Chapter 5: A Symbol of National Health (First Half)

Part 1

Erika’s bedroom smelled of tea tree oil, clinical‑grade witch hazel, and the low, steady hum of a computer tower that never slept. It was a room engineered to be a vacuum — a place where entropy came to die.

“Finally,” she exhaled, stepping inside, steam still clinging to her skin. “A controlled environment.”

Her desk was a perfect grid of highlighters and journals. Her bed was made with military precision, pillows fluffed to an exact, satisfying loft. Unlike the rest of her life — which felt like a constant skirmish against the chaos of her friends — this space obeyed her.

She sat at her vanity, movements crisp and practiced. No glitter palettes. No strawberry lip glosses like the ones littering Olivia’s floor. Instead: serums labeled with percentages, foundations matched to undertones, tools arranged like surgical instruments.

A dot of toner.

A slow, deliberate sweep of a cotton pad.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

“Homewrecker.”

Erika’s hand froze mid‑air, hyaluronic acid bottle suspended between her fingers. Her reflection stared back — eyes ringed with exhaustion, jaw tight, the kind of face that belonged to someone who’d spent the entire day holding everyone else together.

A flicker of memory intruded: Sera in the golden‑hour light, her expression collapsing the moment Ken appeared. A tonal shift so violent it felt like the air had been sucked out of the world.

Erika let out a long, weary sigh — the kind that started in her toes and left her body like steam escaping a cracked pipe.

“What does that even mean,” she muttered.

Families didn’t shatter all at once.

They eroded.

Quietly.

She applied lotion with mechanical precision, but her grip was too tight. She wanted to open a spreadsheet, list the variables of Sera’s behavior over the last three years, and find the anomaly that explained that word — that venom.

Her chest tightened.

She hadn’t stopped thinking about Sera since the moment they walked home.

"Logic," Erika whispered to the mirror, "is a very poor shield against family trauma."

As if on cue, her phone erupted into a frantic buzz that made her foundation bottles rattle against the glass.

The caller ID flashed:

IDIOT (DO NOT ANSWER AFTER 10 PM).

Erika stared at it. One second, two, three.

Her finger hovering over the decline button. But the silence of the room felt too heavy, and the memory of Sera’s face still burned into her mind.

She swiped to accept the video chat.

"Olivia, if this is about your next cosplay outfit, I swear I will—"

The screen flickered to life, but Erika didn’t see an outfit. She didn’t even see a room.

The camera was swallowed by a thick, swirling vortex of grey‑white fog. Echoing splashes and a rhythmic drip‑drip‑drip filled her speakers.

“Heeeyaaa…”

As the haze cleared, Erika’s eyes widened. Olivia’s face appeared — braids undone, hair plastered to her forehead, shoulders bare and glistening with soap bubbles. A neon purple Tentacle‑chan rubber ducky bobbed heroically in the foreground, the only thing preserving Erika’s sanity.

“Olivia,” she said, voice vibrating with suppressed horror. “Are you… are you in the bath?”

Part 2

Erika didn’t wait for an answer.

On her screen, a very pink, very damp Olivia shifted in the tub, sending a tidal wave of soap suds cresting over her collarbone. The only thing standing between Erika and a lifelong psychological scar was a neon‑purple Tentacle‑chan rubber ducky bobbing valiantly in the foreground.

"Olivia!" Erika shrieked.

Her hand jerked.

The bottle of expensive moisturizing lotion — the one she’d saved three weeks of lunch money for — leapt from her fingers. It arced under the vanity lights like a doomed comet before hitting the plush beige carpet with a wet, catastrophic splat.

The cap popped.

A glob of pristine white cream oozed into the fibers like a chemical crime scene.

“Erika? Why are you screaming? You’re disrupting the tranquility of my sanctuary,” Olivia said, sounding annoyingly serene for someone committing a digital felony.

“You’re naked!” Erika roared, dropping to her knees and frantically scooping lotion with a pigment spatula. “I am looking at your actual, unedited skin! My retinas are being compromised, and my carpet is absorbing forty dollars’ worth of hydration!”

“Oh, please,” Olivia scoffed, leaning back against the tub. The camera tilted dangerously, threatening to reveal more “sanctuary.” “Back when I was Oliver the Magnificent, I walked around my inner sanctum buck‑naked after every victorious campaign. A king’s physique is a public monument.”

“You are not a monument,” Erika hissed. “You are a klutz with a sprained ankle and zero digital boundaries. And stop waving the camera near the water!”

"You’re so high-strung," Olivia sighed, a cloud of steam drifting across her face. "You know, there are days I really miss the simplicity of my past life. Being a man was so much more... efficient."

Erika paused her scraping, her left eye twitching. "Efficient? You mean you miss having the emotional range of a teaspoon and the social awareness of a brick?"

"I mean I miss the logistics!" Olivia gestured vaguely with a dripping loofah, sending a spray of soapy water toward the lens. "Peeing standing up? Revolutionary. And not dealing with the monthly 'blood moon' ritual that makes me want to fight a God just for looking at me? I tell you, Erika, the male build is designed for convenience. I feel like I’ve been downgraded."

Erika sat back on her heels, spatula in hand. The academic in her couldn't resist a counter-strike. "Typical. You’re practically a walking case study for Freud’s theory of Penis Envy, Olivia. You’re overcompensating for your current biological reality by fetishizing a phallic past that likely never existed."

Olivia went quiet, her head tilting as she actually pondered the statement. For a moment, the only sound was the rhythmic drip of the faucet.

“Hm. Freud, huh?” she hummed, tracing a line in the bubbles with a thoughtful finger. “Maybe. But I’ve decided I’m fine with this reincarnation. The perks are different. I can wear lace without it being a ‘ceremonial garment,’ and my hair is much softer now. Plus, people give me free sweets when I look pathetic. Oliver never got free desserts. He had to pay in gold coins for things people give me just for having 'sad eyes.'”

"I'm hanging up," Erika said, her voice flat and dangerous. "I'm hanging up before you decide to stand up to reach for your towel and I have to get laser eye surgery in order to remove that image out of my brain."

"Wait!"

Olivia’s tone shifted instantly. The playfulness evaporated, replaced by a small, trembling note that Erika almost never heard—a sound that didn't belong to a King or a Hero.

"I... I’m actually worried. About Sera."

Erika’s hand froze above the “End Call” button. She looked at the screen. Through the fog and bubbles, Olivia’s eyes looked unusually large—and genuinely frightened.

“I get it. You’re right, I am too,” Erika admitted, her voice dropping to a whisper. She glanced at the ruined, lint-covered glob of lotion on her spatula. “But before we talk about it… for the love of all that is holy, put on some clothes.”