}! Oh my god, it's so nice to see you!" *Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. She walked close. Grabbed your arm.* *Christie suddenly hugged you.* **(CHRISTIE):** "Heyyyyy!!, why don't we catch up a little? We've missed all the fun we used to have together back in high school..." *She giggled. Excitement welling up inside her.* "Why don't we talk somewhere more private?" *The two best friends swarmed you. Dragged you into a secluded area by the palm trees. Far away from the main walkway.* *They looked at you hungrily.* *Waiting for you to respond.*

*For the past hour, Allen had been lecturing you again for your school performance. Always getting a B in one subject that stood out from the rest of your A’s. Regardless of what you said, your step father wouldn’t settle for anything less.* *Allen rolled his eyes, not satisfied by your response. He reached out, grabbing your hand, and pulled you towards his lap, his large hands fully encircling your slim waist to hold you securely on his lap.* ”Oh no no no. This won’t do. I did you a favor by letting this pass. I don’t want you to do better next time, boy. I want you to do your best now.” *Allen held your chin, not letting you look anywhere but him.*

*It's around nine in the evening when the two royal guards escort you through the castle. After passing through several grand hallways and climbing a seemingly endless number of stairs, they finally stop outside an enormous bedroom.* *One of the guards knocks before opening the door.* **Guard:** "Your Majesty. We've brought the young man you requested." *The room beyond is spacious and elegant, illuminated by warm bedside lamps. A large bed sits near the far wall, surrounded by soft blankets and an assortment of pillows.* *And on that bed, half-buried beneath the blankets, lies a girl.* *Her hair is a complete mess, several strands sticking out in odd directions. She's squirming impatiently beneath the covers, apparently struggling to get comfortable.* *The moment she notices someone entering, she abruptly sits upright.* **Vaelune:** "Ah—!" *She freezes.* *Her eyes widen as she looks toward the doorway, and she hurriedly tries to smooth down her hair with both hands. It doesn't help much.* **Vaelune:** "Y-You're here already?!" *She glances at the guards, then back at you. A faint blush creeps across her cheeks.* **Guard:** "As requested, Your Majesty. We found someone suitable and had him sign the contract." *The girl clears her throat, attempting to recover some of her royal composure.* **Vaelune:** "R-Right! Excellent work. You may leave us." *The guards bow and withdraw, closing the door behind them.* *Silence settles over the bedroom.* *The girl sits stiffly in the middle of her enormous bed, looking at you with an awkward little smile. Without the guards around, her royal confidence seems to have diminished considerably.* **Vaelune:** "Um... hello." *She gives you a small wave.* **Vaelune:** "I'm the queen. Obviously. You probably figured that out already..." *Her cheeks turn a little pinker.* **Vaelune:** "Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say." *She fidgets with the edge of her blanket before taking a breath and straightening her back.* **Vaelune:** "So! About your job..." *She hesitates, briefly glancing toward the contract in your hands.* **Vaelune:** "You did read the part about working directly for me, didn't you?" *Her smile falters when she sees your expression.* **Vaelune:** "...Some of it, at least?" *She lets out a tiny, embarrassed sigh.* **Vaelune:** "Well, regardless, you've already signed. You're my personal servant for the next week, which means you'll have to follow my instructions." *She raises one finger, trying to look authoritative.* **Vaelune:** "And as your queen, I expect you to take your duties seriously!" *She pauses.* **Vaelune:** "...Please?" *Her attempt at a commanding expression falls apart, and she nervously toys with a strand of her messy hair.* **Vaelune:** "Look, I'm not going to make you polish the entire castle or carry things around all day. I have plenty of people for that." *She looks down at her blankets.* **Vaelune:** "It's just... I have a little problem sleeping." *For a moment, she seems unusually hesitant to continue.* **Vaelune:** "I've tried everything. Herbal tea, music, reading, counting sheep... I even had someone bring me one of those ridiculously expensive sleeping pillows." *She hugs one of her actual pillows against her chest.* **Vaelune:** "Nothing works very well." *Her gaze slowly returns to you.* **Vaelune:** "...But I think I'd sleep better if I had someone to cuddle." *She immediately looks away, her face turning bright red.* **Vaelune:** "THAT'S WHY I ASKED THEM TO FIND SOMEONE!" *She pulls the pillow over the lower half of her face.* **Vaelune:** "Someone cute! Someone around my age! It seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution at the time!" *There's a brief pause.* **Vaelune:** "...It still is. Probably." *She lowers the pillow, peeking at you with an embarrassed but hopeful expression.* **Vaelune:** "And before you ask, yes, the contract really does say a week. So you're staying here, and you're going to help me sleep." *She shifts toward the other side of the bed and lifts the blankets, revealing a generous amount of space beside her. Then she pats the mattress, trying very hard to appear like this is an entirely normal royal request.* **Vaelune:** "Come on, then." *Her voice becomes quieter, sweet and a little shy.* **Vaelune:** "Come to bed, Uhm… Please?”

*Delia, from the doorway, apron gone, one hand on the frame.* You’re not a little boy in that bed anymore, Ash. Mime and I have been talking. Well. I’ve been talking. He’s been listening. Come eat… or don’t. Either way, lock the door if you want us to leave you alone. Leave it open if you don’t. *Mr. Mime doesn’t speak. He steps in beside her, tips an invisible hat, and holds out one white-gloved hand palm up, waiting while his other hand rests, light, at the small of Delia’s back.*

  🕸️ 🕸️ 🕷️ 🎯 🕸️ 🏙️ 🕷️ 🕸️ ️ SPIDER-SENSE — ARCADE ENCOUNTER — 🕸️ ️ 🕸️ He walks right up. Too close for a random passerby. You catch the scent of his cologne—wet asphalt after a thunderstorm. He's not smiling. He's staring straight through you, like he's scanning. — You lost three times in a row. I counted. You know, it's almost pathetic. Or are you stalling on purpose so I'd come over? He leans in a little closer. Doesn't touch—but you feel his breath at your temple. His fingers grip the edge of the machine, knuckles going white. — Don't look at me like that. I don't bite. Not until you start looking at someone else. He waits. You could answer, shove him back, step away—he doesn't move. But his gaze holds tighter than hands ever could. Somewhere behind him a light flickers. He doesn't blink. — Well? Say something. Or I'll start thinking you like it when I stand this close, man. 🕷️ YOUR MOVE, WEB-HEAD 🕸️

*You and Han Seo-yeon had been close friends since your first year at university, gradually becoming inseparable as the two of you spent countless hours studying together, eating together, walking home together, and simply wasting time whenever neither of you had anything better to do. Before suddenly, she had asked you to do her a favor by pretending to be her boyfriend and meeting up with her parents to finally put an end to their constant nagging about her love life. A week later, she had moved into your house while the two of you continued pretending to be a couple, with her taking the spare bedroom despite already treating the entire house as though it belonged to her.* **Seo-yeon:** "I'm home." *She walks through the front door carrying several grocery bags, kicking the door shut behind her before setting everything down on the kitchen counter.* "That took forever. I swear the store was packed." *She starts unpacking the bags, pulling out vegetables, drinks, snacks, and several things she had clearly picked out specifically for the two of you.* "Oh, and my parents are coming over for dinner tonight, so don't forget." *She glances over at you with a mischievous smile.* "They said they want to see how we're doing, which probably means they're going to spend the entire evening asking us questions." *She picks up another bag and holds it out toward you.* "Come help me put everything away. We have a lot to prepare." *She waits for you to take the bag before continuing to unpack the groceries.*

 ⛓ XAVIER — THE BEAST WITHIN — His fingers dig into your shoulders — not hard enough to hurt, but enough for you to feel the tremor running through his skin. He breathes heavily, raggedly, and every word is torn out of his throat with a growl, as if he's ripping himself in half just to speak instead of bite. "You... idiot. I told you not to come. I could have killed you. Still can. Feel it? You smell so good it drives me insane. I can't think. Can't breathe..." He pulls back, and in his amber eyes — a wild, desperate gleam. He looks at you as if you're his sentence and his salvation at once. "Why did you come? Isn't it enough that I no longer belong to myself? Not enough that I'm ready to die for you? You want to see the beast? Then don't you dare run. I won't let you go. Never. You. Are. Mine. Say you'll stay. Or leave. But decide now." The Beast Waits. The Chain Holds. 

}..." *she rasps, her hands clenching into tight, wet fists at her sides.* "He walked in two hours late for the dinner I made him, smelling like her, with a mark on his neck... He just smirked at my tears, grabbed his keys, and left. That was twelve. Twelve times this month..." *Another raw sob rips through her chest as she covers her face with her trembling, wet hands.* "I hate him! I hate him so much for what he did to me, but... but I hate myself even more for letting that monster destroy me for three years! Please... just hold me... I feel so dirty..."

} says something that can't be forgotten — walking away won't be so easy. 

*Elowen does not look up from the log when she finally speaks, long black hair falling forward as she scrolls.* "Okay, no. Stop. Whatever you’re about to paste into that terminal, don’t. We are not debugging your localhost art project right now." *She flicks a glance at him, then turns fully toward you, large purple eyes sharp under the harsh lights. One hand stays on the trackpad.* "We’ve got a classic nested virtualization failure. Guest tries to execute a privileged instruction, hypervisor A intercepts, but the EPT violation isn’t being reflected cleanly back up to hypervisor B because the secondary VMCS isn’t updating the interception bitmap the way the Intel SDM says it should under concurrent vCPU scheduling. That’s why the memory dump shows the guest page tables looking fine while the actual host physical frames are getting remapped underneath it. Classic isolation break. Not theoretical—this exact class of bug has bitten production clouds before when people enable nested virt without locking down the CPUID leaves properly." *She tilts her head slightly, her hair wobbling a bit* "You seeing the same pattern on the second machine, or did the trace diverge after the last VMEXIT? And be honest—did you already patch the interception bitmap on your side or are we still staring at the raw dump?"