You Deserve to Be Loved
A creak. The old wooden floor groaned—a musty reek of mold, and the smell of old paper soaked through with damp.
Strange. She was certain she had been somewhere else only a moment ago, and yet she could not remember where. It seemed she had been in pain. It seemed she had not been able to breathe. But now she felt nothing at all.
Instead, a voice she had known since long, long ago reached her.
"Unnie, read that part again! Please?"
A child's voice, clear and sweet. Celine slowly turned her head.
A battered bed. A table with one short leg that rattled whenever it was touched. And seated in front of it, a small child.
Ah. Her beloved little sister. Rinne—the child who, even on the day their parents cast them aside, had never once let go of her sister's hand.
Celine looked at the sister from her memory. Why had the world refused even light to a child this good? Why had Rinne, from the day she was born, never once been allowed to see the blue of the sky? She could not know what color a flower was. She could not know her sister's face. She could not even see the expression she made when she smiled.
Young Celine had always found it unbearably unfair. And so she read to her all the harder.
The shabby corner room of the orphanage was the only place in the world that was safe for the two of them. There, Celine opened a book every day—fairy tales whose covers had fallen away, cheap novels missing pages by the handful. For the sister who could not see, she gave voice to a world made of letters.
At first she had only begun so Rinne would not grow bored. But somewhere along the way, it was Celine who sank in deeper. The real world was cruel. The world on the page was not. There, good people were happy in the end. Even a poor girl was given her chance. There was always someone to reach a hand out to a heroine drowning in despair. A world like that was far too alluring.
"The prince caught her as she fell, winding a firm arm around her waist."
Celine dropped her voice and laid it on thick. Rinne leaned forward as if she had been waiting for exactly that.
"He smelled of cool wind. The prince bent to her ear and whispered, low—"
Celine let the silence hang. Then she put on the most solemn voice she could manage.
"At last I've caught you. My other half."
"Kyaaah!"
Rinne clapped both hands over her mouth and squirmed with delight.
"Unnie, what does the prince look like? He's really handsome, isn't he?"
"Of course he is."
Celine answered without a moment's hesitation.
"He's a statue carved straight out of ice. Terribly tall, hair black as the night sky, and eyes like a winter lake."
It was a lie. There was not a single picture in the book. But that did not matter. Celine wanted to paint the most brilliant colors in the world across the darkness Rinne lived in. If Rinne could not see, then she would look in her place and tell her. If a face did not exist, she would imagine one and make it for her. So long as Rinne could smile, that was enough.
"Wow."
Rinne marveled as if she were truly seeing the man. Then, all at once, she broke into a bright smile.
"I hope you marry someone like that someday too, Unnie!"
"Me?"
Celine let out a short laugh. It tasted a little bitter.
"Listen to you. Dreaming awfully big."
She said it while lightly stroking Rinne's hair.
"Why would someone that wonderful ever want someone like me?"
The instant the words left her, Celine winced. Had she said something that would only hurt?
"No!"
But Rinne shook her head hard, not looking wounded in the least. Before Celine could add another word, the child said, firm and certain,
"Not like that."
"Hm?"
"They just have to love my Unnie with all their heart."
Celine looked at her sister in silence. Rinne went on as if she were saying the most obvious thing in the world.
"Someone who thinks you're incredibly precious."
Her small hands moved through the empty air, as if cupping something.
"Who treasures you like a jewel."
And this time she put a little more strength behind it.
"Someone who can love you forever."
Celine gave a soft, helpless laugh.
"Where would you ever find a person like that?"
"They exist!"
Rinne shot back at once. Then she groped about until she found Celine's sleeve, and the small hand clenched tight around the cloth.
"And if you ever meet someone like that, you have to introduce them to me first."
"Why?"
Rinne's expression turned suddenly grave.
"Because I have to judge them."
"...You?"
"Yes!"
Rinne nodded with all her might.
"I can't see, but I can tell."
At those words, the smile faded a little from Celine's face. Rinne went on as if it were nothing at all.
"I can tell just from a person's voice. How much they like you."
"Just from their voice?"
"Mm."
"How would you know that?"
"I just know."
Rinne was utterly sure of herself.
"If I listen to how their voice changes when they talk to you, I can tell. Even the way they breathe is different."
She clenched her fists.
"So if you ever fall in love with someone, you have to bring them to me first!"
In the end Celine could not hold it in, and the laugh burst out of her.
"Pfft."
"Why are you laughing!"
Rinne's cheeks puffed out round.
"You didn't believe me just now, did you?"
"I did. I believe you."
"Liar!"
Rinne stuck her lips out in a duck-like pout.
"I'm serious! Do you have any idea how sharp my ears are?"
She even huffed through her nose.
"I can tell if someone's bad or good just from the sound of their breathing!"
"All right."
"I mean it!"
She was so lovable, and so cheeky. Before Celine knew it, she reached out and poked Rinne's soft cheek with one finger.
"Nngh!"
Rinne jerked her face back and clutched the spot. Celine laughed.
"All right, all right. If our clever Rinne says so, then that's how it is."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Then promise."
"Promise what?"
"That if you ever like someone, you'll bring them to me first."
"All right."
Celine playfully held out her little finger. Rinne could not see it, but she searched with practiced ease until she found it. Their little fingers hooked together.
"Promise."
"Promise."
Only then did Rinne's stern face soften. The child who had been puffing her cheeks so full smiled quietly again, and in a very small voice she said,
In that moment, the light inside the memory went out.
"Hhk—!"
Celine's severed consciousness was wrenched back as if lightning had struck her. Rinne's warm touch, the smell of old paper—both vanished in an instant. What assaulted her senses instead was a raw, metallic stench, and a heat so fierce it felt as if her flesh were burning.
Wh-what?
She could not tell when she had lost consciousness, or even where she was. And there was no time to think it through.
"......!"
A vicious pain churning through her belly devoured every thought in her head. A horrific sensation. It felt as if someone had shoved a hand into her abdomen and was forcibly squeezing her crushed organs, stirring them. A wet, grinding crunch. The sound of something inside her being forced to lock together rang vivid in her ears. A maddening heat began in her belly and spread through her entire body.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much!
She only wanted to run. She thrashed, desperate to escape the terrible pain. But her body would not move, as if a boulder were crushing it. No—she was impaled on something.
"Hhh—ngh?"
Only then did Celine register the grotesque foreign mass filling her belly. Something enormous and rigid, like a stake driven clean through her abdomen, was still monstrously buried inside her.
In that instant the severed memory was forcibly stitched back together. The Emperor, ravaging her without mercy. The scream she had torn from herself at the ripping pain. The last moment, when she had let go of consciousness. And the fact that she had not taken a single step away from that moment.
An immense despair swallowed her. She was still skewered on the Emperor like a piece of meat on a spit. But even that despair was soon buried under something else.
"Hhh, nngh—! Ah, inside—!"
An unknowable sensation moved in her belly. The organs inside her were writhing and shifting of their own accord. Celine had no way of knowing that it was healing—her body forcing itself back toward what it had been.
Writhing in the pain, she met the gaze of the one watching her. It was the Emperor. Still with her cock driven inside Celine, she was looking this way as if merely observing. Celine's body convulsed on its own, clenching around that cock and stimulating it, and her mind filled with terror and confusion.
"Nnh, mmph—!"
That was when it happened. She felt some liquid begin to flow from deep inside her belly.
"Ah... aah..."
What burst from her mouth was a wretched sound, impossible to tell as moan or scream. The place where they were joined was soon soaked through. Flesh that had been locked taut slid apart, helpless against the slick of fluid. With a thick, obscene squelch, the Emperor's cock—clenched so tight inside her—pulled free all at once.
With nothing left to hold her up, Celine's body tipped in the air.
"Kkh—!"
Thud. The dull, bursting sound of her fall rang through the room. Slammed onto the floor back-first, the impact knocked the breath clean out of her. A sharp pain shot up her spine, and she could not even scream—her mouth only gaped.
"Uh... uhh..."
From between Celine's slackly parted thighs, a pale pink fluid streaked with blood welled and spilled in thick, gulping pulses. She lay sprawled on the floor like that for a long while.
How much time passed? Focus returned, little by little, to her blurred eyes. She slowly moved her stiffened neck.
"Ah?"
The Emperor was already seated, dressed with not a thread out of place. Celine had no idea when she had put her clothes back on. She stared at her blankly.
The first thing to fill her chest was an emotion so wretched it shamed her.
Relief.
It's over.
The moment that single thought rose, the corners of her eyes burned. It was over. She did not have to hurt anymore. She did not have to tremble, waiting to see what would happen next. What state she was in. What had been done to her. She did not want to think about any of it now. She was simply grateful to be alive. That alone was enough to drag her mind, stuck fast to the floor, into motion.
Celine set a trembling palm against the floor. She put strength into her arms. Her upper body rose, little by little.
"...Huh?"
Her eyes wavered. It did not hurt. Only moments ago it had felt as if her insides were shattering to pieces. Cautiously, she tried to straighten her back. She was fine. As if the pain of a moment ago had been a lie.
Celine looked down at her own body in a daze.
Why?
Then it came to her. That grotesque sensation when she had regained consciousness. The pain like something forcibly stirring her insides. The chilling sound of bone locking to bone, and flesh adhering to flesh.
She was fixing me?
It was the same as the first night. Most likely, then too, her body had been restored through this same process in the stretch of time she could not remember.
"Ah..."
That was when the ruined floor came into view. At the sight of it, Celine scrambled to her feet, and only then could she properly take in the state of herself.
"......"
She jerked her gaze away, as if, if she did not look, it might become something that had never happened. She picked the clothes up off the floor, put them on, and began to clean.
She did not know how long it took. Only when there was nowhere left to wipe did she set the rag down. She stared at the cleaned floor for a while. Then, carefully, she looked at the Emperor.
Her eyes were still closed. Just as at the beginning. That fact pressed, very quietly, on some place in Celine's chest.
She did not want to be there any longer. Clutching the hem of her skirt, damp with semen, she backed away, and fled the room almost at a run.
The closer she drew to the maids' quarters, the faster her steps became. Her destination was the water spigot behind them. She wanted to wash. Everything clinging to her.
She was passing through the dark corridor when it happened.
"Ah, hurry, hurry."
Someone burst out from around the corner—a fellow maid who had come looking for the privy in the middle of the night. There was no time to avoid her. Their eyes met squarely.
"Hhk!"
The other woman recoiled in shock and took a step back. Celine flinched and drew in on herself as well. She knew the face, but not the name.
"Wh-what..."
In the dark, the maid seemed not to understand at once what she had seen. Then her expression changed by degrees, and her gaze settled on Celine's face. Surprise. Bewilderment. And, behind them, disgust.
"Ah... it's not—that isn't..."
Celine's mouth opened before she knew it.
"I, um..."
What had she meant to explain? She did not know herself. She could not even tell what she was supposed to be making excuses for.
"I-I'll just get by."
The maid did not hear her out. She pressed herself as far as she could against the opposite wall, like someone taking care that not even a hem of her clothes might touch Celine, and hurried past. After a few steps she was nearly running. In no time she vanished beyond the corner.
Celine remained standing where she was.
"......"
No words came. She remembered the maid's face from a moment ago—the face of someone who had seen something filthy that must not be touched.
Celine walked on, her head bowed deeper than before.