Darkness.
The moment she detected that bone-chilling stare, Koharu Miura felt a ringing in her ears.
Her vision blurred rapidly, and the world around her was gradually consumed by encroaching darkness.
An endless, viscous darkness like asphalt.
Koharu Miura felt as if she were falling into a bottomless whirlpool, surrounded by countless shadowy hands flailing in the void, trying to grab at her ankles.
That stabbing sensation—the malicious stare that had followed her like a shadow on the train station platform—didn’t let go even in the depths of her subconscious.
In those twisted shadows, in the gaps stretched by the lights, it coldly watched her every move.
Like observing a beetle trapped in a glass jar.
She didn’t know how much time had passed or what had happened.
“–!”
Koharu Miura’s eyes flew open. Her body convulsed violently in terror.
What came into view wasn’t the cold platform lights or the chime of an arriving train.
…It was the familiar ceiling she’d seen countless times—wallpaper with elegant patterns, reflecting the faint warm glow of the lamp on her nightstand.
The air carried the faint scent of laundry detergent and the cozy feeling of home.
“Oh, Koharu, you’re awake?”
A gentle, urgent voice reached her ears.
Koharu Miura awkwardly turned her neck and saw her mother pushing open the door, holding a cup of steaming honey water.
“Mom…”
Koharu opened her mouth, only to find her voice hoarse and raw, as if her throat had been scraped with sandpaper.
“Thank goodness, you’re finally awake.”
Her mother hurried over, set the cup on the nightstand, and reached out to feel Koharu’s forehead. “How do you feel? Any discomfort? Still dizzy?”
Koharu Miura propped herself up, her head feeling as heavy as lead.
She tried to recall the images before she passed out: Haruka Kondo’s face full of questioning and anger, the noisy crowd on the platform, and… that stare that had made her feel like she was falling into an icy abyss.
“How… how did I get back?”
Koharu pressed her temples. Clearly, her memory had cut off after that extremely terrifying moment when she turned around.
Her mother sighed, her eyes still filled with lingering fear. “That female classmate of yours, Haruka Kondo, brought you back.”
“Kondo…?”
“She said you were waiting at the station when you suddenly turned deathly pale and collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.”
“She was really scared, but she caught you, noticed your phone was still unlocked, and quickly called me from your contacts. I gave her our address, and she hailed a taxi and helped you all the way upstairs.”
“Kondo… helped me upstairs?”
Koharu was stunned.
“Yes. That girl may seem cold, but she has a good heart.”
Her mother fussed with the corner of Koharu’s blanket as she chatted. “She stayed until the doctor came and left only after she was sure you were okay.”
“When she left, I could see the back of her sports outfit was completely soaked with sweat.”
Koharu Miura fell silent.
Guilt pressed down on her like a wet sponge, heavy and suffocating.
Just now… for reasons she couldn’t tell Kondo, reasons that must have seemed completely unfounded from Kondo’s perspective, she had tried to shut her out from the truth.
But at that moment, Kondo had set aside all her suspicions and dissatisfaction, just to get her home safely.
Koharu lowered her head, her gaze falling on her phone beside the pillow.
She picked it up. The faint light from the screen was a little harsh.
The lock screen showed several unread LIME messages.
[Kondo: If you wake up, remember to reply. Don’t make Auntie worry, and don’t make me keep staring at my phone.]
It had been sent an hour ago.
Below that was a long block of text.
[Kondo: Listen, Miura. About that dialogue box I saw at the station… I didn’t look through your phone. Whether Cang sent something or you replied, I didn’t read a single word.]
[Kondo: Sure, I’m really curious. But if it’s something important that you absolutely can’t tell me, I won’t force you to speak anymore.]
[Kondo: But Koharu Miura, you need to understand one thing. If the problem you’re facing has already gone beyond what a girl like you—someone who always pretends to be strong out of habit—can handle, then learn to ask the right people for help.]
[Kondo: Entrusting an unsolvable problem to someone who isn’t the one to solve it (like just chatting on a messaging app) will only add extra mental burden to both of you, and in the end, nothing will change.]
Koharu stared hard at the words “extra burden” and “nothing will change.”
‘I guess I’m being lectured…’ she thought.
Her fingertips hovered over the screen for a long time.
Kondo’s words were blunt to the point of cruelty, yet they hit like a resounding slap.
Kondo had sensed the abnormal information-sharing between Koharu and Sou Kanzaki, and she had also sensed that Koharu was in the grip of some extreme fear.
But she chose to suppress her own possessiveness and, with a sternness like an elder, warned Koharu not to sink deeper into the mire.
Did she think Sou Kanzaki wasn’t the one who could solve this? Or did she think… that by consulting with Sou Kanzaki, Koharu was only adding to his pressure?
Reply.
Koharu took a deep breath, steadied her complicated emotions, and typed slowly but clearly.
[Miura: Kondo, I’m sorry. And thank you so much for taking me home.]
[Miura: I’m awake now. There’s nothing seriously wrong with me; I was just too tense earlier. I’ll seriously think about your advice. Tonight… I’m really sorry.]
After sending it, she didn’t get an instant reply. Maybe Kondo had already gone to sleep, exhausted.
“The doctor said it was acute stress-induced hyperventilation and a brief blackout.”
Seeing her daughter put down the phone, her mother asked, “Did something happen?”
Koharu put down her phone, shook her head, and lay back on the soft bed.
Seeing that, her mother quietly left.
It was already 10:30 PM. The night outside the window was as dark as ink, with only the low hum of an occasional car passing by on the street.
Normally, after such a bout of exhaustion and a blackout, she should have fallen into deep sleep immediately.
But at this moment, Koharu’s mind was clearer than ever—or rather, unprecedentedly lucid.
That stare on the train station platform.
It wasn’t a hallucination. Kondo’s denial had actually confirmed from the side that the malice was real.
“That thing is right there.”
Koharu curled up, pulling the blanket over half her face.
“If Mayumi was targeted because she was an ‘idol companion,’ and Arisa was trapped because she was a ‘protagonist’… then what about me? I’m just a ‘foreign object’ trying to rewrite the script in this world. Was that stare a warning? Warning me not to try to destroy the so-called ‘correct ending’ by getting close to Sou Kanzaki or investigating the Livehouse?”
An unprecedented loneliness enveloped her.
In this world, she was like an infiltrator walking alone in the fog.
She protected Yui and the others’ innocence, hid her persistence from Kondo, and tried to bear the heavy malice in Arisa’s place.
But in the end, she found that she herself was on the verge of losing the courage to even turn back.