Side Story 2, Chapter 14: Sweetness is Pain, Bitterness is Bliss
[Side Story 2, Chapter 14: Sweetness is Pain, Bitterness is Bliss]
Roza entered the Naiko Apartment with her keycard, and Kasuri’s clothes and belongings.
She walked towards Apartment 101, and the landlord asked Roza,
“Who are you? I’ve never seen your face in here before.”
“I’m Roza Fedorov. Do you know Kasuri Mano?”
“The purple-haired girl? What about her?”
“...I regret saying this to you, but…” Roza pauses, as she gets sad.
“...I can wait. Go ahead when you’re ready.” The landlord is surprisingly patient.
“She died.”
They both go into a moment of awkward silence, until Roza suddenly bursts out crying.
The landlord walked to Roza, and patted her back. “There… Calm down, you’re making a scene here.”
Roza slowly stopped crying, and apologized, while some strangers were looking at her. They appear to be the apartment’s residents, and they feel bad for Roza, even though Roza just killed everyone.
The thing is, no one knew Roza killed anyone. They were suddenly killed by Roza’s Mega Soul Vacuum, but Roza wanted to fulfill Kasuri’s wish by bringing everyone back.
A blonde-haired and blue-eyed woman felt melancholy in Roza, but decided not to intervene. She was Sachi, the girl who died at the start of the story.
Roza then showed the landlord the keycard to Apartment 101. “She gave me this keycard, and her belongings. Kasuri told me I can have this room.”
“Alright, you get her room. Good luck paying rent, though, but knowing me, I don’t want Apartment 101 vacant at all, given that there’s a dead person who owns the room.”
“Alright…” Roza entered the room, and closed the door.
It was completely dark, but when Roza opened the curtains, it showed the scenery of the entire city, although it was on the ground floor. She figured out that there was technology to change the scenery, and was stoked by that information. “Mokkato sure has some wacky tech…”
She put Kasuri’s clothes back to the wardrobe, and wore Kasuri’s blue flower hairpin. But, Roza also discovered clothes that were for Kasuri when she was just a toddler.
Roza never had proper clothes as a toddler. She was a poor girl in a poor family. The Reqranians have most of the money, and you only get money by doing jobs or serving in the military.
Just like Reqrania, Mokkato is always cold, but the nature and the cities always make the people feel warm.
When Roza was a child, she always felt cold, in the slums.
She never had a room this good.
She never had a city this good.
She never had a life this good.
The room was comfy, and it reminded Roza of when she was home, when her parents were just rich enough to buy a proper room.
Reqrania is run by sorcery, and barely any technology. It had one of the best sorcery training in the world, but the cruelty of Reqrainia’s rulers didn’t make it a good quality.
After thinking of her memories, she decided to check the point of interest; the storage room.
There were a bunch of things, but Roza decided to check the photobook.
There were photos, obviously.
There were memories of a girl who left the mortal world.
There were memories of bliss.
The first photo was when Karumi, Kasuri’s mom, bought a camera, it was colorful, unlike the cameras in her days, which only had black and white.
Reqrania was in fact, colorful, but the life there, it was just black and white.
The photos were several photos that Karumi took around the Naiko school, and her friends. The photography were shaky at first, but Karumi eventually had steady hands.
Karumi was a teenager when she got money from her mother for a camera. It was around 20 years ago.
Then, there were photos of Karumi, and another teenage boy. That’s Kasuri’s dad, Aoikaze Mano.
There were several photos of the couple together, along with pictures of food, monuments, and sceneries at night.
The couple eventually got married, but lived a comfy life, even though Aoikaze was rich.
Some photos later, there was a photo of an ultrasound, and eventually, an infant Kasuri. Roza looked at the baby crib and the baby cradle, and shed a tear.
Her parents treated her well, too, but the crib were some hay bales, and the baby cradles were lullabies her mom would sing to her to sleep everyday there’s thunder.
It appeared that Karumi had twins, Kasuri Mano, and the other male twin was named Risuka Mano.
Roza has never seen this Risuka Mano person before, but that was because she didn't know anyone in Mokkato until now, so it was normal to not know.
A lot of photos were seen, like Kasuri playing sports, eating food, blowing a birthday candle, and just occasional family photos, until Karumi was just gone, and Kasuri only took photos of herself.
She figured out that Kasuri’s mother was dead.
All of the photos made Roza know about Kasuri’s life. That was her life, all told by photographs.
Roza looked at the diary, and it appeared that Kasuri wanted to be a psychologist, since she wants everyone to live, but some of them don’t want to live because they’re sad, so she wanted to make people feel better. Suddenly, it was her passion too.
Karumi Mano was a teacher, and she used to homeschool Kasuri so that there were less bullies near her.
The camcorder also contained Kasuri, Risuka, and her family at her birthday. Her birthday is August 10. They were treated well to a nice dinner. Scrolling down through the contents, there were also Kasuri’s first steps, and Kasuri’s first words.
There were no bad things that happened apart from Karumi dying, which was enough for a complete life. It needs sweetness and bitterness to make a colorful life. If you were happy all the time, you’d have no other emotion to feel, which makes you empty inside.
Other things in the storage room were dolls, toys, educational books, and, well, other things.
Roza decided to take a shower, though she was unfamiliar with all the tech, but after she got used to it, it felt convenient, and her life was way better than she thought.
When she hopped on the bed, the bed smelled like someone, which Roza decided was Kasuri’s smell. Suddenly, Roza wanted to become a child again, just to be able to be immature and jump on the bed everytime.
Someone knocked on the door, and Roza answered.
It was Akaya Nanomaru, the girl who killed Kasuri.
“Hello. I think this is Kasuri’s room, and you must be the person crying over Kasuri…”
“Yes, you saw me!?”
“It’s quite unfortunate that Kasuri doesn’t want to live anymore, but you must be quite devastated about it.”
“Yeah…”
“Do you feel like you wanted to die?”
“I’ve wanted to die for a long time, but Kasuri gave me this room, and I feel happier.”
“This room is full of her stuff… Do you mind if I throw away her s-”
“No.” Roza slapped Akaya.
“Oh, you didn’t have to be so rude~”
“Don’t take away her stuff, please.”
“Okay, okay… In life, you always have to have good moments and bad moments. You can’t have only one.”
“Alright, but who are you?”
“I’m Akaya Nanomaru!”
“I’m Roza, a former Reqranian soldier. I quit after I had to kill everyone, and I just revived everyone out of guilt.”
“That was a very hard task for your heart, huh?”
“Yeah…”
“Trust me, I’ve killed people too. A lot of people. They all wanted to die, so I killed them.”
“Did you kill Kasuri?” Roza stood up in anger.
“...Yes.” Akaya regretted saying that, but it was the truth.
Roza punched Akaya several times. “WHY WOULD YOU LET HER DIE???”
After several minutes of Akaya being beaten up, Akaya finally said, “She wanted to be dead, so I killed her.”
“So that’s why she didn’t want my help… I’m sorry for beating you up, girl.”
“No, I totally deserved that.” Akaya is clearly nose bleeding, but she could stop herself from bleeding from her nose.
Roza went back to laying down on the bed, and Akaya laid down on the bed too.
“Wanna go on a date someday?” Akaya jokingly asked.
“Sorry, I like men.” Roza declined like it was a serious question.
“Wanna just go out and explore Mokkato?”
“Well, sure…”
At night, they walked out of the apartment, and went to some forest.
It was quiet, since there were no travelers. Roza suddenly brung out her Reqranian uniform and burned it.
“Why would you burn that! That would’ve looked pretty on you!”
“It’s my Reqranian soldier uniform. I don’t want to be a soldier anymore, I want to be a psychologist.”
“Speaking of psychologists, I got fired from being one for telling one of my patients to kill themselves.”
“Well, I think you clearly shouldn’t have done that…”
“Why would you want to be a psychologist anyway?”
“I want people to live, but suicide is kinda one of the causes of death, so I wanna make people happier.”
“I get it… But right now I just kill suicidal people.”
“You gotta change your ways. Let the suicidal people live.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I enjoy killing suicidal people.”
Roza slapped Akaya lightly. “Fucking psycho.”
They all talked and talked amidst the burning clothes, until the soldier outfit all burnt to crisps, and all that are left are inflammable objects. Roza threw the Reqranian badge somewhere into the river, hoping that it would never come back.
Then, they slept together, in a comfy bed.