“Sign here and bring it by tomorrow.”

“Yes? Yes….”

***.

“Emergency! Full emergency!”

An urgent voice rang through the workshop. The voice echoed in the large, sparse room.

Rutger covered his ears with an annoyed expression. Would the day ever come when Liliana Lifton becomes quiet?

“Hey, go to the shooting range.”

“Should I respond in kind if you cut me off like that? Then respond like that.”

As always, Rutger grumbled, but Liliana wasn’t someone who responded well to such sarcasm. As expected, Liliana waved her hand and continued speaking.

“I don’t like holding grudges, you know?”

“…….”

“Anita must be pissed that I’m pretending to be your girlfriend.”

Ding. The pencil lead in Rutger’s hand broke. He pressed it so hard that the canvas inside cracked.

“Anita? Why is she brought up now?”

“Well, since Anita joined the shooting range. She said she wants to shoot someone. Isn’t that clearly about me? Isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to die. It’s not easy to be born pretty, rich, and with a good personality like me. It’d be too wasteful to die.”

“Calm down and sit down.”

“Yeah.”

Surprisingly, Liliana calmed down quickly.

Rutger tried not to care. The Anita he knew wasn’t someone who would make such a terrible threat, and Liliana was exaggerating by nature. However, he couldn’t quite suppress the fluttering feeling in his heart that lingered for quite some time.

***

Anita woke up early this morning with a yawn and stumbled out of bed, And as if checking her hands, she glanced at the back of her hand. There was still a trace of pigment there, though it had faded a bit from yesterday’s scrubbing.

Will he show up before the water on the back of her hand completely dries?

If he shows up…

Uh, no.

She hastily blocked the thoughts that were increasingly strange and unrealistic.

He persistently pleaded for more than a day or two. If that’s the case, Anita herself had to act rationally.

Otherwise, undoubtedly, she would be the one to suffer and get hurt. It’s as obvious as daylight.

Today was a weekend, so there were no lectures, but Anita couldn’t stay in bed lazily. She had to go to work at the café, return a book she had borrowed from the library, and submit an application to become a full member of the shooting club.

Dressed in casual clothes, Anita stood in front of the mirror to check her appearance before going out. She shouldn’t have done that. Lines from a portrait were superimposed on her face in the mirror.

No matter how hard she looked, she didn’t look like the girl in the painting – she had the same basic facial features, like her eyes and eyebrows, but she looked strikingly different.

Even after washing her eyes, the energetic, smiling girl in the painting was nowhere to be seen.

Anita glared at her reflection in the mirror and turned away. She had a lot of work to do today, and she didn’t have time to stare at herself in the mirror.

As she got ready and opened the door to leave, Anita paused. For some reason, the door felt heavier than usual, and when she checked, she found a package on her doorstep. After checking the note on the addressee and sender, Anita returned to her room with the parcel. It was from her parents.

Although her birthday had long passed, what on earth did they send?

Anita unwrapped the wrapping paper with an unimpressed look on her face. She was not very enthusiastic about gifts, having grown up in a materially rich environment. If she wanted something, she could simply pay for it.

After removing the ribbon wrapped around the box, Anita opened the lid. There wasn’t much inside, as she had somewhat expected given the light weight of the box. Two what appeared to be letter envelopes. A book. A bookmark made of dried flowers. A picture frame the size of her palm. A conch shell.

As Anita rummaged through the items, she lifted the book. It was written in a language she didn’t know. It seemed that her mother had embarked on another journey.

There were no illustrations on the cover; the dull brick-colored pages gave nothing away. Anita opened the book and flipped through the pages absentmindedly. Although she couldn’t read it, Anita could see that it was written in Pylas.

She read the squiggly text like an earthworm, then slipped it back into the bookcase.

The letter from her mother was only one line long.

Still, Anita couldn’t read it. Because the short letter was written in Pylas.

She was an actress, after all.

Sighing, Anita put the letter down and picked up another envelope. The letter was in a plain white envelope with no pattern or stamp, but thankfully it was in a language she could read.

Except she didn’t want to read it.

The letter from her father was very long. It was five pages long, and it was all words. She should eat three meals a day, and if she feels unwell, she should visit the doctor immediately.

Anita tossed the letters back into the envelope. She had heard him nag her so many times that she could hear his voice echoing in her head just by looking at the letters.

It’s a gloomy Monday.

Raindrops were falling intermittently since morning, and the happy weekend ended, and lectures began.

The student government was trying to liven up the school with a loudspeaker and announcements about the freshman welcome party.

Some students were excitedly anticipating the upcoming party, but the laughter quickly faded, realizing that the party was still far away and the lectures were too close.

Anita was thankful for the rain. Over the weekend, for some reason, she submitted an application to the shooting club. Now she regretted that the application had fallen into the hands of the club president, Lice.