Cendrillon PalikA – Shien Clinochlore

Shien (CV: Hino Satoshi) is the sensible one who resides outside of Tokyou with Ulen. He often makes tea for everyone and is the kind older brother type (he also has a weird ass last name lmao).

Hairi decides to ask Shien to help with undoing the curse and coincidentally he invites her for tea and sweets. After going there, he’s not there cause he came to pick her up first. So just as she’s about to leave to go find him, she bumps right into him. Hairi tells him she knows how to unravel the curse so she wants his help and explains how it can be done. He tells her to give him time before he gives an answer. So a week later, Hairi meets Shien again and he asks why he wants him to help her. She gives a sort of “cause you helped me before” kind of reason and he agrees to help. Hairi then asks about the flowers and says she used to make flower crowns but thinks doing it now would be childish. So Shien puts one in her hair and says that way it seems less childish.

Hairi and Shien meet up at a hideout to discuss methods to get into the clock tower. Hairi shows Shien some pictures of Tokyou and Shien looks really uncomfortable for some reason but says he’s fine. Shien agrees Hairi should talk with the gatekeeper in getting her to let her into the clock tower. When she attempts to bribe him with cheesecake, it doesn’t work so she consults Shien again. As he tells her to look into Rindo, the gatekeeper, Hairi notices he seems off and he tells her he had a bad dream because of the pictures she showed him. He then admits he has amnesia can’t remember anything prior two years ago. He also used to live in Tokyou and as for why he’s still alive after not wearing glass and living on the outside, he doesn’t know.

After that, Hairi visits Shien again to find him looking very tired and worn out. He says he’s fine and just not sleeping well. Regardless, Hairi begins to tell him how she found out Rindo likes to collect bugs as a hobby and they decide to try and catch a rare bug for him. Hairi then uses an aroma she has to help Shien sleep. After that, Shien and Hairi go bug hunting in the forest outside of Tokyou. They chase down a butterfly that is a attracted to the glowing flowers that Shien had taken Hairi to see. They end up catching a few and then Hairi gets tired so she falls asleep on top of the flowers. When Hairi wakes up, she finds Shien had done the same and is asleep next to her.

So next day Hairi shows Rindo the butterflies she caught and he agrees to escort her into the tower. He tells her to go on ahead but the door will only open to those who are of royal blood aka an Astrolabi like Kashika explained. But knowing she is one, Hairi is able to go into the door and move the needle of the clock tower. Hairi goes to tell Shien about this but he ends up slapping Hairi’s hand away because of his constant bad dreams. He tells her he had a dream where he was banished from Tokyou because he was a criminal and starts to believe this is a true memory. He asks Hairi to help him regain his memories and she agrees to help since she still believes he’s a good person now and should focus on the future him rather than the past.

After that, Hairi visits Shien at the church again. Although it seems like no one is there at first, she finds Shien in his room. She immediately notices his eye patch is off revealing a different colored eye. He explains that his right eye became glass because of the curse when he lived in Tokyou. He only remembered recently that when he was banished from Tokyou, he remembered feeling an intense pain probably due to his eye turning into glass. Regardless, he doesn’t know why he didn’t die and it was just his eye that turned to glass. After that, Hairi shows Shien some pictures of Tokyou to try and get him to remember his past. Hairi also tries to look up Shien in a list of missing people in Tokyou but can’t find anything.

Later on, Hairi’s brother and Shien get sick. Hairi gets a letter from Ulen to come visit Shien since he’s in a bad condition and Hairi gets her friend Eris (who is more than delighted) to tend to her brother. Hairi visits Shien who’s sleeping and having a bad dream. She ends up falling asleep herself after making him porriage and wakes up to find him gone. So, she finds him where the flowers are, crying. He asks if she’ll still consider him a good person after finding out how much suffering he’s caused. He tells her that he believes he was the one who cursed Tokyou and the glass disk he had when he first had amnesia is proof of it because its from the same tower where only Astrolabi and the one who cursed it can enter. Albeit it was over a hundred years ago since the curse, Shien has no idea how long he’s been alive because he has amnesia. He starts crying and Hairi comforts him, telling him not to cry. She also realizes she’s in love with him.

After this, Hairi tries to research about the royal family since their blood (and hers) supposedly have ties to the curse. Albeit the only one of royalty now is a person known as “M”. Hairi enters the clock tower after hearing about a library there that has information. Unfortunately, she’s unable to enter and moves the needle of the clock again. When she sees Shien, he tells her about abother dream he had where there was a man’s eyes he felt like he recognized. He and Hairi go to the gate of Tokyou to see if they can spot anyone but Shien doesn’t find anyone familiar. That is until Rindo passes by with his brother looking for the person who took the photo of the butterfly with Hairi, aka Shien. He tells her “Rindo” was the one with the same eyes in his dream, banishing him from Tokyou.

They decide to stay put until Rindo and his brother leave. Hairi stays until 11:30 but as soon as she waits 10 more minutes for them to leave, she dashes to the gate where her brother was waiting. She ends up losing her glass shoe in the process but makes it home safely. The next day, Shien remembers how he was banished from Tokyou and explains the situation in detail. Rindo had told him he committed a “sin” of casting the curse and the disk he had was proof of it. Shien explains that Rindo somehow knew that Shien was part of the royal family and that the memories of them had been forgotten due to the curse with him being an exception. So he tells him its his duty to banish him from Tokyou and knocks him out.

However, after hearing this, Ulen doesn’t believe it proves he was the one who created the curse. He has no memory of doing so either. In the end, they believe they should access the archive in the clock tower to obtain more info. But without someone part of the royal family, it can’t be accessed. So Shien decides to go with Hairi, knowing the risks that he may lose another part of his body or he may get stuck in Tokyou due to the curse. After that, Shien mentions how he noticed Hairi lost her glass shoe and gives her one for her missing pair. He received them before he met her with a letter saying the person who wears them will make his wish come true. Hairi then remembers her feels for Shien and accidently says outloud that she loves him. Shien is surprised and almost kisses her but stops himself saying he wants to confess his feelings first. Once he does confess he loves her too, they both kiss for the first time. 👀

The next day, Shien goes to enter Tokyou which he manages to enter successfully. He stays at Hairi’s place and they explore the town a bit. When Shien notices a familiar shop, he remembers visiting it. At night, Shien visits Hairi in her room and tells her he met a girl at the same shop and suggested she try on glass shoes she couldn’t afford but looked at in admiration. Shien was actually the person she had met and she told him he reminded her of a prince at that time. After that, Shien is about to leave but Hairi tells him to stay. He acts like he’s going to but gives Hairi a kiss on the forehead before telling her goodnight. (Hairi’s all thats foul play yo lmaooo).

Next day Hairi decides they should enter the clock tower while Rindo isn’t guarding it. But when they arrive by the entrance, Rindo is standing there and waiting for them. He admits he did indeed banish Shien and he was looking for Shien because he gained interest in him after finding out he was alive. However, he never had proof that Shien was the culprit and merely did it because he was of royal blood. Hairi then runs away with Shien to the cherry blossom tree and they manage to hide until he leaves. After that, Hairi and Shien sneak into the clock tower and manage to enter the archive due to Shien being royal blood. So they grab an important looking book and escape the tower after Hairi moves the needle of the clock tower again.

A week later, Shien reads the book they found and they essentially find out a new method that could break the curse which is actually destroying the source aka the clock tower. They see something about a special Astra (the watch that Hairi possess) but the paper is withered and they can’t completely read it. So another week passes and they decide to go back to the clock tower’s archive room. They encounter M, who also has a Astra wrapped around her neck. However, she says nothing and both Hairi and Shien decide to make a run for it since the info they have on the so called ‘special Astra’ that M has is vague. After that, guards are on high alert and both Hairi and Shien are wanted as intruders of the clock tower that assaulted M and stole important documents.

Because of this, its only a matter of time before Shien and Hairi will get caught. So Kashika suggests they go to the clock tower now to settle things once and for all. Shion and Eris decide to become decoys to lure the guards away as Shien and Hairi sneak into the clock tower. They encounter Rindo there who chases them until they reach the inside of the clock tower where Rindo cannot enter. Its then Hairi decides that she’ll try her own method to stop the curse. She then accidentally drops the Astra and when Shien picks it up, the sharp end pricks his finger, making blood fall on it. This causes the Astra to react to his royal blood which makes them realize this is the way to destroy the curse. So Hairi links herself to the clock tower and they manage to destroy it and the curse is broken. Hairi immediately goes outside the gate to confirm and Shien runs after her, worried she may still die if she does. She manages to confirm the curse is broken and Shien runs up to her giving her a big hug and telling her he was worried. They then kiss each other and cry happy tears together. 😭

In the epilogue,  Hairi goes to Shien’s place to stay the night and because Hairi forgets her sleepwear, she ends up wearing one of Shien’s shirts. When Shien says he’ll sleep in Ulen’s room, she stops him and tells him to stay. So they hold hands and sleep together.

In the 1st bad end, Shien and Hairi are caught by Rindo and M and are captured. In the 2nd bad end, Hairi and Shien steal M’s Astra and use it to try and undo the curse. However, they end up stopping time in the process ans go outside to find everyone literally frozen. Shien just loses his shit and starts crying saying he doesn’t care about anything anymore as long as they’re together. After a lot of time passes, Hairi tries researching about how to make time start again but to no avail. Meanwhile, Shien’s already given up and Hairi suggests they go see Ulen. He says “Ulen who” which makes her lose her shit and try and kill him. She’s in shock of what she just did and decides its better if they just die so Shien chokes her. In the 3rd bad end, they move the needle of the clock but it ends up releasing the curse and worsening rather than ending it.

Final Thoughts: I’ve learned to not expect a whole bunch of plot from the poster boy route but I did like Shien as a character. He was probably the most normal of everyone in the game and I didn’t have many qualms against his character at all honestly. He’s not really my type though… but his scenes were sweet. Yet another reason to side-eye Rindo… I mean, he basically banished him for no reason and Shien is probably the most innocent of all of the guys lmao. His end CG was really cute though. And his bad CGs… I mean I didn’t expect 3 all in one ending?? And seeing Hairi suddenly choke Shien was certainly not what I was expecting lol. Aside from that, I don’t remember it explaining why he didn’t die and turn to glass when he was banished to leave outside of Tokyou?? Unless I missed something??? I know his eye turned to glass but… I don’t remember it explaining why he didn’t die. He sort of just… didn’t. Maybe that was a plot-hole unexplained idk.