"You sure did a lot of reading," Kanae said. "How long was I asleep for?"
She wasn't going to let Akio evade answering her questions any longer.
"A while," Akio said. "You slept for days without waking up to eat or to drink. It was almost as if you had fallen under some sort of spell, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. I was very concerned for you."
"Did you call the doctor?" Kanae asked.
"Yes, he came by and said you were fine. Even he wasn't able to come up with an explanation for it."
"How did my mother react?" Kanae asked.
"She was concerned as well, in her own way."
"That sounds like her. What about your sister."
Akio was silent.
"What is it?" Kanae asked, sounding more frantic than she would have liked.
She couldn't have really killed Anthy. That part, surely must have only been a dream.
"There's no need to sound so worried. She merely transferred schools," Akio said. "Still, she did it without warning. And with you being asleep for so long, I haven't had anyone else aside from your mother to keep me company. Don't get me wrong, she's fine woman, but it's nice someone a bit closer to my own age to talk to now."
"Oh, my mother kept you company?" Kanae asked.
"Yes, why do you sound so critical of that?" Akio asked.
"What? You haven't noticed the way she looks at you?" Kanae said. "I think you're well aware of it, judging from your reading list?"
"Are you implying that your mother is in love with me?" Akio asked.
"Yes," Kanae said. She couldn't believe that she had finally said it out loud.
"And do you think that I return her affections?" Akio asked.
"I'd like to think you don't!" Kanae said.
"That wasn't a no," Akio said.
"And how does that make you feel? Anything?" Kanae asked.
Akio shrugged. "Any other accusations you'd like to make about me, or any of our other family members?"
"Well, if we're talking about this, then yes. Your sister. I know that she's gone now, and I know that's probably hard for you. But I don't think this could be good for us. That girl always wanted to get between the you and I, and you never did anything to stop her."
"Well, she's gone now. Does that make you happy?"
"In all honesty? Yes, it does. Unless you're going to spend the rest of our lives together moping about how she transferred schools."
"While I don't intend to do that, I will admit that the two of us are in a difficult predicament, with regards to where our interests lie. Hell is other people, after all."
He tilted his head in the direction of the stack of books on the floor by his couch.
"What does that even mean, Akio? Stop being cryptic and just talk to me! We're a partnership! This relationship isn't just me! You have an emotional stake in all of this too!"
"Do I?" Akio asked.
Kanae made a connection that she hadn't yet. If Akio's summary of the story was to believed, it hadn't been Jane Eyre who had locked that woman in the attic. It had been the "brooding, older man" she had fallen in love with. Kanae wasn't sure that she liked what Akio's choice to highlight that part of the story specifically said about the nature of her relationship with him. If her nightmare had actually been real, was he the one to blame for it all?
"I dreamt that I was locked in an attic, but it didn't feel like a dream. My mother came in and told me she was in love with you. Then, your sister came in told me that she had killed me, but she hadn't done it alone. Then, you arrived and said that line from that play, about the man who killed his lover's father. Then, when I wake up, you're sitting across from me on the couch with a pile of books that are about all of the same things that my dream was."
"Yes, and what do you think the significance of all that is?" Akio said.
"You're not my literature teacher!" Kanae groaned. "But I'm starting to think that you are my mother's lover. That she chose you to be my fiancé so that you two could spend more time together. You loved her long before you knew me. Maybe even before I was born. I have no idea how old you are, or what you're truly capable of. But I don't think you're human. And I don't think that your sister is human either. I think you two poisoned my father, and then killed me when I started to get suspicious of Anthy. And now you've turned me into some sort of ghost, or trapped me in some sort of never ending illusion!"
"You're very close," Akio said. "You're overestimating the strength of the emotional connection between your mother and I. She may love me, but I highly doubt it. I, on the other hand, can say with complete certainty that I've never felt that way about her. You're correct about Anthy and I killing you, but neither of us poisoned your father. I had your mother do that for us. I didn't think he was worth getting our hands dirty over. Especially when I could get so much pleasure out of turning your mother against him. Yet, in spite of your inability to figure any of that out, you have a surprisingly clear grasp on the reality, or more accurately, the unreality of your current situation. Everyone else that I've brought back like this never bothered to question it. Anthy and I usually gave them false memories, or a mission to keep them distracted from thinking about how and why they still existed in Ohtori Academy, in spite of everything that had happened to them in the past."
"You've done this before?" Kanae asked.
"Oh yes, countless times," Akio said. "The last one served us well, do you remember meeting him?"
"Are you talking about Souji Mikage?" Kanae asked.
"Yes, very good. You're catching on quickly. I'm glad to see that most of your ignorance seems to have been willful, instead of genuine obliviousness. I appreciate that sort of perceptiveness."