8
921words
But during the last study hall break, Kyle dragged me away without explanation.
I frowned, instinctively trying to pull free, wanting to call a teacher.
Kyle turned his head: "Didn't you want me to kill you? Then shut up and come with me!"
All my resistance stopped at that moment.
"What, scared?"
He smirked. "Or was it all talk? Too chicken?"
My gaze instinctively swept to the back of the classroom.
Ryan’s seat was empty.
Yeah, I wanted out.
Bound by the System, I couldn’t end it myself. Needed someone else.
If redemption’s end was despair, then destruction… wasn’t it also release?
So I stopped resisting, letting Kyle pull me out the back door and onto a bus.
The bus stopped at a desolate station.
After getting off, Kyle led me down an alley, finally stopping before an abandoned construction site.
Secluded, dim, empty.
Perfect for a crime.
Seemed Kyle meant business.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
But darkness and death didn’t come.
Bang—! Bang-bang—! Crash!
Deafening instrument tuning sounds exploded, followed by frantic drum beats and the wail of an electric guitar.
I opened my eyes, stunned by the scene before me.
In the center of the hollow building, makeshift "stage" stood cobbled together from old planks and cinder blocks.
On stage, teenagers Kyle's age held instruments, faces alight with excitement.
Before I could process it, Kyle sprinted onto the rickety stage.
He snatched a black electric guitar from another guy.
"This is 'Screw This World' Band! Listen up!!"
The moment the strings vibrated, Kyle seemed to glow.
Utterly different from the vicious, angry guy at school.
On stage, he was confident, radiant, brimming with life.
And I was his only audience.
My heart pounded with the deafening music, matching its frantic beat.
The performance ended in a chaotic crescendo of sound.
Kyle carelessly tossed the guitar aside, leapt off the stage, and strode straight towards me.
His bandmates whistled and catcalled before slinging arms over shoulders and leaving.
Finally, the ruins held only Kyle and me.
His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, face flushed from exertion.
"So? Am I hot?"
His voice was hoarse from screaming, "Feel... any better?"
I almost laughed, but the sound died in my throat.
My gaze drifted past him to the crude, yet vibrant stage behind him.
A strange feeling washed over me.
Like the first time I woke in this world from my hospital bed.
Discovering I could laugh and cry without an oxygen tube.
Kyle waited, sighed dramatically when I stayed silent.
Then he reached out, pinched my cheeks hard, squishing my mouth into a fish shape.
"Such a pain, Princess."
Kyle muttered, "Seriously, you depressed or something? I saw you crying behind the bleachers at the last track meet. Someone your age should smile more. Quit moping about dumb stuff."
My body locked up.
The ghost of a smile vanished instantly.
I’d caught the flaw.
In this timeline… the track meet hadn’t happened yet.
So Kyle’s memory… it had to come from one of the first seven loops.
I looked up, pulling away from his grip: "You… you remember too?"
Kyle froze, seeming confused.
Seconds later, realization dawned.
He avoided my eyes, scrubbed the back of his neck, then exhaled heavily.
"Yeah."
He admitted.
"All of it."
No wonder.
No wonder this reset, even though I was still a backgroundless "ghost"…
Kyle had been watching my mood, trying…
To clumsily cheer me up.
I opened my mouth to ask what exactly he remembered.
"You—"
Kyle suddenly turned back:
"Like you."
"Like you a lot."
"Like you most."
Three hits, smothering my questions.
Kyle watched my shocked face, seeming to score a point.
He flashed his canines in a grin that was both cocky and self-mocking.
"So now you know how damn good it felt when I remembered you orbiting himfor seven lives… and this time, seeing you finally break free?"
I was speechless, unsure how to react.
Then, heavy, hurried footsteps echoed.
I turned.
Ryan stood there, backpack askew, panting.
Kyle’s face hardened. "Tch. Freakin’ stalker… Get lost! You’re not wanted here. Trying to push her over the edge!?"
But Ryan didn’t leave.
"I remembered… our wedding day."
"This me wants to cry from happiness… but the me in those memories… wasn’t happy."
I flinched, looking down.
Ryan stepped forward, blocked by Kyle’s glare. "Tch."
Ryan stopped.
Those dark eyes were fragile yet dangerous.
Like thin glass, ready to shatter and cut anyone near.
"No… it wasn’t that I didn’t love you, or that I didn’t want our marriage… I just…"
"Never dared hope."
"I was scared that if I was too happy… fate would remember I existed. The dream would shatter."
His life was an island, surrounded by the smoke of the past and the storms of the future.
He was used to solitude, treating his own wounds, swallowing pain alone.
And she, like a weary seabird, landed unannounced on his shore.
She brought softness, dependence, and a fear he’d never known—
Fear he wasn’t good enough, fear his past would stain her peace.
Fear she’d see his true self and fly away, like everyone else.
Ryan pulled a half-burned photo album from his backpack.
"I thought… keeping you from knowing… was protecting you…"
"I was wrong. I was arrogant."
"I was the coward. I was the one scared of change."
"So I want to tell you… everything."
