For a moment, silence — deep enough that even I hesitated to breathe.

Valeria exhaled slowly. "Then we’ll find her," she murmured.

"Because presence denied," she paused, "is still presence detected."

Her words struck through the air like glass cracking — deliberate, inevitable.

And I, halfway down the hall, could only smile bitterly.

Of course she’d say that.

Of course she’d notice.

And of course she’d realize.

She never was a fool to begin with, after all.

That was the problem with Valeria Augustine Christie — she never guessed; she knew.

Every silence was a confession to her, every shadow a misplaced truth.

I should’ve run faster.

But then again, when has running ever saved me from her?

I pressed my palm flat against the cold banister and let the city breathe beneath me — a lattice of light and small betrayals. The idea of running had a childhood tang to it, like the scraps of comic books I hid under my mattress: heroics for sale, endings bought and bound. I was not a child anymore. I was nobody’s prop.

If Valeria wanted confession, I would give her something cleaner than panic. I would give her a choice. I would uncover the seams of the stage she so loved to hide behind, not because I enjoyed pulling, but because someone had to show the audience the trapdoor. Let them watch me fall if they wanted spectacle; I would fall on my terms.

A bitter laugh escaped me — half-sour, half-amused — the sound of a pretender practicing courage. In the mirror of a darkened window, I saw the Heir’s profile: familiar, unwanted, patient. The title might carry weight, but weight could be leveraged. If the halls wanted a dance, fine. I would learn the steps, and when the music stuttered, I would change it.

* * *

"Maybe I shouldn’t have lived here at all."

Those words were still echoing in my head.

I mean... was this truly the life I really wanted?

Because... the walls were closing in once again.

I was trapped, right back in the suffocating maze built from the very elements I despised the most.

Manipulations.

The whispered word in a crowded ballroom, shifting fortunes with a breath.

Intrigues. T

The hidden dagger passed behind a silken glove, aimed at an unsuspecting back.

Politics.

The calculated, reptilian smile on a predator’s face, promising partnership while plotting betrayal.

These were the things I had sworn my entire life to avoid. I never wanted to volunteer for this sick game, let alone be forced to participate in it.

Except... now I was.

The strings were attached so tightly I could feel them biting into my skin. I was a puppet, dancing for unseen masters.

Or perhaps, just one.

My thoughts, as they always did, turned to Selene.

Was what we had even a relationship at all? Or was it just a mutually parasitic arrangement? I have got no idea.

To me, we were merely a toxic knot of using and being used, and I couldn’t even tell where one began and the other ended at this point.

Instead, all I saw was her prowess in-clarity.

It was effortless in a way she could merely turn a defiant enemy into a strong ally with just a few sentences, the chilling precision in her eyes when she thought no one was looking. She was a master of this world, a virtuoso of the game I hated.

And the worst part? I knew it.

I saw it every day, and I actively, desperately, choosed to ignore it.

This willful ignorance, this avoidant attitude... it wasn’t just about her.

It was rooted in the fact about the one I hated as who I was.

The Heir to the Izumi Group.

The title tasted like trash in my mouth.

At a glance, the rest of the world saw a golden child, a life of luxurious privilege.

They saw the penthouse, the endless credit, the parties. They didn’t see the vipers’ nest hidden beneath that gentle, welcoming facade. They couldn’t smell the rot.

They couldn’t understand that this entire gilded cage was a monument to the darkest side of humanity.

Greed.

An endless, ravenous hunger for wealth.

The one thing I had never, ever given a damn about.

And yet—a voice brushed through my mind.

You’ve been quiet for too long, Kairi.

Ah yes... here we go again.

My breath caught. It wasn’t memory. It wasn’t guilt. It was her.

Selene.

Her tone threaded straight into my thoughts — uninvited, like the first drop of water seeping through a crack in glass.

Stay away from Valeria.

"I already did without you telling me."

No way,

She countered,

She watched you instead.

The faint static in her mental tone betrayed irritation — not anger, but something rarer: surprise.

Oh, well... you figured it out, didn’t you? About her.

I smiled faintly, leaning against the window as city lights flickered below like dying stars.

"You didn’t think I would? You just realized it now?"

No...

Selene admitted, and that single word carried more weight than a dozen lectures.

I never thought you’d look that closely.

"She wasn’t hiding the narrative," I said.

"You just weren’t looking for it enough."

That’s impossible.

Her voice sharpened, the kind of cold that burns.

Valeria doesn’t slip. Not with me.

I almost laughed. "She already did, you fool."

Silence hummed between us — thick, electric, unfamiliar.

For once, Selene wasn’t the one dissecting me.

She was recalculating, trying to mask it behind composure.

That alone felt like victory.

Kairi.

Her mental voice was quieter now, deliberate.

Whatever you think you’ve found... stay out of it. Valeria isn’t your concern.

"Then why are you afraid?"

I’m not afraid.

"Then why are you here?"

A pause — long enough to count as hesitation, short enough to deny it.

Meet me. Tonight. Observatory Room.

And just like that, she was gone — severing the link mid-thought, leaving behind the faint ache of mental dissonance that always followed her. The silence afterward was almost unbearable, too human.

I stood there, staring at the window’s reflection — mine, fractured by city lights.

For once, I wasn’t sure if I’d just won something... or stepped into the one game Selene hadn’t prepared me for.