The two Victors held their foreheads simultaneously, movements perfectly synchronized like reflections in a mirror.
"Wait, let me calm down first." 2
The unison voices collided and overlapped in the cramped toilet, creating an eerie resonance that made one's scalp tingle.
They lowered their hands at the same time, revealing identical comical expressions mixing shock and bewilderment.
After a brief silence, as if remembering something simultaneously, they whipped their heads to look at each other—
The amplitude and angle of the movement were identical to the millimeter.
"Where is Venom?" 2
The question burst out in sync again.
Only then did they realize that since that catastrophic "tasting" and the subsequent bizarre split—
That symbiotic partner who was usually noisy, complaining, or greedy had gone completely silent.
An ominous premonition seized two hearts sharing one consciousness simultaneously.
"Venom?" 2
A tentative call, no response.
"Venom!" 2
A louder shout, carrying anxiety, still met with silence.
"Venom~" 2
The tail end dragged out, carrying a bit of coaxing and trembling unease.
The duet collided between the tiled walls, sounding exceptionally noisy and... lonely.
"Please keep it down."
An unusually soft, even somewhat timid voice came from the Victor on the left. The timbre was completely different from Venom's usual low, raspy voice.
"Please... too loud, I have a bit of a headache..."
Almost at the same instant, another violent, raspy voice like sandpaper grinding exploded from the Victor on the right:
"So noisy! Bastard! Shut up!"
Under the stunned gazes of two Wednesdays and Enids (wait, just one of each), bizarre changes occurred on both Victors simultaneously.
From the neck of the left Victor, a viscous symbiotic substance different from Venom's pure black, presenting a soft pearl white color, slowly oozed out.
Like living liquid, it elegantly wrapped around his neck. Once stable, it outlined a simple silhouette resembling a turtleneck sweater.
It even nodded slightly, its posture appearing exceptionally... polite?
From the top of the right Victor's head, a mass of restless, darker, near-grey-black symbiotic substance surged out like boiling tar, quickly covering the top of his head.
The form was wild and twisted, finally settling into a hideous shape resembling angry flames or a spiked crown.
It writhed restlessly, radiating undisguised violence.
The white symbiote adjusted its posture slightly and spoke again with that soft voice, carrying a trace of shyness:
"Please call me... Anti-Venom (Serum)."
The grey symbiote abruptly extended a sharp tentacle, impatiently knocking on the right Victor's temple with a dull thud-thud, roaring:
"I am Riot! Remember it, trash!"
The two Victors froze completely in place, like two petrified statues.
They lowered their heads synchronously, extremely slowly, to look at the elegant white "scarf" on their chests, then looked up synchronously at the menacing grey "crown" on the other's head.
A massive, absurd realization, enough to wash away all reason, struck the two shared consciousnesses simultaneously like lightning.
"Oh, my God!" 2
They gasped in unison, voices cracking and going off-key from extreme shock, but maintaining that damned, millisecond-perfect synchronization.
"I wasn't split into good and evil sides."
The Victor on the left murmured to himself.
"It was Venom who got split into good and evil sides."
The Victor on the right completed the second half of the sentence, finalizing this hair-raising conclusion.
Serum seemed a bit embarrassed, rubbing gently against the left Victor's neck:
"I am very sorry to meet this way... but, yes. The intense taste impact and unknown energy seem to have... torn us apart."
Riot let out a sharp scoff, the grey substance churning violently:
"Ha! Good riddance! Long fed up with that indecisive glutton! Much better now!"
The left Victor (let's call him Victor-White) and the right Victor (Victor-Grey) raised their hands simultaneously—
One wanted to touch Serum, the other wanted to hold down Riot.
But the movements stopped halfway simultaneously, faces showing an extremely complex, weird expression as if feeling gentle soothing and a splitting headache at the same time.
One consciousness, two completely different symbiotic emotional feedbacks.
Victor-White (Serum): "This feeling... is too weird..."
Victor-Grey (Riot): "Shut up! Adapt to it!"
They spoke simultaneously, saying different things, but the breakdown and confusion on their faces were identical.
The toilet fell into a deadlier, weirder silence.
Wednesday's eyebrow raised extremely slightly by a millimeter—her highest specification expression for "things just got interesting."
Enid stood with her mouth open, gaze switching between the two Victors, the white "scarf," and the grey "crown." Her brain had completely crashed, as if watching a drama beyond all fairy tale and nightmare comprehension.
Serum seemed to sense the awkward atmosphere and added softly: "Uh... nice to meet everyone?"
Riot immediately let out a loud, disdainful retching sound: "Pah!"
Suddenly, the distinct white and grey of Serum and Riot froze abruptly, flickering violently a few times like a screen with bad signal!
A familiar smear of viscous ink black, like thick ink dropped into clear water, spread rapidly.
It aggressively covered the pearl white and dull grey, finally stabilizing into Venom's iconic, deep lightless pitch black.
"Uh... damn it..." From Victor-White's neck on the left, Venom's familiar, raspy, grainy complaining voice sounded. He manifested a tiny tentacle, rubbing nonexistent temples.
"Feels terrible... like being smeared from head to toe with a whole bucket of expired, moldy chocolate sauce... sticky, sickly sweet, and smelling sour..."
"Oh! Venom! My brother!"
Both Victors showed brilliant, relieved smiles simultaneously, cheering in unison.
"You're finally awake!"
Venom on the left sounded even more pained:
"God... shut up! Two of you talking at once... makes me feel worse!"
"Idiot Victor!"
The Venom on top of Victor-Grey's head on the right exploded abruptly, form becoming more hideous. He roared, spittle almost spraying onto Victor's face.
"Look at what you've done! With those hands growing stubby little tempura fingers, what did you brew! That broken potion didn't split me into any good and evil sides!"
He waved his tentacles in rage:
"It fucking made me... reproduce! Damn it! I want to pour the rest of that potion into your skull! It's empty enough to run a carriage in there anyway!"
"But I clearly followed the steps written in the book!"
Both Victors felt aggrieved simultaneously, subconsciously defending themselves, voices overlapping again.
They reached out simultaneously, pointing at the heavy tome "One Thousand Magical Potions: From Entry to Burial" in Wednesday's hand, movements suffocatingly synchronized.
Two hands collided in mid-air with a slap.
"Fine..."
Both Victors shook their stung hands simultaneously, wearing helpless expressions.
"Divided attention control, one mind two uses... shouldn't be hard to adapt..."
They closed their eyes, brows furrowed tight, as if conducting fierce permission allocation and thread adjustment deep in consciousness.
A few seconds later, Victor-Grey stepped forward alone, movements slightly stiff, and took the culprit book from Wednesday.
"Hm, let me see."
Victor-Grey quickly flipped to the dog-eared page, finger tracing the steps.
"Boil water... slice beef... centipede legs... crocodile tears... steps are all correct... huh?"
His voice paused. He flipped that recipe page back and forth rapidly, showing great confusion.
"Wait... where's the chocolate?"
He looked up sharply at Venom on his shoulder.
"Venom! Didn't you say the last step was adding chocolate? But in the book... why isn't it there?"
"What? How is that possible?!"
The Venom on Victor-Grey's head leaned in abruptly, extending a tentacle to flip the pages back and forth impatiently, then... suddenly froze, falling completely silent.
The only sound in the toilet was the slight rustle of pages turning, and an atmosphere named "ominous premonition" spreading rapidly.
Two seconds later, that tentacle began to tremble slightly. Carefully, as if touching a bomb, it flipped the page to the next one.
The familiar step "Add chocolate" jumped off the page.
"...Add chocolate representing sweet offering, stir clockwise until blended..."
"Don't tell me..."
The corner of Victor-Grey's mouth began to twitch uncontrollably, voice dry.
"You... flipped an extra page back then?"
Venom: "..."
Complete, dead silence.
An emotion named "guilty conscience" could be felt clearly even through the symbiote.
Victor-Grey, hands trembling, slowly flipped the page back to the previous one.
At the header, a completely different recipe title came into view—
[Love Potion · Sweet Honey Heart]