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❝Our world doesn't play out like a fantasy. We aren't some carefree princesses getting handed happy endings on a silver platter-you make one wrong move, and it's game over.❞
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In a world where all control over their lives is illusory, a grou...
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—Part 2.3— Nosebleeds
❝I've never been quite this tempted to hit someone.❞ —Emiko—
Towering stone pillars and tall walls of clouded, murky windows began to materialize around me, fragmented and blurry. The setting was familiar, but I couldn't quite seem to pinpoint it, like the answer was just on the tip of my tongue. I tried to discern it, my mind sadly coming to no avail—my head was throbbing.
The whirlwind ripping through my emotions was a disquieting sensation that had become more frequent in recent weeks. It was a sense of apprehension my mind had conjured due to the upcoming aptitude tests—it was something entirely new to me.
Fearing something, that is. I'm not allowed to fear things..
Stop thinking, Ko, just stop thinking—
The pleading utterance of those words was all I could do to centre myself, to cease the reeling of my head.
My world was flipped, caught between a void in my eyes that refused to dissipate, like I was trapped in a constant state of confusion. And as a clenched fist rocketed through the air towards me, I was sent stumbling blindly into the rough surface of the sparring mats. The harsh impact forced a desperate breath to catch in my throat, and I lurched back into reality with a sharp gasp, clutching at my abdomen with tensed hands.
The grainy texture of the blanketed floor chafed along my fingertips as I picked absently at the mats, blinking randomly until the moving blurs of brown and black above me could be discerned as soft shadows of colour. With my vision beginning to return, sound came next—a mixture of low grunts and labored breaths, along with the collisions of balled fists.
Right—we were training...
But I couldn't focus, not when the familiar tone of her voice rang through my skull—
"Emiko."
Was it her? I inhaled shakily, clenching my fists—anything to bring me back to reality.
I couldn't differentiate the sounds surging through my ears. The pleading words of my own running through my brain, the voice's similar phrases, an endless cacophony of noises booming throughout the room, and now another.
A placid one, adorned with an expression of worry.
"Emiko!"
Jaemin's lips pulled downward, his brows drawing together as he raked his eyes along me—holding his tensed fists up, "Koko?"As the world around me came back into focus, I began to discern the obscured outlines of bodies across the room, each of them paired off and throwing vigorous punches at one another.
