BECOMING MID(NIGHT)-Chapter 57: Phase 44 - Becoming Ghosts Again

The high-tension hum of the feedback loop didn’t dissipate; it just settled into the furniture, becoming a permanent part of the room’s acoustic signature.

My ears were still ringing, a persistent tinnitus that mirrored the chaotic firing of my synapses. The heavy, pressurized silence of the encounter was gone, replaced by the mundane, rhythmic sounds of reality slowly, painfully reassembling itself.

The transition was brutal.

The slick, wet friction of skin sliding against skin gave way to the dry, static rustle of discarded fabric being dragged across the floor. The ambient temperature of the room seemed to plummet ten degrees in seconds. The sweat coating my chest and back, which had felt like liquid fire moments ago, was now turning into a freezing, clammy film. The air itself tasted sharp, a cocktail of ozone from the system processors and the heavy, undeniable musk of what we had just done to each other.

We dressed each other in a daze of absolute physical depletion.

The movements were uncoordinated, painfully slow, and devoid of any lingering romance. It was a clumsy, tactical recovery, like two battered pilots trying to piece their armor back together in the wreckage.

My hands were a mess. They vibrated with a low-frequency twitch, the muscles in my forearms completely shot from gripping and holding her down.

I fumbled uselessly with the thin, fragile straps of her top. Every time the fabric snagged against the damp heat of her skin, a phantom jolt of electricity shot up my arms. The silk actively resisted the friction of her salt-filmed shoulders, clinging to her as if it knew it didn’t belong there anymore. I forced myself to focus, swallowing hard as I had to physically guide the cloth over the angry red crescents my fingers had left pressed into her flesh. I was watching the "Velvet" persona being literally pulled back over her shivering, bruised ribs, inch by agonizing inch, burying the raw, gasping girl I had just broken apart beneath layers of tactical synthetic weave.

When it was my turn, Kyouya refused to look at my face.

Her focus was entirely, ruthlessly mechanical.

The flush fading from her cheeks was the only betrayal of her composure. She gripped the heavy, unforgiving denim of my jeans, her knuckles grazing the bruised, overly sensitive flesh of my thighs. My skin was still humming, hyper-aware and screaming with the ghost of her nails and tongue. When the stiff, coarse fabric scraped up my hips, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from a sharp intake of breath. There was something deeply surreal about pulling that heavy denim back over my lower half; it felt abrasive, a violent intrusion against the raw hyper-sensitivity of the aftermath.

She stepped closer, her breath ghosting across my stomach as she aligned the tracks of my fly. The brass teeth of the zipper engaged with a hollow, metallic scrape. It was a harsh, industrial snap that echoed violently through the quiet room now that the "Midnight" armor was back on.

It was the sound of a vault locking.

She didn’t back away immediately. She reached for my shirt, her fingers inadvertently brushing against the drying silver trails on my chest as she began to secure the buttons. Her movements were clinical, precise, like a mechanic sealing the chassis of a machine after a catastrophic stress test. One by one, the dark plastic buttons hid the bite marks, the sweat, and the damning, raw evidence of our absolute loss of control.

By the time the last collar button was fastened, the residual heat radiating between our bodies felt trapped. It was ionizing the two inches of air separating us inside our newly reconstructed layers, building a static charge so thick that every breath I took felt like inhaling broken glass. We stood there, fully clothed, but the phantom weight of her legs wrapped around my waist was still pressing down on my spine.

She gripped the heavy denim of my jeans, her knuckles grazing my thighs—still sensitive, still humming with the ghost of her touch—as she hauled the stiff fabric up my hips.

There was something surreal about pulling the heavy denim back over my skin; it felt abrasive, a coarse intrusion against the hyper-sensitivity of the aftermath.

She reached for my shirt, her fingers brushing against the drying silver on my chest as she began to button it up. Her movements were clinical, like a mechanic closing a chassis after a catastrophic stress test.

One by one, the buttons hid the marks, the sweat,

and the raw evidence of what we’d done.

By the time the last collar button was fastened, the heat between us felt trapped, ionizing the air inside our clothes until every breath felt like inhaling static.

We moved as if nothing had happened, standing there in our reconstructed layers, but the weight of the "V-Card" in the bag and the ticking timer on our wrists made the fabric feel like a lead shroud.

And just like that... we were becoming ghosts again, just with heavier footprints.

"Mayo."

"What is it again, Kyouya-san?" I asked. My voice was still a low, fractured rasp, a physical log of the "glucking symphony" that had just ended.

"From now on... maybe we should just keep this to ourselves," she said.

She was adjusting her top, her fingers steady but her eyes avoiding mine.

"Let’s go back to calling each other with those usernames, shall we?"

I nodded casually, then leaned back against the sofa, watching the way her "Velvet" persona began to stitch itself back together, piece by piece.

"Also, you haven’t told me whether it was right or wrong about my deduction."

"Stop grinning like an idiot."

"Sorry, I can’t help it... Velvet-kun,"

I teased, the honorific feeling like a deliberate glitch in her system.

"Pffft. Not funny."

"It is." I was taken aback by the moment, thinking about it for a bit.

"I don’t know," I countered, the adrenaline finally cooling into a steady, cynical hum.

"Imagine doing all of that but you still keep thinking about your identity."

"It’s important, Midnight-san," she snapped, the detective-logic reasserting itself over her heaving chest.

"Or else... hey, maybe I should get you to the police as soon as possible."

Are you out of your mind?

I let out a short, dry laugh.

"Heh, what is this? Some kind of blackmail?"

"Nope, not even close. I mean... with that skill, maybe you could join—"

"Join what?"

She hesitated, her gaze flicking toward the darkened window.

"Ugh, never mind. Forget it. You wouldn’t be interested."

"Be honest with me," I said, my voice dropping an octave.

"Remember, we are partners now."

"Huh. Which kind? In-crime? In-love? In-horniness?"

"Pick one, Mayo."

And you said you were gonna keep this to each other from now on.

She smirked, her eyes tracking the way my pulse was still visible in my neck.

"You just broke your own rule," I pointed out, while sighing.

"Meh. I know, Midnight-san."

"But hey, we are still in ’our’ room."

Not even belongs to us...

"Heh. Sure."

"Anyway... you are too sexy for a dude, Kyouya-kun."

Maybe he’s actually that handsome...

"Oh, you think so?"

Kyouya’s eyes flashed with that familiar predatory light.

"Just wait until I visit your house, love."

Okay, what?

That can’t be happening!

"No, don’t you dare."

"Why not? Afraid that I will mess up with your room?"

No, it’s the the opposite.

The thought of him navigating my messy, Titanic-alike, cable-strewn apartment’s flat—the real "Midnight" lair—sent a flicker of genuine panic through my body.

I went quiet, my mind was already running the logistics of a total cleanup.

Yep, perhaps I should have done it as soon as possible right after this.

I’m a rat gamer, after all.

"What is this? Being too quiet already?" she prodded.

"Not your problem."

She looked into my eyes, as if searching for something specific.

"Okay, you can visit my flat. But after we have done with... whatever this hell is."

"Flat, huh..."

"Well, I’ve got some bad feelings about this,"

She muttered, followed by my social anxiety finally overriding the libido.

"You know what?"

"Maybe we should just go for a date first."

"What do you think?" she suggested.

I froze. My mind blank.

The silence in the room suddenly felt like an online game’s server crash.

"Wait... did you really just say that?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

"Don’t tell me your zero social skills hindered your ability to even touch the grass."

"Shut up. Kill yourself," I barked, the deflection was instinctual.

"Heh. How sensitive." She teased back.

"I mean, I’m a girl after all."

"You idiot." I barked again.

"Ho-ho. Where’s that manly vibe again earlier?"

"Gone after fucking me until you’re getting dried?"

Are you seriously bringing that up again?

"Can you shut the fuck up for once?"

"Uwah, scary."

"Again. Not funny."

"I love you."

The statement was a localized tectonic shift.

I stopped breathing for a second, my eyes locking onto hers.

"That’s the second time you said that," I noted.

"That was like... 30 minutes ago," she sighed, waving a hand dismissively as if she could brush away the weight of the confession.

"Stop counting the whole thing. Jeez."

"Anyway... did you receive the cooldown on your watch already, love?"

She glanced down at the interface on my wrist, the blue light of the display bleeding into the dim room.

"Hm... let me check. Yes, we did."

"For how long?"

"Approximately an hour and a half left before the V-Card’s decline,"

She reported, the system’s clock ticking down with mechanical indifference.

"Not that... but the libido thingy."

"Ah, that one. It says five hours cooldown."

"Which means around three hours more or less."

"Anyway, jeez... you really are insane,"

she muttered, her fingers tangling in her hair as she sat back.

"Imagine overriding the libido protocol then blowing up my face just like that."

"Hehe, sorry."

I leaned in, my shoulder brushing hers. The loop was still there, a soft, electric resonance between our bodies, but the timer was relentless.

We had ninety minutes left to figure out if we were ghosts, lovers, or just two anomalies in the same system.

Who knows at this point.