Winter Rabbit in Wonderland

Chapter 20

For a few days, Alice spent her time not straying far from her daily routine. She would organize the characters that she’d met in Wonderland in her notebook, and when she got bored, she would go visit March. Even though March was young, he had good sense and could feel that Alice didn’t like him very much. And so, although they were friendly, he had trouble approaching her.

Alice’s main dilemma was that no hot water came out and that the food sold at Central was disgusting. She could live with the first problem by going to the neighborhood’s public bathhouse, but the second problem was more difficult. Even if she had wanted to cook it herself, being an unmagical being, she had difficulty even maintaining a fire. She had to be content with bread and jam from the market.

Even with the inconveniences, Alice had gotten used to Wonderland to the point where even the small sense of wariness she had previously was now gone. What March and White Rabbit warned her about was already out of her mind.

Wonderland’s spring was warm. All that surrounded her were falling buildings and broken windows and trees, but she at least enjoyed the sunshine of Wonderland. Plus, in this world, she was the star. She went out for a walk in a good mood. And after a short while, she bumped into a man.

He was a man with a pale face and inky black hair. He wasn’t bad looking, but he was extremely thin and looked like he spent all day reading in a library. He wasn’t really her type. And after meeting Heart a few days back, this guy barely even registered her attention.

The man made eye contact and smiled. Alice smiled back. The man stepped closer.

“Hello? You’re a new face around here. What’s your name?”

“Alice Liddell.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Duke. How do you like living here? There are a lot of dangerous places here...”

Alice gave the man some points for his respectable demeanor and tone. But the name Duke sounded familiar—which meant he was a character in the original story. She searched her brain for the name, but she couldn’t remember a thing.

“...at my place?”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked if you would like to have a cup of tea at my place. It looks like you haven’t been here long, so we can talk about this and that. If you’re busy, we can do it another time.”

Duke smiled benignly. She may have lost her wariness about Wonderland, but it didn’t apply to men in general. Alice shook her head.

“No, today is a bit...”

“What a shame. Then next time.”

Duke put out his hand. Alice didn’t feel like returning the handshake upon seeing his skin and bones, but she took it anyway. When their hands were about to meet, someone grabbed Alice’s wrist and pulled her away.

“Ah!”

Alice saw a flash of white hair as she yelled in surprise. It was White Rabbit. Alice followed without resisting. Duke looked defeated.

“It’s been a while, Undertaker. You must be an acquaintance of Alice.”

SoYoon completely ignored Duke’s words and checked Alice—her expression, clothes, smell. SoYoon made sure that there wasn’t a single part of Alice that had gotten hurt, then let her go. In that time, Duke was smiling and watching the both of them. The laugh made Alice’s hair stand on end.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting? I haven’t done anything.”

“You mean you haven’t done anything yet. Why don’t you open your hand?”

“I’m innocent. If you don’t believe me, then ask Alice. All I did was...”

“All you do is put sedatives in tea and offer it. All you do is put poison between your fingers and ask for a handshake.”

SoYoon, snorting, stepped in front of Duke. Duke was about to step back when she pulled out the knife from her thigh and pushed it to his neck.

“Hey, Undertaker. Let’s use our words, huh? Where is this?”

“I—I’m sorry...”

“I asked where we are.”

Duke’s neck turned red, and he gasped.

“Neutral, neutral zone! I’m sorry. I won’t do it again...”

“If you try anything with Alice again, you know what’ll happen?”

SoYoon turned the knife and stabbed Duke’s thigh. Duke screamed. The ruckus caused people to watch, but seeing that it was Duke and SoYoon, they went on their way.

“This is a warning. Next time, I’m not letting you off so easy.”

“Ha, Heart! He will never let you do that! Your-your threats don’t scare me!”

“I’m pretty sure they will. You’re stuttering and sweating. And plus, Alice is important to Heart. Next time, it might be him instead of me. So.”

SoYoon pulled the knife out of Duke’s leg.

“Play nice, you piece of trash.”

Blood dyed the ground red as it seeped out of his wound. Leaving Duke bleeding, SoYoon approached Alice. Alice’s white face spun between SoYoon and Duke. SoYoon pulled her in.

“That won’t kill him.”

“But...”

“Alice.”

Alice was a good-natured girl, and the men of Wonderland would be saved and pulled in by love. However, faced with reality, her good nature was like poison.

SoYoon contemplated. Did she want Alice to face this reality, or would she keep her naive? During the time she was thinking, Duke fell unconscious, and Alice kept stealing glances at him. SoYoon sighed and picked her words.

“Duke likes pretty boys and girls. So...”

She was put in a difficult situation. Packaging Duke’s fetish into something nice was impossible. She had half given up.

“His specialty is medicine and poisons. If he meets someone he likes, he kidnaps them by sedating them with tea or needles. And if you get taken, you, um, die.”

“How?”

“Uh, um, the corpse...leaves it at home...”

As she mumbled incoherently, Alice shook her head.

“I don’t know what that man had done in the past, but if you leave him like that, he will die.”

She went to Duke’s side and kneeled, putting her hands out. SoYoon quickly grabbed her hands.

“Not here. There are too many eyes.”

SoYoon grabbed Duke’s leg and dragged him into an alley. Then, finally able to persuade Alice from completely healing him, she helped to stop the bleeding.

As SoYoon led Alice away to go home, Alice glanced back. SoYoon, realizing this, pulled her arms.

“Okay. I won’t worry anymore.”

“Could you please? Duke is a really bad guy. Especially because you are pretty, you have to be even more careful.”

“Oh...okay. You’re so silly, White Rabbit...”

Alice laughed softly. Truthfully, as White Rabbit had been threatening Duke, she remembered who he was: a necrophiliac pedophile potion master. He was a character that fell for Alice in the early chapters of the story. Later in the narrative, he tried to kidnap Alice and got stopped by the Twins. After that, he would get into trouble for something. She remembered up to that point but couldn’t put a finger on what that trouble was exactly. Seeing that it wasn’t prevalent in her mind, she assumed it didn’t have much of an impact on her or the story.

And anyway, there were more important things to attend to at the moment. Alice glanced at SoYoon repeatedly but turned away when their eyes met. After a couple of times, SoYoon asked.

“Do you have something to say?”

“Um, so. What you said about Heart, thinking I’m...Is that true?”

Her asking in this manner made her seem lovable. SoYoon hesitated a moment, then replied. He would soon start to like her, so she thought it would be okay to let her know. Either way, it was true that Heart believed that Alice was important. SoYoon’s eyes held a slight sadness that she herself didn’t even acknowledge.

“Yes.”

“R—really?”

Alice smiled brightly.

***

That night, SoYoon went out to Outhouse. It was a task set by Cheshire.

When she arrived at the designated location, she saw Chesire directing his minions. With his expensive suit on, he did not fit with the broken-down warehouse they were standing in.

“Cheshire.”

As she called him, frown lines crossed his handsome face, and he looked at his minions. As always, SoYoon was instructed on her task by them. She was to clear the corpses in the warehouse. Easy enough.

Stepping into the warehouse, SoYoon counted the number of corpses, separated into seven groups. There was even one of a small boy. With this many, it would be difficult to physically move all of them.

SoYoon took out the magic capsule from her cross bag. She stared at the capsule, closed her eyes, then swallowed it. Reminded of eating medicine, she resisted the temptation to throw up. In 20 minutes, magic would flow through her body.

She called over Cheshire’s minions and asked for a car. Cheshire must have already notified them because they pointed to one so old that it was a wonder they hadn’t junked it. Cheshire’s minions agreed with her thinking and left her in charge of finishing up.

After putting all the corpses in the car, SoYoon put her left hand on the wheel and turned the ignition on with her right. The magic flowing out of her body started the car.

Cheshire’s minions knocked on the car window and pushed an envelope through it. It was her pay. After checking the amount, she put it in her cross bag and drove.

It was work she had always done, but she didn’t enjoy the fact that she was the only person breathing in a car full of dead people. She tried to think of something else as she drove.