Chapter 4: GREET THE TARGET...

Part 1

Sera and Erika rushed over, the comedy 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 Olivia’s ankle, trembling slightly, afraid to touch. “Olivia, I told you — laughing at someone else’s misfortune has a statistically high chance of immediate karmic retaliation.”

“It’s a status ailment,” Olivia whimpered, a single, genuine tear gathering at 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. Her head tilted 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 approached, canvas tote 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 permission. He knelt — ignoring the dust on his trousers — and reached into his tote. Out came a small, meticulously organized first‑aid kit and a bottle of disinfectant.

“It’s likely a mild 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, wrapping the ankle with the rhythmic precision of someone who had done this a hundred times — Sera and Erika stood three feet away, watching in stunned, bitter silence.

“Unbelievable,” Erika hissed, barely moving her lips. “This is a 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 unfairly ethereal. “She chokes on a sausage, slips on a crepe like a cartoon character, and the most capable man on campus ends up kneeling at her feet. 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 avoid putting 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.

“Level 2… clear,” she whispered, breathless and glowing with delusional joy.

Sera and Erika exchanged a look — not mocking, not exasperated, but something closer to fear.

Because seeing Olivia like this — flushed, trembling, eyes shining — neither of them 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 snapped toward her with identical, sinister glints. The dying sun cast their faces in a warm, villainous orange.

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

“The next person who walks past this bench,” Olivia declared, leaning back like a wounded monarch issuing decrees. “Level 2. No excuses. Destiny demands its toll.”

A cold shiver ran down Sera’s spine. “Guys, Olivia is injured. We should focus on—”

“GREET THE TARGET.” Erika pointed at the sidewalk like a judge sentencing her to death.

Sera sighed, defeated. She stood, smoothing the pleats of her skirt with trembling hands. She just needed one random student to walk by so she could get this over with, go home, and scrub the sugar off her blazer.

Then she saw him.

An older guy—mid‑twenties, maybe five years her senior—walking toward them in lived‑in clothes and a heavy, purposeful gait. His head was down. His shoulders were tight.

Sera’s heart didn’t thump.

It stopped.

The golden‑hour light sharpened into something harsh and hot. Her phone slipped from her numb fingers, landing in the grass with a soft, final thump.

“Ken?” she whispered.

He stopped.

He looked at her, and the distance between them became a canyon filled with broken glass. His eyes—once warm, once soft—were now cold, exhausted, and edged with something darker. Recognition flickered. Then something like disgust.

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

The word friends landed like a judgment, as if the concept offended him on a moral level.

“What are you doing here?” Sera asked. Her voice was small, brittle—thin enough to snap if the breeze shifted.

“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 cool breeze swept between them, carrying the scent of ozone and drying asphalt. Even the sunset seemed to dim, as if the sun itself recoiled from the awkwardness.

Sera’s throat tightened. Her windpipe felt 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 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 evaporated instantly.

Olivia’s hand hovered near Sera’s shoulder, hesitant—an unfamiliar softness from someone who usually bulldozed boundaries.

Erika’s sunglasses had slipped down her nose, revealing wide, unguarded eyes. She was seeing a version of Sera she didn’t recognize: small, hunted, and heartbreakingly breakable.

“It’s unbelievable how free‑spirited you still are,” Ken said, each word dipped in quiet, concentrated venom.

He turned to leave. His shoes scuffed the pavement with a finality that made Sera flinch. He paused, glancing back one last time.

He didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.

“Homewrecker.”

Then he walked away.

His footsteps faded into the ambient city noise. A dry leaf skittered across the pavement, the sound like fingernails on stone. Behind them, the crepe stand’s cheerful bell chimed—a mocking, tinny ding that felt violently out of place.

Sera didn’t move.

She didn’t cry.

Sera didn’t breath.

She just stood there in the fading light, the sweet taste of the crepe still lingering on her tongue—curdling, souring, turning to ash.

Her knees locked. Her hands trembled. The world blurred at the edges, the warm gold of the afternoon flattening into a 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.