"Mom, that day compared to now… not only were you so right, you were also wrong. So wrong. In ways I surely didn't expect. I thought I knew the order of things, the way the world would fall apart, but I was a fool."
Trizha's voice was a ragged whisper, lost to the rising wind that whipped through the courtyard.
She stood at the edge of the path, her shadow stretching long and thin over the cold stone.
"First, I lost my friends. Then the people who supported me—the faceless thousands who made me feel special. Then I lost my sense of responsibility. My connection. And then… I lost myself. You said I'd lose everything once I've lost myself, Mom. And yet, I lost everything before I even lost myself. It all started with me, and it ended with me. 'Everything' became the fuel for the conflict, a slow-motion car crash I couldn't stop watching. It's all confusing, and it hurts… It hurts more than the makeup can hide. But… surely… none of that matters now. Not anymore. Because…"
She took one last step, her heel clicking sharply against the pavement, and finally, she stopped in her tracks.
She paused on the walkway, the stairs she had just climbed leading toward the central fountain only several meters away.
In the distance, through the gathering mist and the graying light, she saw him.
Her blonde hair flew behind her like waving waves of a stormy ocean, damp and heavy.
She saw him standing next to the stone fountain, his posture relaxed, his silhouette sharp and familiar.
He was waiting.
Waiting for someone.
Waiting for her.
"After all… even though I lost everything, despite almost all the petals that have left me as the flower withers, there is this one petal that stayed. And he's still here. He's waiting for me by the fountain. That man… is Zackier. My last everything."
The thought brought a small, trembling smile to her lips.
It was a fragile thing, born of desperation.
The conflict was lost, buried under the weight of her breakdown, but she had traded the world for this one constant.
Zackier was the final anchor holding her together.
The atmosphere suddenly softened.
The ambient noise of the hotel—the distant chatter, the hum of machinery—fell into a heavy silence.
The wind died down as if the world itself had caught its breath.
Trizha took a step forward, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Expectations flourished in her mind; she imagined him turning around, catching her in his arms, and telling her that none of the hate mattered as long as they had each other.
She extended her arm, her fingers reaching out through the air as if she could touch his coat from across the plaza.
His back was still turned to her.
She wanted to call his name, to scream it until he looked at nothing but her.
She moved closer, her pace quickening.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
But suddenly, she froze.
Her leaden feet refused to move, yet the sound of rapid footsteps continued to echo through the courtyard.
It wasn't her.
Another girl—bright, energetic, and completely unburdened—rushed past Trizha with a renewed intensity that cut through the gloom like a knife.
"Zacky!" the girl cried out, her voice a chime of pure, uncomplicated joy.
"Oh, there you are," Zackier said, his voice carrying clearly across the stone. "I've been waiting quite impatiently for you."
Trizha watched, paralyzed, as the girl leapt into Zackier's arms.
He caught her with practiced ease, swinging her around as the sound of their combined laughter and giggling filled the air.
The atmosphere, which had felt so heavy moments ago, suddenly turned light and celebratory for them.
Trizha stood in the center of the path, a ghost at her own funeral.
Shock settled into her bones, cold and absolute.
The petal she thought would stay had already detached and drifted away.
The man she thought was her final refuge was currently holding someone else with a tenderness he had never truly shown her.
Countless emotions surged through her mind—betrayal, humiliation, and a crushing sense of irony.
It was too much to bear.
She had burned her entire world to the ground just to witness something as absurdly ridiculous as this.
Stunned into a state of total vertigo, Trizha turned and bolted.
Behind her, Zackier's gaze shifted.
He watched her flee over the girl's shoulder, his eyes sharp and calculating.
A thin, dark smirk played on his lips; he looked immensely pleased, as if he were watching the final, satisfying act of a tragedy he had written himself.
Trizha ran.
She ran until her lungs burned and her vision blurred.
Each step was a thundering beat of failure.
The clouds finally broke, and a torrential rain began to pour, drenching the world in an instant.
Thunder rumbled deep in the belly of the sky, and lightning surged, illuminating her frantic flight in jagged strobes of white.
The rain masked the salt of her tears, and the thunder drowned out the raw, primal screams that tore from her throat.
"No… no, no, no! Get out! Get out of my mind!"
Trizha shrieked, her voice cracking.
She was a girl of sixteen, fleeing toward a horizon that offered no safety.
As she ran, the voices of those she had wronged began to howl in her ears, louder than the storm.
"You called me an add-on, Trizha? Just for this?" Wyne's voice whispered, cold and disappointed. "You're no longer the same person who saved me. You're just a stranger now."
"You dislocated my elbow," Margaret's voice chimed in, dripping with a haunting sadness. "You broke me just so you could get cheated by a boy who never loved you."
"How much more discipline do you need for this?" Claria's voice barked, sounding tired and distant. "I can't help you anymore. You're on your own!"
"I just wanted to apologize," Nomoro's voice groaned, heavy with the weight of the burden she had forced upon him. "But you 'returned the favor' by making me the villain of your story. You have no shame."
Under the gray, suffocating sky, there was no difference between the raindrops and the tears streaming down her face.
She felt like a monster—a hollow, ruined thing that had destroyed lives for a prize that didn't exist.
She ran faster, her movements panicked and broken.
She wasn't running from Zackier anymore; she was running from the reflection she had tried to leave in the mirror.
Suddenly, her foot caught on the edge of a stone step.
The world tilted.
She plummeted down a staircase she hadn't even seen through the sheets of rain.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Each impact against the concrete was a sickening reminder of the damage she had inflicted on her friends.
Every bruise was a debt paid.
She lay at the bottom for a long time, gasping for air, her chest heaving as she struggled to pull the wet oxygen into her lungs.
Slowly, painfully, she pushed herself up. Her vision was a spinning mess of vertigo, but through the haze, she spotted a massive concrete pillar near the entrance to the dormitory area.
She dragged herself toward it, her face an emotionless mask of defeat.
Her hair was matted to her skull, her floral dress ruined and clinging to her skin.
The rain had washed away her makeup, stripping the "Influencer" facade and revealing the tired, broken girl beneath.
She sank to the ground at the base of the pillar, her back leaning against the cold stone.
She curled into a ball, hugging her legs and hiding her face in her arms.
She wanted to vanish.
She prayed that the earth would simply open up and swallow her so that no one would ever have to look at her again.
She waited for the silence.
She waited for the end.
…but to bring an end is to bring it all to an end.
"Are you okay?"
A voice asked, cutting through the sound of the rain.