted to live with you.' Those words, they were your words, Tamamo. The ones the actress recorded. The ones the developers wrote. But for him... for him, it was you who said them. And those words kept him alive."
"He repeated them out loud, there alone, and then... then he got down from the window. He went to his computer. He opened the game again. And he watched you die again. But this time, when you died, he didn't feel despair. He felt... something like hope. Because if you could sacrifice yourself for someone you loved, maybe he could also sacrifice himself... by living. By going on. One more day. And then another. And then another."
"By living more just as you wanted for him to do"
The silence that followed was eternal.
Tamamo cried silently. Her tears fell on the counter, tiny and bright.
"I..." she stammered.
"I didn't know..."
"Of course you didn't know," said Rory, and her voice softened until it became almost tender.
"You were locked inside the game. You couldn't know."
She moved one step closer. Now they were so close they almost touched.
"But I do know. And that's why," Rory raised a hand and placed it on Tamamo's shoulder,
"That's why I tell you not to leave. That's why I tell you that you haven't stolen anything. Because if César is alive today, sitting in this kitchen making instant coffee as if it were the most normal thing in the world, it's partly thanks to you."
Tamamo sobbed.
"And I," Rory continued, and for the first time her voice trembled,
"I thank you. Because if you hadn't been there, at that moment, in that game, with those words... I wouldn't have anyone to love now."
Tamamo lifted her head. Her golden eyes, clouded with tears, met Rory's red ones.
"You don't have to thank me," she whispered.
"I didn't do anything..."
"You did the most important thing," Rory interrupted her.
"You existed. You existed for him. At the exact moment when he most needed someone to exist to be by his side."
"....."
"So when I say I don't mind that you're the favorite," she said, "it's not because I'm a martyr or because it doesn't hurt me. It's because I know what you've done for him. And I can't hate you for that."
"I thank you, Tamamo, even if you yourself didn't know it."
They stayed like that, looking at each other, two tiny goddesses on a coffee-stained counter. One in an orange kimono. Another in a gothic dress. Both shining in the morning light.
I couldn't speak. My throat was so tight that any word would have come out broken.
Rory was the first to break the spell. She stepped back, wiped her cheek with the back of her hand (when she had started crying, I didn't know), and recovered her usual tone, that mixture of divine authority and little sister impertinence.
"Fine. That's it. Said." She crossed her arms again.
"Now, is someone going to finish that breakfast or do I have to do it myself? Because I remind you that I am a goddess of war. Not a chef. But if I have to put on an apron, I will, and the consequences will be disastrous."
Tamamo, still trembling, looked at me again.
"Is it true?" she asked.
"Everything she said?"
Finally, I found my voice. It came out broken, rough, but it came out.
"Yes," I said.
Tamamo nodded slowly. Then, with a movement that seemed to cost her a great effort, she stood up on the table. She took a step towards me. Another. And when she reached the edge, she extended her tiny arms, as if wanting to embrace the air around me.
"I don't know how to do it," said the goddess of the Moon.
"But I want... I want to live up to it. To what you have felt for me. To what I have meant to you."
Rory, from her saucer, looked up.
"You already live up to it."
"Just by existing, you already do. The rest is a matter of two idiots who don't know how to talk about their feelings without getting dramatic."