Elise hurried after me, her small footsteps quick and filled with concern. She burst through the restaurant door, followed closely by Scheon and Lisa. With her voice laced with both confusion and panic as Elise clung to the edge of my dress, “Miss Mashiro! Why did you suddenly start running?”

Scheon stood nearby, his concern etched on his face as his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. His sharp eyes darted around the street, scanning for any signs of danger. I couldn’t help but recall how he’d been acting earlier in the restaurant—his gaze had lingered on the cloaked figure in the black 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 forgot something.” I said with a smile, patting Elise’s head to ease her concern. I glanced around, noticing a few awkward stares from passersby. Most of them were fishermen returning from their day’s work, large baskets of fish slung over their shoulders. Their curious glances made me avert my gaze, which wandered aimlessly until it landed on the path leading to the forest. “Oh no, I really did forget something!”

It hit me—after defeating that obnoxious Raffle-something flower, I completely forgot to grab the Luminous Gem it dropped. Or... did it even drop one? My memory was fuzzy, thanks to the terror of the skeleton encounter.

Now I wasn’t sure if I had missed out on a step closer toward rolling my next 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 accusing an innocent plant for my miserable luck? Either way, I felt the crushing despair of a potential loss, the kind only a true gacha enthusiast could understand.

“Ugh… Life is nothing but meaningless existence of pain yuzu…” I muttered dramatically, echoing a phrase I’d memorized from the blonde, rich lady in Luminous Dream. The same lady whose voice I was convinced I’d heard in the restaurant earlier.

“I’m not sure why you’re feeling down, but please cheer up, my lady.” Scheon said with his ever-present charming smile, reaching 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 on Earth trying to roll from a gacha game. Its rainbow shine was radiating bright, casting fleeting, colorful reflections on Scheon’s hand.

“I found this in the forest earlier,” Scheon explained casually, as if he hadn’t just produced an artifact of cosmic importance. “While you were… uh, searching 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 morning. 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 merchants badmouthing me.

He held out the Luminous Gem, his golden hair catching the light and enhancing the almost surreal glow of his entire presence. His eyes sparkled with an innocent yet mysterious charm, and his expression brimmed with that same boyish sincerity that could melt hearts.

He looked at me like an eager puppy, his smile so disarmingly warm it made me question everything. His aura was overpowering, as though he were the protagonist of some shounen manga.

“It suits a pretty lady like you.”

I wanted to puke. My heart pounded violently, each beat crashing in my chest like a war drum. His eyes, golden and unrelenting, bore into mine, far too intense, far too overwhelming. It wasn’t admiration I felt—it was suffocating pressure, like I was trapped under the weight of his gaze, unable to escape.

My hands clenched into fists as I looked away, every fiber of my being rejecting the overwhelming intensity radiating off him. The smile, the glowing hair, the way his entire presence seemed to scream for attention—it was suffocating. A relentless tide 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 compliments, his… whatever this was supposed to be.

I wanted to disappear. Right here, right now. Just sink into the ground and be gone. My tail drooped, my ears flattened, and I resisted the urge to bury my face in 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 under the weight of his extroverted radiance, and all I wanted was to crawl back into the safety of solitude.

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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 blank, desperately trying to outrun the sensation of his gaze. It felt like it was burning into me, suffocating 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 confused 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 threatened to 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 suffocating weight pressing down on me. The wind hit my face like a slap, but it wasn’t enough to clear my head. Every step was like an escape, but I knew it wasn’t real. It wouldn’t be enough to outrun the suffocating thoughts tangled in my chest.

I needed to 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 an end to the relentless pressure, the eyes that were constantly watching, judging, piercing.

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 stretch into the quiet corners of the house. The stillness in the air was suffocating, 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 second.

I glanced around the room, but it felt emptier than it should have. The walls, once comforting, now seemed cold and distant. There was no warmth in the air, no gentle sound of someone else filling the space. I couldn’t remember the last 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 kitchen, my steps sluggish, eyes glazed, seeking water to soothe the dryness in my throat.

I passed by the mirror.

I stopped.

“Mashiro…” I whispered, my voice barely audible. My reflection stared back at me, hollow and empty. The eyes staring at me weren’t just Mashiro’s anymore. A tiny, unshed tear clung to the corner of her eye.

I exhaled sharply, wiping away the tear that still lingered on my cheek, and tried to steady my breathing. The reflection in the mirror stared back at me—Mashiro, my face, but in a way, it didn’t feel like mine at all. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to collect myself, then opened them again.

The halfhearted smile on the reflection’s lips mirrored my own lack of conviction.

“Of course. Everyone would like you, Mashiro,” I whispered to the glass. It sounded foolish, but the words came out anyway. "Unlike me, you’re smart, beautiful, have a cute voice... and you're comforting to be around."

The silence that followed seemed louder than any noise. I almost wished I could drown in it, but then, something dark slipped into my thoughts.

“He was complimenting 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 collapsed onto the bed, hoping sleep would drown out the whirlwind of thoughts racing 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 neglected her studies to play a gacha game. I’m not like those extroverts who can just talk and be normal without getting tired."

A deep sigh escaped my lips as I turned my face into the pillow, wishing it would swallow me whole.