5. I'm Not Completely Corrupted
Tomi, whom they had found again, stood in the hallway leading to the bathroom.
Leaning her arms on the windowsill, she had a pouty expression that was quite mischievous.
“I looked everywhere but couldn’t find you, so you were here. How about it? Do you feel like going to the bathroom with me now?”
Sugar asked with a strange accent, expecting the delicious reaction from earlier.
But Tomi only turned her head, showing a completely different reaction from before.
“Tomi?”
Even as Sugar leaned in, Tomi turned her head to the opposite side without saying a word.
Hoo.
It seemed she had changed her stance to ‘ignore’. And this was correct. Ignoring someone like Sugar was the only proper response.
But who was Sugar? An adult who had completely gone rotten, but still a girl with an adult-level brain.
Even if a child ignored her, she would just wrap them in her broad-mindedness without any real impact.
“I see. Did you get upset because of what happened earlier?”
“No, I didn’t.”
I don’t get swayed by someone like you, but she said it in a way that was a lie. Anyone who heard that would think she was upset.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry.”
“…!”
A pure apology.
Tomi, with a bad feeling, hurriedly pulled her body back, but since it was the window, her hand ended up touching it, and the feeling was correct.
“Come on, let’s make it up. Sorry, sorry.”
“Uwa… uwa…!”
Since she was a child, being treated like a kid was natural, but for Tomi, it was driving her crazy that a girl of the same age was doing this.
Even though her head was heating up, she endured it. She couldn’t run away again. She had a plan set up. She couldn’t show her back for that.
“I was wrong. Come on… sorry for making you upset…”
The touch was quite gentle, reminiscent of the day she first received praise.
It was the same then. While looking down on people, she soon smiled softly and whispered in a breath-like voice.
Thinking about it made the embarrassment double.
“Uwa…!”
“How is it? Now it’s okay? Then shall we go wash?”
Tomi, clenching her teeth with eyes tightly closed, shook her head in a trembling manner.
What humiliation. But there was still a little bit left. The plan was progressing properly.
1. Initially, ignore the invitation and refuse.
2. Since she keeps clinging, after that, pretend to lose and enter the bathroom together.
It was a simple plan that would end. It was nearing the end, and success was in sight.
Now, just once more. Just one more invitation, and then she would accept.
Come on, invite me as much as you want…!
You're such a crazy girl…!
“Hmm. Then I guess I have no choice.”
Suddenly, why was she doing that?
She was doing well, then suddenly distanced herself and turned around. With that movement, her pinkish-white hair swayed.
“…What? Wait, where are you going?”
“Since you keep saying you don’t want to wash, I have no choice. I have to find another kid.”
As soon as she entered the bathroom where the prank had been set up in advance, Sugar was about to run away while enjoying the reaction of being startled.
It was a secret routine: washing her hair with cold water at night, covering it with dust on the dried hair, and doing it every day to hide the hair color. She didn’t want to show the color she had worked hard to hide as a trivial matter.
Did she realize that plan?
“No way, she couldn’t know.”
“I don’t want to wash, but, well, the director’s order.”
“That’s true, but earlier I heard the director say that maybe I don’t need to be you specifically. So, let’s drop it.”
“What?”
She had been nagging until now, and now what was this?
Of course, Sugar had her own thoughts.
Tomi was a child who was pathologically unwilling to wash, and there might be a mental disorder related to it—Sugar saw Tomi as such a child.
Why? Because even in this place with poor bathroom facilities, she always stank.
So, for now, she planned to send the other kid to the director and slowly teach this kid the importance of bathing. Forcing someone who hates it would only create hatred and trauma.
Sugar was an ‘adult who had completely gone rotten’, but not ‘completely corrupted’.
“W-what are you saying. It’s fine. Let’s go to the bathroom.”
“No. It’s okay.”
“I say it’s okay. Just… just go to the bathroom.”
“You don’t have to force yourself. I’ll take responsibility for the aftermath.”
“No…! I want to wash! I want to wash!”
“Let’s go collect other kids from now on. We’re recruiting new applicants. If we pick a good kid, the director won’t say anything. Forcing a kid who doesn’t want to do it is not good, right?”
“Then why do you steal food from the cafeteria all the time-!”
“That’s that, and this is this.”
“A-ah-ack-!”
In reality, Tomi loved bathing very much, so from Sugar’s perspective who didn’t know Tomi’s intentions, it was absurd.
The plan to put bugs in the bathroom to startle Sugar, which was supposed to be a mature plan that a child could come up with, collapsed, and her composure burst.
***
She had gathered the orphanage kids.
Not all, but enough to select candidates.
“Is there anyone here who wants to go outside with the director until tomorrow? Since my face is like this, I can’t take you, so pick another kid.”
The director hadn’t given Sugar the authority to pick people, but anyway, the kids would listen if it was like this. It wasn’t entirely wrong.
“What’s good about going outside?”
“I don’t want to go around with the director…”
“Hysterical auntie…”
As the noise spread, the atmosphere became increasingly negative, so Sugar clapped to cut it off.
“If the director is in a good mood, she’ll buy you snacks or something.”
She said ‘in a good mood’. She had clearly set conditions. Still, no matter what, hands shot up at the mention of snacks.
She hid the fact that the probability was extremely low. Roughly the probability that the director wouldn’t yell during the day? For the past few years, Sugar had been the only one in charge of outings with the director, so this scam worked.
“Okay. For now, only those who want to go out remain. The ones who don’t care about going out, go to the corner to watch or something.”
So, the temporary outing selection started in the backyard.
“Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!”
“Too fidgety.”
“Me?”
“Th-that… um… no. Sorry.”
“I’m not that bad, am I?”
“You always sneak food from the cafeteria?”
The selection was surprisingly not easy.
Not gentle, or appearance weird, or chubby.
There was a reason the adults easily picked Sugar to take around. Not to mention appearance, she was precocious even before her memories from her previous life returned.
“What to do about this…”
No kid with good looks and gentle personality.
Since she was going against the director’s orders and proceeding as she pleased, she had to take the kid who matched the conditions exactly. That way, she could pass with less or no scolding.
“Too picky, huh.”
“What are you looking at so hard.”
“High standards. It’s not that I’m fat, it’s that you guys are skinny.”
“Uwaaa.”
As the continuous rejection continued, the kids were getting tired and dropping out.
“Please accept my opinion as the director’s preference, and I will convey it well, including my name as the speaker.”
In an instant, the backyard became quiet. The kids who had complained all fled in panic. Since they had already been rejected, it was pointless to stay.
After the applicants left and the spectators also left, the backyard became deserted.
Sugar, sighing, looked beside her and saw Tomi with a displeased expression drawing strange patterns on the floor.
Pathetic. Because she was afraid of the future of bathing, she had stopped…
Sugar readjusted her mind and looked around.
Upon closer look, there was still a kid left at the spot. The girl standing in the ambiguous place between where the applicants stood and where the spectators stood, fidgeting.
She immediately approached.
“You came to apply too?”
“E-eh… th-that… just…”
The moment she saw the reaction.
If Sugar had a radar in her heart, it would have been blaring loudly.
Even though she was trembling in a demure posture, her voice was low and resonant. Her hair, which was messy in a random way, covered half her face, but the visible jawline was pretty.
“Come here for a moment.”
“Eh? W-what…!”
Sugar suddenly leaned in and touched the girl’s cheek. Then, with a soft yet quick touch, she brushed her forehead and lifted her hair.
Their eyes met.
“…Accepted.”
“Wait, th-this, let go… …Eh? What did you just say…?”
“Accepted. Come with me.”
She found a kid with good looks and gentle personality.
***
“Hehe…”
Sugar held up scissors with a lewd smile as if she was trying to look sinister, but it was just a strange-eyed, sleepless girl with a smile that was neither more nor less than that.
Still, it had some effect on the girl in front of her, as she kept trembling.
“L-let, do I really have to cut it?”
“Of course. The ideal child for adults is first clean, second clean. If you keep begging to bring a kid with messy hair, well, it’s fortunate if we don’t all get scolded.”
“Th-that… I see…”
At Tomi’s attic window. Since she requested a quiet place, a small hair salon had been set up here.
She put the cloth that Tomi had used to cover the window earlier around her neck, and laid the finished letter on the floor.
“But… not too short… maybe leave it enough to cover the eyes…?”
“No. The biggest problem is covering the eyes, and if you leave it, what then? If you want to stop now, stop. Instead, you won’t be able to go out either.”
“Ah, I see… I’ll do as told…”
A strange kid. She was afraid to the point of hiding her face with her hair, but she wanted to go outside.
“When did you decide to apply?”
“Th-that…”
The girl, Frallin, became quiet as if choosing her words.
Anyway, let’s start. The sound of snipping scissors and the sound of hair being touched filled the room.
Frallin’s mouth opened when her tension slowly eased with the kind touch.
“I… was abandoned here since birth… so I don’t know the world well… I wanted to see the outside at least once…”
It was a common story from the slums, but anyway, it became a good conversation topic.
“Is there anything you want to see outside? Not just this city. Things you want to try outside.”
“Eh… eh… first, I want to take the train. And see the palace and the cathedral… also, the floating island and the sea and the eastern desert…”
Seeing her pour out words as if waiting, the corners of her mouth lifted. As expected, kids.
“You’ll be able to see it someday.”
“…Really? Me?”
“It’s amazing to have dreams from this place. Because you’ll live with so much effort. Someday, you’ll be able to do everything you want after leaving this place.”
I don’t know the fate of a name I didn’t see in the original game.
But even so, if a sad future was waiting for them, I hoped they would overcome it. At least for those who became friends with me.
An odd connection born through reincarnation. Since I’ve come to know them, if I hear that they’re going to suffer in the future, I wouldn’t want to.
Since Sugar herself wanted to, she also wanted to remind herself.
After all, emotions are contagious. If she had such hope, it would surely be transmitted to them.
“…Yeah. I hope so.”
With that blessing, she cut off the bangs completely.
“Gyaaaaak-!”
“Whoa, shh. It’s a pre-agreed matter.”
“I’m mentally preparedaaa-!”
It was also an adult’s job to push the back of a kid who had decided to do so.
Tomi, who was squatting behind, looked at Sugar with a strange gaze, then clicked her tongue at the subsequent commotion.
.
.
“It’s over! It looks much better now. Now, let’s go wash and change clothes.”
She had become quite neat and her face was revealed, so she was cute. Not as good as a professional shop, but for an amateur, it was quite skilled.
“Uwa… uwa… eyes… eyes in front…”
“Stop complaining and go wash. The director is going to say something soon.”
“Uwa…”
She had thought she would cry saying she was scared to go around alone like this, but she went down well.
Seeing that, Sugar, who was relieved, was doing the cleanup when Tomi suddenly jumped up.
“-Ah!”
“What? Why are you suddenly like that?”
Without answering, she ran down the stairs. Sugar followed, wondering if something was wrong.
Soon after, a scream was heard.
It was Frallin’s voice.
“What’s going on!”
When she arrived, it was a sight. Frallin sitting on the floor in front of the bathroom, trembling. Behind her, Tomi with a troubled expression.
Looking into the bathroom, there were all kinds of many-legged bugs crawling around. It was quite a sight.
In the absurd situation, she was dazed, but she glanced sideways at Tomi. She looked troubled and apologetic, lowering her head deeply.
Ah. From some point on, the reason she had been so obedient was because…
Sugar, unable to hold back the smile at the corners of her mouth, approached Tomi.
“Hee…”
With a whisper in her ear, she flinched.
“Where did these bugs come from…?”
“…I-I don’t know.”
Deliberately lengthening her words, her ears turned red and she didn’t lift her head. To look at her face closely, she leaned in, and she turned her head slightly.
The plan had been exposed, and the guilt of involving others. Tomi accepted the measure she had to endure and closed her eyes tightly.
“It’s really strange…”
“…”
“Did someone catch them and release them?”
“…Uwa.”
In the midst of that, a wailing voice saying ‘Anyone, anyone, clear them away!’ echoed emptily.