A/N: Buddy @Naotochan, thank you so much, 32 Golden tickets well received!
The peace never lasted. Not in this house. It was like trying to hold your breath underwater while everyone else swam laps around you—eventually, you had to surface, and when you did, they were waiting with a boot to push you back down.
Phei was in his room, carefully hanging the new uniforms in the closet—actually feeling a spark of excitement over something as basic as school clothes, which said everything about how utterly miserable his life had been until today—when the warning signs hit.
Car door slam. Another. Voices drifting up from the driveway, loud and careless, the sound of people who'd never once considered that someone else might be trying to exist in the same space.
His hands froze on the hanger.
He knew those voices. Knew the exact timbre of entitlement, the volume dialed to "I own this place and everyone in it."
They were back. All of them.
Phei moved to the window, peered down at the circular drive.
Danton's matte black BMW M4 sat there like a predator on a leash, driver's door wide open, engine still ticking.
Through the windscreen, Danton and his mates—Anderson and Kyle—were laughing over some phone screen, probably watching a video of someone's humiliation. Standard entertainment for the gods.
The girls' white Mercedes SUV rolled in next—Delilah at the wheel, Sienna shotgun. Delilah parked like she was allergic to straight lines, too close to the fountain, and climbed out without bothering to close her door properly.
Why would she? The world would wait.
Then Harold's convoy.
The black Bentley in the middle—pristine, imposing, with that tiny Maxton Tech logo plaque on the license plate like a badge of honor for being wealthy enough to brand your own car. The man himself emerged last, moving with the unhurried grace of someone who'd never had to rush in his life.
Phei's stomach twisted—not fear, exactly. He had the system now. Powers. Melissa marked and bound in ways that would make Harold's blood boil if he ever found out. But old instincts died hard. Ten years of being the unwanted charity case didn't vanish in a single day just because you'd grown a magic cock and learned how to dominate your aunt.
This was still their territory. Their house. And on paper, he was still the stray they kept around to feel charitable.
He watched Danton finally shove off from the car, say something that made Anderson and Kyle cackle—probably about him, let's be honest—then saunter toward the front door. The girls followed, Delilah glued to her phone, Sienna juggling shopping bags from boutiques that charged more for a scarf than Phei's old gas station job paid in a month.
Harold brought up the rear, ever the king.
Phei turned from the window and caught his reflection in the cracked mirror. Purple eyes stared back—still jarring, still a little surreal. For a second, he almost didn't recognize the face.
But that was just illusion. In this house, with this family, he was still the burden. The system hadn't rewritten that. Not yet.
The front door opened with a boom. Voices flooded the foyer—Danton's laugh like a car alarm, Delilah's higher pitch complaining about something expensive and trivial.
Then, slicing through it all:
"PHEI!"
Danton's voice boomed up the stairs like a foghorn announcing the arrival of a ship nobody wanted.
"Get your arse down here! Now!"
Phei closed his eyes. Took a steadying breath. Play the part. Stay invisible. Don't give them ammo.
He opened the door and headed down.
Danton was sprawled across the living room sofa like it was his personal throne. Anderson and Kyle flanked him, controllers in hand, some racing game paused on the massive 120-inch TV.
"There he is," Danton said, grinning. "The ghost. Thought you'd died up there, mate."
"I was organizing my room," Phei said, voice even.
"Right. Because you've got so much stuff to organize." Danton stood, walked over, got too close—same old invasion of space. "My room's a mess. Clean it before dinner."
The first demand of the night. The appetizer.
"I've got homework," Phei said.
"So do it after."
"I need—"
"Are you arguing with me?" Danton's tone dropped, that familiar edge creeping in. "In my house?"
Not a question. A warning.
Before Phei could answer, Delilah's voice cut through from the kitchen.
"Phei! Where are you?"
"Popular tonight," Danton said, smirking. "Better not keep the princess waiting."
Phei found Delilah and Sienna in the kitchen—Delilah holding up her phone, Sienna leaning over her shoulder.
"Look at this dress," Delilah said. "What do you think?"
A trap. Everything with Delilah was a trap.
"It's nice," Phei said carefully.
"Just nice?" She pouted—weaponized innocence. "Sienna says it makes me look fat."
"I said the cut wasn't flattering," Sienna corrected, not looking up from her own phone.
"Same thing." Delilah turned back to Phei. "Fat or not?"
No winning. Say fat: meltdown. Say not: accusation of staring. Say nothing: useless.
"The dress looks fine," Phei said. "You'll look good in whatever you pick."
"That's not an answer!" Delilah's voice rose. "God, you're useless. Can't even give a straight opinion."
She flounced off. Sienna glanced up—brown eyes meeting purple—and something flickered there, unreadable, before she followed her sister.
Phei stood in the hallway, listening to the laughter from the living room, Delilah's voice echoing upstairs, the house filling with the usual poison.
This hadn't changed. System or no system, he was still the outsider.
"Phei?" Melissa appeared from the dining room, her earlier warmth gone—replaced by the cold mask she wore for the family. "Set the table for dinner. Everyone's eating together tonight."
"Yes, ma'am."
He moved on autopilot, laying plates in the proper order: Harold at the head, Danton to his right, the girls across, Melissa beside Harold. Phei at the far end, practically in another room.
By dinner, he'd been given four more tasks: take out the rubbish, fold Delilah's towels, find Harold's reading glasses, fetch wine from the cellar.
Servant work. That's all they saw.
The family gathered. Harold served himself first. Then Danton. Then the girls. Melissa. Phei took the scraps.
Small talk flowed—Danton's day, Delilah's shopping, Victoria's latest award. Perfect Victoria, always perfect.
Then Harold set down his fork.
"So," he said, eyes locking on Phei. "Quite the spectacle at the Sunday gathering."
Phei's stomach plummeted.
Sunday. The Ashford party.
Confusion hit first. Why now? He'd come home late Sunday, gone straight to his room. Monday he'd played sick. Today he'd been "recovering." This was the first time Harold had seen him since.
The first chance to confront him.
"The Ashford party," Harold continued, voice like ice over gravel. "You made quite an impression."
"I tried to stay out of the way, sir," Phei said carefully.
"Did you?" Harold's eyebrow lifted. "Because from what I've heard, you were very much in everyone's way."
Danton snorted. The girls' heads came up—sharks smelling blood.
"I don't understand what you're referring to, sir," Phei said.
And he didn't. Genuinely.
The theft frame-up hadn't happened—he'd been hospitalized before Brett and Anderson could pull it off. He'd literally farted his way to safety. So what the hell was this?
"Don't you?" Harold dabbed his mouth slowly. "Danton, perhaps you could refresh his memory. Since you were there when it happened."
Danton's grin spread like oil on water. "Oh, I think Phei remembers perfectly. Don't you, cousin?"
And then it hit—like a brick to the chest.
Another prank. A different one. Earlier in the day, mid-afternoon, hours before the theft setup that never materialized.
How the hell had he forgotten?
The memory crashed back: the pool area. Danton and his crew. The "prank" that had left Phei drenched, humiliated, and laughingstock for the afternoon.
The one that had started the whole chain of events.
Oh. Shit.
But the answer was immediate and obvious, hitting him with the force of revelation: because to him, it had been a week ago. Seven full days in his mind thanks to the time regression. A whole week of misery and then a suicide attempt and then system binding and then Melissa and then—
And in the original timeline, this earlier incident—the details were swimming up through murky water now, getting clearer by the second—had been completely, utterly overshadowed by the theft incident came later.
The theft accusation. Brett and Anderson pushing him off the second floor into the bounce house around 9 PM. Security called.
His name dragged through mud.
The massive, catastrophic humiliation. Being brought home in disgrace while the whole community whispered about the Maxton charity case who'd turned out to be a thief.
That disaster had been so huge, so overwhelming, so world-ending to him, that everything else from Sunday had been crushed under its weight like a bug under a boot. This earlier thing—Danton's prank—had barely registered at the time. Had been a footnote, insignificant compared to the nuclear bomb that dropped later that night.
But now the theft thing hadn't happened. Phei had avoided it entirely with his performance. His genius, glorious, disgusting performance of gastrointestinal distress that had gotten him carted off to the hospital.
Which meant this—whatever Danton had done earlier in the day—was the only incident from Sunday that the family knew about.
The only reason he was in trouble right now.