But then — a colder thought pierced through the fog: what if this wasn’t nightmare at all? What if it was real?

No — what if they actually did that?

The question hung in the room like a bad smell. I pressed my palms to my temples until stars burst behind my eyes. The ledger lay on the nightstand, innocent and obscene at once, pages fanned like a guilty fan.

My fingers itched to close it, to smother the ink, but my hands felt miles away — other people’s hands, maybe Selene’s, maybe someone else’s.

Then the room tilted.

Not physically — everything stayed where it should be — but sound thinned, color drained, and the lamp’s halo stretched into a long, hungry eye. A single page of the ledger shuddered and lifted as if a small wind breathed from between the covers. It flipped once, twice, and settled on an illustration I hadn’t drawn. The line work was wrong and right all at once: familiar angles, foreign intent. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Stop it," I rasped, though I wasn’t sure who I ordered — Selene, the thing in her, the ink, myself.

Selene’s lips parted. For a second, only air moved. Then a voice, low and threaded with a timbre that had nothing to do with the woman beside me, filled the space. It wasn’t recorded; it wasn’t in my head. It was there, warm and near:

"You drew it first. Your fault."

My throat closed. The syllables untied a fist inside my chest.

"Renji..." I breathed, and the name tasted like glass.

Her eyes opened wide, too bright. They weren’t sleepy now; they were patient, like someone watching a puzzle solve itself. "Did you know? I invited him," she — or he — said. The sound came out as both hers and not hers.

"It was almost a job done. Piece-by-piece, similar to a puzzle."

I crawled backward until the wall found my spine. The ledger’s pages snapped shut with a dry, satisfying click that meant nothing. Outside, a siren phased through the neighborhood, ordinary and indifferent.

I curled into myself because there was nowhere else to go. The world had narrowed to pulse, ink, and a single, impossible promise.

"If you actually go that far with Renji, I swear to God—I’ll shut your mouth with my own."

The words shot out of me before I had the chance to rein them in. They didn’t sound like the clumsy threat of someone inexperienced, but like the weary remark of an adult too familiar with romance—or even the drowning pull of nightlife where nothing is sacred.

Maybe that’s why the line keeps echoing inside me, each time Selene mentions how she ’almost’ went too far with that mangaka. Almost. Always almost. And every time she says it, something inside me snaps again, like glass already cracked but never quite shattering.

The problem isn’t the card with manga sketches she brought back. Nor is it the humiliation of her catching sight of my doujin—those cursed drawings better off rotting in a drawer than ever exposed to the public eye.

No. Or maybe... not just that.

It’s her recklessness. The way she didn’t hesitate to march all the way to the address scribbled on that note, when all I ever wanted was to drop the damn thing in the mail and be done with it.

And more than that—her unthinking boldness, walking into Renji’s apartment with that wide-eyed innocence, as if trying disgusting things with him was nothing but curiosity. An experiment, she called it.

Damn you, Selene. You’re reckless, shameless—truly insufferable.

A piece of shit.

The insult hung in the air longer than it should have, like smoke that refused to disperse. Selene tilted her head, and for a heartbeat I thought I saw offense flicker across her features. But no—her lips curved instead, amused, as though I’d just given her a compliment wrapped in broken glass.

"Finally," she murmured. "The truth leaks out."

Her voice was hers again, not the borrowed timbre that had filled the room before. Relief and dread tangled in my chest until I couldn’t tell them apart.

"Don’t twist this," I rasped. "You’re reckless, Selene. You don’t think. You walk into fire and then laugh at me for flinching."

She shifted closer, knees whispering against the floorboards. "And yet," she said softly, "you never look away. Even now, you could run. You don’t."

My back pressed harder against the wall. Distance never held with Selene—she was gravity disguised as a girl, and I was the idiot satellite orbiting her, too weak to break free.

"Why him?" The words slipped out before I could stop them. "Why—of all people?"

Her lashes lowered like a curtain. "Because he saw you first."

The answer stung sharper than any slap.

"You don’t even know what that means," I hissed.

Her grin sharpened. "Don’t I? He looked at your drawings like scripture. He told me—every line you made was begging for someone to trespass."

The ledger on the floor seemed louder in its silence, as though it had swallowed my heartbeat whole.

"You had no right," I said, low and ragged.

Selene leaned closer, hair brushing my cheek—too intimate, electric. "No right to what? To share you? To make real what you only dared to sketch?"

Her breath smelled faintly of ink, or maybe that was just my mind collapsing in on itself.

"You think this is a game," I managed. "You think you can throw yourself at anyone and I’ll just—"

"You’ll just what?" she interrupted, smiling. "Hate me? Chain me? Kiss me until I choke on the taste of your jealousy?"

The words scorched. Not because they were untrue, but because she said them as if she already owned me.

I wanted to strike her. I wanted to drag her mouth against mine until she finally stopped mocking. I wanted to run. All three desires tangled, indistinguishable, until the only thing left was trembling silence.

Selene sat back on her heels, studying me. No smirk now. Just a patient stillness, as though she were cataloging every fracture in me.

"You’re afraid," she said at last.

The simplicity of it made my skin crawl.

"Afraid I’ll lose you to him?" she pressed. "Or afraid you’ll lose yourself, trying to keep me?"

The siren outside had long faded, but its echo still clung to the air. Lies caught in my throat, too bitter to speak.

"I don’t want to play his game," I muttered. "I don’t want to be measured, compared, replaced—"

"Then stop comparing," she said gently.

It was cruel, the way she could sound tender while cutting me open.

"You don’t get it." My voice cracked lower this time, almost a plea. "You walked in there like it meant nothing. But for me—it was—" I broke off, unable to finish.

Her gaze softened. Or maybe only pretended to. "You think I don’t know what he means to you?"

A chill slid down my spine.

"Selene..."

Her fingers brushed the edge of my sleeve, featherlight, and every nerve in me caught fire.

"Listen," she whispered. "If you want me to stop—say it. But don’t confuse yourself. You hate that I almost went too far... because you wanted to be the one I went too far with."

The air thickened, impossible to breathe.

"Shut up," I whispered, but it came out more like prayer than command.

Her eyes gleamed, knowing.

"You shut me up, remember? With your own mouth. That’s what you promised."

The words I’d thrown recklessly earlier returned now as shackles, binding me.

I could almost hear laughter lingering in the corners of the room—whether his or hers, I didn’t know.

And yet, when Selene leaned closer, I didn’t move. My whole body screamed to recoil, to keep one sliver of sanity intact. But another voice—quieter, heavier—told me to let her cross the line, because then at least I wouldn’t have to wonder anymore.

Her lips hovered inches from mine. She didn’t close the gap. She waited. Always making me decide, always pulling the trigger but never the final shot.

I hated her for it. I hated myself more.

"Selene..." My voice shook. "If you’re lying—if you’re just saying this to—"

She tilted her head. "Would it hurt less if I lied?"

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

The silence stretched, raw and unbearable.

Finally, she sat back, releasing the space between us like a snapped thread. Her smile returned, softer now, but no less dangerous.

"Then draw again," she said. "Don’t hide. Show me what you’re so afraid of."

The ledger lay on the floor, closed and mocking. My hands itched to reach for it, to tear it open, to drown its blankness in the truth I’d buried. But I stayed frozen, spine against the wall, chest hollow.

She rose gracefully, her shadow swallowing mine. "I’ll be waiting," she murmured, and for the first time, her voice was entirely hers.

When the door clicked shut, the silence was worse than any accusation.

I pressed my forehead against my knees, fists trembling.

Piece of shit, I thought again. But I didn’t know anymore if I meant her—or myself.