Back when you were still in the hands of the developers, unable to have a free will of your own, you simply didn't care at first. This world was too dull for your liking, and it's not like there's anything you really wanted to do. However, when you met Chen Miao and had killed him multiple times in the name of love; that's when you started to gain self-awareness.
You don't know if it was the truth or not; the system told you that it was all thanks to its request to give you free-will that made you sentient, but thinking back, even if the system was the one that gave you a mind of your own, it was Chen Miao who made you looked forward to this repetitive man-made world.
Perhaps your feelings for him was fake. Perhaps what you felt for him was simply what the developers designed for you to feel, but so what? You still feel something for him. You still like him.
Ifー If Chen Miao is really not what you think he is, then that's okay. You're already grateful that he, at least, existed alongside you. If prying further will make things worse for him, then you will be obedient. You will remain ignorant for his sake.
However, this is not an act of submission. You only gave him the upper hand here because you trusted him, and if he decided to abuse that trust, then the two of you are even.
You won't have to feel guilty any longer by the fact that he died multiple times in your hands.
"It's late," the protagonist suddenly stated. His fingers gently brushed against your hair before pulling you away from his embrace. "Do you want to stay at home or...?"
Home. Chen Miao described his house as your home. Your cheeks heat up at the thought.
"I will go to school," you answered. "After all, staying at home will only bore me."
"Then I'm going to get ready first, okay?" He seemed worried that you might push yourself again.
You nodded, glancing at the half-eaten food. "Then I will wash the dishes."
Chen Miao decided against it but after you begged him to let you do this at least since he cooked for you, the man eventually relented and left to change his clothes. You went to grab the plates and washed them in the sink.
After you were done, your eyes then instinctively made its way to the white door that you've never got the chance to enter before in your lives.
ーChen Miao told you not to remember, but he didn't tell you not to pry further.
So you went to the door, turning around the doorknob and found that it wasn't locked.
Pushing the door open, you found that the light inside weren't turn off so you took a peek, but as expected, there's no stairs leading to a creepy basement nor there are torture devices inside. It's just a storage full of unused, broken things and cleaning equipments. You frowned and went in, until you reached an old television placed on top of a shelf.
But this television is not only old, it is also broken; Its screen was shattered.
You looked down at the mess of broken pieces of glass on the floor, kneeling down to carefully picking a piece of it gently so that it would not cut you. You don't know why you pick it up, but once you did, a thought came to your mindー
ーif this world was a game, Kai was the player, Chen Miao was the protagonist, and you were the villain, then what was the true ending of this world?
Normally if one play games, there would always be, at least, two types of ending; the good and bad. Let's say that the part were the protagonist died is the bad one, then what is the the good one? What should the players do to win this game?
You paused for a while, trying to put yourself in the shoes of the one who made this game; so this game linked the player to the protagonist. Whatever happened to the protagonist happen to the player too in real life. There is a villain who's madly in love with the protagonist enough to kill him. However, it's only when the villain was self-aware and neglected her role did the world tried to kill the protagonist in her place.
Is the good end can only be achieved if the protagonist stayed alive? But for how long? The player can't keep avoiding death forever.
You remained silent for a while and thought of something.
ーactually, was your role really that insignificant? Is it just to kill Chen Miao? Because there are two possibilities that none of the players had ever done yet; romancing you and killing you.
These two routes, could there be an ending in them?
You were pulled out of your thought when you heard footstep echoing in the room, and in the blink of an eye, you felt someone grabbed and tightly gripped on your wrist, resulting the broken piece of glass that you hold to fall. You turned to the protagonist in confusion, suprised to see fear etched in his eyes as he stared at you. You wonder why; was he afraid that you would harm yourself?
You pretentiously smiled. "I was just about to clean this up."
"By using your bare hand?" He asked in disbelief, heaving a sigh of relief. "What are you even doing here anyway?"
"I saw that the door wasn't unlocked so I got curious and went inside, sorry." You touched his face with your which was dripping with cold sweat, wiping it away with your thumb. "Were you worried about me?"
The protagonist trembled slightly under your gentle touch and you could see how his face which was pale earlier, started to have its color back.
"Yoー You need to get ready. We're going to be late." Despite saying that, he didn't pull away from you, and you could see the reddened tips of his ears.
You chuckled slightly. A second later, you retracted your hand away while secretly glancing at the old and shattered television for the last time. As a result, you weren't able to see the look of disappointment on Chen Miao's face. He dejectedly watched you leave to get ready, palming his own cheeks to feel it warmness, feeling a little unfair that he was the only one affected when the two of you touch.
『my beloved husband kai baby asfgdsbfye (っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ』
Oh, it went back to normal, you glanced at the screen chat. All this time, the words posted there were all glitchy and hard to read so you didn't bother trying to understand it, but now, you can read it fine. You wondered what could be the reason for the chat's malfunction and why it became okay all of a sudden. You thought about it for a while but found no answer. In the end, you conclude that it had something to do with the fidgeting man a few tables away from you.
ーKai.
You sneered, hands clenching into a fist as you promised yourself that if you were to see that damned system around you again, you won't hesitate to smash it to pieces for lying to you. What the hell is being held hostage by the protagonist? Isn't that guy looked just fine attending classes today?
You scoffed, waiting for the teacher to stop teaching so that you can go and bombard the transfer student with questions.
However, while waiting, you got bored so you wrote on your notebook;
𝓒𝓪𝓷 𝓪𝓷𝔂 𝓸𝓯 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓽𝓮𝓵𝓵 𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓾𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓻𝔂 𝓸𝓯 𝔂𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓭𝓪𝔂?
You glanced at the screen chat and tapped on your handwriting.
『woah so my friends didn't lie, this npc can really interact with us.』
『someone please spoiled what she wrote, i can't see it ah』
『apparently she wanted a summary of yesterday?』
『if it's after she fainted, then nothing really happened right? except for our kai got rescued after miao smashed the tv』
『well chen miao was talking to himself after that but I couldn't really hear the details. anyone?』
『can't either. there seems to be something wrong with the audio yesterday』
『we really need to file a complain one day. the system has been buggy』
『wait so if kai was saved then shouldn't this season come to an end already?』
『well if we followed the previous seasons then yeah, but there's so many changes in this season already so i bet the ending would be different too』
『i'm betting on kai finally finding his mother and these two lovebirds npcs will get together♡』
『yeah? i'm betting on my husband taking revenge on chen miao』
『heh, your 'husband' has been a damsel since this season started. what can he even do?』
『hmph it's obvious that you are kai's anti-fan. if you followed him irl, you would know that he isn't a damsel at all』
『well although unlikely, i'm betting on these two npcs finding healthy love with someone else ¯\_(ツ)_/¯』
『upstairs don't jinx it
(💢◕▽◕)Ↄ ▄︻┻┳═一』
After observing the chat screen for a while, you now had a vague idea of the world that you live in. Still, that doesn't change your identity. So what if this world wasn't actually a real game? No matter where, you're still an NPC.
You frowned and decided to take notes of the important information you gained from the chat.
"Ending," "She fainted," "Chen Miao was talking to himself," "Kai got rescued after Miao smashed the TV," "If you followed him in real life, you would know he isn't a damsel at all."
So something did happen yesterday? You concluded, but you still don't understand the meaning behind Kai got rescued after Chen Miao smashed the TV. Perhaps the fault lies in how it sounds scientifically impossible, so you couldn't understand how did that happen, but then again what part of your life that is scientifically possible anyway?
Eventually, the teacher finally ended the lesson and walked out of the classroom.
You quickly took this chance to approach the transfer student. However, unlike on his first day at school, where he became stiff upon seeing you, this time he had a rather mature and calm aura around him.
You pretentiously smiled. "Glad to see that you're okay. Were you sick yesterday? Is that why you didn't come to school?"
The transfer student stared at you for a few seconds, as if in trance, before he awkwardly glanced at Chen Miao and chuckled. "Yeah, I wasn't well yesterday."
You observed how the two of them stood side by side and wondered if Chen Miao really did hold Kai hostage. After all, no victim would be willing to stand so close to their perpetrator, unless they were threatened or had a stockholm syndrome, but looking at his body language, it doesn't seem so.
"(Y/n)... right?" He asked all of a sudden in a shy manner, like a teenager experiencing his first love. "Maybe I think too highly of myself but were you worried about me?"
『omg what is this plot twist』
『the couple we never thought would happen lmao』
『and we didn't need it to happen ah!』
『agreed +1』
『agreed +2』
『eh i quite like it』
Your smile went stiff, feeling your hairs rising at how weird this man suddenly behaving. What the heck? Did he hit his head or something? Why is he being like this all of a sudden?
You glanced at Chen Miao and noticed that he was staring at Kai. Although you can't comprehend the reason behind that gaze, the way he kept looking without a smile unnerved you. Back then in the previous lifetimes, when Chen Miao didn't like you, he at least was like an open book to you, but this? His feelings were hidden so well that he became blank.
"I was worried," you admitted before adding, "but that's it."
Kai immediately looked disappointed, almost like a dog who's whining because it couldn't go out on its morning walk with its owner, causing the people in the chat to go wild.
『husband look at me like that too woof woof bark bark♡♡♡』
You decided to ignore their idiocy and focus on what's in front of you right now.
◇
this arc will probably end in next chapter or two more.