Reincarnated as the Protagonist of a Legendary Depressing Eroge – I Paired Up My Two Childhood Friend Heroines to Avoid the Bad End, But Their Possessiveness Completely Broke Through the Limits - Episode 01: Mother's Memory / Winter ★

Episode 01: Mother’s Memory / Winter ★

If God really exists in this world…

He’s probably some kid with a twisted grin on his face.

—Winter when I was twenty-one.

That day, the person called me died.

It was supposed to be just another ordinary college drinking party.

A short breather before job hunting really kicked in.

We’d splurged a little and gone to a dining bar on the top floor of the station building.

Soft warm lighting, the light clink of glasses touching.

It should’ve been nothing but the innocent excitement of young people who still believed in a bright future.

But my memory cuts off right in the middle of that night.

When I came to again, what filled my eyes was the cracked ceiling of a cheap business hotel.

A raw, nasty smell hit my nose — the stink of men’s bodies, fluids, and cigarette smoke all mixed together, something I’d never smelled before.

My body felt horribly heavy.

Then came a dull but very real pain in my lower belly.

On the table beside the bed, a few crumpled thousand-yen bills someone had left behind were scattered like they were mocking me.

……

The police interrogation room, cold and lifeless.

Bright white fluorescent lights pinned my shadow flat against the floor.

“Can you tell us what happened in more detail?”

The female officer’s voice was flat as she asked, but behind the sympathy in her eyes I could see curiosity she couldn’t quite hide.

I felt like I’d become some rare specimen labeled “victim.”

Every time I opened my mouth, that smell and the sick feeling rose up from the pit of my stomach.

“I think they slipped something in my drink… but I don’t know who did it or what it was…”

My trembling voice was swallowed up by the corners of the room and disappeared.

At the hospital they handed me a small paper bag with pills inside.

“This is emergency contraception. Just to be safe, you should take it.”

The pharmacist’s words were calm and businesslike.

The morning-after pill.

If I took this, I could pretend the whole nightmare had never happened.

Believing that, I gulped it down with water.

The cold sliding down my throat was the only thing that told me my body was still alive.

But…

God wasn’t about to let me off that easily.

—Several weeks later.

In the middle of a university lecture, a sudden wave of violent nausea hit me.

I rushed into a toilet stall, threw up everything in my stomach, then looked at my face in the mirror.

A pale, lifeless woman who looked like a ghost.

A horrible feeling made my heart beat faster.

I’d taken the pill. I’d gone to the police. I’d been to the hospital.

All of that was supposed to guarantee my innocence and safety.

I bought a pregnancy test at the pharmacy.

Two lines appeared.

“…No way.”

It was supposed to be over ninety percent effective. Had I drawn the short straw on that tiny remaining percentage?

It felt like all the misfortune in the world had been gathered up and dropped right on top of me.

The atmosphere on campus changed overnight.

The rumor that I’d been a victim of sexual assault spread like wildfire, but twisted into something completely different from the truth.

“Saya, are you okay? Don’t push yourself.”

Classmates who used to be friends came up to me with worried faces.

But they were just feeding on my “misfortune” to satisfy their own thirst for gossip.

“Hey, who was the guy in the end? Someone you knew?”

“Honestly, didn’t you lead him on? You were wearing pretty flashy clothes that night.”

“If you knew you get wild when you drink, you shouldn’t have gone in the first place.”

Behind their words of encouragement, countless sharp blades were hidden.

They kept pushing me deeper into the pit just to make sure they were still on the “safe side.”

They pretended to care while trying to dig out every little detail.

When I couldn’t answer and pushed them away, they read too much into it and made the rumors even bigger.

I started walking alone, hiding in the corners of campus.

Even when I went home, there was no comfort waiting.

My mother had died of illness a few years earlier.

After the divorce, I had no idea where my father was or what he was doing.

I dialed the number of the only family I had left, my hands shaking.

But all I got from him was shouting and rejection.

“Disgusting. You went to some shady drinking party, so it’s your own damn fault.”

—Click. The call ended with that sound.

In that moment, I became completely alone in this world.

I headed to the hospital to make an appointment for an abortion.

The winter scenery reflected in the train window had lost all its color and looked dull and gray.

At the station platform.

With every step down the stairs, my body grew heavier, like it was made of lead.

What was inside my belly was the malice of men whose names I didn’t even know.

The seed of trash who had wrecked my life, stolen my dignity, and crushed my future.

I had to get rid of it.

I should get rid of it.

If I did, maybe I’d still have a chance to become a “normal person” again.

But did that chance really exist?

How could someone God hated enough to make me draw that “few percent” ever go back anywhere now?

……

The waiting room at the obstetrics and gynecology clinic.

Happy pregnant women were smiling and rubbing their bellies with their husbands.

That brightness pushed me even deeper into darkness.

My name was called and I lay down on the cold examination table.

The doctor calmly prepared everything.

On the ultrasound monitor, a tiny, really tiny shadow no bigger than a bean appeared.

—Right then.

A feeling shot through my mind.

Was it a sound, or just my imagination?

Thump. Thump.

The heartbeat coming from the monitor.

It sounded far stronger and straighter than my own terrified heart.

Ah… this child.

No one wanted her. No one blessed her.

Even her own mother wished she would just disappear.

And yet…

This child was fighting so hard to live.

In this unfair, cold, malice-filled world, she was using every bit of her small body to affirm that she existed.

—She was me.

I finally realized it.

This child had turned out just like me.

Someone with no place to belong, unloved, yet unable to die and still clinging desperately to life — clumsy and miserable, just like me.

Denying this life would be the same as denying my own existence from the very root.

If I killed this child, it would mean that in this whole world, not a single person had ever been on her side.

That alone… that alone, I felt I couldn’t let happen.

“Doctor…”

The words left my trembling lips.

“I’ll stop… I’m going to have this child.”

The doctor stopped in surprise and adjusted his glasses.

“Are you serious? Considering your age and situation, this won’t be easy. And you won’t have any support from those around you, right?”

“I know… But this child is saying she wants to live.”

When I left the examination room, a biting cold wind was blowing outside.

But inside my heart, for the first time since that day, a small light had begun to glow.

I never went back to university.

I finished the withdrawal paperwork, packed only the bare minimum, and left the town where the school was.

Leaving behind the gossip-loving classmates and the father who called me his dirty daughter.

……

In a new town, the two of us started living together.

I worked several part-time jobs, from early morning until late at night.

As my belly grew bigger, my body screamed in protest, but strangely my heart never broke.

In the damp futon of our cheap apartment, I gently stroked my stomach.

“It’s okay. Mommy will always stay right by your side.”

Seasons turned, and just before winter came again.

With intense pain, the child let out her first cry.

A baby girl with eyes as deep as the edge of night.

I named her Iyo.

Yabuchi Iyo.

So that in this dark, dark edge of night, the two of us could stay close and keep living.

I had always thought my life had ended that day.

But this tiny life in my arms, squeezing my finger back with all her strength… was the only, and far too beautiful, flower that had bloomed on top of the corpse that was me.