Author's Reincarnation in a Fantasy Setting

"Sis, are you friends with Leon…by any chance? I know that I have asked this before and you denied it that time but I\'m seeing you hanging out with him pretty often. I don\'t want you to hide it from me, you see?" I inquired.

Maybe this caught her by surprise because quickly looked up at me and seemed nervous—this was clear since her breathing speed has increased.

"Huh? N-No! Well, yes. I don\'t know if you\'ll call it being friends but we are on talkative terms. And I\'m not trying to hide it or anything; it\'s just that…I never really got a chance to tell you and there wasn\'t much to tell so I kinda forget about it too, I-I, uh…you get what I mean, right?" she said hurriedly.

It was as if she was making excuses and she was thinking of them right this moment. Still.

"Why are you getting so worked up, sis? I know you won\'t lie to me," I assured her.

And as for why I was calling her \'sis\'? Well, I had pretty much stopped calling her that after she came to know my true identity but I was doing it not because I felt like it, that\'s all there it is.

"I-I see. But it\'s really just as I said; we are a step down from being friends."

"I know that I know but...I don\'t want you to force it. I understand that you won\'t lie to me but don\'t lie to yourself instead," I asserted.

"What? What do you mean by that? I\'m sorry I didn\'t quite get it," she said, asking that I repeat myself once again.

"What I am saying is that you mustn\'t force yourself to befriend Leon," hence I repeated.

"Huh? But, why would I do that? I mean, I am not forcing myself or anything! You\'re getting it wrong!!" she tried to deny it but her voice was trailing off.

"You are still lying, be honest with yourself. You and I both know that what you are doing and what you want are two completely different things," I stated as I looked directly into her eyes.

She tried to avert her eyes and not look at me directly but for some reason, she didn\'t, maybe because that would\'ve proven her guilty.

"I am not...l-lying or anything. Why are you spouting this nonsense anyway!?" she besought.

"Yes, you are!" I said, out loud—I was lucky that the café was mostly empty otherwise I would\'ve attracted a lot of unwanted attention.

"We both know that you don\'t want to get close to Leon; you are only doing this because of that letter! Because that letter forced you to do so; to get in a relationship with Leon. Isn\'t that what it said?

As I dropped the bombshell Anya\'s eyes widened in response and her face went pale. "H-How do you know about that?" she asked in a low, trembling voice.

Fear was dripping down her face, maybe she thought things won\'t end well now I knew about the letter—something that was forbidden according to her.

"I know about it, I saw it when I came to drop you to your room after the incident with Winston—where Leon saved you. I know whoever the sender of that letter is, they are threatening you to get together with Leon otherwise they\'ll kill me," I clarified.

"I-I see, s-so you know," she breathed as she stared down at the table.

Her expression was not good, it was clear that she was terrified. She was now my family—even if she didn\'t think of me as one—and it pained me to make her go through something like this, but this was important. I can\'t allow X to control my sister anymore.

"Yes, I know. But I know one more thing too," as I said that, she raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes were glittery and she was about to burst into tears—maybe she really thought that X will kill me now.

"The other thing I know is that that letter and everything written in it is absolute bullshit! I can\'t believe you are so dense that you took something like that seriously!"

A "Huh?" left her mouth and she didn\'t say anything else. She was taken aback by surprise, probably she wasn\'t expecting me to say this.

"B-But they said—"

"—They said that they\'ll kill me, right?"

She replied with a nod and stared at me with confusion. "And you are so dumb to actually believe that. Can\'t you get it? That letter is fake; could\'ve been a prank!" Of course, the letter was not fake by any means; but she doesn\'t need to know that.

"Then what about that incident? Those boys really did come and someone saved me—it was Leon out of everyone," she argued.

"Couldn\'t it be a coincidence? Or maybe one of those three boys who bullied you sent the letter? And if you are talking about Leon, well, I was the one who sent him there," I claimed.

This was a very, very bad lie. I know that and if she tried to remember the things which happened that day then she can easily figure out my lie. Fortunately, she was not in the state and I was playing a gamble on that.

Here a law of human nature is applied—sometimes we don\'t believe in the actual truth, but in the thing that\'s convenient for us and gives us a feeling of safety; then it doesn\'t matter even if it\'s a lie we believe in. The brain ignores what\'s painful.

Anya also wanted to somehow stop interacting with Leon when she didn\'t want to, hence I figured that if I gave her an opportunity to escape that reality, then she will choose that route even though it\'s barely believable.

You can say that I was manipulating her in a way even if it was indirect, but really I don\'t want to do it. Manipulating my family is something I\'ve set off limits but here…it was for her own good.

I won\'t mind breaking the rules if it will benefit her in the future.