#some angst

⌗ ENJIN — “are you gonna tell me why? or just keep pretending you never knew me?”

he sees you from across the street. at first he thinks it’s someone who looks like you. maybe a trick of the light, maybe someone with your walk but not your weight, your shape but not your presence.

but it’s you. it’s you. and it hits him like a punch to the chest.

before he can stop himself, his body moves. his mouth opens. his voice finds you first.

“hey.”

you freeze mid-step. your back stiffens. he can practically see your spine go rigid, like you’d rather vanish into the sidewalk than turn around and see him.

“you just gonna keep walking?” he asks, quieter now.

you hesitate. just for a second. then you turn, slowly, as if each degree of movement costs you something.

he expects something maybe guilt, maybe surprise, maybe even regret but your expression is flat. unreadable. and somehow, that hurts worse.

he doesn’t know where to start. what to say. there’s too much. there always was.

“are you gonna tell me why?” he finally manages. “or are you just gonna keep pretending i never meant anything to you?”

your mouth opens calm, steady like you rehearsed this.

“there’s no ‘why’, enjin. i ended it. that’s all.”

he laughs, but it’s not amusement. it’s disbelief. a bitter exhale of everything he’s been holding onto.

“that’s not all,” he snaps, voice cracking despite himself. “you don’t just walk away from someone without saying a damn thing and call it ‘all.’”

he’s trying to keep his cool. trying to look like this doesn’t kill him. but he feels raw. like his ribs are showing. like you’re peeling him apart with every word.

you meet his eyes and it’s like looking at a stranger wearing your face.

“it was something,” you say. “now it’s not. there’s no ‘us’. there’s you. and there’s me. and that’s all it’ll ever be now.”

his breath catches.

you don’t wait for him to respond. you turn and walk away like nothing just shattered. he stands there, staring at the space where you were, hands clenched so tightly his nails dig into his palms. and for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t know what to do with his fire.

⌗ GRIS — “i still dream about you. and i wake up sick.”

he doesn’t call your name when he sees you. he just stands there, a few paces behind, watching your shoulders. the way they rise and fall as you walk. the same way they used to when you lay asleep beside him, safe and warm and his.

and then he says it. not loud. not urgent. just... truth.

“i still dream about you.”

you stop walking.

his voice cracks on the next part.

“i wake up sick.”

you turn, slowly, and the sight of your face punches the air from his lungs. he wants to believe it’s you. but the way you look at him… like he’s nothing but a memory you’d rather forget... that breaks him.

“gris,” you say, flat and empty.

he steps forward, holding his breath. “i don’t understand. i don’t know what i did.”

“you didn’t do anything,” you reply.

his eyebrows pull together. confusion bleeding into pain. “then why’d you leave me like that?”

your answer is cruel in how calm it is.

“because i wanted to. because i decided to. that’s all.”

he shakes his head, slowly, like he didn’t hear you right. “but we were—”

you cut him off.

“we’re nothing. not anymore. there’s no ‘us’. there’s just you, and me. separately. always.”

he stares at you for a long time.

and when he finally speaks again, his voice is so soft it might break.

“…was i the only one who thought it meant something?”

you don’t respond. you can’t. you already turned away.

and gris watches you go like someone watching the tide pull their last lifeline out to sea. he doesn’t move for a while. just presses a hand over his chest like he’s trying to hold the pieces in.

⌗ FOLLO — “just tell me you lied. please. even if you didn’t.”

you weren’t supposed to see him again.

you made peace with that. told yourself it was cleaner that way to end it without explaining, to walk away before he could ask you to stay.

but fate doesn’t care about closure.

and now, there he is, standing across from you on the sidewalk like it hasn’t been months. like your silence didn’t gut him.

he lights up when he sees you. just for a second. you can see it in his eyes that flicker of hope.

then he remembers. his steps slow, his smile falters, but he still walks up to you.

“hey,” he says, and it’s too soft, too familiar. “wow, um… i didn’t think i’d see you again.”

you force a nod. you don’t trust your voice.

“can we—can we talk?” he asks. “about us. about what happened. or didn’t happen, i guess.”

your throat tightens, but your words come out cold. “there is no ‘us’, follo.”

he blinks.

“…what?”

“there’s no you and me. not anymore. it’s over. it’s been over.”

he stares at you, and in that moment, he looks so lost. like a kid realizing home isn’t home anymore.

“so all of it… it was nothing to you?”

you look away. you hate this. you hate the way his voice shakes.

“i didn’t say that,” you murmur.

he takes a step closer. “then say something else. please. tell me it wasn’t real. lie to me. make it easier. i’ll believe you.”

you shake your head. he exhales, like he’s been punched in the stomach.

“got it,” he whispers.

he steps back. gives you one last look soft, broken, hollow.

It all began with a history lecture.

Professor Trein was going on and on (passionately, as always), about the Seven Great Sorcerers and the founding of the Queendom of Roses. Something-something ancient magic, something-something territorial disputes. You weren't sure. It all sounded like the dramatic backstory of an MMO.

You blinked down at your notes. You had written Queendom of Roses five times in a row, underlined one of them, and then - without fully realizing it - drawn an itty-bitty round-headed T-Rex beside the word. Your pencil hovered. You stared at the creation.

That was the moment you'd pinpoint.

The moment you realized you hadn't thought about dinosaurs or anything of the sort in weeks. Not a single pterodactyl. Not a single deinosuchus. Not a single Berthasaura leopoldinae. You used to be able to rattle off entire prehistoric eras like a party trick.

And now?

Now you were sitting in a gothic castle-school in another dimension, learning about long-dead magic monarchs, while wearing a uniform that quite literally had gold embroidery.

You raised your hand.

Trein, ever the professional, paused mid-sentence and looked up from his book. "Yes, Y/N?"

"Do you..." Your voice was very calm, very reasonable. "Do you know what dinosaurs are?" You waited for him to cause your world to crash down (and further cause you to crash out in the middle of a classroom, of all places).

The classroom fell silent. Deuce blinked at you from across the aisle. Ace looked up from where he was doodling something suspiciously inappropriate in the margins of his textbook. A few heads tilted. Professor Trein furrowed his brow.

"Dinosaurs?" He repeated.

You nodded solemnly. "Yeah. Y'know. Giant lizards? Extinct? Kind of a big deal where I'm from."

"I suppose you must be referring to the draconic species," Trein said slowly. "Dragons were once prominent in the Land of Briar, but-"

"No. No, no, no. Not dragons." You waved your hand. "They didn't have magic or fire-breathing. They just...ran around and roared and occasionally ate each other. Real chill. They had feathers sometimes. I think? And they're all dead. Very important part."

Trein blinked at you, confused. "I've never heard of such a creature."

You nodded again, eyes wide. "Yeah. That tracks. That definitely tracks."

And then you laughed.

It wasn't a cute laugh. Not a giggle. Certainly not a dainty little chuckle. No, it was a full-body, slightly breathless guffaw that escaped from your chest like it had been trying to get out for days. You slapped a hand over your mouth, horrified, but it was too late. The dam had burst. You were cracking up in the middle of lecture like a sitcom character who finally snapped.

"Oh my God," You wheezed, "I'm losing it. I'm actually going insane. This is my villain origin story."

Trein just looked tired.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

You didn't get detention, miraculously. (Trein may have chalked it up to "dimensional stress" and decided not to poke the hornet's nest).

But it was only the first domino in a long, long line.

The rest fell fairly quickly.

Later that day, at lunch, you tried to make a joke about TikTok and go blank stares from every single table. You had something dumb like "It's giving ✨depression✨" and the silence that followed was deafening.

Even Grim had paused mid-bite. "Giving what now?"

You wanted to scream. Instead, you chuckled weakly and pretended to choke on your food.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

"Do you ever," You muttered to Ace and Deuce one day while walking back from Alchemy, "make a really niche reference and then realize - oh. I'm all alone. No one here gets it. I'm never going to have a meme-based conversation again."

Ace shrugged. "You could just make a new meme?"

"That's not how that works!" You cried, clutching your textbook like a lifeline. "They're...they're communal! They're sacred!"

"Maybe you oughtta get used to the memes here then. Dunno what you're complaining about."

Deuce patted your back with a concerned frown. "Maybe you should take a nap."

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

It would've been bearable, maybe, if you didn't keep catching yourself saying things no one understood.

Once, in P.E., you muttered, "I'd sell my soul for a Baja Blast right now," after running laps.

Cater turned to you. "What kind of spell is that?"

You nearly bit your tongue.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

There were good days, sure. Days when the chaos of NRC felt almost normal, the strange magic of the world you'd landed in had a fairytale charm. You even liked it sometimes. The floating candles, the enchanted mirror, the weirdly attractive student body (seriously, what on Earth was in the water here?).

But then something would happen - a throwaway line from a friend, a specific smell, a distant memory - and the homesickness would sucker-punch you in the gut.

You missed your old phone. You missed a steady flow of electricity. You missed your precious animes from back home. You missed complaining about anything and everything to your friends in your group chat at 2 in the bloody morning. You missed sending them cursed memes and sobbing over fictional characters they knew you'd been in love with since forever.

You missed feeling understood.

━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━◦○◦━

You think the final straw was a joke.

Ace said something stupid and punny in class. Something about cauldrons and bad grades - classic Ace. Everyone laughed.

You didn't.

Not because it wasn't funny. You figured maybe it was. Surely it had to be, with the reaction of your classmates. But you didn't get it.

You didn't understand the slang. The reference. The cultural context.

So you just sat there, frozen in place, smile tight and fake, and your laughter coming out a few seconds too late.

You felt weirdly hollow.

Not the dramatic, tragic kind of hollow. Just the kind where something that should've made you feel warm instead made you feel like a cracked mug. Still functioning. Still upright. But leaking a little.

And of course, Professor Trein noticed.

He didn't say anything at first, just gave you a quiet, thoughtful look before resuming the lecture. You sat up straighter. Tried to look attentive.

But even so, at the end of class, while everyone packed up their books and filtered out of the room in clusters of laughter and inside jokes, Trein called your name.

"Y/N," He said, tone gentle enough that you flinched a little.

You turned, your bag slung over one shoulder. "Yes, Professor?"

"If you're not in a rush," He said, adjusting his glasses, "would you...care to join me for tea this afternoon?"

You blinked. "Oh. Uh. Sure. Is this - like - a detention-in-disguise kind of tea or...?"

He chuckled softly. "No punishment involved, I assure you."

So that was how you found yourself, after classes ended, sitting in the most scholarly little office you'd ever seen, across a worn oak desk from Professor Trein, with two steaming teacups between you.

Grim of course, had no reason to be there, so it was just you, Trein, and Lucius - who sat on the windowsill like a furry, judgemental gargoyle.

Trein poured your tea and added a sugar cube to his own with great precision. His movements reminded you greatly of Vil.

"I find," He said slowly, "that I don't understand half the things my students say anymore."

You blinked.

"They speak in riddles," He continued, "about things I cannot begin to visualize. They once referred to something as 'mid." I assumed it meant middling, perhaps average. But then I was told - by Ruggie, I believe - that it was an insult?"

You snorted. "Oh, yeah. 'Mid' is like the fancy new word for 'meh.' A good way to start a fight in a cafeteria."

Trein's eyes twinkled. "Yes. Precisely. I've taught for nearly four decades and still find myself utterly baffled by whatever new linguistic virus has infected the student body."

You laughed - genuinely, this time.

"I don't get any of their references either," You admitted. "But, like...from the opposite direction. I say stuff and they look at me like I've sprouted wings."

Trein leaned back in his chair. "I did wonder about your question in class earlier this week. About...dinosaurs, was it?"

"Oh my god, yes!" You set your teacup down. "They don't know what dinosaurs are, Professor. Dinosaurs! Like - prehistoric lizards! We have museums about them! They've made animated movies!

"Fascinating," He said, and it was clear he meant it.

"They thought I was talking about dragons," You muttered, sinking in your chair. "I nearly cried."

Trein's mouth quirked into a small smile. "It must be terribly isolating."

Your shoulders tensed. "Sometimes I don't feel like a person here. I feel like a joke. Like a weird little artifact that fell out of some ancient time machine and nobody's quite sure how to categorize."

"You're not a joke," He said, kind but firm. "You're someone trying to survive in a world that was no built for you."

That hit you right in the gut.

Lucius lept off the windowsill and sidled your leg, promptly resting his head near your foot. You sipped your tea quietly for a moment.

"...Thanks," You said, voice a little hoarse. "I think I needed to hear that."

He nodded, then tilted his head, thoughtful. "Would you be willing to tell me more about your world?"

You blinked. "Wait, really?"

"I may be old, but I've always valued learning," He said. "And you're a living library of knowledge we've never had access to before."

You grinned. "Okay, then. Where do I start?"

You ended up talking until the sun dipped low in the sky. You explained your version of the internet, social media, reality TV, electric cars, and theme parks. You showed him how memes worked. You drew a rough sketch of a dinosaur. You explained your favorite movies, and how music was streamed, and how cooking shows were a national obsession. Trein took notes with the fascinated curiosity of someone rediscovering the joy of being a student.

He, in turn, told you stories about past generations of students. About how the slang used to be different even back then, about the way magic has changed, and about the first time Lucius clawed someone in the middle of class for disrespecting history.

You both laughed a lot.

You scratched Lucius behind his ears for a bit, allowing the soft purrs to lull you further into your feelings. The conversation was exactly what you needed. As you left his office, you heard him say, "You are more than welcome to come to me for anything you may need. I am more than willing to explain the ways of this world to you so that you may pass your classes."

As you walked back to your dorm, the castle halls a little quieter, a little softer in the dimming light, you didn't feel so lonely.

Not everyone got you.

But someone was trying.

And for now...that was more than enough.

Author's Note: I'd just like to say that I genuinely think that Twisted Wonderland had dinosaurs and that their existence has long been known worldwide, etc. I like to further think that modern-day dragons (as rare as they may be) are descendants of old-day dinosaurs and that they somehow magically evolved into dragons. Having said that, I thought it would be admittedly funnier if the Reader found out that the people of Twisted Wonderland don't know anything about dinosaurs, and they crash out because of it. So, I went with that for this story!