🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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Even if I hated myself for it all over again, I chased after him.
When I first noticed the man with wine red hair and quite a boring face, I assumed he was just a representation of someone I knew from the other world. There were different types of people and this man along with everyone else who looked and acted the same way belonged in the "bland" category.
But the more instances we ran into each other, the more I became sure my initial impression wasn't true. The way the man would push his hair off his forehead and how a displeased but expectant look crossed his face every time he did made me stop and reconsider. They were such a Rin thing for me to ignore.
And in our recently-concluded meeting, I made sure to observe him as Cavya or whatever that inflated kitten head called himself led the briefing. Everything he's saying I already heard from Heather, so I watched the man instead. I made sure to do it between pockets of space when he wasn't looking at me.
It's strange. It's as if he could sense I was studying him and was just returning the favor to tell me how creepy it was. I wouldn't blame him though. My friends had always reminded me how "judgy" my face could look when all I was doing was watch people.
But even then, I kept seeing Rin in the small bits of gestures and facial expressions. I made sure to clear my head and convince myself that this was just some unfortunate caricature of Rin and everyone like him. This was a programmed game after all. Of course, some people would be based on real ones those boxes scientists classified people into.
I had to make sure. When Cavya dismissed us, the man had never fled out of the room quicker than this. Was someone chasing him? Why was he so eager to get out when he had walked in so calmly as he did earlier?
Our footsteps creaked against the floorboards, the outpost's corridors and bolted doors passing by us. The other people from both our parties flitted off into various directions upon reaching the wide landing leading to the stairs leading to the ground floor. I stood at some sort of a crossroad. The south led back to the way we came from, while the east stopped at another locked door. To the west was a short but wide corridor ending in a wide, open window showing nothing but pink and lilac canopies. Up north was the continuation of the corridor, and the man was already rounding the corner at the opposite end.
I cursed, and broke into a run. My soles thudded against the floorboards in loud footfalls. If I went any faster, I would have shaken the entire second floor. "Wait!" I yelled after the man as the last of his cloak disappeared into the corner. "Hey!"
Some heads turned to me due to my hollering. That falcon lady certainly gave me the shivers, but they're the last of my worries. I needed to be sure. For exactly what reasons, I didn't know. I wouldn't know until I knew I wasn't hallucinating or being hopeful.
The corner came and I flung myself into it. A dimmer and narrower corridor laid itself bare. Deep into it was the man, his footsteps, if anything, turning longer and faster. Like me chasing down a dream I have lost sight of, I took after him.
