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Chapter 78: Crossroads

The day Alice was meant to hear the fourth hint came. But Alice, who was not at all interested in the hint, forgot this. Even though Heart knew this, he didn’t remind her.

March heard a strange story from Li and became lost in confusion. He believed the thing that happened to her was magic because he had given up trying to comprehend it in any simple manner.

He wanted to talk to someone about this and get advice. He hesitated between his desire to find answers and Li’s request to keep it a secret from everyone else.

***

Peter spent more and more time with Chester these days. They conversed about various things. Sometimes they were so drunk they would talk without knowing what they were saying.

Peter talked about Alice’s misunderstanding and her crush on Heart and his own feelings for Alice. Even though he repeated this topic endlessly, Chester seemed not to get tired of it and even prodded him.

She had not come into contact with those from the research facility as of yet.

***

SoYoon was extremely busy trying to finish all the work that she had been forced to put aside for a while. She started getting hurt as a consequence.

The third night after she had come out of Twins’ house, a client asked for a rush request: help to evade the Outhouse police. She had gone to Outhouse immediately and had returned the following morning with a large wound in her side. And as she was treating the wound by herself, Mad Hatter caught her when he came to visit her in the early morning.

“Did you get hurt?”

Mad Hatter hurried over and used his magic to cure her. But that was not the only wound on her body.

She had taken off her clothes so that he could treat her properly, but when she did, he saw her many other scars. Not only that, but she also had a red cut across her cheek. Mad Hatter used his powers to heal her.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? How about your leg?”

“I didn’t get…I’m okay.”

Before SoYoon could finish her answer, Mad Hatter pulled up her pant leg. He saw a long scratch that looked like someone had dragged her across a rough floor.

“Yes, you look perfectly okay,” he said sarcastically as he healed her.

“You sure are truthful. Why bother even trying to hide it if you’re going to get caught so easily?” Mad Hatter said as he lifted SoYoon’s chin with the end of his finger. His thumb swept slowly down her chin and neck and stopped at her clavicle. His other fingers were moving slowly around the bone. Thinking that Mad Hatter might tear off the rest of her clothes any minute, SoYoon confessed to all her other wounds.

“I got a bit hurt on my thigh.”

Mad Hatter, instead of answering, removed her pants. The thin material fell erotically past her white legs. Following its path, his long fingers touched the area of the wound.

The wound had now disappeared, but his fingers remained there. SoYoon glanced at his eyes. The dark green pupils burned as if harboring flames. She pushed away Mad Hatter’s fingers and got up.

“…I’m going to wash up.”

SoYoon stepped into the bathroom and sighed. Mad Hatter was special to her. But this feeling was not the one Mad Hatter hoped to get from her. Was there always such a wide array of feelings? Her stream of consciousness drew another person into her mind. SoYoon shook off the dizzying thoughts. She placed her head on the cold tiles and turned on the water.

When she came out after washing up, Mad Hatter was gone.

***

The next day, SoYoon got hurt again. She looked down pathetically at her left arm as she headed over to Mad Hatter’s house. Mad Hatter glared at her wound and sat her down on the sofa.

“Stitch.”

As the words flowed out of Mad Hatter’s mouth, the wound began to stitch itself closed. He checked to see if there were any scars left and slowly stroked her arm. SoYoon pulled away from his hands and said, “Thanks.”

“If you’re thankful, please be careful.”

He wet a towel and wiped away the smears of blood on her arm. Then he lowered the sleeves of her hooded tee he had previously lifted to treat her. SoYoon watched him as he fiddled with her hands, wanting more.

When they had first met, his blue eyes had looked cold as the winter sky, but now there was a soft warmth about them. She buried her face into his shoulder.

This place was no longer the one from the story “Wonderland.” To be exact, from some point on, she stopped believing that this place was the setting of a book. Seeing the living, breathing people here with her own eyes made it difficult to think of them as mere characters.

When she leaned in close, Mad Hatter froze in surprise, and his face blushed as he smiled. His arms gently hugged SoYoon’s back. In the peaceful afternoon air, with the slightly cool touch of his embrace, SoYoon became lost in her thoughts.

In the original story, Dor had left the house secretly because she missed Alice. When she did, she got attacked. As Dor currently didn’t like Alice, the risk of this happening had significantly lessened, but even so, SoYoon sent March a message.

SoYoon was not the only busy one. During the time she had been resting, March had taken over the small jobs for her and had been spending his days busy with work. And one day, he received a message from SoYoon.

/[Don’t let Dor leave the house alone.]/

Normally, March forbade Dor and Li from leaving the house without him escorting them. The fact that SoYoon emphasized this even though she already knew this about them gave him an unsettling feeling. He called her.

He heard from her that the atmosphere in Wonderland was a trifle rowdy at the moment, and he easily agreed with her. Cheshire’s downfall, White Rabbit’s prolonged disappearance, and other happenings in Wonderland recently had made Wonderland’s pervading mood somewhat chaotic.

The moment SoYoon hung up, Mad Hatter lightly kisses her frowning forehead. As he did, she relaxed. He whispered to her quietly.

“Are you worried about something?” he uttered with his red lips. She pushed him away with the excuse that he was tickling her forehead.

“Not really.”

“Is that so? Well, I knew you wouldn’t answer me that easily. I’ll just have to ask your body…”

SoYoon’s eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. He started to chuckle gleefully as he stroked his fingers over her lips.

“Normally, even if you have a lot of requests, you wouldn’t get this hurt. Also, you usually wouldn’t beat around the bush as you did with this phone conversation. What is it that you know?”

Mad Hatter’s tone was not different from usual. She didn’t know the best way to answer his question.

She didn’t want to lie to him. But she couldn’t tell him the truth either. When she remained still, Mad Hatter hugged her and fell onto the sofa with her in his arms.

“Don’t treat me like a fool. If you believe I don’t know anything, it will get complicated,” he told her as he smiled. SoYoon buried her face into his chest.

***

Dor’s mental age was that of a seven-year-old. Because she had spent the majority of her time at home, she did not know what kind of place Wonderland was. When March couldn’t take her outside because he was too busy, she began to throw a tantrum. It was the third day March had broken his promise—”I’ll take you out tomorrow”— that Dor muttered to herself while looking out the window.

“I hate being stuck at home every day…”

Dor remembered the first time she had stepped outside. She had felt the euphoric rush that her world suddenly had become so much larger. When Dor drooped her shoulders, Li anxiously looked at her and gazed out the window with her. This place was the neutral zone. She had heard that in the neutral zone, crime was banned. Also, she remembered that Alice had wandered around the neutral zone all the time by herself.

And so, Li blurted out words that she would soon come to regret.

“Should the two of us go out together?”

“Huh? But, but my brother said…if he catches us, we will get in trouble.”

The fact that Dor was more worried about getting caught than actually going out helped Li know that she had already halfway persuaded her. Li was also tired of being cooped up in the house all day and looked to Dor with hopeful eyes.

“If we go out only for a little bit, we won’t get caught.”

And so, the two girls held hands and stepped outside.

The prohibited outing was sweeter than the ones they had enjoyed with March by their side. The two girls giggled at any little thing and ended up in Central.

Central in the afternoon was very busy. Dor saw through the hectic crowds the face of someone familiar and pointed.

“It’s Rabbit’s friend!”

The person she pointed at was Twins, Tweedle Dum. He turned his head reflexively at the word “Rabbit.” Dum, seeing Dor, smiled at her. Dor found his smile appealing and headed over to him.

“Hi.”

Dor greeted him. He searched his memory and realized that he had never met Dor as Dum and so smiled a bit awkwardly at her.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen you before. Do you perhaps know my brother?”

“Brother?”

“I’m a twin.”

Dor looked confused. Li, who was standing next to her, explained to her what a twin was.

“How interesting,” Dor stated and stared at Dum.

“Then are you not friends with Rabbit?”

“No.”

He didn’t want to be friends with SoYoon even if the position was given to him. When he shook his head, Dor looked at him with a confused expression. After becoming close with Li, she had come to like the term “friend” and couldn’t understand why anyone would hate to be someone’s friend.

“Why aren’t you close? I’m close to her.”

Dor’s choice of words was literal, and she blurted them out in the way she understood them. Her words seemed to cut through him, however, and he lowered his eyes. His dark-blond long eyelashes hid the jealousy reflected in his blue eyes.

Dum calmly persuaded himself: You can’t kill this girl. If SoYoon found out, she would kill you, he realized. He was glad Dee was currently asleep. If it had been Dee, the moment Dor uttered these words, he would have strangled her.

Instead of killing Dor, Dum said to her in a cold voice, “I’m close. Soon, I’ll be closer to her than you.”

Before Dor could answer, Dum walked away. The two girls he left behind blinked at each other.

“What was that?”

“I’m not sure…”

They weren’t sure why, but he gave off a scary feeling. The two girls held each other’s hands tight and got far away from the place.