Originally, the female students of Telos Academy had been assigned to the north side of the dormitory building. To be specific, they were allotted to apartments in the northwest, north, and northeast sides of the complex. The male students were thus segregated to the southwest, south, and southeast sections of the megascraper.

However, for reasons that I don’t know, that policy was scrapped a few years ago, and during summer break, the girls and boys living in the building found themselves assigned to separate floors, rather than isolated to the north and south sides of the immense complex. Naturally, this resulted in organized bedlam as thousands of students had to pack their belongings and move to their new digs.

This happened before I joined the academy, but I’ve heard stories about how difficult it was for students to lug their belonging through the building, and though it was all supervised, and scores of mover bots had been hired to help out, it was nonetheless a monumental undertaking fraught with arguing and bickering between the harried and frustrated students of Telos Academy. And when the dust settled, guys and girls found themselves having to share the building’s many stairwells and elevators.

However, a new order quickly asserted itself, and it was the girls who made the first move.

In short, they forced a return to the old days by deciding they would only travel up and down the building using the north side of the megascraper. Those girls that didn’t agree, and who preferred to mingle with the boys, were strong armed by peer pressure, female intimidation, the threat of romantic breakups, and death by social media to force them to toe the gender line.

As for the guys, they faced the same harassment to drive them back to the south side of the complex. Hence, after all that moving around much of the previous status quo was thus unofficially re-instated. The male and female students had entirely dedicated floors, but they still travelled up and down the building in isolation from each other.

How did this work?

Simple.

A guy on the northside would have to go southside to use the stairwells and lifts.

A girl on the southside would have to venture northside to use the stairwells and lifts over there.

The great gender divide was back, albeit enforced not by law but by general consensus amongst the student body living in the apartment building, and by all accounts, it was here to stay because it took a brave boy – and a brave girl – to buck the unwritten rules. Thus, it was very, very rare to find a boy and girl walking the hallways together. Even the closest of couples eventually wilted under pressure from the girls and were forced to walk apart while inside the building.

How did this affect me now?

Rather badly.

Firstly, my former dorm apartment was on the southside of the complex.

Secondly, I was on an all-male floor. That is, there were no girls living on the thirty-fifth floor. That was fine when I was a guy, but now that I’d been drafted into the other camp, I’d effectively found myself in enemy territory.

I was Little Red Riding Hood in a forest of hungry wolves.

To make matters worse, when I tried circling northward, Tabitha nixed the idea by reminding me of dinner with Mercy.

Apparently, it wasn’t enough for me to step out wearing a girl’s high school uniform. I needed to run the proverbial gauntlet by making my way down the southside of the building. I will admit that I briefly considered travelling down the outside face of the megascraper because technically I’d still be on the southside. But I’d had my fill of jumping down floor after floor. Thus, I steeled my resolve, prayed to the Fates for mercy, and thought of another kind of Mercy dressed in a slinky Dolce Gambatta number that was fit for a red-carpet event.

Hence, Little Red Riding Hood followed Cruella de Hexaria over to a southside elevator where a handful of high school Big Bad Wolves – I mean boys – were waiting for the lift to arrive.

Did we draw attention?

Of course, we did.

Their eyes widened and their eyebrows shot to their youthful hairlines.

Then their faces darkened with suspicion as they warily checked us out.

It was easy to understand why.

From their perspective, encountering two girls on a boys-only floor could only mean entrapment. In other words, Tabitha and I were like undercover Enforcers sent on a mission to tease, tempt, and ultimately trap boys who were too weak willed to resist our feminine wiles.

Personally, I found the notion stupid.

It made more sense to think that Tabitha and I were on a pledge dare.

However, whatever these boys thought, none of it was good because they literally edged way from us. There was no attempt to chat us up, and they spoke in hushed tones amongst themselves. They probably thought I couldn’t hear them, but Mirai’s preternatural hearing caught their conversations with unsettling ease.

Unexpectedly, despite their trepidations, they were sizing up Tabitha and I with interest.

More to the point, they were sizing me up far more than Tabitha.

For starters, Mirai had a prominent bust that Tabitha lacked.

Secondly, Mirai was taller than Tabitha.

Thirdly, she had better legs, and those shapely pins were on display beneath her short skirt – a skirt that I now realized was a little shorter than it should have been.

When studying myself in the mirror, I had noticed the skirt seemed a tad short, but then I tossed it into the ‘my imagination’ basket when I compared it to the length of Tabitha’s dress. However, now that I was standing by the elevator doors, I realized that I’d been duped. Tabitha had hitched up her skirt, and then dropped it once we left the dorm apartment. Thus, while she looked prim and proper in her regulation length uniform, I ended up promoting Mirai’s long, toned legs for all the guys to see.

I sorely felt like punching Tabitha, but to be truly effective, I would need to unleash my anger upon her real body. On the other hand, venting upon her mechanical form wasn’t such a bad idea because I could pound her to my satisfaction. But instead, I clenched my hands tightly and endured the attention I was drawing, all of which was making me overwhelmingly self-conscious.

I hadn’t felt this way since cross-playing as Silver Blue a year ago. However, back then I could always escape the identity of Silver Blue. That wasn’t an option for me anymore. I was stuck as Mirai or Isabel, drawing attention like honey to a bear, and it wasn’t my imagination running rampant due to my insecurities and self-consciousness. I really was garnering interest, more so than Tabitha, and feeling the boys’ gazes crawl over my body, I was rapidly nearing my breaking point.

And then the lift arrived.

Believing I was saved, my hopes were dashed when its doors opened. The lift was already hauling passengers, and if everyone waiting for it on this floor climbed aboard, the elevator would be crammed to bursting point. Worse still, all the occupants were boys. Simply put, the situation was more than my strained psyche could handle, and so I snapped – not literally but mentally.

Whirling on the spot, I fled down the hallway, making tracks for safer ground, namely the northern half of the thirty-fifth floor. There were more high school boys along the way, something to be expected since it was now a little before 8:00 am, so they were starting their journey to Telos Academy. Again, the presence of a girl on a floor assigned to male students raised eyebrows and caused a lot of double takes, but I ducked my head and barreled past the guys who’d either slowed or stopped to stare at me.

It wasn’t long before Mirai’s magnetic sense told me I was running north down the hallway, meaning that I’d circled from the southside to the northside of the complex. Arriving at a stairwell, I rushed down the steps, pushing my way between students, their faces a blur as I descended at a reckless pace, and a short while later I finally noticed I was surrounded by girls.

I’d succeeded in achieving my goal of hiding myself amongst them like a tree in a forest.

That said, I was quite a different tree from those around me.

Mirai was a super Simulacrum while these girls were human. But on the outside, I was just like them, albeit much more of a head turner than they were.

Argh—what the HELL am I thinking? A HEAD TURNER?

Girls can be quite receptive to their environment, and it wasn’t long before several of them noticed my state of distress.

Indeed, I was distressed, and I couldn’t understand why.

It was one thing to flee from the high school guys, but now I was in proverbial safe territory, and yet I wasn’t calming down.

Instead, I was still rocketing down the stairs as though my tail was on fire.

Why was that?

Why was I feeling so panicked and frantic?

Why was my heart racing now, when mere hours ago I’d been chased by a storm of bullets down the side of a building and yet barely broken a sweat? And prior to that, I’d survived combat as a Gun Princess clad in a black and purple bodysuit that emphasized Mirai’s curves. Nor was this the first time I’d disguised myself as a female student, and just this morning I’d walked the city streets crowded with people and not experienced any anxiety to the degree that I was now, where I felt like I was drowning in a heavy surf.

What was wrong with me?

Was this an early sign of agoraphobia? Was it a side effect of mapping a male mind into a female brain? Or was something else at play?

Back in the dorm apartment, I’d wondered why I didn’t feel like I was wearing the wrong skin, so was this an indication that the gender dysphoria I had expected to suffer was manifesting under a different guise? Or was it because I was subconsciously terrified that people would see me as a guy with the appearance of a girl?

In other words, would they see me as a freak?

As my fears and insecurities tumbled through my head, I almost took a tumble myself when my right foot missed a step, causing my left foot to slip behind me. But I was saved by the girls around me, who reacted quickly and spared me from a nasty fall by grabbing onto my arms and shoulders.

“Hey? You okay?”

“Watch your step.”

“You go down, we all go down.”

They had a point.

The stairs were wide, but they were crowded and growing more so by the minute as a couple of thousand students funneled into the stairwells because there simply weren’t enough elevators to cater for them all. If I fell here, I was likely to cause an avalanche of people all the way down to street level.

Steadying myself on my two feet, I quietly nodded my thanks to the girls supporting onto me. Then I noticed one of the girls – a willowy blonde with deep blue eyes – was peering intently at me.

Abruptly, her eyes widened, and she exclaimed, “It’s you!”

The girls around her were startled by her outcry, and quickly stared at her in confusion.

I stared at her as well, my heart beating loudly after it jumped into my throat.

Had I been discovered? Did she know I wasn’t a real girl—that I wasn’t human?

My heart was still in my throat as I started breaking out in a cold sweat.

How? How the frek did she find out?

One of her companions reached out to the girl. “Hey, Sierra. What’s up with you—?”

“I can’t believe it!” The willowy blonde snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “I know you. You’re my brother’s favorite bikini girl!”

I gasped loudly and jerked back in shock, then quickly shook my head while frantically waving my hands in denial. “No, no, no! Definitely not! I’ve never worn a bikini in my life!”

That was indeed the truth.

A bra and panties, yes, but a bikini? No, sir.

However, my denial fell on deaf ears.

“Of course, you have,” the girl overruled me. “You’re that chick in his posters.”

That chick in his posters?

I stared at her, bamboozled, while the girls around her traded looks before turning their attention on me.

A brunette with a short bob nodded thoughtfully as she studied my appearance. “You know, I think she’s right. It is her.”

Sierra was nodding eagerly now. “Of course, I am. That jerk’s room is full of her stuff. Remember, I showed you what his room is like.”

Her companions began to nod in agreement.

Or was it sympathy? I couldn’t tell.

Emboldened, Sierra proudly crossed her arms. “You’re Mercy Haddaway.”

For the second time this morning, my mind snapped.

I could literally hear it breaking sharply inside my head.

As it did so, the rest of me froze and I blanked out.

For a dozen odd seconds later, I could have been knocked over with a feather.

“Holy crap,” the brunette muttered. “Mercy Haddaway in the flesh.”

My gods…they’re mistaking Mirai for Mercy.

Coming out of my stupor, I waved my hands even more frantically than before. “No, no. I’m definitely not her!”

“What? Are you blind? Haven’t you ever looked in a mirror?”

“I just look like her—I mean, I resemble her! I just resemble her!”

Sierra dismissed my hysterical attempt to repudiate her and turned to her friends. “That idiot spent his summer working just so he could spend it all on her holovid collection.”

I froze again while frowning inwardly.

Wow, talk about devoted. He’s just like me. A kindred spirit.

The brunette with the bob asked, “Didn’t he line up for hours to meet her when she was promoting something?”

“Oh, yeah—at last year’s handshaking event.”

I froze a third time.

Was her brother in line with me?

Another of Sierra’s companions, a girl with coppery red hair and green eyes, started to giggle madly. “Sierra, your brother will wet his pants knowing she’s here.”

“Hey, let’s call him,” suggested a fourth girl with dark blonde hair and amber eyes. Within a heartbeat, she’d pulled out her slim phone from a skirt pocket and called up a number, earning herself a dark frown from the brunette with the bob.

“You have his number? Karen, why do you have his number?”

“Oh…ah…well,” Karen fumbled for a reply. “Well, he—he gave it to me.”

Sierra cocked her head at the girl. “He gave it to you? Why would he give you his number?”

“Ah—well, I guess—I don’t know?”

Sierra grew suspicious. “Is there something going on between you and that dirtbag?”

Under the combined pressure from her friends, Karen began to retreat down the stairwell. “No—there’s nothing going on. Nothing to tell. Nothing at all!”

“Then why are you running away?” the redhead asked.

There was no answer from the girl. Instead, she spun on her heels and sped away with surprising agility.

Sierra stared darkly at Karen’s back before suddenly shaking herself all over like a dog. “Girls, girls”—she clapped loudly—“focus please. We’ll deal with her later.”

The brunette with the bob pointed at the fleeing girl. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on between her and your brother?”

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Sierra grabbed the girl’s shoulders. “Maria, listen to me. She can run, but she can’t hide. Besides, I’ll squeeze it out of my brother. All I have to do is take his collection hostage.”

Maria grinned cruelly. “Oh, that’ll grab him by the balls.”

“Precisely.”

I knew that girls could be terrifying but watching these two was giving me chills.

Releasing Maria’s shoulders, Sierra stepped closer to me as I stood on the stairs.

Crap! I missed my chance to escape!

Folding her arms under her breasts, she appraised me from head to toes. “Mercy Haddaway. Will wonders never cease.”

Swallowing hastily, I protested anew. “I keep telling you I’m not—”

“Mercy!” A loud, bored voice called out from above. “There you are. Why did you run away?”

I jerked sharply and then hastily looked around me with wide eyes.

Mercy Haddaway is here? Why is she here—?

Then I recognized the voice from above.

Oh, no. Don’t tell me—!

I turned to look up the stairs to see Tabitha standing on a landing above me, and watching me with a languid smile on her face.

Gods damn her!

The troublesome bitch waved at me. “Mercy, what did I tell you about running away? I warned you about attracting too much attention.”

The girls on the steps weren’t the only ones that had stopped to stare at me.

It was fair to say that all nearby traffic had come to a standstill, and scores of faces were looking at me.

“Sheesh,” Tabitha sighed dramatically. “Deciding to play high school girl even at your age. What were you thinking?”

“What do you mean my age?” I cried out. “And stop calling me Mercy—huh? What? What are you doing?”

The sounds of multiple phone cameras clicking away ripped my attention away from Tabitha.

All around me, the girls were taking snaps of me.

“…that’s her…?”

“…that’s Mercy, right…?”

“…never thought I’d see her in person….”

“…why is she wearing a uniform…?”

“…wait—isn’t she a blonde…?”

“…I think she looks better as a brunette….”

“…she’s going to our school…?”

“…but I thought she was older than us….”

“…damn. She’s big….”

“…she’s bigger in real life….”

“…what a slut. Look at her skirt….”

“…that’s way shorter than allowed….”

“…someone’s going to get in trouble today….”

“…I want her legs….”

“…shut up, Christine….”

“…I want her breasts….”

“…shut up, Megan….”

Everywhere I looked, the girls of Telos Academy were taking photos while talking about me—no, about Mercy.

No….

Because of Tabitha’s meddling, I was now the center of attention on a crowded stairwell.

No, no….

I felt trapped, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of people with faces I didn’t recognize.

No, no, no—No!

I began to shiver and tremble where I stood, the incessant clicking and droning of their voices drowning out my thoughts.

Suddenly, I felt as though I’d been thrust back to a year ago.

It was the Princess Silver Blue nightmare all over again, except this time, I was being mistaken for Mercy Haddaway.

I started shaking my head at the students surrounding me.

“I—I’m not her. I’m not, Mercy. I’m not…I’m…I’m….”

The commotion swept away my denial. It didn’t help that my voice had fallen to a frail whisper.

Stumbling back, I bumped against the guardrail in the middle of the stairwell.

“…please…stop it…I’m not her….”

The gym bag I’d been carrying fell to my feet, the straps slipping off my shoulder. I was barely aware of it rolling down the stairs.

“I…I’m not her…stop it…,” I whimpered.

From within me, the urge to flee welled up, yet I couldn’t move. My legs had turned rubbery, and if not for the support from the guardrail behind me, I would have collapsed on the ground.

“…please…stop….”

My whisper was lost behind the pounding of my heart. Even the incessant click-click of camera phones was drowned out by the sound of blood rushing past my ears like a roaring, raging river.

Please…help me….

I shut my eyes.

Someone…help me….

Reaching up, I covered my ears.

Please, God. Help me—!

With a jerk, my right hand was yanked away from my head.

What?

Then I heard a boy’s voice shout into my ears.

“Isabel!”

At that moment, everything went quiet inside my head.

My pounding heart, the roaring in my ears, the sound of people around me – all of it vanished and I opened my eyes to see a tall teenage boy with sandy hair and green eyes standing before me.

“Let’s go!”

Grabbing my right hand, he pulled me along with such force that he literally lifted me off my feet.

And then he was hauling me down the stairs at a breakneck speed.

“Stay with me,” he cried out over his shoulder. “We’re going through.”

Overwhelmed by the situation, I offered him no resistance as I ran with him.

I had no idea who he was, yet I’d surrendered my fate to him without a thought.

I hadn’t even considered that perhaps I was making a mistake.

The thought, the feeling, the impression that I was in danger from him never crossed my mind…and I had no idea why.

After descending a few floors, he exited the stairwell with me in tow, then turned sharply down a wide corridor.

“This way,” he insisted, his fingers wrapped like steel around my hand.

Addled, it took me a while to realize this wasn’t the first time I’d been pulled along by a boy.

Mat had done so when he tried saving me back at the island, before the Cat Princess shot and killed the female version of Ronin Kassius.

However, Mat was someone that I knew well.

This boy was a total stranger.

So why did I feel like I knew him?

At a run, he led me to a T-intersection.

Turning right into a branching corridor, I saw a pair of wide translucent doors at the far end. Beyond the doors lay a bridgeway connecting this apartment complex to its northern neighbor. I knew this because of Mirai’s bird-like ability to sense magnetic north, thus I was able to tell our direction of travel as though I had a compass in my head.

Moving quickly, we passed through the entrance and onto the enclosed bridgeway.

I threw a frantic glance behind me, expecting to see a crowd chasing us, but the coast was clear, so to speak.

Yet we continued running, and I was still being pulled along by the unknown boy.

I looked down at his hand firmly gripping mine and was struck by an odd thought.

Why are boys’ hands so large?

But there was a marked difference between this boy’s hand and Ronin’s.

There was nothing manly about me, was there?

Because I was looking at his hand, I only glimpsed the view outside of the bridgeway’s permaglass canopy, and again that was only because of Mirai’s abnormally wide field-of-vision. Yet, the scenery of towering buildings failed to attract my attention, distracted as I was by the boy’s hand wrapped around mine. It wasn’t until we’d traversed into the adjoining building that my composure began to recover.

Arriving at a balcony encircling the megascraper’s atrium, I finally dug in my heels.

“Stop—stop! I said stop! Stop pulling me!”

Yanking hard on the hand pulling me, I dragged the boy to a stumbling halt.

Despite this, he refused to let me go.

I was shocked by the strength of his grip, and warily wondered if he was a Simulacrum. However, when I realized that I couldn’t see his lifeforce aura, my heart pole vaulted high before coming down hard within my chest.

A machine? He’s an avatar?

The boy recovered his balance and half turned around to face me. “What are you doing? We have to go.”

I started to protest forcefully when I noticed something else: blonde locks tumbling over my shoulders.

Mirai had switched back. She wasn’t in her powered-up state, which explained why I couldn’t see the boy’s lifeforce. Having grown accustomed to seeing the aura that radiated around living creatures, I felt somewhat at a loss, and could only stare up at the boy in confusion until I remembered his hand tightly holding onto mine.

I gave it another hard yank, but he held me fast.

“What’s your problem?” I snapped at him. “Let go or lose the arm.”

He stared behind me in the direction we’d been running from.

I watched his searching eyes for a second, before quickly looking over a shoulder myself.

There was no sign of any students following us, and there was no sign of Tabitha either, but was it reason enough to relax? Besides, Tabitha was using her position in Libra to track me, thus she didn’t need to run after me.

Then again, maybe she was done with me for the morning.

I felt the grip on my hand relax and swiftly took the chance to pull it free.

Glaring hard at the teenage boy, I muttered a bitter, “Thanks.”

“We need to keep going,” he said, his voice hard and cold. “Come on.”

He started turning away but stopped when he noticed that I was standing still.

“I said, come on.”

Ignoring him for the moment, I took my first good look at my mysterious savior.

Dressed in the Telos Academy summer uniform for boys that consisted of black pants, dark shoes, and a white short-sleeve shirt, he wore a white necktie marking him as a first-year high school student. From the way his uniform hung on his body, and the strong arms that stretched out from his shirt sleeves, it was easy to see he had an athletic build. If anything, I’d call it a swimmer’s body. And he was tall, at least a handful of centimeters taller than Mirai, something that I considered unusual for a first-year high school boy.

With dark sandy hair and penetrating green eyes, he had generously handsome features that were likely to give the girls around him heart palpitations. But if he was expecting to use those good looks on me, they were sorely wasted.

“Who are you?” I bluntly asked him.

His gaze searched my face for a short while before he softly asked, “Would it explain if I told you that you’re my hope?”

The moment his reply registered in my mind, I felt a cold wind blow through me, and I stumbled back a step. “Straus….”

There was a reason why I couldn’t see his lifeforce aura: he didn’t’ have one. Even if Mirai had remained in her powered-up state, there was no aura to see because he wasn’t alive.

The handsome teenage boy standing in front of me was a machine avatar, and the one operating him was Akane Straus.

The realization staggered me but also weakly angered me because I felt deceived; betrayed.

Straus glanced behind me again, then insisted, “We really need to go.”

I swallowed and shook my head while trying to get my thoughts and emotions in order. “Wait—wait a minute. I’m still dealing with this.”

“Deal with it along the way,” he suggested.

Once again, he started turning away from me, and once again he stopped when he saw me rooted to the floor, almost hyperventilating.

“Kassius?”

I shook my head swiftly at him. “No, don’t call me that.”

A complicated look washed across his face. “What do you want me to call you?”

I clenched my hands and kept them beside me as I took a deep breath. “Before…call me what you did before…in the stairwell….”

He frowned then narrowed his eyes. “You mean…?”

“Isabel…call me Isabel.”

The tall boy studied me for a second. “Are you sure?”

I swallowed hard and backed up my decision with a nod. “Just call me Isabel. Okay?” Then I jabbed a finger at him. “But what the frek do I call you?”

The boy’s face grew blank and unreadable. A short while later, he huffed to himself and then broke into a guilty smile. “Oh, right.”

I questioned him harshly. “Well? Do you have a name?”

I was feeling deceived – yet again – so I wasn’t in the best of moods, and after folding my arms under Mirai’s breasts, I smirked cruelly at him.

“Should I give you a name?” I taunted him.

“Actually, I do have a name, so don’t bother.”

“Then let’s hear it.”

“Severin,” he announced.

“What?”

“My name. Call me, Severin.” He grinned as he favored me with an informal bow. “Severin Straus, at your service.”

I pressed my lips together, feeling a rush of anger flow through me.

Ronin Kassius had swung punches before but they rarely if ever landed.

Mirai on the other hand was gifted with abnormally keen hand-to-eye coordination.

The right cross I delivered to the boy’s jaw knocked him backwards several feet and down on his ass.

I ground my teeth together at the intense pain that briefly burned through my right hand before Mirai’s preternatural healing ability kicked in. Still, I gently shook it a few times while glaring down at Severin Straus sprawled on the balcony floor.

He met my glare as he sat up. “What the Hell was that for?”

My right hand still ached as I clenched it into a fist that I threatened him with. “That’s for tricking me—you bitch!”

“Huh?” Slowly rising to his feet, Straus looked visibly taken aback.

I was on a roll, so I added for good measure, “And because you’re a pervert!”

At this, Straus bristled visibly for a beat. “I’m not a pervert. This is a disguise. Okay? It’s just a disguise to get around.”

“I can’t believe this.” I shook my head slowly and repeated, “I can’t believe this.”

“What’s so hard to believe?”

“That you’re a woman using a male avatar!” I stomped a foot. “You’re like those guys who play MMO’s as sexy female characters.”

Straus flinched, and I pointed an accusing finger at him – I mean her. “You’re the opposite side of the coin. You’re a girl playing as a male character.”

“I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” he – she – protested.

“Oh yeah?” I aimed my finger lower. “Is that thing anatomically correct?”

Surprisingly, Straus started to blush. “Aren’t you ashamed for asking?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question. Well? Is it?”

“I have a constitutional right to remain silent.”

“Pervert!”

“Okay—okay! It’s anatomically correct.”

“Double pervert!”

“Will you stop calling me that?”

He stepped closer to me and I retreated from him.

“Stay away from me,” I warned as I slipped into a defensive stance.

“Stop acting like an abused girlfriend,” he snapped back at me. “And keep your voice down. People will get the wrong idea.”

I bounced on the balls of my feet. “I’m saying it for your own good. With the next hit you’re going over the balcony.

Straus stopped approaching me and held up his hands in a placating manner. “Would you calm down and listen to me?”

“I have been listening to you.”

“Great. Then I don’t need to say it again, do I?”

“Say what?”

“That we need to go—”

Straus stiffened when he noticed a handful of office ladies stare at us as they walked by.

I dropped back on my heels and relaxed my stance while waiting for them to move on. However, while I kept my eyes averted, Mirai’s sharp ears caught their comment about young couples not knowing their place, but they otherwise ignored us and soon left us behind.

Feeling a tad relieved, I quickly started to resume my defensive posture but then dropped it altogether.

What the Hell am I doing? I wondered. But to Straus, I instead asked, “Why do we need to go?”

“Because we have to talk. And we’re not talking here. And”—he glanced behind me once more—“I’d like to put some distance between us and her.”

He didn’t say her name, but I knew he was referring to Tabitha.

Giving in to the urge, I also looked behind me, yet I only saw office workers and students venturing toward the shops on this floor. As for Tabitha, she wasn’t in sight, and I’ll admit that I was relieved because the Harbinger of Bad News had caused enough trouble for one morning.

After a deep breath, I turned back to face Straus, in the process folding my arms under Mirai’s hefty bosom. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

He studied me for a moment. “Have you calmed down?”

Irritated at another non sequitur, I struggled to hold back a snarl. “I’m calm enough to hear you out, so start talking.”

He looked exasperated as he planted his hands on his hips. “Like I said, not here.”

I chose not to mention it, but even though I knew it was a woman operating that body, it was surprising to see the avatar behave just like a teenage boy, from its mannerisms all the way down to the way it walked.

Damn creepy. Damn pervert. Just how much practice has she had getting around in that body?

Straus raked his fingers through his long sandy hair. “Are you hungry?”

“Huh?” I was jolted out of my observations. “Why are you asking?”

“I thought you might want a bite to eat.”

I was indeed hungry, so I replied with a curt nod and grumbled. “Are you buying?”

“I’m offering, aren’t I?” He pointed at himself. “Besides, I’m the guy here so I should be paying.”

I snorted under my breath. “In case you missed the news flash, it’s the age of gender equality.”

“Good chivalry never dies young,” he proclaimed.

“What’s with the twisted quotes?”

“Fine, then you buy breakfast.”

I unfolded my arms angrily. “Hey, what happened to chivalry just now?”

Straus clenched his jaw, a gesture that unsettled me because I knew his body wasn’t human. It reminded me of Tabitha’s body, and so I briefly pondered if it was made along the same lines, that is, a mechanical body designed with stealth and infiltration in mind.

Venting a loud breath, Straus shook his head. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. We’ll split the bill. Happy now?”

“Yeah, I’m happy—” I stopped cold when I realized something that made my stomach sink. “Oh, no….”

Straus frowned at me. “What is it now?

Frantically, I patted the pockets of my skirt, then slowly grabbed my head with both hands and swore.

“Frek!”

Straus looked alarmed. He hurried up to me, grabbed my shoulders, and then gave me a forceful shake. “Hey, what’s wrong with you? You’re not having another panic attack, are you?”

I stared up at him in dread. “My phone. My cash card. Shit! I left them behind.”

“Behind? Behind where?”

“In the bag! The gym bag!” A memory flashed before my eyes – a vision of the bag tumbling down the stairs. “Oh, no. I dropped it down the stairwell.”

Straus exhaled heavily. “How much money was on that card?”

“About, four thousand dorans…I think.”

He released another heavy breath. “Well, whoever finds it is in for a lucky break.”

A burst of fury rushed through me, and I shoved Straus away from me. “That’s my money. And my phone! My new flip-top phone! Argh!”

I stomped around in a circle, then stopped to face the bridgeway entrance leading back to the dorm building.

“I’m going back,” I decided. “I’m going back to get my bag, my clothes, my phone, and my money!”

However, before I could take a step, Straus grabbed onto my arms to hold me back.

“Like Hell you are,” he proclaimed. “Forget about it. You want a new phone, just ask for one. You want money? Isabel is frekking rich! So, come on. We have to go. And that’s the wrong direction.”

I was ready to struggle until I noticed more people glancing at me. But it pained me – no, it burned me – to leave my belongings in the hands of someone who was unlikely to return them to their proper owner – me!

I didn’t even password protect my phone.

Could I be more negligent?

“Argh!”

With a loud cry, I shrugged off Straus’s hold on me, but I had to summon a great deal of Mirai’s abnormal strength to free myself, and the motion sent Straus staggering back a few feet. Spinning around to face him, I stared daggers at him for a long while, frustrated to the point of tears.

Wisely, he silently waited for me to calm down.

However, it turned into a long wait as I struggled to get a grip on my flaming emotions.

Eventually, I muttered bitterly between clenched teeth. “I liked that phone. It was my first flip-top phone….”

Yet, deep down, I understood that losing my belongings wasn’t what I truly regretted.

Rather, I resented being rescued like a damsel in distress by a young woman cross-playing as a guy.

Straus sighed deeply, shook his head, then turned his back to me. He walked away along the balcony for a short distance but slowed down to regard me over a shoulder.

“Breakfast is on me. Are you coming?”

Did he have to rub it in?

“I’m not going to owe you for this,” I told him. “I’ll pay you back. You hear me?”

Straus rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, are you coming or not? Did you twist an ankle? Do you want me to carry you?”

I strode toward him with a scowl on my face. “Do you want to get punched again?”

“I pity the guy that falls for you,” Straus muttered as he – that is she – resumed walking along the balcony encircling the building’s atrium.

“And I pity the girl that falls for a fraud like you!”

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as he continued walking. “Better to live a lie than to not live at all.”

I can’t explain why hearing him twist the famous quote angered me so much, but before I knew it, I’d raced up to him and kicked him in the middle of the back.

Straus stumbled, fell, and came to a stop several feet away.

I watched in satisfaction as he landed flat on his chest. “Stop twisting other people’s words.”

He lay still for a second or two, before slowly picking himself up again. Once on his feet, he half turned on his heels to give me a dark withering look.

“Would you stop hitting me!”

I crossed my arms and glowered back at him. “And it’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. Get it right.”

Later I would learn that I’d incorrectly recited the quote, but that’s a moot point for now.

My version was still closer to the original than his was.

Yet again shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, the mechanical avatar calling itself Severin Straus rolled its shoulders, cracked its neck, then shot me a heated look.

It was truly unnerving to see a machine glare at me so well.

“Like I said before…I pity the guy that falls for you.”