That being said... I had completely ignored the fact that I had my own report due in a few days.
"...I messed up," I muttered, frozen in place on my bed as my hands twisted into the sheets.
"How the hell did I-"
I snatched my phone from the cabinet beside me.
"After being all smug and arrogant with Drovkah, I haven't even started the outline for my report...!"
Then, a small pause. Letting myself cool down just enough to think about how to approach my current situation.
"Should I just rewrite this part...?" I whispered
"No, that would be unfair for him. Especially since he doesn't have what I do." With a sigh, I let my shoulders slump on my sides.
"I think I'll need his help... just a bit, just once..." I nodded, then hopped out of my bed.
Surely he would, right?
Except—
"Ah, sorry Athy, I can't, Noah asked to hang out you see. And it's been a while since I went out with him." His voice was warm, apologetic, his gaze soft in that way that always makes it hard to stay frustrated.
"Right... okay," I smiled as he stepped closer, dressed neatly. Probably for Noah.
"Take care, okay?" I added.
He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss on the top of my head.
"Mhm, I will. I'll help you with your report later, I promise."
And then he left.
I wasn't upset. Really. People are free to spend time with whoever they want.
"We live together anyway..."
I lingered by the door for several minutes, staring at the space he'd just walked through. For some reason, the room felt strangely... empty without him.
"Did I grow attached to him or something? It's not like I can't live without him or anything."
With an exasperated sigh, I turned and headed back to my room.
I sat on the floor and casually conjured the materials for my visual aids.
"Colored paper... markers... scissors..."
I tapped a finger against my chin.
"Wait. I could've just made the markers write on their own while I fed them the information."
A small laugh escaped me, tired, amused, self-mocking.
"Why did I feel the need to ask for his help? What am I, some kind of damsel in distress?"
I slumped back, rubbing my forehead.
"That was dumb... really dumb..."
Resigning myself to my own incompetence, I shuffled over to the bed and let the animated scissors, pens, glue sticks, construction paper, and whatever else I'd summoned continue their work.
Now lying on my back with my phone in hand, I scrolled through my feed.
Random posts slid by, memes, irrelevant updates, the sky cracking open somewhere in Scandinavia.
"...I'll have to ask Rania to fix that later."
Minutes blurred into seconds; seconds into hours.
Eventually, something poked my leg.
I sat up.
The animated pen hovered beside me like an eager child, proudly presenting the finished visual aids scattered neatly across the floor.
"Oh. Nice job," I muttered, giving it a small nod of approval.
My eyes drifted to the laptop on the desk, the PowerPoint the laptop itself was assembling was almost complete as well.
Then a thought struck me.
"Noah was Marianne's little spy... but now that I rewrote her-"
I froze.
"...Crap."
Before the implications could stack any further, I stepped out of my physical form and slipped into my Interface within the All Fiction Archive. The book of 272 Days Until... materialized in my hands the moment I accessed the Loomkeeper Interface.
I opened it sharply, flipping through the pages with increasing urgency until I reached the scene near the end of Chapter 15. The part where Noah met Marianne in secret.
"Ah. So I really did miss it."
The sequence was a mess, words fragmented, motivations shredded, transitions collapsing in on themselves. The ripple from Marianne's rewrite had torn the scaffolding of the scene apart.
I sighed.
A pen formed between my fingers, its tip glowing with rewritten authority.
I pressed it to the page, letting sentences unspool and reorder themselves into a version that no longer depended on Marianne's role. Cleaner. Coherent.
"A rookie mistake... how utterly disappointing."
After smoothing out a few more lines, I closed the book with a soft thud.
The pen dissolved from my fingers as I slipped back into my physical form.
My room was spotless.
Not a scrap of cut paper, not a shimmer of animated dust remained. All neatly reset despite the earlier chaos.
Then something poked my foot.
The same pen I had animated, tilting itself upward almost expectantly, like a small creature waiting to be acknowledged.
I picked it up, brushing my fingertip along its side.
A gesture absurdly similar to petting a tiny animal.
"Nice job. Thank you."
The sliver of consciousness faded from it gently, the pen returning to its original, lifeless state.
I paused.
If I were human... would I have considered that pen alive?
Real?
Would I bond with something so simple?
Would I understand the world the way humans do?
The questions lingered, settling deep in my thoughts.
Strangely, I didn't reject them.
I didn't erase them.
I looked at the pen, holding it lightly.
"Setting aside what I really am... the moment I finally understand where these feelings come from - the reason I want to be near him..."
My voice softened as I pressed the pen to my chest.
"Will that moment ever come?"
I stared into the quiet.
"And if it does... will it be the same emotion?
The same drive?
The same reason the version of me from the author's ending felt?"
Silence stretched.
"These emotions... are difficult to understand..."
I lay down, sinking into the warmth of the bed.
Rolling to face the ceiling, I reached upward.
"I hate that I don't understand them like he does...
but at the same time...
I don't want them to disappear."
My fingers curled slightly.
"I want to understand them more."
---
Meanwhile, on the other end.
"Hey Kyle, when was the last time we went out and just... had fun again?" Noah casually commented, leaning back on his chair while eyeing the other, still finishing his plate.
"Been a few weeks I think," he replied, thoughtful.
"Yeah, you were pretty busy with Anathasia during the past few weeks," Noah adds, his words teasing.
"I mean, if I had someone like that living with me, I wouldn't leave their side either. Like -" He trials off, then looks back at Kyle.
"Look at her man, your Anathasia, ain't she like, completely out of this world? How the hell did you even bag her dude?!" He exclaims, slamming his hands on the table.
Well she quite literally isn't from this world though... Kyle thought, then stared back at Noah, deadpan.
"I don't even know man, it just... happened." He murmurs, then picked up his drink before taking a swig.
"She's a childhood friend I've had since I was five, but her family moved out when we were seven so I eventually forgot about her until now." He pauses, staring at his cup.
"I feel bad for lying..." his grip on the cup tightened. "but I can't expose Anathasia either."
"That so?" Noah replies, leaning back. "Someone you've known since childhood but forgot... huh?" he murmurs, in thought.
"That's hella cliche man, don't tell me you had a promise about marrying each other in the future as well?" He adds, a smirk curving on his lips.
The other scoffed, taking another swig from his drink.
"Nothing like that, dumbass. She's just back since we just happened to go to the same university, that's all," He pauses, then sighs.
"And we're not like that,"
"The hell you mean not like that?!" Noah interjects, then crosses his arms over his chest as he eye's Kyle up.
"You live under the same roof, you eat together, you two rarely separate, she's like a koala next to you, and dude, she doesn't even bother looking at others even when they try to flirt with her!" He pauses, then sighs.
"And you're seriously telling me it's not like that? Dude, you gotta see the face you make when you're with her."
Kyle went silent, eyes fixed on his plate.
He didn't argue. He didn't deny it. He just... sat there.
Noah sighed.
"Face it, man. You're both already deep into this."
A pause. "But hey, keep telling yourself whatever you want. I'm just trying to make you see what's right in front of you."
Silence settled between them.
Far outside the confines, in a stratum no human perception could ever breach. A certain girl watched their conversation unfold, quietly, intently, and with an emotion she still could not yet name.
"I... don't understand."
She closed the book gently, fingertips lingering on the cover as the unfamiliar sensation twisted faintly within her chest.
"Why did my chest tighten when he denied us being... whatever Noah meant?"
A soft breath escaped her.
With a snap of her fingers, reality fractured like glass, and a floating pane of shimmering shards reassembled into a scrying screen, a real-time window to Kyle and Noah's table.
She leaned closer, eyes tracing the boy's expression as he tried to brush the subject aside.
"...Why does this matter to me?"
A beat.
Then she listened as Noah continued.
"Or are you scared it might end up like what Marianne did?"
Kyle froze, jaw tightening, shoulders going rigid.
"That's not-"
The rest of the sentence never made it out. His grip tightened around the thin plastic cup until it creaked.
"Am I still really affected by that girl...? It's been a year. As much as she ruined most of senior high... that's the past."
The girl watching from the archive didn't so much as blink.
"I rewrote her. She should be nothing more than a memory. But this... I underestimated her influence over him."
The fractured screen dissolved, her frustration quiet but unmistakable, as she slipped back into the story.
The silence between the boys thickened.
Until—
"It's not that I'm trying to deny anything..." Kyle whispered, eyes lowered.
"I just... don't want to expect something, only to be disappointed again."
Noah didn't push further. He just let out a small breath, his expression softening.
"Alright. I get it," he said quietly. "I wasn't trying to drag old wounds back up. I just... worry about you, y'know?"
He gave a crooked smile.
"We're best friends. Been glued together since high school."
Kyle let out a low chuckle, half amused.
"Yeah. You did rearrange someone's face over those rumors about me."
Noah visibly flinched.
"Hey! That- okay, yes, maybe that wasn't my brightest moment. But they were being assholes. I had a valid reason."
"Right, right. My bad. I know."
Kyle shook his head, laughing quietly.
The tension between them eased, dissolving into the kind of comfortable silence only old friends can share.
Back at the house, Anathasia lay sprawled across her bed, phone held above her face as she mindlessly doom-scrolled.
Her eyes were half-lidded, her expression flat, though a faint heaviness lingered beneath it.
> 'Marianne Auclait removed from the family register: incompetence finally unmasked?!'
She blinked. "Ah... so the rewrite finally went into effect."
She turned off the phone, let her arm drop beside her, then slowly sat up. Only to pick the device back up again, thumb flicking through her feed with a hint more intent this time.
"Ariane Auclait...?"
She paused. "Oh. Her twin sister."
A mild frown formed.
"She wasn't in the original version... was she?"
Her gaze lingered on the unfamiliar name, thoughtful.
"...A ripple from the rewrite, then. Small. But unexpected."
She leaned back against the headboard, the faint echo of her earlier feelings stirring again.
"Let's hope the story adjusts cleanly."