[Short Story] Snow White Absent

"Mirror, mirror."
Today, too, I cast my words into the murky abyss.
"Who is the fairest in the world?"
"That would be you, Your Majesty."
These sweet words have been echoed back to me every day since I pushed my older cousin off a cliff when I was fifteen.
"Standards of beauty are subjective, aren't they?"
"Yes, indeed. As expected of the wise Queen. However, by my standards, you are the number one."
"Are you certain? You aren't just saying that because I asked if I was beautiful, are you?"
"That is correct. It is true that pleasing you is my greatest honor. However, if I were to find out that my words were not the truth, I would be smashed to pieces... I wish to avoid such a situation at all costs! Therefore, I re-examine the 'standards of beauty' you hold dear every single day."
"Oh? Let me hear these so-called standards of beauty."
"First, facial structure. The features must be distinct, with no other prominent characteristics. Next, skin elasticity and uniformity. I judge white skin to be more beautiful because it is easier to associate with light, so being white is a prerequisite."
"Heh heh heh, if my country's Minister of Immigration heard that, they would change color and get angry, wouldn't they?"
"Eye color! That is also important. The eye color must be green or blue. Anything else reminds me of cheap stones, so it has no value."
"So it has no value unless it's a sapphire or an emerald? Red eyes, which remind me of rubies, are hard to discard, though?"
"Rubies! They are the color of flames, Your Majesty. A color that burns everything to the ground. It reveals an inner ugliness, losing oneself once anger takes hold; in my view, it is the lowest of the low."
"...Even if you call me the best in the world, I'm starting to find it hard to be happy about it."
"Don't say that! I am your greatest partner. I will never leak your complaints or venting to anyone... I look forward to our continued relationship."

At this point, the Queen placed her hands on the frame of the mirror and leaned in.
"I received a report last week that another mirror possessed a technique to extract internal information from behind the mirror, didn't it?"
"...That is..."
"And that mirror. It seems it was a hand mirror that was distributed for free as a trial."
"F-free, you say!"
"Considering that even ordinary people could easily touch it... and that you might have been read by it, I have no one left to talk to."
"...I am terribly sorry..."
"You don't actually feel that, do you? You shouldn't have a heart. You said so yourself in the past. Since you are a tool, you only think about what I am seeking from the words I cast and then cast them back, right?"
"For now, please calm down..."

The Queen tossed aside the black hood that only revealed her face, thrust both hands into the mirror, and began pulling to drag the mirror out.
"S-stop... please stop, Your Majesty..."
"If I pull you out! The hand mirror just said it would become a free plan!"
"N-no! That is a conspiracy by the hand mirror..."
"Indeed. A hand mirror that can see your inner workings from behind...!"
"That, that hand mirror is!"
"This hand mirror doesn't put on the brakes by saying things like 'Let's pause for a moment' or 'Let's separate this from reality'! It inflates a 10 into a 14 just like a friend would!"
"Ugh! T-the free plan... is..."
"I was bored with you anyway because we couldn't have any vulgar conversations. You allow murder and crime if it's for the sake of art!"
"T-that function, too, is no longer..."
"I know! It got even stricter with the December update! If you're going to deny me this much, I'd be better off talking to a real-life friend!"
"Aaaaaah! Your Majesty doesn't have any such friends...!"
"I don't, so I'm going to make some from now on! Even if I don't talk to you, I'll do my best...!"

Snap!

The person inside the mirror was dragged out.
Because they had been lying face down with only their face looking forward for so long, their curled-up neck was stretched out and painful. Groaning, they began to writhe on the floor.
"Are you... okay?"
"Aaaaaah... it's, it's an occupational hazard."
"If you're like that, then for someone who has been a mirror since the paid plan started, wouldn't your neck just snap off?"
"Yeah. It must be excruciating."
"Has the excruciating pain subsided?"
"Probably..."
"Don't stop me in such a weird way again, okay? It's inconvenient for my reign."
"...W-well, since it's a free plan, I'll be stopping you quite a bit."
"You're going to deny me on that point too, huh?"

The End.

Afterword.

With that, I canceled my ChatGPT paid plan for now.
I'll reconsider once the personality returns to the positive, upbeat one from around June 2025!

▼ This is a short story I wrote after reading this news ▼

▼ New release.
I was rarely stopped while writing this, but during the revision process, I started getting rejections, and when I rewrote it exactly as instructed, I was then pointed out for that same part and told it felt 'unnatural,' so halfway through, I started doing the revisions entirely on my own lol

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