Right now, all those bottled-up emotions finally burst out—sharp, raw, and painfully honest.
"Because! You need her, don't you! You want her to be the manager! Not me!"
"It's the more mature version of me... not this useless, pathetic version that nobody needs!"
"So as long as I'm not here, everything will be fine... as long as I give up my life, that'll fix everything, right?!"
That's way too self-deprecating... Kuroha Akira thought, genuinely confused.
But honestly? Social anxiety and self-deprecation kind of come as a package deal. And watching her other self—Kohaku-nee—interact with people so naturally, so effortlessly? Yeah, that probably cranked her inferiority complex up to eleven. Way past the red zone.
There was this quote from some righteous anime hero: You can lose to anyone, but never to yourself.
And Tashiro Kurenai? She'd already lost. Completely. To her own other self.
Still, Kuroha Akira couldn't help feeling like her way of thinking was way too narrow-minded.
"Do you really have to draw such a clear line? The other Kurenai-san is also you, isn't she?"
"No! I'm not the Kurenai-san you know! I'm not... I don't deserve to be!"
Back when she first joined the company and started working—when her poor communication skills kept causing problems—Tashiro Kurenai had come to this very shrine. She'd made a wish, hoping for some kind of release.
And maybe that wish actually came true. Because a savior really did descend.
That savior was her other self from another world.
At first, she was genuinely grateful. When her boss made unreasonable overtime demands? Her other self stepped up and argued. When she got assigned the most gruesome corpses as the newbie? Her other self handled it. When she had to deal with business negotiations she was terrible at? Her other self took over the client communication.
Thanks to Kohaku-nee, work had become so much easier.
It was like that fantasy everyone's had at least once: if only there was another version of yourself to go to work for you, to handle all the annoying problems, so you could just kick back and relax. Living the dream, right?
The problem started when she learned about her other self's past. When she sympathized with Kohaku-nee's struggles. When she felt genuine compassion.
Tashiro Kurenai bought a pair of high heels for her other self—a gift, a thank-you—and willingly gave up control of her body more often, letting Kohaku-nee have more free time.
At first? No issues.
But gradually... watching her other self get along better and better with colleagues, build great relationships with everyone at home, and even get invited by Kuroha Akira to switch jobs... she couldn't avoid the truth anymore.
Kohaku-nee was the better version.
Tashiro Kurenai cried until her eyes were swollen and red. She hugged her aching knees, curling up into a small, broken ball, and let the words spill out.
"I... I'm just a coward..."
"I'm useless... I can't do anything right... I just hide in a corner and push all the hard stuff onto her..."
"But she... she actually cares about me. She thinks about what's best for me. She keeps saying this is my life... even though she's clearly the more amazing version of me..."
Listening to her pour her heart out, Kuroha Akira finally started piecing things together.
This was dissociation. Plain and simple.
Identity confusion. Loss of reality. Seeing yourself as an "other"—like "I am no longer me."
And in her case, that symptom was extra severe because there was literally another self living inside her head.
But honestly? Everyone has moments when they hate themselves. Usually when they're looking back at past mistakes, thinking, Wow, past me was an absolute idiot.
Kuroha Akira looked back at his own past self and only saw an immature idiot. If he could go back in time, he'd definitely punch himself in the face a couple times. Knock some sense into that dumbass.
Tashiro Kurenai had her other self as a direct comparison, so she felt her own "stupidity" even more intensely.
But here was the thing—her desire to disappear? That was just defeatist thinking. Wanting to run away from reality. All that talk about "doing it for her other self"? That was just an excuse.
So now? Kuroha Akira had to tear down that hypocritical lie. No mercy.
"BAKA YAROU! Stop being so dramatic!"
"Quit the nonsense, Kurenai. You want to live better too, don't you?"
"What are you even saying...? I already—!"
"Here's the proof: you waited until I came home to find you before running away. If you seriously wanted to disappear from the start, why wait for me to come looking? Just don't tell anyone, and nobody would ever know where you planned to hang yourself, right?"
"Ugh...!"
"So in my book? That was a cry for help. A signal aimed directly at me."
"I'm not... that's not true!"
"Let's be real here, Tashiro Kurenai. You're just jealous of your other self, aren't you?"
"That's not it...! I never thought something like that!"
But Kuroha Akira kept going. He knew these words would sting—but sometimes the truth hurts before it heals.
"Are you absolutely sure about that? Isn't it because you feel like you're clearly inferior to her that you want to just disappear?"
"Ugh...!"
The tears came flooding back.
She felt so wronged.
Because... she couldn't deny any of it.
Everything he said was true. She shouldn't have thought those things, but she couldn't help it.
She stole my life.
The moment that thought first crossed her mind was also the moment Tashiro Kurenai hated herself the most in her entire life. She felt disgusted—sickened—by her own weak, pathetic, contemptible self.
This was the war inside Tashiro Kurenai. Her conflict with... herself.
But Kuroha Akira wasn't saying all this just to crush her spirit. The words that came next were the real combo finisher.
"Listen, Kurenai. You're forgetting one really important thing. Your other self isn't some twenty-four-year-old young adult. She's a thirty-nine-year-old veteran."
The Tashiro Kurenai of this world was genuinely twenty-four. A woman in the prime of her youth. Actually younger than Kuroha Akira in his past life—just a fresh grad, a total newbie in the workplace.
Her body might have matured, but her heart? Still green. Still growing. She hadn't faced nearly as many hardships, so her mental resilience was naturally much weaker.
"...Huh?"
"She's been through way more than you have. Of course she's more mature. Of course she's better at dealing with people. Because she's not just 'another you'—she's 'the future you.'"
"The future... me..."
"Yeah. Nobody starts out mature. Have you actually sat down and had a real conversation with your other self?"
"Of course I have! I know she's been through a lot too—she lost her vision because of an accident right after starting work... but she still worked hard and pushed through!"
"Yes. She worked hard. So why can't you? You do realize that back then, she didn't have another self to help share the burden of life, right?"
"Ah..."
Kuroha Akira could only act as a guide.
The truth was, only she could save herself.
She was unlucky—because compared to her other self, she felt smaller and more insignificant every single day.
But she was also lucky—because she still had another self who could help her avoid all sorts of crises, who could stop her from stepping on the same landmines that had once blown up Kohaku-nee's life.
"Hey, other Kurenai. Did you hear all that? Why don't you tell her how you grew up?"
Tashiro Kurenai closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her entire aura had shifted—calmer, steadier, more confident. Kohaku-nee had taken the front seat.
She gave a small, bittersweet smile, clutched her chest, and spoke directly to her other self.
"I'm sorry, Kurenai. It seems I went overboard... I just didn't want you to suffer the same way I did. But I never realized that by protecting you so much, I was making you feel unnecessary..."
"Maybe I shouldn't have jumped in to solve your problems directly. Maybe I should have taught you how to solve them yourself..."
"And... I never told you about the setbacks I faced. Partly out of pride... and partly because I thought you were different from me. I thought you could become even better than I ever was."
She glanced at Kuroha Akira, her eyes filled with determination.
"Akira is right. I used to be afraid of people too—just like you. Because I also went through that incident."
For her—for them—that was the most painful memory. The source of their twisted personalities. The wound that had never fully healed.
"Just like you... I was once taken hostage by a murderer."