Chapter 3: Why Her?!

Orange-yellow flames roared.
The world let out a silent wail.
A young boy knelt on the grass as scorching heat washed over the tear tracks on his cheeks.

Did he cry?

He could no longer feel it.

A broken beam crashed to the ground, and the spray of sparks surged like a tidal wave, drowning the young Dispel—

Dispel’s consciousness snapped back into his body.
His mind buzzed in a haze.
Then came a tearing pain so sharp it made him gasp.
His whole body felt sticky, as if sweat had soaked through his clothes.

His eyes flew open.
Dazzling sunlight filled his vision, and Dispel instinctively tried to raise a hand to shield his face.

“Another nightmare…”

The moment he applied force, the sharp clatter of chains grinding against each other rang out.

No…

What was happening?

Why were there chains on the bed?

Stunned, he forced his eyes open just a sliver.
Only then did he see that his wrists were tightly bound by a chain.

“My hands—why are my hands chained up?!”

Dispel shouted in panic.
He tried to struggle, only to realize that not just his hands—his arms, legs, everything—was locked in chains.

He couldn’t move at all.

A blinding light shone down from overhead.
Dispel tried to look around, but every attempt to open his eyes was forced shut by the glare.

No, everything about this situation was extremely, very, extremely wrong.

How did he suddenly end up here?!

And who would chain him up?!

Where even was this place?!

No…

‘I have to calm down.
Panicking won’t solve anything.’

Dispel closed his eyes and carefully sifted through his memories.

At first, Josuna took him out of the police office.
Then, while they were walking, she suggested buying some water.
He followed her into a convenience store.
Then… he drank the cup of orange juice Josuna handed him—

No way.

No, that shouldn’t be possible.

Dispel didn’t want to believe it, but Sister Lan had told him before: once every possibility is eliminated, no matter how impossible the remaining answer seems, it is still the truth.

He had been locked up by Josuna.

But why would she do this?

What should he do now?

Should he call her name loudly?
Or pretend to be asleep?

Neither option felt right.

“Brother~”

A humid, warm breath brushed against his neck.
The harsh white light dimmed.
He could finally open his eyes.

“Josuna? What are you doing?!”

As soon as his eyes adjusted, Dispel snapped at the blonde girl pressed against him, rubbing herself against him nonstop.

Whether it worked or not didn’t matter—he absolutely couldn’t lose momentum in a situation like this.

At his words, Josuna propped up her chin, looking down at the chain-bound Dispel with amused interest.

“Eh~? Did I do something that made Brother misunderstand me~?”

Her voice was low and magnetic, curling from the smile at her lips.

Her slender nails traced slowly down his neck.

In that moment, her eyes—normally like clear blue lakes—were filled with an unprecedented possessiveness as she stared at the black-haired boy who couldn’t move.

“Josuna, calm down… come on, calm down…
This is a lot of pressure, but it’s fine, okay?
Just… relax a little?”

Faced with such an unfamiliar version of his childhood friend, Dispel’s voice began to tremble.

He was scared.

In his memory, Josuna had always been a quiet, gentle girl.
She was nothing like the warped, unstable young woman before him.

“Ara~ I tied these chains on you one by one myself.
But Brother still can’t believe… that the one who did all this… was me~?”

“Josuna, if there’s something you want to talk about, we can talk.
Just loosen the chains first, okay?”

“Okay~”

Josuna curled her lips and snapped her fingers.
In an instant, the chains restraining Dispel shattered.

The moment he regained freedom, he shoved Josuna off him and bolted upright, sprinting toward the door.

He couldn’t care at all that he was only wearing a pair of pants.
All he wanted was to flee—escape from this nightmare place.

Josuna fell back onto the floor, smiling all the while.

She wasn’t afraid of Dispel leaving.
That door had been reinforced with her holy-script magic.
Even a nun skilled in the sacred arts would struggle to open it—let alone an ordinary person like Dispel.

As expected, Dispel slammed harshly into the door.
No matter how hard he struck it, there wasn’t even a hint of it opening.

“All right~ Brother Dispel still doesn’t understand?
As long as I don’t want you to leave… you can’t.”

Josuna strolled over to him leisurely.
She crouched at his side, wrapped her slender arm around his shoulder, and buried her face against him with a blissful blush spreading across her cheeks.

“Why… why are you doing this…
We can talk this out, right?”
Dispel forced the words out, shaking uncontrollably.

“Aiya, Brother really is stubborn.
Of course Josuna is doing this because I love Dispel.
Besides love, what else could it be?”

“But you know… things ended up like this because of you, Brother.”

“Because of… me?”

“Mm.
Many, many years ago, Brother said he liked Josuna.
But then why… why…”

“Why did that irrelevant little fox appear!!!”

Josuna’s voice suddenly rose to a sharp pitch, her furious eyes drilling into Dispel.

“Unbelievable… I took my eyes off you for just seventeen days, and you brought back a fox spirit!
Always walking with her, leaning on her…
Did you think… I wouldn’t know?!”

“…And on the thirteenth of last month, at 6:31 in the evening, for exactly thirty-one seconds, she stared at you like some… animal… didn’t she?”

“Hehe… hahaha!
I followed behind you for so long, yet you never noticed even once…
So it’s true—you like that little fox, don’t you?”

At that point, Dispel finally understood.

His childhood friend had fallen into some kind of obsessive madness because of Alice.
If he remembered correctly, there was a term for this.

Yandere.

This was very, very bad.

He’d heard that yandere behavior was a form of psychological disorder.
They usually couldn’t listen to reason at all.
So telling her he didn’t like her that much—or asking her to let him go—would never work.

In the end… he simply couldn’t beat Josuna.

“Then tell me—why does she get to?
Why does that b*tch get to show up for a few days and replace ten years of feelings between us?
Why?!”

“So… you killed her?”

“No.
Of course not.”

Josuna’s expression shifted in an instant—from gritted teeth to the innocent, sunny smile Dispel was familiar with.

“After all, that fox-spirit is such an im-por-tant per-son to Brother.
How could I possibly let her die in front of you?”

“I’m not some kind of lunatic~”

“But I can promise Brother this—
When I find the murderer who killed my parents back then, I’ll spare their lives and let Brother deal with them personally.”

“On one condition…”

“Brother must never think about leaving Josuna’s side again.
Otherwise…”

“I’ll get very, very angry♡~”