Winter Rabbit in Wonderland

Chapter 68

Li tired easily, and so they cut the conversation short, and she sent them on their way. Then she turned to Dee. He was still staring at her up until then, and he swallowed when she gave him her attention.

She ignored him and walked away. As he saw the back of her, his heart dropped, and everything in front of him turned red. Without him knowing, he was running after her.

“Hey! Who do you think you are!”

Dee grabbed SoYoon’s shoulder roughly, but she removed his hand without flinching. She was incredibly strong.

He frowned then grabbed her with his other hand. “Don’t ignore me!” he exclaimed as SoYoon removed his hand again

“Do you have business with me?” she asked.

“F*ck, how would you know if I have business with you or not?”

“When you saw me last time, you didn’t say anything.”

He had been hiding from her, so he hadn’t thought of the possibility that she had seen him. He cursed. SoYoon looked up at him blankly.

Dee, sensing her staring, yelled at her, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

He yelled because she was looking at him, yelled because she ignored him. SoYoon sighed. “He doesn’t even have anything to say to me,” she mumbled under her breath.

Dee retorted, “I do. I’ll tell you while we go there.”

“Go where?”

“Wherever you are going.”

“Do you even know where I’m going?”

“It’s going to be the mart or somewhere like that, isn’t it?”

Home, requests, Heart, Mad Hatter, mart, restaurant, sometimes March and Dor—that was SoYoon’s routine. She had been on her way to the mart to buy soap and so said nothing back and continued walking. Dee followed one step behind her,

The late-spring wind blew past her and into the Twins. They breathed deeply the soap-scented wind.

Thin body, thin shoulders, and her white neckline—they saw through her hair. They had seen the red mark on that neck a couple of days ago, which twisted their insides. Their hand reached for the spot. She blocked that hand.

Dee glared at her with red eyes. “Do you hate it that much? I can’t even touch you?”

“What?”

“You let that Heart punk do that to you. Did you like it? You sounded euphoric.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

They crept up close to SoYoon. The tangy scent felt so close they could touch it. Impulsively, they reached out their arms and hugged her. As they did, they saw her white neck under her collar. They touched the place with their lips, then unable to resist any longer, they opened their mouth wide. A little, just a little bit—that was all they wanted.

Before they could sink their teeth into it, SoYoon kicked them and twisted out of their grasp. She rubbed at her spit-filled neck.

“Why are you always drooling on me?Do I look like prey to you?”

Prey: before, they would have taken the term positively. Now, they couldn’t decide how to take it.

SoYoon looked at the sunset. Only a fingernail-sized sun remained. Central’s mart closed when the sun went down. Unable to finish her errand, she turned back around. Then Dum, pretending to be Dee, asked her.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Didn’t Dum try to imprison you last time? Is that information not worthy of telling me?”

Whether they bared their teeth and attacked her or intruded into her house in the middle of the night or imprisoned her or kissed her, her reaction was always the same.

“Yes.”

Twins’ heart dropped heavily. But at her next words, they lifted their head and looked at her.

“Because it happens often.”

The Croquet Games established her position as White Rabbit, but her small, thin stature didn’t go anywhere. Those who didn’t realize her strength did all in their power to try to trick her, and those who knew tried to get her to their side.

Most of the methods used to achieve this were threats and imprisonment, so to her, this was something barely worth registering as danger. In that respect, Dum’s attempt was pretty novel. No one had tried something like that.

That night, Twins were lost in thought.

For a girl who thought imprisonment was normal, pinning her down through brute strength was useless. They would have to think of another way to tie her down. At least that tactic didn’t require them to create a new space.

They looked around their home, where they found themselves to be the safest. If only that girl were in here with them. Such a happy image made their head tingle.

Thinking through the night about what they had to do the following day, Twins finally fell asleep early in the morning. The next day, they opened their eyes in the bright sunlight. The weather seemed especially nice that day.

After placing an order with their chef, they dressed up as Dee and headed to SoYoon’s house.

***

After leaving Dee in the dark, SoYoon returned home to find Mad Hatter there. The moment he saw her, he clung to her and started to complain.

“You didn’t return to me after we left each other that day. Instead, you went to that man’s house.”

“I had business with him.”

“Then let’s just say I came here because I have business too.”

Once SoYoon put down her sword on the sofa, Mad Hatter hugged her from behind.

“What did you need?” she asked.

He kissed the ear that peeked out from beneath her white hair and answered, “I missed you.”

SoYoon, who had come back from her outside errands, smelled like soap and wind. It uplifted his mood. He hugged tighter when she lightly pushed him away.

“I’m going to wash up. Let go.”

Mad Hatter kissed her on the cheek and quickly let her go. She didn’t feel relieved but instead felt a pang of guilt. Seeing SoYoon’s face, he laughed softly.

“I’m not going to rush into things anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just talking to myself. I’ll be waiting, so hurry and wash up.”

“And there’s no option that you will be returning home?”

“You want me to go all the way to the end of the east side of Wonderland at this hour? By myself?”

The person who had the power to destroy all of Wonderland by himself asked her while fluttering his long eyelashes. SoYoon thought to herself that if he had been born a woman, he might have easily collapsed several countries.

“You seem to be having some disquieting thoughts, SoYoon.”

“...Not really.”

“That kind of answer is worse than just confessing the truth. Now, come on, let’s hear it.”

He coaxed SoYoon into answering, then stared quietly for a while. She slowly avoided his eyes.

“Sorry, Yochanan.”

“No. That is how I am. All right, that is how you saw me...”

He would be lying if he had said it wasn’t slightly intentional, but to hear it out loud made him feel strange. He forced a bright laugh. His laughter was somewhat threatening. SoYoon was in an awkward predicament.

Most people run into problems because of what they said, but how did she end up like this with mere thoughts? She sighed.

Mad Hatter, well rested from a nap, got up and went straight to the kitchen. SoYoon woke up later than him and sat numbly as she received her breakfast from him.

He sat on the bed and watched her eat, then did the dishes. She washed up and got dressed.

“When do your requests start today?”

“I don’t have any yet today.”

“Really? That’s good. I had something to talk to you about anyway.”

Mad Hatter stood in front of SoYoon. The light filtering in through the wide blinds was as hazy as her attachment to this place.

How cute. Thinking of abandoning me here? he thought, smiling and grinding his teeth.

Finding out that there was not a single person who had returned home after falling into this dimension, he had thought that the chance of it happening for her was slim. But realizing that this was her motive all along, it made him even angrier. Even though she could not be his, he couldn’t stand having her disappear.

“I know you came from a different world. You know that also, don’t you?”

“Yochanan?”

“There are plenty of reasons for you to hate this world. But is there nothing of value here?”

She had been chipped away so that not a single edge of herself remained intact, but she tried so hard to keep this piece of herself alive. Neither Mad Hatter nor Heart wanted to take this away from her. There was no point in shaking the foundations when she couldn’t even properly set foot on their base.

But if that unsteady foot in this world was thinking of walking away to another, then it was a different story.

SoYoon and Alice. Mad Hatter knew that the two of them, surprisingly, had a lot in common. They believed that this world revolved around Alice, as if they had come from the same world where they received the same information. And they didn’t think much of Ye SoYoon’s ability to jump dimensions.

He gathered all his love for her and kissed her forehead. Contact was an interesting thing, he noted. Sometimes you were able to communicate so much more with it than words.

When he removed his lips from her forehead, SoYoon lowered her eyes. She had pinned back her hair, so her face reflected her emotions. Mad Hatter opened his arms and hugged her tightly. He was slightly cool to the touch, and she could hear his heart beating loudly as his whole body embraced her.

“Yochanan? Why...”

“Can’t you just stay here?”

Mad Hatter gently pulled her away and looked into her face. He looked strangely nervous, and SoYoon blinked then moved her hand. They had been going toward Mad Hatter’s lips when he grabbed them. With a bitter smile, he slowly moved his mouth.

“SoYoon. I have, for you...”

At that moment, the glass insert of the wall of SoYoon’s house crashed open. Somebody jumped in through the hole. Through the flapping vertical blinds, sunlight streamed over dark-blond hair and made it gleam white.

“You—f*ck—what are you planning to do with the doors locked!”

Dee, who had charged into this place, reached for SoYoon. Figuring out Dee’s motive, Mad Hatter had planned to step aside with SoYoon, but he hesitated when he saw her expression. Dee, taking that as his chance, took her away from Mad Hatter.

Dee broke more of the glass with his feet then took her outside. Mad Hatter sighed as he looked at the messed-up interior that resembled his messed-up confession. He had already anticipated the answer when she blocked his mouth.

“Still, I wish you hadn’t looked so relieved...”

It still didn’t change the fact that he loved her.