Winter Rabbit in Wonderland

Chapter 51

The first day he had brought the girl to his house, he had thought the sofa looked uncomfortable and moved her to his bed. The girl was lying there just as he had left her. He didn’t want to show this scene to anyone. He didn’t know why, but he was embarrassed about it.

“I’m back.”

He mumbled as his cheeks flushed pink.

***

After being kidnapped by Jack, Alice wrote out the original storyline she remembered onto a piece of paper. After she had finished organizing it, she stared at one part in particular.

/DK (psn) ↔ TW W/

It meant Duke’s poison, Twins interrupt to win. Noting from the current flow of the story, about three weeks later, Duke tried to make her fall asleep in Central by using a sedative. But Twins, seeing this, saved her from him, and the scene ended peacefully.

In the original story, this would be when Alice visited Twins’ house, but currently, the story was going differently. She remembered how her inability to heal Twins had led to the different conclusion in Cheshire’s kidnapping scheme.

She should have found Twins to heal them at whatever cost. She tapped persistently on the notebook with her pen. White Rabbit had saved her that time, but there was no guarantee that would happen again.

There were only two options. She could not go to Central during that time frame, or she could become friendly with Twins before all this happened. She brought up the memory of Twins’ face. The face was too great to give up. Plus, even though he killed the other girls that he slept with, he had become a benign middle schooler toward Alice, crushing on his first love.

Alice got up and got ready to go out. When she opened the door, her guard, Jeremy, made eye contact. He was different from Peter, who had wanted to spend every minute with her.

It had been a long time since she thought about Peter. After the incident with Jack, he had been injured severely due to Heart’s punishment. Alice was banned from healing him, so he was still recovering. Thinking that she should go to visit him sometime, she told Jeremy her destination.

“I want to go see Baby.”

Using the informant Baby, she would be able to find a way to make contact with Twins. She headed toward Baby’s house.

Baby’s house was about an hour away from Heart’s. Only having met Alice once at SoYoon’s house, Baby smiled strangely at her.

“And what business brought you, the walking miracle, to my door?”

Baby greeted Alice with a crooked smile. Alice thought that he—he was a male today—was a lovely looking boy who could mess up many girls’ lives.

At Baby’s words, Alice dropped her head as if embarrassed. For Baby, who had seduced and been seduced by many men and women, this smile looked a bit lame. Did she think that the people of Wonderland would fall for something as simple as that? Even the simplest of people wouldn’t be lured into that trap, he thought, then realized that there were already two who had been coaxed into it. Oh, friend, he sighed in exasperation.

“I heard that you are an informant.”

The smiling face of Baby changed drastically. The unsmiling Baby looked like a well-made cold ceramic doll. A few moments later, he smiled again, but Alice couldn’t get the face she’d just seen out of her head.

“Really? And who did you hear this from?”

“That...Hea—”

“Hm? Heart?”

Baby’s blue eyes gleamed sharply. Alice hurriedly shut her mouth. She thought hard to figure out who else would have been able to tell her that Baby was an informant. “Hm?” Baby asked again, and Alice blurted out, “White—White Rabbit! White Rabbit told me!”

“Ah-ha!”

He clapped his hands and reached out joyfully to Alice.

“I see, it was White Rabbit.”

His warm fingers swept across her forehead, temples, cheeks, and down to her lips. When the warmth left the places he touched, she felt cold and shivered. Baby gently patted Alice’s cheeks.

“There aren’t a lot of people who know that I am an informant. All those people have promised me that they will keep the secret, and that is the only way to guarantee their own safety. Now, I’ll ask you again: Who did you tell this to?”

The silver eyelashes surrounding the blue eyes narrowed softly. Seeing a violent gleam in them, Alice ran.

“Alice? Wait!”

With Jeremy’s voice, the footsteps of the two people faded off into the distance. Baby stuck out his tongue.

“She’s lying.”

“What should we do?” the man waiting under the shadows of the drawing room asked.

“Leave them alone.”

Baby handed the man the drink that Alice hadn’t touched.

“Isn’t it dangerous? You said she’s going around spreading the information...”

“She’s not particularly great at it. Either way, Heart is after her.”

“What? That rumor was true?”

“‘Going after’ a person has many meanings.” Baby laughed ambiguously.

***

After feeling a sort of betrayal from SoYoon, Twins went out to Central often to look for her. However, they were unable to find or talk to her and were getting frustrated about it. When Alice found Twins at Central, it had been 30 minutes after they had let SoYoon get away from them.

“Twins?”

Assuming Central was safe, Alice had been walking around alone without Jeremy and approached Twins. That day, they had been out and about at Central under Tweedle Dum’s persona. They turned toward the sound of the voice and at first, didn’t realize who it was.

“Who are you?”

As, technically, Alice and Dum had never met before, his reaction was appropriate. Alice smiled softly. The unique situation with their split personalities had fooled the rest of the people in Wonderland, but they could not fool Alice. Already infatuated by Alice, they would slowly start to fall for her as they realized that she had figured out their secret.

Making them realize that right now would be a bit premature. Right now what was important was to create an impression upon them.

“I saw you at Heart’s house last time.”

“...I haven’t been there. Are you maybe confusing me with Dee? I’m Dee’s brother, Dum.”

“Oh, I see. Sorry.”

Alice slightly stuck out her tongue and smiled. Inside, Dee gagged at her reaction. Really, Blondie. You really must be blind. Dum agreed with Dee and smiled widely. Her face and body are nice though...What do you think, Dee?

“That’s all right. Um, if you have some time, would you like to go get some tea together?”

“If the Undertaker cared so much for this girl, wouldn’t she have a special taste?” Dum whispered to Dee.

Dum was quite a good person to date. As her escort, they ate good food together and looked around the stores. Distracted by this, Alice didn’t realize that they had come into a back alley.

“This way is a shortcut.”

Tempting her with delicious chocolates, Dum pushed her into an empty house.

“Why—why are you doing this?” Alice asked Dum as he locked the door.

He bared his teeth and charged at Alice. There was no middle stage. Both unaware of their jealousy, they grabbed Alice’s clothes and ripped them open. Her full breasts were open to the afternoon air.

“Aack! Let go! Is anybody there? Help me! Heart!”

Alice pushed Twins away desperately. But soon, they forced her onto the floor. Seeing Twins come at her with their mouth wide, she screamed the name of the next strongest person after Heart.

“White Rabbit!”

White Rabbit was the only character she saw in battle. Merely having had heard of the scene, she knew the extent of White Rabbit’s power. And the reaction toward the name was powerful. Twins, who had their face inches away from her breasts, stopped and stepped back.

“What’s your relationship with Undertaker?”

Alice opened her tightly closed eyes. Twins’ face, which was right in front of hers, looked like a starving predator. Scared, she backed away, buttoning up her shirt.

“What’s your relationship?” Twins asked in a sedated voice.

She answered, flustered, “Someone who likes me.”

That moment, an immense viciousness overtook Alice. Unable to handle it, she fainted.

A few moments later, when she woke up, Twins were gone.

Alice rearranged her ripped clothes and ran out of the place. She rejoined Jeremy, practically ran back to Heart’s place, and stayed locked in her bedroom.

The situation that day was not something that was meant to happen. She shook her head fiercely, trying to erase the memory.

Why? Why is this happening? What went wrong? Was the fact that I didn’t save him that big a mistake?

She trembled under her blanket and kept drifting to sleep only to jump awake in surprise until she finally was able to fall asleep.

Jeremy, who had been standing outside her door, headed to Heart’s office only after making sure she had completely fallen asleep.

After hearing Jeremy’s synopsis, Heart felt a strange intuition that made him think of SoYoon and caused him to smile. It had been four years since she came here and yet she still had one foot in a different place. Slowly, I will pull her out by the roots and make her completely get rid of her foolish dreams. He would make sure that she would forever stop trying to run away.

He felt a tingling in the emptiness between his arms. He clicked his tongue softly.