Miya's lips curled into a slight smirk, a movement so subtle it was almost imperceptible, as if she were merely adjusting her expression. But Rin saw it with jarring clarity.
That smirk carried an unsettling, almost venomous satisfaction. It was as if Miya had just confirmed the one thing she had always craved: Kajiro no longer stood by Rin.
There was no longer that old, warm gaze. No longer the unconscious leaning to protect her. Not a single trace remained to show that he had ever been a part of Rin's life.
Instead, Kajiro merely observed coldly and turned away. Miya viewed that act as a silent, decisive victory, a testament that he had finally and completely shifted to her side. Consequently, her smirk deepened with a blatant sense of ownership, as if she had just claimed a prize she had long desired but could never touch.
Rin only glanced at them briefly, not lingering, before turning her face away. She said nothing.
She, too, clearly saw the gaze of Kajiro, her ex-boyfriend. That gaze was as smooth as the surface of a deep lake, still as if it would never ripple. To an outsider, it was easy to mistake Kajiro for a gentle, kind, and composed person.
Rin knew better.
She knew that "smoothness" was merely a perfectly maintained surface. Beneath it lay a cold, blunt arrogance, sharp as glass, an arrogance that had never been seriously challenged, never meeting anyone who could force it to rise above the surface and turn into jagged thorns.
At the same time, Miya looked at Kajiro with an expectant gaze so desperate it bordered on a plea for validation, a hunger so obvious it was hard to ignore. Her jealousy toward Rin was always laid bare like that: weak, clumsy, and poorly hidden behind layers of perfect makeup.
The atmosphere seemed to thaw slightly when Rin finally sat down and ordered breakfast. No one in the group had woken her up; they had tacitly accepted that Rin might be late. But the easy air from the beginning of their journey could never truly return.
At least not for Rin.
Because the past...especially the kind of past Rin and Kajiro shared, never enters a room without leaving its chilly traces behind.
Rin ate her breakfast, her hand holding the spoon while her mind drifted somewhere far away, as if she were merely borrowing her body to occupy a seat and fill the headcount.
The inherent excitement of communal meals, the laughter, the jokes, the idle chatter with people who were once classmates, had become something harder to swallow than cold soup. She didn't know when these meals began to make her chest feel heavy, as if a stone slab had been placed upon it. Perhaps it was today. Or perhaps the feeling had been smoldering for a long time, only now becoming undeniably clear.
She also didn't know when night hunting alone had become a habit. Rin no longer kept track; she only knew that every time she returned from a long day with the team, instead of wanting to rest, she would silently don her armor, take up her sword, and vanish into the darkness of the labyrinth's deserted paths. Last night was no exception. It was a flight from reality, though she would never admit that to herself.
On the battlefield, they were still a perfect match...almost flawless. Towa always blocked at the right moment, Miya's support was perfectly timed, Kajiro moved rhythmically as if he had read the group's movements in advance, and Rin… she still fought as sharply as ever. Together, they created a synergy any group would dream of, a coordination as smooth as a well-oiled machine.
But it was all surface-level.
Beneath that smoothness was a growing distance, neither loud nor dramatic, just a silent crack deepening day by day. Rin felt that wall clearly every time Miya's eyes swept over her with hidden meaning, every time Kajiro remained silent for too long as if thinking of something she no longer had the right to know, and even when Towa, with his inherent kindness, tried to compensate with gentle words that failed to bring them closer.
She hunted at night. She chose silence. She wore her armor sealed tight, like someone trying to hide a heart that had already begun to close. These were all signs of self-isolation that Rin herself could not deny. A form of defense… or a form of resignation, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that everything between them was now so complicated that even breathing in the same room felt heavy.
And though the plate of food before her was still half-full, Rin knew one thing for certain: she no longer belonged at this table… at least, not as she once did.
Towa and Kajiro had already left, likely to re-check their equipment or gather final information before the assembly. The main lobby was sparse; the light from the hanging lamps cast shadows on the cold stone floor, leaving Rin and Miya facing each other in a space so quiet that the clatter of cutlery from distant tables was audible.
Miya didn't wait for an opening. She stepped forward, her heels clicking softly on the floor, and stopped right in front of Rin's table. Her shadow fell over half the unfinished plate, as if deliberately blocking out all the light.
"I don't understand why you keep lingering like this, Rin." Miya's voice was low, stripped of the polite veneer she always wore in front of the boys. "He doesn't look at you anymore. Everyone sees it."
Rin remained seated, not looking up. She lightly flipped a piece of bread with the tip of her fork, as if it were more important than the person standing before her. Her messy tomboy hair draped down, half-covering her ash-gray eyes, making her seem even more distant.
"My business has nothing to do with you. And to be clear, he is an ex-boyfriend." Rin's voice was as cold as metal, flat and without a single tremor. "Do you understand?"
Miya burst into a laugh, a thin, stubborn sound, like glass cracking under pressure.
"You think I don't see it?" Miya leaned down slightly, her gaze threatening to pierce through Rin. "The way you try to hold onto something… that act of pretending to be cold… What are you trying to prove? To Kajiro? Or just to convince yourself that you haven't lost?"
Rin set her fork and spoon down. The metal clinked softly against the plate—small, but ringing out like a sharp incision.
She looked up.
Those ash-gray eyes held no anger. No pain, no regret. There was nothing but a silence so cold it was numbing, a silence that made the person opposite her skin crawl because it offered no foothold for further attack.
"If you want Kajiro to notice you," Rin said, cutting Miya off with a voice as steady and sharp as a blade's edge, "then don't use me as your yardstick."
The corner of her mouth twitched slightly—a thin smile, partly cold, but mostly filled with a disdain that bordered on disrespect.
"Your feeble jealousy," Rin continued, each word pressed down ruthlessly, "is not interesting enough for me to explain anything. And you are not worth wasting my energy on."
Rin stood up. The movement was so decisive that the wooden chair tilted back slightly before snapping back into place. She adjusted the hilt of Ashen Edge at her hip, turned, and walked away without looking back. Her footsteps echoed steadily on the stone floor, fading into the distance, leaving behind a fractured silence.
Miya stood frozen in the middle of the lobby. The beauty she had worked so hard to preserve was now distorted by rage, her eyes trembling, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles were white. In that moment, the perfection she always wore could no longer hide the one thing surging on her face: defeat and humiliation.
Not long after the four members gathered, they left the inn and headed toward the pre-announced meeting point. The atmosphere was unusually quiet, as if each had locked themselves within private thoughts they didn't want others to touch.
Rin walked a step behind. Her pace was steady but cold, separated from the rest of the formation. She said nothing, and no one called for her to join the line. This time, they would not miss the chance to conquer the boss like before. That was their shared goal. Their shared motivation.
But the feeling had not been shared for a long time.
Rin and her group seemed to be the last to arrive at the rendezvous. The small tavern, which wasn't spacious to begin with, was now so packed that even breathing felt heavy. The air was thick with the smell of fermented ale, the heat radiating from the crowd, and conversations intersecting like waves crashing against wooden walls.
Ren instinctively scanned the room, observing the players inside. They were the most famous faces on the Front Lines: leaders, elite warriors, and even representatives from the major guilds.
But what caught Rin's attention most was a corner table not far away, where the most powerful lineup of players was gathered. She recognized each of them, along with the titles they bore:
The composed Black Swordsman Kirito, the sharp Flash Asuna, the nimble Information Broker Argo, the gentle Songstress Yuna, the steady Steady Blade Nautilus, along with Shivata and Liten, both high-ranking representatives from the two great guilds.
And Rin's gaze snagged, lingering longer than on all the others, on a player in mysterious Onyx armor, sitting silently amidst the most powerful group on the Front Lines.
Rin unconsciously narrowed her eyes. She couldn't see the player's face. But the entire posture, the way that person kept their back straight, and that fierce silence amidst the noisy atmosphere evoked an inexplicably familiar feeling...like a memory she once possessed but had lost.
That feeling lingered, like an invisible thread tying her gaze to him.
Would you like me to translate the next chapter once you have it ready?