It was either her or me—and it definitely wasn’t going to be me!

I had read about this exact life-or-death situation I was now facing a hundred times before: suddenly regaining memories of my past life, realizing I reincarnated as the villainess of an otome game, realizing said ill-fated villainess was destined for a grisly end no matter what…

You know, the usual.

But nothing could have prepared me to face this gut-wrenching reality—except for the fact that I had played this very game and knew my quickest path to victory as the villainess!

I almost cried when the epiphany struck me like lightning. The main plot point of the otome game Lilley Academy was the heroine’s darkest secret: she was a fake noble who had no right to attend this prestigious academy that was reserved for nobility like me!

The gentle morning breeze made my long, raven black hair dance around my shoulders as I anxiously waited for my target to arrive. It was the first event of the game: on the way to the academy, the heroine would get lost and run into my almost-fiancée who would then escort her through the academy’s front gate hand in hand. At a sight like that, I would have every reason to be outraged!

When that moment finally came, I would expose my rival as the fraud she was, and then I’d get to enjoy living the rest of my noble life just as I like! It was a plan so perfect, even the original villainess herself would have acknowledged my cunning with her signature haughty laugh!

Just as soon as the heroine showed up, everything would go into motion and victory would be mine. Whenever she finally did… any minute now…

What’s taking her so long?

“Um, excuse me?”

I nearly jumped out of my dress. Slowly, I turned to face where the voice came from. Honey brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, a simple flowery dress, that innocent smiling face…!

Oh my God it’s her!

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” the heroine said, quickly scratching a reddening cheek. “It’s just that, um… Are you Evelyn Valentina?”

Where did she come from? How did she already know my name?! What was she… no, this wasn’t the time for that right now! Deep breaths, deep breaths…

“O-Of course,” I managed to say, familiar enough with my new ‘villainess’ name by now. “And you must be—”

“Wow, I almost can’t believe it!” she interrupted, her eyes sparkling with delight as she leaned toward me. “It really is you!”

“Come again?” I asked, unable to keep the hint of concern out of my voice.

“Ah, pardon me!” she said, taking a step back. “I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Clara! I mean, it’s… it’s Claribel Coppertree. But please, call me Clara!”

She gently raised the edges of her skirt and bent her knees into a polite curtsy—or at least, she tried to. All at once, Clara lost her balance and stumbled forward, nearly falling to the ground until I caught her in my arms.

“Hey, are you alright?!” I couldn’t help asking.

Clara winced while rubbing her head. “Oh gosh, I am so sorry! I, uh, my head has been hurting like crazy since I bumped it really hard last night.”

That… That sounded like exactly what happened to me a week ago! I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling about this! Was that the reason why she arrived by herself? And the heroine Claribel in the game never called herself Clara…

Time for a change of plans!

I cleared my throat. “Miss Coppertree, we still have some time before classes begin. Would you care to rest a while and join me for some tea?”

The way her eyes lit up as she gently took my hand in hers made my heart skip a beat.

“Yes, I’d love to!”

We received a barrage of awkward looks from the other students while I escorted Clara to my dorm room hand in hand, but I had far more pressing concerns at the moment.

“How are you feeling now?” I asked her after pouring a cup of freshly brewed tea.

“You are too kind!” she smiled, gingerly taking a sip. “My head has been spinning ever since I fell out of bed last night and suddenly remembered my, uh… strange ‘dream’ I had.”

A hot wave of butterflies shot through my stomach. I tried to maintain my composure as I sat down across my room’s small dining table from her. “Yes, about that… If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of ‘dream’ was it?” I prompted her.

Clara set down her teacup and sat a little straighter in her chair. “Oh, I hardly know where to begin…”

It was everything I feared—and worse. Clara began weaving a story filled with metaphors and analogies, just like she was trying to vaguely describe in a way someone of this world would understand that she…

She had all her memories of a previous life on Earth.

And not only was Clara familiar with the very game that she now found herself the heroine of, Lilley Academy was her absolute favorite game that she had played hundreds of times!

I struggled to continue drinking my tea as I contemplated the obvious. This was the worst-case scenario by far: considering how many events with the game’s love interests happened outside the academy, even if she was kicked out, my ‘dead end’ would be almost guaranteed! My plan would have failed from the start! She knew more about this otome game than I did; how could I make sure she wouldn’t use her knowledge to reach an ending that led to my doom?!

Of course, since she thought I was the real Evelyn Valentina of this world, she didn’t actually call it an ‘otome game’ in her explanation…

“But there was someone special to me in this, um, story book about an academy like this one,” Clara went on, a little more anxious now. “There was this one character I loved that made me keep… rereading it. Her eyes glittered like emeralds, and the way she turned beet red when she got all flustered gave me butterflies, and… and… s-she kind of looked like…”

Clara stared at me, her own cheeks instantly turning beet red. I nearly choked on the last of my tea.

Was she really trying to tell me that…

Her favorite character was…

ME!?

No, that can’t be right! That’s crazy! Evelyn Valentina was the villainess for crying out loud! That’s impossible, that’s just…!

Wait a minute. On second though, was that actually such a bad thing? If she was only interested in me, then she wouldn’t make any progress with the other love interests, and I wouldn’t be screwed! Clara didn’t even have to know I wasn’t the real villainess anymore! The events of the game didn’t last that long; all I had to do was keep playing the part for a little while and victory would be mine.

For real this time!

I covered a long, haughty laugh with my hand. “Oh, my! That’s quite an active imagination you have there, Miss Coppertree! Never before have I heard someone offer a more inventive way of asking to be my friend! But I should warn you: as a member of the noble Valentina family, I must have high standards for the company I keep. Is that still agreeable with you?”

I stood up, flaunting my teacup with my right hand and offering her my left. I nailed it: the most iconic scene in the game! Originally it was a declaration of war from the villainess to the heroine, but now, it was a declaration of… of…

Something was wrong. Clara was staring at me in a way that gave me goosebumps, just as if she were seeing me for the first time.

“Is everything alright?” I had to ask.

She rushed to collect herself, nodding vigorously. “Oh, yes! I was just so surprised! I never thought you would… accept like that.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Clara’s sweet, breathtaking smile returned as she gently took my hand in hers, and my heart skipped another beat.

“I’d love to!”

Sure enough, Clara completely ignored the game’s love interests and only wanted to spend time with me, just like she had said. At first it almost scared me how good I was at pretending to be the villainess. Then I loved every moment of it, and not just because she wasn’t making any progress toward a ‘game ending’ that would lead to my death.

Every day we took a morning walk around the academy, and passed notes back and forth during class, and ate picnic lunch together, and laughed while drinking tea in my room after class, and wished each other good night before anxiously waiting to fall asleep so we could do it all over again. Clara was goofy, and brash, and impulsive, and sometimes unbelievably clumsy, and yet… after only one day I couldn’t help thinking that she was the most fun person I had ever known—in this life or any other. I loved every second of every minute I spent with her, except…

Except how much it hurt.

In the beginning, I thought I could keep up this charade as long as necessary if it meant I could survive my fate as the villainess. Now that I knew her well enough, it was silly to think she would have ever tried to make me disappear.

Then I thought I could keep pretending to be the real Evelyn if it meant she would stay with me. It will be worth it, I told myself. I can be Clara’s favorite character for her, and she can let me keep living this dream! This is perfect for us!

But each passing day was another day of agony for my aching heart. I loved the way she made my heart race when she reached for my hand, and I hated the way I had to keep faking everything to make that happen. I wanted to stay with her, more than anything in the world I didn’t want this to end. And yet… I couldn’t keep living this lie. Even if it meant she would hate me and send me to my doom, I wanted to let her know the truth.

I had to.

When classes were over on the last day of our first week, I asked her to come to my room for tea, just one last time.

“Are you feeling alright?” Clara asked after pouring a cup of freshly brewed tea.

I couldn’t even look her in the eye after accepting the cup. “No.”

For the first time ever, I caught her frowning. “Lady Evelyn, what’s wrong?”

A hot wave of butterflies shot through my stomach. My appetite evaporated all at once.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I began in a whisper, setting down my cup and motioning for her to join me on the edge my bed. Only when she gracefully sat down next to me did I continue. “I… I’m not really Evelyn Valentina. I’m someone else, just an ordinary girl with… memories of another time and place. Like you.”

Palpable silence filled my room. Clara’s eyes fell to the floor.

“You waited all this time just to tell me that?” she asked.

A lump caught in my throat. I couldn’t tell what trace of emotion crossed her face before she covered it with both hands. My stomach churned while I racked my brain for the right words to say, but nothing came to mind. I found myself staring at the floor as well, speechless, until out of the corner of my eye I caught Clara’s head bobbing up and down. But she wasn’t crying.

Instead, it almost looked like she was…

Giggling?

“Oh, you!” Clara struggled to say through gleeful gasps. “I was wondering when you were finally going to tell me!”

What? What?!

“Y-You mean… you already knew that?” I stammered. “How?”

It took her a minute to finish laughing and collect herself, smiling again. “Well, the thing is… in the game, Evelyn was left-handed. She always held her teacup with her left.”

Clara figured it out from that? Of course; she knew even more about ‘my’ character than I did. Hah… I should have figured from the start there was no use trying to fool an expert…

“Wait, that meant you knew the truth this whole time?!” I almost shouted. “Were you trying to trick me?”

Clara burst into another fit of giggles, throwing her arms around me in a hug. “It’s not like that!” she said through more tears of laughter. “It meant so much to me, I mean it! This has been the best week of my life.”

I sighed. “In a way, this has been the only week of your life.”

“You know what I mean!” she pouted.

Even though I was still reeling from that sudden development, in that moment I wanted nothing else than to return her hug and never let her go. But first…

“Listen, there’s one more thing I have to say,” I began again. “Before we met, I was thinking about doing something that was kind of, uh… not very nice.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” she smiled. “And do you know how many events happen outside the academy with—”

I groaned. “Yes, I know.”

“I was joking!” she giggled again, hugging me a little tighter.

At last I hugged her back. Neither of us spoke for a while, but it was a warm, satisfying silence.

“Say, did you have a favorite character in Lilley Academy?” she asked me.

This is awkward… “Not really, but if I had to pick… I would say Claribel was always my favorite heroine of any game…”

“Well, I’m not her either,” Clara said. “So that means we’re even. Right?”

We sat on the edge of my bed in silence for a while longer. After what felt like an hour that I never wanted to end, she finally let go and spoke up.

“It really did mean the world to me that you tried so hard for my sake,” she whispered with flushed cheeks. “You know, being Evelyn.”

“But I was just playing along!” I said. “I mean, it was just… acting…”

“But didn’t you have fun?” she asked. “Didn’t you want to stay together, even for a little bit?”

I reached for her hands and held them both in mine, staring into her gorgeous blue eyes.

“Yes, I do! More than anything else in the world, I don’t want this to end. I don’t want us to end.”

Clara’s cheeks turned a brighter shade of red as she looked away. “Um, well… I-I am kind of mad about this, though!”

“What? Why?”

She bit her lip. “This whole week you got the chance to know me, but I hardly know anything about you! I don’t even know your name, your real name!”

I let out another sigh, smiling.

“Eva. It’s Eva.”

Clara gripped my hands a little tighter, smiling back.

“Well, Eva, I want to know more about you. I… I want you to show me what you’re really like. And we can take all the time we need.”

My heart was beating so fast, I thought it was going to pound right out of my chest. The deep blue of her eyes kept drawing me in closer and closer. She stared back into my eyes as if asking, Are you going to do it? Each passing moment made it harder to think, but one thing was certain: our first kiss wasn’t going to magically start by itself.

It was either her or me—and in the end, it was me after all. ♡