Chapter 4: GREET THE TARGET...

Part 1

Sera and Erika rushed over, the comedy of the moment evaporating into the humid evening air. They helped Olivia hobble to a nearby park bench, her weight sagging heavily between them, her usual "warrior-king" bravado replaced by the shaky breaths of someone who had just been betrayed by dairy.

“Is it broken?” Sera asked, kneeling to inspect the swelling. Her fingers hovered over the skin, trembling slightly, afraid to touch. “Olivia, I told you—laughing at someone else’s misfortune has a high statistical probability of immediate karma.”

“It’s a status ailment,” Olivia whimpered, a single, genuine tear pricking the corner of her eye. “I’ve been crippled by the enemy’s lunch. I can’t be a bride anymore.”

“Wait,” Erika whispered.

She went still, head tilting like a bird sensing a shift in the wind. Her nose twitched—an audible sniff‑sniff that cut through Olivia’s whimpering.

“Do you smell that?”

Sera froze. Before she could answer, a pair of silver-framed glasses glinted in the fading sunlight.

The mysterious boy walked toward them, canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder, expression as neutral as a blank chalkboard. He stopped in front of the bench, gaze dropping to Olivia’s rapidly ballooning ankle.

“Hmm... The girl who doesn’t chew,” he noted. His voice was calm, steady, and utterly devoid of the panic that usually greeted the trio. “It seems your coordination is as poorly developed as your mastication.”

He didn’t wait for an invitation. He knelt on the pavement—ignoring the dust on his trousers—and reached into his bag. Out came a small, meticulously organized first‑aid kit and a bottle of disinfectant.

“It’s likely a small sprain,” he said. His fingers were surprisingly gentle as he stabilized her foot, touch light but firm. “But you’ve scraped the skin. This will sting.”

As he worked—dabbing the scrape and wrapping the ankle with the practiced, rhythmic precision of a combat medic—Sera and Erika stood three feet away, watching in stunned, bitter silence.

“Unbelievable,” Erika hissed to Sera, her voice barely a breath. “Look at this. This is a total shōjo manga cliché. Where are the floating flower petals? Why isn't there a choir?”

“It’s mathematically offensive,” Sera whispered back. She watched as a stray lock of his hair fell over his glasses, the sunset catching him in a golden backlight that made him look practically ethereal. “She thinks she’s a harem king, she chokes on a sausage, she slips on a crepe like a cartoon character, and the most capable man on campus ends up at her feet like she’s a princess in a high-budget drama. The world is broken, Erika.”

The boy finished the bandage, tucking the loose end in with a final, firm pat. He stood, smoothing his trousers and adjusting the strap of his tote.

“Keep it elevated. And try to avoid putting too much pressure on it for at least forty‑eight hours.”

“Thanks…” Olivia managed. Her face was turning a deep, sunset red that finally matched the strawberries in the discarded crepe.

He turned and walked away without looking back, leaving behind a faint trail of hand sanitizer, old books, and shattered expectations. Olivia clutched the edge of the bench, her chest heaving as she watched his retreating back.

“Level 2… clear,” she whispered, voice full of breathless, delusional joy.

Seeing her like that, neither Sera nor Erika had the heart to point out she’d forgotten to ask for his name. Again.

Part 2

“Now that the hero has made his exit, should I call a taxi to haul the wounded off the field?” Sera asked, checking the time on her phone.

Erika and Olivia’s eyes suddenly sparked with a twin light of malicious, sisterly intent. They turned as one to look at Sera, their faces illuminated by the sinister orange of the dying sun.

“Your turn,” Erika said, a jagged, predatory smile spreading across her face. “Don’t think we forgot about you just because Olivia decided to recreate a banana peel gag.”

“The next person who walks past this bench,” Olivia added, nodding solemnly while leaning back against the bench like a wounded queen. “Level 2. No excuses. Destiny demands its toll.”

Sera felt a cold shiver run down her spine, a physical manifestation of a bad omen. “Guys, Olivia is injured. We should focus on—”

“GREET THE TARGET…” Erika commanded, her finger pointing at the sidewalk like a judge delivering a death sentence.

Sera sighed, defeated. She stood, smoothing the pleats of her skirt with trembling hands, waiting for some random student to pass so she could end this nightmare quickly. She just wanted to go home, wash the sugar off her blazer, and forget the day existed.

Then she saw him.

An older guy—mid-twenties, maybe five years her senior—walking toward them in casual clothes that looked lived-in and tired. He walked with a heavy, purposeful gait, his head down.

Sera’s heart didn’t thump; it stopped. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, the golden-hour light suddenly becoming too bright, too sharp, and far too hot. Her phone—the digital shield she had clutched like a lifeline all day—slipped from her numb fingers. It landed in the grass with a soft, final thump. She didn't even look down to see where it fell.

“Ken?” she whispered.

He stopped. He looked at her, and the distance between them felt like a canyon filled with jagged glass. His eyes were cold and weary—eyes that used to soften into a smile whenever she walked into a room. Now, they held nothing but a dull, flickering recognition that bordered on revulsion.

“Sera.” His voice was flat and heavy, like a stone dropped into a deep well. “I didn’t expect to find you sitting on a park bench with… friends.”

The word friends landed like a judgment, as if he found it mathematically impossible—or perhaps morally offensive—for her to have any.

“What are you doing here?” Sera asked. Her voice was small and brittle, a thin glass thread that might snap if the wind blew too hard.

“Checking on Mom,” Ken said. His tone hit the ground like lead. “Since someone has to. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

A breeze passed between them, cool and sudden, carrying the scent of ozone and drying asphalt. The warmth of the sunset seemed to dim, as if the sun itself had stepped back from the sheer awkwardness of the encounter.

Sera’s throat tightened, her windpipe feeling as though it were being squeezed by an invisible hand. Her fingers twitched uselessly at her sides.

A memory flickered—her mother’s voice saying, “Your brother means well.” Another—the sound of Ken closing a door a little too hard. Another—the glow of her own unread message thread, years of silence frozen in pixels.

On the bench, Olivia and Erika were paralyzed. Their teasing grins had vanished instantly.

Olivia’s hand hovered near Sera’s shoulder, a rare moment of hesitation from someone who usually ignored all social boundaries.

Erika’s sunglasses had slipped down her nose, revealing wide, unguarded eyes that were seeing a version of Sera she didn't recognize—a version that looked small, hunted, and broken.

“It’s truly unbelievable to see just how free-spirited you still are,” he spat out, the words dripping with a quiet, concentrated vitriol.

Ken turned to leave, his shoes scuffing the pavement with a finality that made Sera flinch. He paused, looking over his shoulder one last time. He didn’t raise his voice, but the word carried the force of a rusted blade drawn slowly across stone.

“Homewrecker.”

Then he walked away.

The sound of his footsteps faded into the ambient noise of the city. A dry leaf skittered across the pavement, the sound like scratching fingernails. Somewhere behind them, the crepe stand’s cheerful bell chimed—a mocking, tinny ding that felt violently out of place in the silence.

Sera didn’t move. She didn’t cry. She didn’t even breathe.

She just stood there in the fading light, the sweet, cloying taste of the crepe still lingering on her tongue—curdling, turning to ash, and finally, to poison. Her knees locked. Her hands trembled. The world around her blurred at the edges, the vibrant gold of the afternoon flattening into a muted, suffocating gray.

Olivia whispered her name, soft and scared, reaching out to break the trance.

But Sera couldn’t hear anything past the echo of his.