The mutual frame opened with a slow, shivering ripple—as if the air itself had exhaled and forgotten to inhale again.

  Yu’s phone sat in both hands, its edges biting into his palms. The screen didn’t glow so much as bleed light, pale and thin, bending the space above it. The familiar EWS interface—icons, overlays, the faint lattice of menus—faded into the background as the frame took priority, like the app itself was stepping aside for something older and more absolute.

  A rectangle of elsewhere unfolded. Stone walls. Lanternlight. The soft hush of an inn room that smelled like oil, old wood, and a faint trace of iron from dried blood that refused to leave no matter how many times you washed. The flame in the lantern didn’t flicker like a modern bulb pretending to be fire; it breathed, swelling and shrinking, painting shadows that clung to corners like they had weight.

  Rize sat on the edge of her bed, posture straight as a drawn bow. Her gaze was fixed on Yu as if she could pin him in place through glass, through distance, through worlds.

  “…That girl is after you.” Her voice was quiet. Quiet, but sharp enough to draw blood.

  Yu froze. The image of Claval calling his name—bright, clean, impossible—hung in his mind like a blade suspended by a thread. He could still hear the way the stream had warped for a split second, as if reality had flinched. He could still see Rize’s face tightening, the air around her turning cold. My name doesn’t belong in that world. He swallowed. His throat felt like it had been scraped raw.

  “…You said her name was Claval, right?” Rize asked. She didn’t blink. “Who is she?”

  Yu leaned forward on his desk, elbows pressing into the wood hard enough to hurt. His room felt dimmer compared to the warm lantern glow beyond the frame. The fan hummed in the corner like a guilty witness. Somewhere outside his window, a car passed, indifferent to the fact that he was being interrogated across universes.

  “She’s… a famous adventurer,” Yu said, eyes lowered for a moment before he forced himself to meet hers again. “From another continent. Strong. Popular.” His voice cracked, and a strained laugh slipped out—more reflex than humor. “I only know her from streams,” he continued. “She’s one of those top-tier streamers. Gold Shield-tier, the kind everyone knows even if they pretend they don’t. Untouchable. A different world entirely.” He tightened his grip on the phone without realizing. “Someone like me,” Yu said, the words coming faster now, as if he could outrun the fear by naming it, “someone watching from a screen… I shouldn’t even be on her radar.”

  Rize’s eyes didn’t soften.

  “But she called me,” he added, quieter. “She called my name.” Yu’s hand curled unconsciously into a fist, knuckles whitening.

  “She did.” Rize’s reply was immediate, like a counterblade meeting his. “She spoke your name. That alone is enough.” Her tone stayed calm, almost too calm, but her eyes were a storm—sharp, frightened, fiercely possessive in a way that made Yu’s chest tighten. “In that moment…” Rize said, and her breath hitched, “I felt something reach for you.”

  “Reach… for me?” Yu’s breath caught so hard it hurt.

  “A phantom hand,” Rize said. “The kind you only sense on a battlefield when death is close.” She nodded once, minimal and precise, like a soldier confirming a threat. Her fingers dug into the bedsheet. The fabric wrinkled under her grip, the only visible sign of the tremor running through her. “It touched you before her voice even finished,” Rize continued. “Before a sword could swing. Before a spell could land. Before mana could even settle.”

  Yu stared at her, mind struggling to build a shape around the words. The concept landed inside him like ice water. Not an attack aimed at a body, but something aimed at a connection. Something that didn’t care about distance.

  “If you had answered her…” Rize’s voice shrank to a whisper. “…I felt like you would have been pulled away to somewhere I can’t reach.” Her shoulders trembled—small, involuntary.

  “No. That’s—there’s no way.” Yu forced the denial out, clinging to it like a railing. “It was just… a name. It was just her being weird. That’s all.” Yu shook his head hard, panic rising.

  “There is.” Rize cut him off. The sharpness in her tone didn’t come from anger. It came from certainty—the kind forged by surviving things you weren’t supposed to survive. “When you fight for your life, you learn to feel it,” she said. “That wasn’t a normal voice. It had power.” Her hand tightened into a fist on the sheet, and Yu realized she was holding herself back from standing up, from pacing, from doing anything that would turn this fear into motion.

  “…I was terrified,” Rize admitted, and the confession scraped out of her like it cost her something. “Terrified she would take you. That you’d slip away from me.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “My chest felt like it was burning,” Rize said. “Like something hot was pressed against my ribs from the inside. I couldn’t breathe right.”

  Yu’s fingers went numb around the phone. She felt that because of me. Rize’s voice wavered, breath shuddering through the frame between them.

  “Yu… if she appeared in front of you and said, ‘Come with me’… what would you do?” The question struck like a thrown dagger—quiet, precise, unavoidable.

  Yu’s throat locked. He tried to imagine it: Claval standing in his room, silver hair like moonlight, eyes fever-bright, smiling like she’d already won. The idea made his stomach turn. Not because it was romantic. Because it was wrong. Because it meant the boundary was not a boundary.

  He couldn’t answer. He could only shake his head, once, wordless.

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  “…Maybe I’m weak.” Rize watched him for a long beat, then lowered her gaze. Her lashes trembled. When she spoke again, the sharpness was gone.

  No anger. No accusation. Just pure, unfiltered fear braided with jealousy and something uglier—self-doubt sharp enough to cut.

  “No, you’re not!” Yu shot upright, voice cracking with force. He leaned into the frame as if it were a window he could break through if he pushed hard enough. His fist hit the desk, a dull thud that made his pencil roll and fall off a stack of worksheets.

  “Rize,” Yu said, heat surging through his chest, “you’re not weak!” He didn’t know where the words came from. They poured out because holding them in felt impossible. “I’m the one who dragged you into this,” Yu continued. “You were targeted because I couldn’t do anything—because I’m powerless. That’s not your fault.”

  Rize’s head remained bowed, hair catching the lanternlight in warm copper strands.

  “I still couldn’t protect you,” she said quietly.

  “You did protect me!” Yu’s reply was instant, almost desperate. “You saved me,” he said. “You always do. You always show up in time, even when you’re hurt, even when you shouldn’t be able to move, even when you’re exhausted.” His throat tightened. “I’m the one who’s weak,” Yu said, voice lowering. “I’m the one who can’t stand beside you.”

  “…Why?” Rize asked. “Why do you blame yourself like that?” Rize finally lifted her eyes. They shimmered with something fragile and painful, like glass under stress. She looked at him as if she didn’t know what to do with his honesty.

  “Because if it weren’t for me,” he said, the words scraping out, “none of this would’ve happened. Because I’m the reason she called my name.” Yu swallowed hard. His voice cracked on the last word, and the sound made him hate his own helplessness.

  “You can’t fix what happens here,” Rize said, and the practicality in her tone was its own kind of mercy. “You’re not in this world.” Rize shook her head. Her fingers curled, then relaxed, then curled again—as if she were trying to find the courage to say something else and failing three times in a row. “But when you say it like that…” Rize murmured, so faintly Yu almost missed it. “Your face is… it’s like you’re my… um…” She stopped. Her cheeks flushed a deep, sudden red, spreading to her ears. Her gaze darted away as if ashamed of the thought even existing.

  “I’m sorry,” Yu said, and the apology came out thin, not because he didn’t mean it, but because he didn’t know what else to do with the warmth rising in his chest. “But I still want to say it.” Yu’s heart thumped painfully once, twice. He took a breath that tasted like fear and something softer. “I still want to protect you too,” Yu added quietly. “Even from here.”

  Rize’s lips pressed together. She looked like she wanted to argue—and like she didn’t want him to stop talking. The lanternlight flickered once, throwing her shadow against the stone wall behind her.

  For a moment, the frame felt too intimate, too close, like the worlds were leaning into each other without permission.

  ?

  Elsewhere, high above the recovering city, two members of Team Jask observed from a stone overlook.

  The wind up here was colder, clean enough to sting the lungs. It carried the scent of distant smoke from the city and the faint, metallic bite of mana lingering in the air like static after lightning. Below, Avras spread wide—rooftops and narrow streets, lanterns starting to bloom as daylight faded, the city breathing again after chaos.

  Hanara stood with her arms crossed, her weight shifted onto one hip. Her eyes were narrowed, sharp as if she could cut distance into manageable pieces with her gaze alone.

  “So that’s the famous Lady Claval, huh,” Hanara muttered, watching the street where the silver-haired girl had passed. “Reckon I could take her?”

  “There is no answer,” Roa said, flat as stone. “That is the answer.” Roa didn’t look up from his writing board.

  “You always say that when you don’t want to commit.” Hanara’s mouth twisted.

  Roa’s stylus scratched across the board, the sound steady, deliberate. She was writing as if the act itself could turn uncertainty into data.

  “Think Naz is gonna wake up soon?” Hanara asked, the bravado thinning just enough to reveal worry.

  “Last night we engaged in…” Roa paused, as if selecting the most precise phrase. “ Triple-Cycle on the bed.”

  “What are you even calling it?” Hanara turned her head sharply.

  “His resurrection is delayed,” Roa added, as if that clarified everything.

  “Again with that weird phrasing!” she snapped. “Be serious.” Hanara stared at him for a heartbeat, then made a sound between a groan and a laugh.

  “I am being serious,” Roa said.

  Hanara clicked her tongue, irritated, but her eyes never left the city. Their banter sounded light. It would fool an eavesdropper. But neither of them had looked away even once. Every gesture, every twitch, every change in the flow of people below—cataloged, weighed. Not because they were entertained. Because Claval’s appearance had changed the board. And Team Jask didn’t survive by treating threats like gossip.

  ?

  Back in the inn, the frame’s light wavered.

  Yu felt it as a pressure change first, like the air around his phone had tightened. The luminous border rippled in a way that made his stomach drop, too similar to the glitches that had preceded disaster before.

  Rize exhaled slowly. Her shoulders rose and fell as if she were forcing breath back into her body. Her hands were clenched in her lap. She stared downward, lips pressed together so hard they looked pale.

  “…I want to protect you,” Rize whispered. “And I’m scared.” Her voice shook. The words hit Yu like a knife made of ice.

  “Rize…” Yu began, leaning forward. He reached toward the screen, fingers lifting without permission, desperation overriding caution. He wanted to say something that would hold her steady, something that would anchor her the way her voice anchored him.

  But before he could shape the right sentence— The frame shuddered.

  Static crawled across the edges, thicker and harsher than before. The luminous border rippled as if someone had dragged fingers along the seam. The lantern-lit room blurred at the corners. Light dimmed, then surged, then dimmed again in a sick rhythm, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to either of them.

  “Wait—” he tried, panic rising. “Rize, wait, I—” Yu’s breath stopped. The mutual frame began to close. Not neatly. Not gently. It folded inward with a reluctant, trembling motion, like a door being forced shut against resistance. The noise deepened—an ugly digital hiss that made Yu’s teeth ache, as if the sound itself carried grit.

  “Yu—” Rize started, but her voice fractured, cut by the collapsing connection. Rize lifted her head sharply, eyes widening as she realized what was happening.

  Yu’s hand pressed closer, fingertips hovering just above the shrinking border, useless and shaking. The last thing he saw was Rize’s profile—her head turned slightly away, lips caught between her teeth as if she were biting back words she refused to let fall apart into sobs.

  Then the light snapped down to nothing. The frame collapsed with a soft, lethal silence.

  Yu stared at the blank screen. His reflection hovered in the glass, eyes wide, mouth half-open, hair slightly mussed like he’d been in a fight. The fan hummed. The room smelled like dust and paper. Outside, a dog barked once, and somewhere distant a truck rumbled by, the world continuing with cruel normalcy.

  Yu lowered the phone slowly, like it might explode if he moved too fast. A half-finished sentence hung in the air. A tightening chest. And two hearts—still connected, still unstable—shaking under the weight of a gaze that had learned how to reach across worlds.