I escaped into the bathroom before the two of them could corner me any further.

Cold water hit my face while I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

"Hah....."

"Tired..."

After changing out of my academy uniform and into more comfortable casual clothes, I dragged myself back into the living room.

The moment I dropped onto the couch, my entire body melted into it.

Finally.

Peace.

"Matt!"

Never mind....

I slowly turned my head.

Kaye stood in the kitchen with her arms crossed while stirring something inside a pot. The apron wrapped around her casually, though somehow she still carried herself with the same oppressive elegance as always.

"How is it that the very first incident on your school record is a historical landmark marking the return of the Aberrants?"

"...Talent." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"If what you mean by talent is being an absolute troublemaker, then you are definitely talented."

Nagi snorted beside her while cutting vegetables.

"He also sleeps during class sometimes," Nagi added helpfully.

I immediately pointed at her in betrayal.

"Oi..."

Kaye slowly looked toward me and dangerously grabbed a kitchen knife even though she wasn’t about to cut anything anymore.

"GULP...."

"You sleep during lectures?"

"It was one time."

"It was countless times," Nagi corrected immediately with the most smug grin imaginable.

"EY!"

"And he disappears randomly too," Nagi added while stirring the pot. "Sometimes he just vanishes for hours without telling anyone where he went."

I opened my mouth to argue back before immediately stopping myself.

...I was literally preparing for future scenarios and possible disaster routes during those times.

Naturally, I could hardly explain that out loud without sounding insane, so instead, I just quietly looked away.

Nagi noticed and grinned in victory.

"And there was a time Professor Zmey was furious at him too."

"That one was not my fault," I defended instantly.

"You argued with her in the middle of class."

"Because she was being incredibly petty."

Kaye raised a brow. "Petty how?"

"She lost a bet during the student exercises." I leaned back lazily against the couch.

"The exercise was thrum flow efficiency. She proposed a bet on who would win, and she placed her money on Tasora because, on paper, she had been breaking records for highest affinity and assumed she would naturally have the best control too."

"But it turns out Tasora was terrible at flow efficiency. She’s just been brute-forcing everything this whole time, and things have somehow worked out in her favor so far," Nagi said while waving the spoon.

"Well... not as terrible as Matt, though."

"Oi."

Nagi was already grinning from ear to ear.

"The measuring device literally exploded on him, Sis Kaye. You should have seen it. The numbers somehow went negative before the orb crystal burst in his face."

Kaye blinked once.

"...Negative?"

"I still do not know how that happened."

"Oh, so you are using a Veyrion Gauge." Kaye nodded thoughtfully. "We used those in the levy as well."

I frowned.

"Levy? Who is Levy?"

Kaye looked at me like she had just witnessed something deeply disappointing.

"The levy," she repeated slowly. "Commoners conscripted by local lords during wartime."

"...Then why not just call them commoner soldiers?"

"Cousin mine, stop blaming your incompetence in vocabulary on me," Kaye said flatly.

Nagi immediately burst into laughter beside her while I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

"So what happened after that?" Kaye asked while continuing to prepare the food.

"Just like I said, Professor Zmey got petty afterward," I explained. "She started piling extra assignments onto me because of the school points I took from her during the exercise."

"So I retaliated a little."

"A little?" Nagi nearly choked trying not to laugh. "You spent twenty minutes arguing with her."

"She was wrong."

"You two kept going back and forth so long the entire class stopped paying attention." Nagi looked genuinely nostalgic about it.

"Honestly, we figured it was better to just let you continue since it basically became free time for everyone else."

Kaye slowly sighed while rubbing her forehead.

Why did she already look exhausted around me again?

Meanwhile, Nagi kept grinning like she was having the time of her life.

"If you were not so cute, Nagi, I would have already left you in the dust, you bastard."

"Then you should have already," Verde suddenly commented inside my head.

I nearly groaned aloud.

"Give me a break, Verde, I was joking."

"I still cannot get used to the new you."

"You’d better start adjusting fast because I am way weirder than this."

"At least you are self-aware."

Mentally exhausted, I grabbed my phone and lazily tossed it onto the desk before collapsing deeper into the couch.

Thankfully, Nagi and Kaye had become distracted talking to each other while cooking, meaning their attention finally shifted away from bullying me for the moment.

I quietly watched the two of them chatting surprisingly naturally together.

...When did those two get so close?

A few minutes later, the smell filling the room intensified until my stomach practically cried in relief.

"Dinner is ready," Kaye announced.

Plates were placed neatly across the table while Nagi happily carried the final dishes over.

I sluggishly pushed myself off the couch and walked toward the table like a corpse.

Right as I sat down, Kaye casually scooted my discarded phone back toward me across the table.

"Mind your table manners."

"...Yes, Mom."

Kaye’s eye twitched slightly.

Meanwhile, Nagi immediately burst into laughter beside her.

The table was eventually filled one dish at a time.

At the center rested a large, shallow bowl of steaming rice noodles, surrounded by a dozen small plates.

Stir-fried greens glistening with garlic oil. Sweet, glaze-crisped fish. Plump dumplings.

Steam slowly curled upward under the warm dorm lights. The smell alone made my stomach tighten painfully.

"...Rice noodles?" I whispered, the words catching in my throat.

Nagi’s face lit up with instant, quiet pride. "Kaye said you liked them."

"I didn’t really know what else to prepare," Kaye added, pulling out a chair and sitting down beside her.

"I figured we’d stick to something you enjoy a lot ."

"Enjoy...a lot...."

For a long moment, I just stared into the bowl.

It was funny, really.

It seemed the original Matthew here shared the exact same comfort food.

Or maybe some things are just so deeply woven into the fabric of a soul that they bleed across entirely different worlds, regardless of the skin you’re wearing.

Kaye took the ladle, scooping a generous portion of noodles and broth into my bowl before sliding it in front of me.

"Eat up before it gets cold."

"...Yeah."

My fingers felt numb as I picked up the utensils. I lifted the first bite, my hands slightly unsteady, and let the warmth hit my tongue.

The broth was perfect. Savory, deep, and heartbreakingly gentle.

And just like that, the floodgates broke.

Memories I thought I’d buried fathoms deep rushed to the surface without a single word of warning.

I was back in the rain.

I could smell the salt in the air, biting through the fancy fabric of my school uniform. I remembered the rhythmic, distant echo of speeding cars on the asphalt behind me. The cold iron of the bridge railing pressed into my palms.

Everything about that afternoon was a boring.

Suffocating gray sky, the rain showers lightly tapping my head.

And the thoughts rotting inside my own head...

At that point in my life.

...

.....

...

Death was more comforting than living.

I wasn’t in excruciating pain.

I wasn’t being dramatic.

I was just so profoundly, entirely exhausted.

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

Every single morning felt like a losing battle before I even opened my eyes.

Going to class, forcing my mouth to form polite sentences, pretending I gave a single damn about a future I couldn’t visualize it all felt like watching a movie of someone else living my life.

I climbed over the railing.

I couldn’t feel my heartbeat nor anything at all.

"STEP......"

The moment my feet left the ledge, the sound of the rain died.

In fact, every sound died. Even my self-hatred was drowned along with it.

I had the strength to kick. I could have fought my way back to the air. Instead, I just floated there, watching the blurry light drift further and further away as my lungs began to burn, letting myself sink into the dark.

At that exact moment, dying felt like the warmest blanket I had ever been offered.

...

It has been so long since I felt free.

...

The current dragged lazily at my clothes, pulling me down while the dim, fragmented light of the sky flickered cruelly above.

Frantic hands clawed at my uniform.

Muffled shouting split the water.

Heavy arms dragged my dead weight upward, breaking the surface into a harsh, blinding reality.

Unfortunately, someone had seen me....

Or maybe fortunately. To this day, looking back at it, I still haven’t figured out which one it actually was.

Everything after that came in horrific, disconnected fragments.

Coughing up liters of filthy, freezing river water onto the cracked pavement. The blinding red reflection of sirens flashing against the wet brick walls.

A circle of strangers staring down at me with pity and disgust.

And then... Mom arrived.

My student ID had been tucked safely inside my soaked blazer pocket, so the police had called my parents almost immediately.

I will never forget how completely broken she looked standing in that precinct hallway.

Her blouse was wrinkled from work, her hair a disheveled mess, her makeup smeared across her cheeks, and her breathing so jagged it sounded like she had sprinted a marathon across the city.

That woman spent every waking hour at her job just to keep a roof over our heads.

She barely had time to breathe, let alone be at home. Yet, she dropped everything the exact second she heard her son had tried to kill himself.

The sheer weight of the guilt that followed was worse than any physical pain I’ve ever endured.

Later that night, I sat completely frozen on the bathroom stool while she stood behind me, gently working a dry towel through my damp hair.

Neither of us said a word.

The bathroom was entirely silent except for the soft, rhythmic rustle of the cloth moving over my scalp.

She kept patting my head, over and over, with this agonizing care.

When I finally forced myself to look up in the mirror, I saw her eyes.

They were swollen, bloodshot, and completely ruined. She was biting her lip so hard it was white, desperately trying not to break down and cry in front of me.

Yet her face already screamed everything she was trying to hide.

It cut deeper than if she had screamed at me.

I wish she had just screamed at me. It would have been so much easier if she had just lost her temper, hit me, or called me selfish.

"I’m sorry..." she said, barely a whisper in the quiet bathroom.

I’m so sorry, Matt..."

She said it again. And again.

She should have been furious. I had thrown her sacrifices back in her face, yet there she was, apologizing to me.

Later that night, she made me rice noodles.

I remember sitting in total silence at the kitchen table, watching her hands shake violently as she set the warm bowl down in front of me.

She kept wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, desperately pretending the tears weren’t dripping straight into the broth she was serving.

"I’m sorry..." she whispered one last time before turning away.

In that moment, I have never felt a deeper, more consuming hatred for my own existence. I felt disgusting. Weak. A pathetic, selfish parasite.

I felt like the most despicable ’sinner’ to ever draw breath on this earth.

Yet, despite the absolute poison in my mind...

The noodles still tasted warm. They were savory and, most importantly, comforting.

My mother sat across from me, quietly weeping into her hands.

I just lowered my head to hide the downpour in my eyes and kept chewing.