kanny

"Hey!" she said, voice bright enough to make his teeth ache. "Nice bike. Vintage, right?"

Sylus clenched his jaw. Don't engage. She'll leave if you don't engage. He grunted, flicking a speck of rust off the carburetor.

She didn't take the hint. Leaning in, she tapped the fuel tank like they were old friends. "My neighbour used to have one just like this. Well, almost like this. His was blue, and the seat had this weird tear-"

"Mhm." Sylus reached for a wrench, deliberately turning his back.

"-oh, you're so right, it's totally going to rain later-"

Sylus stared.

Her voice twisted, warped. The words melted together like a shrill. His chest ached, hollow and heavy all at once. He knew this feeling. The one that came after the anger, when the fire burned out and left nothing but ashes.

Alone.

Even when she was here, screaming at nothing, he was alone.

She kept talking. About the weather. About some café down the street. About nothing, really. He tuned it out, focusing on tightening a bolt until his fingers hurt.

Finally, he stood, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. He didn't bother with a goodbye, just walked toward the garage door, her voice still bouncing off the concrete walls behind him.

Then it hit him. The talking hadn't stopped.

He glanced back.

She was still there, grinning at the empty space where he'd been standing, gesturing animatedly to no one. Her laughter echoed, high and bright, as if he'd never left.

Sylus exhaled through his nose. Not real. Again.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

Somewhere behind him, she was still laughing. Somewhere inside him, the silence was worse.

***

The clock glared at you from the corner of the screen. 11:47 PM.

Twelve minutes. Twelve fucking minutes.

Your fingers hammered the keyboard like it had personally wronged you. The essay was done, mostly, but the last paragraph was a wreck of half-formed thoughts and caffeine-induced word vomit. You backspaced violently, teeth sinking into your lower lip. "Come on, come on."

Your roommate's cat, an orange ball of fur called Caramel, hopped onto the desk and sat on your notes.

"Not now," you hissed, nudging him away. Caramel flicked his tail in your face and settled just out of arm's reach, watching you suffer with unblinking yellow eyes.

11:53.

You skimmed the essay one last time, your vision blurring from screen fatigue. Was that a typo? Did you mix up "affect" and "effect" again? The words swam on the screen, morphing into meaningless shapes.

Good enough. With a shaky breath, you hit Submit.

The page loaded with agonizing slowness.

11:58.

Your knee bounced under the desk. The cursor spun. Spin, spin, spin.

Submitted successfully!

The clock ticked over to 11:59.

You made a sound between a sob and a laugh, slumping back in your chair. The tension drained from your shoulders all at once, leaving you boneless. For a long moment, you just stared at the ceiling, your heartbeat finally slowing. The desk lamp cast long shadows, the room suddenly too bright, too quiet.

Caramel meowed, unimpressed.

"Yeah, yeah," you muttered, but there was no heat in it. The relief was too sweet.

You got out of the chair, your muscles protesting like you'd run a marathon instead of typing. The shower beckoned you. Hot, steamy, glorious. You turned the water up until it nearly scalded, letting it pound the stress from your back. The shampoo smelled like coconuts, the steam fogging up the mirror until your reflection vanished. For the first time in weeks, you could finally breathe.

After, you slipped into your favorite slip dress. The oversized lavender one that pooled around your thighs. Your skin still hummed with the warmth of the shower, hair dripping lazily onto your shoulders.

Then, the real reward.

You snatched your phone off the charger, thumb hovering over the app you hadn't opened in weeks. Love & Deepspace, the game you'd been too buried in assignments to touch. Just the icon made your pulse skip. The opening theme swelled as it loaded, the familiar melody wrapping around you.

You crossed your fingers. "Please don't crash. Please don't-"

The home screen loaded, vibrant and welcoming. A rush of warmth flooded your chest. God, you'd missed this. Missed the pixel-perfect smiles of your favorite characters, the cheesy dialogues, the way your stomach fluttered during the romance scenes. It was stupid. It was perfect.

You curled onto your bed, pulling the comforter up to your chin. Binx settled beside you, purring.

For the first time in forever, you grinned.

"Alright, baby," you whispered to the screen. “Miss me?”

You blinked at the screen, waiting.

The Destiny Café's afternoon glow bathed everything in honeyed light. Cozy, inviting, but wrong. Because he wasn't there.

Sylus should have been front and center, seated on the couch with that infuriating smirk, his silver-white hair catching the light like frost under the sun. His crimson eyes, like blood spilled over fresh snow, should have been locked onto the screen, onto you, with that knowing glint that always made your stomach flip.

But the space where he usually stood was empty. Just an untouched coffee cup and the faint imprint of where his hip would have rested on the couch.

Your finger hovered over the screen.

What the hell?

You switched to Rafayel. He appeared instantly, greeting you with a soft smile. Then Zayne, Xavier, Caleb. All were present. Exactly as they should've been. But Sylus?

Gone.

You reloaded. Same empty café. Same hollow silence where his voice should have been.

A weird, creeping unease settled in your chest. This wasn't right. Sylus wasn't some side character. He was Sylus, the one who always greeted you, made you laugh, the one whose rare, genuine smile felt like a secret just for you.

You clicked the "Date" tab. His name was still there. But his icon was grayed out, as if you'd never unlocked him. But you had. You knew you had. You remembered the grind, the late nights, the way your heart jumped when his story finally unlocked. You remembered the exact shade of his eyes. His sly remarks.

And now?

Now it was just… nothing.

The game hummed on, oblivious. The other characters chatted, flirted, existed like nothing was wrong.

But you couldn't shake the feeling that something was.

Where the hell was Sylus?

You switched characters again, as if he'd magically appear this time. But no. His spot remained empty. No silver-white hair catching the light, no crimson eyes glinting with amusement. Just emptiness.

Frustration settled under your skin. You exited the game, force-closed it, reopened it. Same empty café. Same missing man.

"Okay, maybe it's just a bug."

You hopped onto Reddit, scrolling through forums, searching for anything about Sylus missing. But there was nothing. No posts, no complaints, no panicked "Where's Sylus??" threads. Just the usual chatter. Fan theories, event guides, thirst edits.

Your stomach twisted.

Why was no one else talking about this?

You checked the official website. No mention of him being removed. No maintenance notices. It was like the universe had decided to gaslight you.

What was the point of playing if he wasn't here?

You glanced at the clock on your bedside table. 2:43 AM. You were too tired for this. Maybe it was just a weird glitch. Maybe tomorrow, when you logged back in, he'd be there like nothing had happened.

With a sigh, you tossed your phone onto the nightstand, flicked off the light, and yanked the covers over your head.

***

You were jolted awake by a sudden, unnatural sensation. Not by any sound or dream, but by the distinct feeling of movement while lying completely still. Your eyes flew open to complete darkness, but this wasn't the familiar comforting dark of your bedroom. The air felt charged.

You rubbed your eyes and felt yourself lifting, floating, as if gravity had momentarily forgotten you existed. Your breath caught in your throat as you realized you were actually hovering, weightless. Before panic could fully take hold, you sensed a presence beside you, touching you, the heat from his body searing through his clothes, enveloping you. Did someone kidnap you?

Slowly, almost afraid of what you might see, you turned your head.

And there, carrying you bridal style, was Sylus. Not as pixels on a screen, but as a living, breathing being. His silver-white hair seemed to glow faintly in the darkness, like moonlight reflecting off fresh snow. Those crimson eyes, the ones you'd have known anywhere, locked onto yours with an intensity that made your heart pound violently against your chest.

"I see someone’s up," he murmured, his voice deeper and richer than you'd ever imagined, sending an unexpected shiver down your spine. The scent of winter air and something faintly metallic, like cold steel, surrounded him. Every rational thought screamed that this couldn't be real, that you had to be dreaming, but the warmth of his breath against your skin felt terrifyingly real.

He smirked, that same infuriatingly perfect smirk you'd seen a hundred times on your phone screen, but now it was directed at you in a way that made your stomach flip. In this impossible moment, only one thought rang clear in your overwhelmed mind. He was real, he was here, and nothing would ever be the same again.

How the hell was he here and not in the game? But he wasn't actually here, right? You were probably just dreaming. A dream that felt dangerously real, one that had your heartbeat accelerating, the hairs on the back of your neck standing upright, your palms clammy, your thoughts all mushed up. Just what the hell was going on?

In that moment, you could think of nothing else but to do the only sane thing. The one thing any normal person would do. You screamed. Maybe Sylus wasn't expecting that. He stopped in his tracks and, just for a faint second, you noticed his eyes widen. Your scream tore through the night air. Before the second shriek could escape, Sylus' gloved hand clamped over your mouth.

The leather smelled faintly of gun oil and winter mint, an unsettlingly human detail for someone who shouldn't exist.

"Easy there, little kitten," he murmured, crimson eyes glinting with amusement under the moonlight. "We're in the N109 Zone. Do you really want an audience here?"

His thumb brushed your cheekbone, lingering a moment longer than it needed to.

The scream died in your throat as his words registered. N109 Zone. You'd seen it in the game before. You remembered what almost happened to the MC when she first came here. Your wide eyes darted past Sylus' shoulder, finally taking in your surroundings properly.

Moonlight bled through the trees, their twisted branches clawing at the sky. The air hummed with something electric, raising goosebumps along your arms. Ahead of you, where Sylus was walking, still carrying you like you weighed nothing, stood a glorious mansion adorned with intricate details, sculptures, gardens punctuated with red roses.

Sylus followed your gaze. "Ah. You've noticed our destination." He let you down, setting you carefully on your feet. "Walk with me. Questions can wait until I've safely escorted you inside."

Every survival instinct screamed to wrench away, but the rational part of your brain knew escape would be futile. This was Sylus, after all. Dream or not.

You found yourself matching his strides as he led you toward the glowing mansion, your bare feet sinking into unnaturally warm moss with each step.

The night was still young. Your slip dress, once perfectly comfortable in your bedroom, now felt flimsy as tissue paper.

"You're shaking," Sylus observed without breaking stride, his thumb finding your pulse point, where your heartbeat fluttered like a caged bird. "Don't tell me you only like me from behind a screen."

"I do like you. But you're not even real." You managed to speak without stuttering, although you knew he sensed the nervousness in your voice anyway.

"Or am I, sweetie?"

"I’d rather my fictional characters stay fictional," you snapped, then immediately regretted it when his fingers tightened fractionally.

Sylus laughed, a rich, unsettling sound that didn't quite reach those blood-bright eyes. "Your?"

The mansion loomed closer, its glowing arches humming. Something in that sound made your teeth ache. Sylus' grip shifted to your elbow as you approached the massive doors, his breath warm against your ear. "Deep breaths now. I wouldn't want my guest to panic. What kind of host would that make me?"

You locked eyes with him. There was something in his gaze you couldn't quite discern. This dream, or whatever it was, was driving you crazy.

As the doors swung open silently, revealing a cavernous hall pulsing with strange light, you realized with dawning horror that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't just some bizarre dream. But that wouldn’t make sense, right?

The game had never shown this place. Never warned about any of this. And the man beside you, the one whose smirk had once made your stomach flutter, now felt about as safe as a live wire in a thunderstorm.

Your breath caught as you took in the grand hall, its vaulted ceilings stretching endlessly. The air hummed with a faint warmth, carrying the scent of aged parchment and something richer, like smoldering embers and black tea. The walls were adorned with intricate carvings, their swirling patterns shifting subtly under the glow of floating orbs of light that drifted lazily through the space.

This place shouldn't have existed.

You'd spent hours in Love & Deepspace, memorizing every pixel of Sylus' world, or so you'd thought. But this? This had never been in the game.

As if reading your thoughts, Sylus chuckled low beside you. "The game only showed the places I wanted it to."

You tore your gaze from the opulent decor to glance at him, but he was already looking away, his expression unreadable. Still, you caught the faintest curve of his lips, smug, satisfied. Like he was enjoying your bewilderment.

Before you could retort, he stepped forward, extending a gloved hand toward you. "Come." It wasn't a request.

You hesitated, fingers twitching at your sides. Every rational instinct screamed that you shouldn't take it, that you should demand answers, find a way back, run. But curiosity was a traitorous thing.

You placed your hand in his.

His fingers closed around yours, warm and firm.

He guided you through the mansion with quiet precision, his grip on your hand unyielding as you moved through rooms that felt too expansive, too real to belong to any game. The air smelled of polished wood and gun oil. The walls were lined with sleek display cases, holding meticulously maintained firearms. Some modern, some antique.

A long hallway opened into what looked like an armory: racks of rifles and handguns. You recognized some from the game, the sleek, futuristic designs that had always appeared when you fought alongside Sylus. But others were unfamiliar, their edges worn from use. You paused beside a case holding a silver revolver. "This wasn't in the game," you murmured.

Sylus hummed, stepping closer, his shoulder brushing yours as he reached past you to tap the glass. "No. Some things are just for me."

The next chamber was a training area: mats covering the floor, a shooting range tucked behind soundproof glass. A half-dismantled rifle lay on a workbench, its parts spread out.

You couldn't believe your eyes. Yes, Sylus was your favourite fictional character. He was just your type. You'd spent hours reading his fanfictions, replaying his memories, poring over his fanart. But this? This was incomprehensible. Was this dangerous, or exciting? Were you dead, or dreaming?

You turned to him, your pulse quickening. "Is this real?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. "Or am I inside the game or something? ‘Cus this does not feel like a dream at all."

Sylus studied you for a long moment, his crimson eyes unreadable. Then, with deliberate slowness, he caught your wrist, guiding your hand to his chest. Beneath the fabric of his shirt, you felt the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart.

"Does it matter?" he murmured.

Your fingers curled slightly against him, warmth seeping through the material. It was too real, the heat of his skin, the faint scent of leather and something darker, like black coffee. The game never felt this real. It felt, well, just like a game.

He tilted his head, watching your reaction with that same infuriating smirk. "You wanted answers," he said. "But you haven't asked the right question yet."

You swallowed. "Then what's the right question?"

Sylus leaned in, his breath brushing your ear. "Not where you are," he said. "But why you're here."

A shiver ran down your spine.

Before you could respond, he straightened and tugged you forward again. "Come. I want to show you something."

And despite the unease coiling in your stomach, you followed.

The heavy oak door swung open under Sylus' touch, revealing a library so vast it made your breath hitch. Towering mahogany shelves stretched toward the ceiling, their upper levels vanishing into darkness. Rolling ladders stood along the walls. The scent of aged paper and polished wood wrapped around you, rich and comforting.

You took an involuntary step forward, your fingers already itching to touch the spines. "This is..." Words failed you as your gaze traveled up, up, up the endless shelves.

"Excessive?" Sylus offered, his voice laced with amusement. He leaned against the doorframe, watching your reaction with those piercing crimson eyes. "Or perhaps just adequate."

You turned to him, eyebrows raised. "Adequate for what? Collecting every book ever printed?"

His lips quirked in that infuriating half-smile. "For you."

"For... me?" Your hand froze halfway to pulling out a volume of what appeared to be 18th century botanical illustrations.

"You like books." He pushed off the doorframe and strode toward you, his boots silent on the thick rug. "I noticed. When you wouldn't log in to finish a book you'd just bought. When you'd pause the game just to squint at some background text."

Heat crept up your neck. You hadn't realized he'd been paying that much attention. How could you? Until now you didn't know he was real. Although you still weren't entirely sure. "So you... what? Built me a library?"

"Some of these don't exist in your world. First editions of books that were never published. Manuscripts that were lost to war or censorship." His gloved fingers brushed a bookspine. "Thought you might appreciate holding what others never got to read."

Your throat tightened unexpectedly. This wasn't just some game logic, this was thoughtful in a way that unsettled you. "But why go to all this trouble?"

Sylus tilted his head, as if taking in your every word. "Why does a hunter maintain his weapons? Why does a scholar preserve his texts?" He reached past you to pull out a slender volume bound in deep blue leather. "We care for the things that matter."

That matter? Did you matter to him? So much to have him build you an entire library.

The book pressed into your hands felt strangely warm. You opened it carefully to find handwritten pages in a language you didn't recognize.

"Okay." You closed the book slowly, gathering yourself. "I get it. You made this, all of this, for me." You gestured vaguely at the shelves towering around you. "But why? I'm so confused. How do you even know me? Like, actually know me. Not the version of me that logs in for fifteen minutes between classes."

Sylus stared you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. "That's the question you should have led with."

"That's not an answer."

"No," he agreed. "It isn't."

He stepped closer, close enough that you had to tilt your head back to hold his gaze. "But I'll give you this much." His voice dropped, quieter, stripped of its usual teasing edge. "I don't hide my affections. I'm smitten with youm, have been for longer than you'd believe. You're all I've ever known that felt worth knowing."

Your breath caught. "That's not an answer either."

"No," he said again, the smirk returning, softer this time. "But it's true. The rest, you'll have to earn."

You looked away first, your cheeks heating up under his gaze. You didn't know what to say to that, didn't know where to put your hands or your eyes or the strange, fluttering thing lodged in your chest. He'd just said it so plainly, like it cost him nothing to hand over, while you stood there fumbling for words that refused to come. He was so unfairly expressive, so sure of what he felt and unbothered by saying it out loud, and you were just... clueless. Overwhelmed. Out of your depth in a library that shouldn't exist, standing in front of a man who apparently knew exactly what he wanted.

"I–" You cleared your throat, staring very intently at the spine of the nearest book instead of at him. "That's a lot to just... say."

"Is it?" Something in his tone suggested he found your fluster more amusing than he'd admit.

one thing i noticed about him was how DIVINE he smelled like i just cannot describe it. he smelled like heaven is all i can say.

fast forward to a few days later i was in the library with my friend, we had our physics lecture in about an hour and we were trying to find the answers to our class assignment. my laptop dies and i look for a socket, i find one in the corner, but that guy is sitting there so i walked up to the socket and saw he was already charging his laptop, so as im about to walk away he says oh its fine mines almost charged anyway. so i sat next to him. i remember he was watching some show called smiling friends (?), im still looking for the answers online and he asks me do you know what this is, i thought he was asking about my lockscreen wallpaper so i go yea thats attack on titan, he looks at like HUH and i realised he meant the show he was watching so im like oh sorry yea no idea and thats when he sees my canvas interface, i had it all customised to hello kitty. so hes like holy shit thats so cool teach me how to do that, during all this my friend comes up to me and we tell him about the chrome extension and also how u can customise your vs code asw. so we spent that hour just talking about random stuff, all three of us.

all the time i was fixated on his perfume. i just cannot stress this enough but he smelled so goddamn sexy

so a month goes by, during which sometimes id see him, sometimes id just smell him and instinctively look around until i saw him. i always wanted to ask him what perfume he wore, thats all i really liked about him, we werent close or friends, nor did i like him

so a week before our midterm exams we get an email that all society's executive council needs to come to campus for a photoshoot, each society must have 6 members minimum. we were just 5, so my friend (the one that knew him) is like oh i think i know someone who wouldnt mind coming to campus just for this so she asked him and added him to the gc

on the day of the shoot, i wore my sisters heels which were a little big and loose, the shoe kept rubbing against the back of my foot. since this happens with me a lot i knew id start bleeding if i kept the shoes on, so i just took em off and i was walking barefoot, also idk why im typing this cus it has absolutely no contribution to the story whatsoever but anyway

so we're all waiting for our societys turn but were told it might take a while, so we start goofing around, drawing on the board, talking and all, it was getting pretty late and my friend left, we couldnt do the shoot without her so we all left in an hour or so asw. we also let the student services dept know that we were all on time but we cant stay the whole day so please reschedule our shoot. they decided on some random weekday after our exam.

all this while he was still added to teh gc cus we werent actuallu done with the shoot. so one random day (our exams had alr started), id alr gotten home, changed into smth comfy and was having lunch when he texts in the gc like "HEY GUYS IS ANYONE HERE" so im a lil confused why is he texting rn shouldnt he be giving his exam im like whatsup and he goes i overslept and missed my exam. thing is the course for which he had the exam actually consists of theory and lab, hed only missed the theory and since he lives closeby he could actually make it to campus for the lab exam, however we all figured theyd just assume he overslept and wouldnt reschedule the exam he missed, so we're all talking in the gc, trying to come up with a solution for him, the best one was he should stay home, miss both exams and try to get a doctor's note or smth saying he was on bedrest, now since one of my dad's closest friends is a doctor i told him i could help him with that just for the mere cost of 5 chocolates.

so i told my dad that my friend had some family problems, he missed his exam, can you help out? so yea at the end, he did get that doctors note, all was well.

a couple days later my dad asked if he was able to reschedule him exam so i texted him and from there we just started talking about random stuff, bcus i send a lot of stickers while chatting he found out about my yaoi obsession, so we started talking about that, he randomly shared his childhood pictures so ofc i sent mine asw, in the end he added me on instagram

on the day of shoot, after we were all done i reminded him about the chocolates and left. so we'd talk pretty much every day, sharing reels, talking about random things, spilling uni tea. and obviously i caught feelings for him, i didnt see him a lot on campus cus our schedules didnt align at all, like id sometimes see him on my way from one class to another or after classes when id be leaving (still hasnt given me my chocs btw)

so as we're talking everyday, he'd sometimes text me and ask my when i was free so we could hang out. one really, really REALLY importat fact for this story is that im initially shy and introverted so obv i like him at this point and if we happen to interact irl i just know i couldnt keep up the convo. so i told him yea im free after 4:30

so around that time he texts me wya BUT earlier id gotten an email that our calculus exams had been marked and we could come for the contestation, so me and my friend we left for that. while we were in the office, he comes in, we made eye contact and he asked the prof "oh im sorry i was looking for this prof's office" and then he leaves. and thats when i remembered oh shoot we were supposed to hang oout but i couldnt just walk out, i remember we were in there for about an hour, so around 5:30ish i texted him im in the common room but hed gone back home to get his football stuff, so he asked if i could wait for him on campus, hed skip football, we could hangout and he'd drop me off home. now in all honesty, i wasnt really sure about this, i liked him, i was starting to see he liked me too, but i just knew id be super shy and make a fool out of myself, so i told him its getting pretty late, we can hang out tomorrow or whenever.

next day, i told all this to my friend. turns out she'd already been suspecting smth was going on, cus we were texting a lot and when i wasnt around hed ask about me, like do you know where she is and etc etc.

so it was official we both liked each other but were just too clueless or maybe shy to say anything. so my friend steps in and shes like dw i gotchu ill handle this. that day i went home early cus i had miserably bad period cramps.

butttt a few hours later she texted me saying she talked to him, his friend was there asw and he spilled the beans that he liked me. i was ecstatic. she also said that he wanted to get to know me better first before asking me out (very important, remember for later in the story)

next day, we hung out. we talked about just random stuff, but yea i was really really shy and ofc he noticed that (remember this for later in the story)

so couple days later we had a film screening and were really busy for that, he was supposed to come but texted me later saying that he was sick and couldnt come so im like yea no probs. but it had been 20 mins since the movie had started and ppl werent coming so i texted him "you shouldve been here, litr no one's coming" and he texted back "coming in 10" and he did. so he sat next to me, we talked a lil durinng the movie, but then my friend got a call and she left and i was so so nervous he might say something or idk try to ask me out?? tbvh, i didnt want him to. cus i didnt know him all that well, it'd barely been a month since we started talking and i thought maybe we're taking things a lil too fast.

so i just got up and left. in the middle of the movie. and do u wanna know what i did? i went to my calculus prof like oh hey i had this question and started solving practice questions with him??? just because i was horribly nervous. but then my friend called me later that they got snacks so i came back inside. turns out there was some issue with the projector so they'd turned the movie off and were just talking and eating snacks and all. he was ofc there and he asked me oh whered u leave in the middle of the movie and im like ohh yeaa i had to check smth, a very lame excuse lie whatever. anyways after like 30 mins pretty much everyone left it was just us society ppl and him. so randomly my friend is like hey sit on my lap i dont think ur very heavy, so im like yea and i did and he looks at me and goes do you want me to give u guys a ride around the room, im like HUH, and thats litr what he did, idk how to explain it in words omg but he pushed the chair around the run super fast while running, it was honestly really fun, but yea we all hung out for a bit and then i left for class, the entire time my friend was like he so likes you and you so like him, which was true

fast forward to a month later, we had another event, a filmmaking workshop this time. we was there the whole day, we made popcorns, he kept eating them, we played games, and i remember i was on campus till 8, pretty much eveyrone left but he stayed with me

now this is when things went downhill

about a week from this event, we texted me where are you, and then he asked me if i was free for 2 hrs that day, i told him yea im free after 4:30 and he asked my if i wanted to go somewhere with him, i knew he was taking me to his place so im like sure yea.

so we get there, and uh we were talking and he asked me "can i kiss you?", i said yea and ended up making out and then cuddling for about an hour

amazing kiss, btw

anyway i got hime, i was pretty tired, i went to bed and i woke up sometime in the middle of the night and hed texted me that i seemed off

now thing is, i liked him, but i wanst really expecting us to make out or anything, so i was a little taken aback, i didnt want him to not kiss me but yk i wanted us to get to know each other better, one step at a time

so yea fter that we started talking less and less, hed see me on campus but not say anything, we werent sending each other any reels or anything

and thats when i told my friend what went down, and the verdict was to end things with him

and i tried to, in a really messy way but i just didnt know what was going on, why was he avoiding me, and i NEEDED that closure or i just couldnt get over him, so i texted him

turns out he saw that i was acting off after the kiss and thought that he mightve forced himself on me, he felt guilty and couldnt face me, we talked it out and yea things were super awkward but yea, we were talking again, id told him that earlier we didnt know each other that well and so when my friend told me he wanted to ask me out, i started avoiding him, but things were differnet now

anyways, exams ended, i got an internship at the uni, so i was still gonna come and we were talking again, however, one random day he just ghosted me and things were getting so confusing so after liek 4 days i texted him dude u ghosted me, my friends were right about you, i never wanna see you again. i said a lot of hurtful stuff, cus i was confused and mad, but he replied "yea its okay, i dont think i was ready for a relationship anyway"

fucking broke my heart and i just didnt know what the hell was even going on, when things were going so perfectly, how did it all come crashing down in a few moments

and guess fucking what? olivia rodrigo's new album came out around that time so yea i was feeling completely shattered

next day was my day one of the internship and i had really bad transport issues, i asked my friends if anyone cpuld drop me home, but they couldnt

and i had no each other choice but to text him, i just knew even after what happened he would say yes, and he did

so this went on a couple day, hed sometimes drop me off and just one random day i texted him asking just what had happened between us, and yea we ended up talking for an hour and discussed eveyrthing

he said he always felt like he had to push eveyrthing forward and that i didnt want this, cus i was shy and introverted, he thought maybe i just wasnt interested in this anymore, like i mentioned earlier he talks a lot and wanted someone he could yap along with, but since i didnt he thought maybe i just didnt like him and obv that wasnt true i liked listenting to him yap on and i was shy because i really really liked him

and so after all this we decided to talk it out in person. however later that week the friend i was uspposed to go home with, was at anothe rfriends and it would take him about 2 hrs to get back and ofc i couldnt wait that long so i ended up texting up if he could drop me off, he said yea but sicne hed had an accidnet he couldnt drive for long, so we agreed on a cafe, and on the way we ended up talking it out, and yea we sorted eveyrthing, it was going well, and thats when we officially strated going on dates and all, HOWVER

after our second date, i felt like our connection wasnt genuine, yk? like i didnt know a lot aboout him and neither did he knwo a lot about me, so i was gonna text him about this, but another issue came up at uni, so i didnt.

howver, that allowed me to give it more time and i thought maybe we werent right for each after all, he tried, i tried but maybe we just werent compatible. but before i could talk to him about this, one of his closest friends pased away. and ofc that was no time to be talking about this.

so ofc i texted him, im here for him if he wants to talk or if he wants space thats perfectly alright too and he texted me that he just needed some time to digest it all

howver, a few days ago he texted me saying we need to end this, he is no position to be ina relationship atm, we tried making us work but then a lot of stuff happened, and since he was getting a job, he wouldnt have time for me (his shift is 6pm to 3am) and wanted to lmk in case he was making me wait and i replied with "sure" cus thats what i was gonna text him about anyway

im not upset or crying about this, we both wanted the same thing, it's just a little bittersweet, we had our ups and down but we both tried for each other

ive liked people before, ive been in relationships before but why was this one so different? eventhough i wanted to end things, i still want him, i still want to make us work

there's just one change this time, i dont wanna text him, about closure or anything, cus this time feels different

i know ill get over it, theres at least 2 months before classes start again, but how will i face him? idk, maybe im stronger than this

Mara took a deep, visible breath, running a hand over her face before letting out a soft, exasperated sigh. She didn't launch into a quick lie or a deflection. Instead, she walked over to the small, worn office couch and sat down, motioning for you to do the same.

"I'm not stupid, (Y/N)," she stated, her voice calm but firm.

You frowned, tilting your head in a silent, questioning "Huh?"

Mara licked her dry lips, her eyes fixed on you with an unsettling intensity. "It might come as a surprise to you, Y/N, but I too have the ability to put two and two together." She paused, letting the silence hang. "Did you seriously think you could act that way around the Subject, day after day, and no one, absolutely no one, would notice?"

"Mara, what are you--" you started, but she held up a hand, silencing you again.

"I know you know him somehow. You have history, deep history, I can tell by the way you guys act around each other. The way he looked at you through the glass," she shuddered faintly, "was not the look a prisoner gives a random lab tech. And the way you looked at him when you thought no one was watching? That was not professional curiosity, doctor."

She paused, allowing her words to sink in. "Whatever game you're playing with yourself needs to stop now, (Y/N). You clearly want to help him," she motioned around the dim office, indicating the risk you were both taking. "And if you want to help him, you need to go all the way. I'm not risking my life for your pride."

You recoiled, shaking your head immediately, denying the truth as much for her benefit as for your own. The word help felt like a betrayal of the two years you’d spent building your new life.

"Woah, Mara, slow down. I'm not helping him."

Mara’s eyebrow arched, her expression shifting from firm resolution to skepticism. "Then what exactly were you doing? Breaking into a colleague's office in the middle of the night, risking your job and possibly prosecution? What did that mean, (Y/N)?"

You forced yourself to hold her gaze, desperately scrambling for a lie you could live with, one that preserved the distance you had fought so hard to create. "I'm just soothing my curiosity, you are right. We know each other, but I'm not helping him."

Mara visibly looked bewildered, staring at you with confusion plastered all over her face. Your lie, though carefully constructed, was clearly not what she had expected. The cold professionalism she had adopted earlier began to crack, replaced by genuine, frustrated disbelief. She didn't reply, simply watched you, and the silence stretched tight and awkward.

You took the opportunity, turning swiftly toward the door. The immediate crisis of being discovered was over, but the anxiety of her knowledge was too much to bear. It was time to leave.

Just as your fingers brushed the cold metal of the door handle, Mara’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and arresting. "Do you know what they're gonna do with the Evol fragment?"

You stopped in your tracks, your hand frozen. The question was not a plea, but a sort of warning. You slowly turned back, acknowledging the fact that you could not simply walk away from that.

Mara rose from the couch, her gaze intense. "They'll weaponize it. Not just as a bomb, (Y/N). They don't think that small. They’re building a device capable of disrupting the kinetic energy systems of every single Evolver within a hundred-mile radius. Think about that. They won't just neutralize the N109 Zone; they'll turn every living creature in the city, Hunter or criminal, into ashes. The fragment is the core mechanism. It’s the greatest, most powerful weapon known to mankind, designed to enforce utter, absolute control. This isn't about him anymore. This is about handing an organization like EVER the power to render entire populations inert, without firing a single shot. This is about power consolidation on a scale that will make the N109 Zone’s crimes look like petty theft!"

You couldn't speak. You stood there, silent, your mouth dry. How do you reply to something like that? The horrifying scale of the plan was immense, yet it didn't surprise you. You had worked at EVER for over two years; you had learned to think like them, to recognize the terrifying ambition. You knew they'd come up with something truly great and remarkable in its complexity, but utterly and devastatingly destructive in its impact.

As Mara stepped closer, the harsh light of the office caught her face, and you saw it. You were sure you weren’t mistaken. Tears were glistening in her eyes. It was a complete fracturing of the composed mask she usually wore. Sure, things were not going great, the fate of entire populations hung in the balance, but you never expected Mara, the sharp-witted colleague, to cry. Maybe she was scared? But deep down, you knew you were too. Her visible terror was a mirror to your own internal dread.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Mara," you spoke softly, the words barely a whisper. You didn't have the guts to speak out loud, afraid of shattering the fragile, charged quiet of the office. Something about seeing those tears, seeing her break under the immense weight of EVER's ambition, oddly soothed something inside you. It confirmed that you weren't crazy, this was a terror that transcended professional boundaries.

She blinked once, and the tears were gone, ruthlessly swept away by a sudden surge of control. She used the back of her hand to swipe quickly under her eyes, a motion so quick it felt almost dismissive of her momentary weakness. You really couldn't read her now, her face was a display of conflicting emotions.

"You know exactly what needs to be done, Y/N," she stated, her voice tight, vibrating with suppressed fury. She didn't move yet, holding her ground opposite you, her intense gaze daring you to deny the truth of the situation. "But I can't do it alone, and you just don't wanna do it at all."

She finally broke the stare, turning her back to you with an exasperated movement. She didn't pace, instead, she went to her desk, braced her hands on the cool metal edge, her head hanging for a moment as she fought for composure. You could definitely feel the air become charged, thick with unspoken tension and danger. There was something different now. She appeared mad, pissed, frustrated, and deeply desperate. Her earlier cynicism had evaporated, leaving behind raw, dangerous emotions.

You watched her, the silence now a suffocating weight. You had to end it somehow, or the sheer horror of the plan would swallow both of you. "Mara," you began, trying to inject some logic into the escalating situation. "If you know all this, I'm guessing everyone on the project does too. Are you saying something of that scale is about to happen, no one else gives a shit, and now the fate of the world lies on us?"

Mara stopped, her shoulders immediately straightening. She slowly turned back to you, her tear-filled eyes now burning with a cold rage, every muscle in her face tense. She didn't need to speak. Her expression, raw and furious, was enough of an answer.

The project members knew. And they were either too scared, too complicit, or too ethically compromised to care. The crushing reality settled on you. You had tried to escape Sylus's deadly world, only to find yourself cornered by a greater, more cold-blooded evil, and the only person standing beside you was a colleague whose motives were still shrouded in ambiguity.

You sat there for a long moment, simply breathing, trying to pull your scattered thoughts into something comprehensible.

What were you going to do now?

The question was a desperate, looping mantra in your mind. You had been happy in your new life. Everything was perfect, like a complex puzzle where every piece fit exactly, every equation balanced precisely. And now, you hated to say it, hated to even think about it, it felt like a blasphemous thought, but you missed your pathetic life at the N109 Zone. At least there, the threats were clear, the rules were known. You could fix every mistake or just run away from it. You could never have fathomed things would escalate to this.

What were you even supposed to do? Would destroying the fragment fix anything? Even if it did, how would you deal with EVER? You were a single, highly specialized engineer against a global conglomerate with limitless resources and zero ethics. But in the midst of it all, a cold, clear clarity was beginning to set in. You were starting to see how things were going to end for you. Deep down, you just knew. No matter what choice you made, what path you took, your life, as you had meticulously built it, was already over. There was no future for you.

You pushed the existential dread aside, focusing your gaze. Your eyes landed on Mara. She had moved away from the tense posture at the desk and was now actually sitting, elbows propped up, hands covering her face. You couldn't see her expression, but you could tell she was crying by the slight, rhythmic tremble of her shoulders. The sight of her broken state forced the internal monologue to halt. Her pain, her fear, was real.

A new, complicated question formed. Who were you going to do this for? Was it for Sylus, the man who controlled you with a look? For Mara, the woman whose motives were conveniently unknown? For yourself? Or for 'the greater good', a concept that felt hopelessly abstract?

You took a deep, shuddering breath, the first steady one you’d managed in minutes. The answer, you realized, didn't matter right now. Only the action did. 

"Mara," you said, forcing the words out, the volume slightly louder this time. "What are we supposed to do now?"

She didn't immediately reply, only a muffled sniffle escaping her hands. You waited, the silence stretching into uncomfortable minutes. You were about to repeat yourself, unsure if she had even heard you over the sound of her own distress, when she finally spoke up, her voice rough and thick, still muffled by her hands.

"The subject needs to retrieve his Evol fragment before it can be replicated."

"Okay," you said, pushing off the couch, your analytical side instantly taking the lead. You crossed the small space, moving to stand beside the desk, your gaze already seeking out her computer screen. "Sounds simple enough. How are we going to do that? And more importantly, how do we know when it’s going to get replicated? We need a time window."

The sound of your focused, professional tone instantly pulled Mara out of her distress. She stopped crying abruptly, her hands dropping away from her face. Her eyes, still red-rimmed, focused on you with a glimmer of disbelief.

"You'll help me?"

"Uh, I don't know about 'helping you'," you corrected immediately, maintaining the necessary distance. You still didn't trust her, and you certainly weren't signing up for a partnership. "But I do not want the world to end, Mara, especially knowing I could have done something to stop this, so yeah."

A wave of relief, or perhaps fierce determination, washed over Mara’s face. She frantically got up from her desk, wiping her face quickly with the back of her hand. Her movements were sudden and jerky, betraying her deep anxiety. "I haven't thought that far ahead yet," she confessed, her voice strained. "I just knew we had to stop them from replicating it. The time schedule is buried deep in Voss's terminal, probably encrypted. I just need to hack it somehow." She frantically started typing on her keyboard.

That was quick.

You strode toward the desk. "Let me help. My clearance isn't high enough for Voss’s main files, but I’ve got better system architecture knowledge. I can run a decryption script against the server logs while you check the physical files."

Mara immediately shook her head. "No. Your workstation is too exposed, and my terminal has the deepest security clearance we can use without triggering a red alert. If you try to decrypt the files manually, they'll know."

She logged onto her computer with practiced speed. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up various files, reports, plasma analysis data. She scrolled through reports, her brow furrowed in concentration, searching for the key piece of data.

TING! TING!

A notification sound cut through the tense atmosphere. Your phone, resting on the desk beside your tablet, had received a text message. You ignored it, your gaze fixed on Mara.

A couple of minutes passed in tense silence, broken only by the rapid clicking of Mara's keys and her muttered frustrations. Then, as if she suddenly remembered a critical detail, she stopped scrolling.

"Wait a minute," she murmured. She glanced at the bank of drawers built into her desk, her eyes widening slightly. "Voss is old school sometimes. He often prints things he doesn't want logged... especially for a high-value project like this."

She turned to you. "Look for the blue folder. Check the third desk drawer down, on the right. It should be labeled PU."

You immediately moved to the drawer, yanked it open and began sifting through notebooks and file tabs.

TING! TING!

The notifications came again, silencing through the quiet. Mara looked up from her screen, her attention briefly pulled away from the urgency of the task. "It's okay, you can check that. I can look for the files myself."

Reluctantly, you got your phone out. It was a minor distraction, but ignoring it twice had only increased the volume of the noise. The lock screen showed two texts from an unknown number.

Unknown: Sweetie.

Unknown: You might wanna consider maintaining distance from that friend of yours.

still unable to add anyone else into the taglist, so yeah

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