Elise hurried after me, her small footsteps quid filled with . She burst through the restaurant door, followed closely by S and Lisa. With her voice ced with both fusion and panic as Elise g to the edge of my dress, “Miss Mashiro! Why did you suddenly start running?”S stood nearby, his etched on his face as his haed on the hilt of his sword. His sharp eyes darted around the street, sing for any signs of danger. I couldn’t help but recall how he’d been ag earlier in the restaurant—his gaze had lingered on the cloaked figure in the bck robe from the moment she entered. Whether it was the instincts of a bodyguard or something else entirely, he seemed on edge.“Um, it’s nothing, I just fot something.” I said with a smile, patting Elise’s head to ease her . I gnced around, notig a feard stares from passersby. Most of them were fishermeurning from their day’s work, rge baskets of fish slung over their shoulders. Their curious gnces made me avert my gaze, which wandered aimlessly until it nded oh leading to the forest. “Oh no, I really did fet something!”It hit me—after defeating that obnoxious Raffle-something flower, I pletely fot to grab the Luminous Gem it dropped. Or... did it even drop one? My memory was fuzzy, thanks to the terror of the skeleton enter. Now I wasn’t sure if I had missed out on a step closer toward rolling my gacha. What if it had dropped the Luminous Gem, and I had left it there like a clueless noob? What if it hadn’t dropped anything, and I was unfairly acg an i pnt for my miserable luck? Either way, I felt the crushing despair of a potential loss, the kind only a true gacha enthusiast could uand.“Ugh… Life is nothing but meaningless existence of pain yuzu…” I muttered dramatically, eg a phrase I’d memorized from the blonde, rich dy in Luminous Dream. The same dy whose voice I was vinced I’d heard in the restaurant earlier.“I’m not sure why you’re feeling down, but please cheer up, my dy.” S said with his ever-present charming smile, reag into his pocket.My fox ears perked up as he revealed something glinting in the sunlight. My breath caught. It was the gem, The Luminous Gem. The very thing I’d spent hours, no, days, of my life oh trying to roll from a gacha game. Its rainbow shine was radiating bright, casting fleeting, colorful refles on S’s hand.“I found this in the forest earlier,” S expined casually, as if he hadn’t just produced an artifact of ic importance. “While you were… uh, searg for the doll—no, I mean when you were… admiring flowers.”I stared at his smile, the same one he had given me during our first meeting that m. Polished, disarming, and effortlessly perfect. My instinct went haywire as I watched him present the luminous gem to me. I felt the same sensation I had when he was defending me from the merts badmouthing me. He held out the Luminous Gem, his golden hair catg the light and enhang the almost surreal glow of his entire presence. His eyes sparkled with an i yet mysterious charm, and his expression brimmed with that same boyish siy that could melt hearts.He looked at me like an eager puppy, his smile so disarmingly warm it made me questiohing. His aura was overp, as though he were the protagonist of some shounen manga.“It suits a pretty dy like you.”I wao puke. My heart pounded violently, each beat crashing in my chest like a war drum. His eyes, golden and uing, bore into mine, far too intense, far too overwhelming. It wasn’t admiration I felt—it was suffog pressure, like I was trapped uhe weight of his gaze, uo escape.My hands ched into fists as I looked away, every fiber of my beiing the overwhelming iy radiating off him. The smile, the glowing hair, the way his entire presence seemed to scream for attention—it was suffog. A releide of extroverted energy crashing against the fragile walls I’d built around myself.My mind scrambled for an escape. Anywhere but here. My throat felt tight, my ears ringing as his words echoed in my head, grating against my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want his attention, his pliments, his… whatever this was supposed to be.I wao disappear. Right here, right now. Just sink into the ground and be gone. My tail drooped, my ears fttened, and I resisted the urge to bury my fa my hands. It was too much. He was too much.“Stop it,” I muttered under my breath, barely audible. My voice wavered, but I couldn’t even muster the strength to sound assertive. I was crumbling uhe weight of his extroverted radiance, and all I wanted was to crawl bato the safety of solitude.I didn’t stop to think. Didn’t stop to process. I just ran.The sound of my footsteps pounding against the dirt, the wind rushing past me—everything faded as I sprinted, mind bnk, desperately trying to outrun the sensation of his gaze. It felt like it was burning into me, suffog me from all sides.“Aaaa!” I couldn’t stop the scream that tore from my throat, a raw, broken sound. I pushed my legs harder, faster, feeling like I could barely catch my breath.I didn't care about anything else. The worried calls from Lisa, the fused stares from Elise—they were all just noise, distant and meaningless. All I wanted was to escape. To get away from the eyes that saw too much, from the pressure that threateo crush me.I didn’t care where I was going. My feet carried me faster, up the hill, as if running could somehow outrun the suffog weight pressing down ohe wind hit my face like a sp, but it wasn’t enough to clear my head. Every step was like an escape, but I k wasn’t real. It wouldn’t be enough to outrun the suffog thoughts tangled in my chest.I o be away. Alone. Away from everything, everyone. I couldn’t let anyone see me like this, this vulnerable, this shattered. My mind screamed, begging for ao the relentless pressure, the eyes that were stantly watg, judging, pierg.Before I even realized it, I found myself standing in front of Catherine’s house, my legs barely able to keep me upright. I pushed the door open with a dramatic creak and stumbled inside, like a half-zombie just dragging itself to safety after a long day of, well, everything.

  The day was still bright, the afterglow from the afternoon sun casting long shadows that seemed to stretto the quiet ers of the house. The stillness in the air was suffog, the silence pressing against me in ways I couldn't escape. It was strange, not hearing Catherine's footsteps or her cheerful humming—her absence was like an echo that rang louder with every sed.

  I gnced around the room, but it felt emptier than it should have. The walls, onf, now seemed cold and distant. There was no warmth in the air, le sound of someone else filling the space. I couldn’t remember the st time the house had felt so lifeless.My stomach growled—louder than ever now that I had missed out on Lisa’s cooking. But hunger wasn’t enough to pull me out of the haze I was in. I dragged myself towards the kit, my steps sluggish, eyes gzed, seeking water to soothe the dryness in my throat.I passed by the mirror.I stopped.“Mashiro…” I whispered, my voice barely audible. My refle stared back at me, hollow ay. The eyes staring at me weren’t just Mashiro’s anymore. A tiny, uear g to the er of her eye.I exhaled sharply, wiping away the tear that still lingered on my cheek, and tried to steady my breathing. The refle in the mirror stared back at me—Mashiro, my face, but in a way, it didn’t feel like mi all. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to collect myself, then opehem again.The halfhearted smile on the refle’s lips mirrored my own ck of vi.“Of course. Everyone would like you, Mashiro,” I whispered to the gss. It sounded foolish, but the words came out anyway. "Unlike me, you’re smart, beautiful, have a cute voice... and you're f to be around."The silehat followed seemed louder than any noise. I almost wished I could drown in it, but then, something dark slipped into my thoughts.“He was plimenting you… not me.”The realization hit me harder than I expected, a cold, hollow feeling filling my chest.I forced my legs to move and stumbled toward my room, eager to escape. I shut the door behind me, shutting out the world. I colpsed onto the bed, hoping sleep would drown out the whirlwind of thoughts rag through my head."I give up," I muttered into the pillow, my voice muffled. "I mean, in the end, I’m just a college girl who ed her studies to py a gacha game. I’m not like those extroverts who just talk and be normal without getting tired."A deep sigh escaped my lips as I turned my fato the pillow, wishing it would swallow me whole.