The wedding was going to be beautiful. Of course, Kanae wouldn't allow for anything else. She wished that it could have been possible to have it here, in this beautiful palace that wouldn't have been out of place on the Spanish Riviera. But she couldn't be sure if it actually existed or not, and Kanae needed their wedding to be real. Still, something was tempting about staying in this fantasy for the rest of her life.
Currently, the details of her very existence were contradictory, but Kanae didn't care. If she could keep this gorgeous dress and stay in this castle with Akio for the rest of her life, she would be happy. In this world, Anthy was gone for good. There was nothing to come between the two of them anymore. The two of them could live here in this place, happily ever after, until the end of the world.
She was going to have everything she ever dreamed of. And then she woke up. This time, there was no mysterious attic, no splitting headache, and no taste of apples. She was wearing the same orange dress and white scarf she had been when she first woke up in the attic. She had a little bit of a sore back from falling asleep on the couch in the Chairman's office, but that was to be expected.
She sat up and saw that Akio, reading a book. He was sprawled out on the couch across from the one that she had fallen asleep on. From what Kanae could see on the cover, it was in French. Kanae didn't even know that Akio spoke French. Typically, she would have been hurt to discover that her fiancé had hidden another part of himself from her. But she had finally returned to the Ohtori Academy that she knew and loved. More importantly, Akio was still there with her. How could she possibly be angry?
"Am I…still alive?" Kanae asked.
She had been convinced that she was dead. That she was in hell. But it had all just been a dream. A long, painfully vivid nightmare. One that she hadn't been able to wake up from, no matter how hard she tried. But a nightmare, all the same.
"You could say that," Akio said, without bothering to look up from his book.
That was the man she knew. He was cool and philosophical, but aloof and disinterested. He was always teasing the possibility of an intellectual conversation but kept the discussion confined behind those calculating green eyes.
"That was a silly question," Kanae said. "Of course I'm alive."
Akio laughed quietly to himself at this.
"How long was I asleep for?" Kanae asked.
"A while," Akio said.
"Sorry, am I distracting you from your reading?" Kanae asked.
"It's fine, I was just passing the time while I waited for you to wake up. Or should I say come back to life?" he teased.
Kanae laughed uneasily.
"What book is it? It looks like it's in French," Kanae said. "I didn't know you knew any other languages."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Kanae," Akio said. "But this is an old play called Le Cid. It was written by a man named Pierre Corneille and first performed in the 1630's."
"Wow, that is old," Kanae said. "Does it still make sense today? Whenever I have to read old stuff like that for school I can never relate to it."
"I'd say that it's still relevant today," Akio said. "It's about a young man who kills his lover's father for the sake of his family, right before the two were about to get married."
"Oh," Kanae said.
She didn't think that seemed particularly relevant to either of their lives. She figured that Akio would eventually get to explaining how it was.
"The ordeal nearly destroys their relationship, but everything turns out fine in the end, more or less. The lovers get their happy ending. It may be old, but it's very exciting. There's even a duel, offstage of course. That's simply how things were done in the 17th century. Well, in France at least," Akio said.
"You say that like you were there," Kanae laughed.
"How do you know that I wasn't?" Akio teased. "In all seriousness, the prose is truly beautiful. Just listen to this line: I come to bid you in this place, before the final blow, adieu."
His words made Kanae shiver, like ice water being poured down her back.
"That's funny," Kanae said. "You said that to me in the dream that I just had."
"Oh really? What a strange coincidence."
"What about those?" Kanae asked. She pointed to the stack of books that were piled up next to Akio's couch. "Did you read them all while I was asleep?"
"Ah yes, those. Phèdre by Jean Racine. Another old, French play. The tragic story of a woman who falls in love with her stepson, which causes her family to fall into disarray. I doubt you'd like it. And Huis Clos, also known as No Exit. Also French, but nowhere near as old. Three people trapped in Hell together desperately seek validation from each other. Of course, Hell in this play takes the form of a tastelessly decorated room without any mirrors. . By the end, none of them are able to leave the room because they have all become caught up in trying to prove themselves in the eyes of another. And, finally, Jane Eyre. This one's in English, in case you couldn't tell. A young woman falls in love with a brooding older man, only to discover that he has been keeping his first wife locked up in an attic."
"An attic?" Kanae asked.
This all seemed uncomfortably close to what Kanae had experienced in her dream. She remembered that the illusion of her mother had claimed to be in love with Akio, which had made Kanae feel like her entire world had been falling apart. And she could still remember the desperation with which she had looked at her own reflection in Anthy's glasses, desperate for validation that she was still alive. Anthy had told Kanae that she was dead, which had made Kanae feel sure that she was in Hell. And then, Akio had quoted that play about the man who killed his lover's father. And of course, there was the attic.
But what did it all mean?
Nothing. It didn't mean anything at all. It was all just a strange coincidence, just like Akio had said.
But Kanae couldn't believe that, not anymore. Not after everything she had just experienced. She was done sitting back and accepting confusing explanations that canceled each other out. She was going to figure out what had happened, even if it really did kill her.