Sitting was unhealthy. It messed with your spine, made your butt grow fatter, and turned you into a lazy slob if you did it too much. That’s why you should be careful not to sit too much. Stand up and stretch once in a while, otherwise the dire consequences would come for you and you would be too lazy to run away because you were too busy sitting.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a choice in my current situation, being tied to a chair and whatnot.

That aside… my crush was standing in front of me with her arms crossed, half her face covered by her mask. Both she and the two iron wolves flanking her were glaring at me.

Or rather, both of my crushes were glaring at me…? Well, no, they were one and the same! How did that even happen?! Had I missed something? Had she given me hints and my dumb ass just hadn’t noticed?

Wait… now that I thought back on it, she totally had!

“Oh… so you… work with animals. That’s… uh, clever.”

“Aster,” she said, her voice hard.

“Y-yeah?”

I was half scared, half excited that I finally got the chance to be with her alone. Oh god, what was wrong with my brain?!

“You know my secret identity.”

“Y-yeah?”

She also knew mine… not that I had tried very hard to hide it.

“What do you intend to do with that information?”

Huh? What was she talking about? What did I intend to do? Well, since Fern and Iron Pack were one and the same… that was great, wasn’t it? I could date both of my crushes at the same time!

Ugh… but I couldn’t just confess right now! Not in such an awkward situation!

“N-nothing…?” I said.

“Nothing,” she repeated, deadpan.

I nodded, not trusting my voice anymore.

“So you kept following me around, somehow always finding me and mixing yourself into my activities, even found my old secret base, and on top of that, you had gotten close to me in my civilian identity… and all of that, for no reason?” Her glare intensified.

Stooop! It was like she wanted me to confess right here, right now!

“Uhh… yes.”

Aaah! I didn’t know whether I was scared or excited anymore!

“I’m not dumb, Aster… Or are you even Aster? Did you pretend to be trans too, just to --”

“No!” I shouted, cutting her off and making her twitch. “Uh… no, I wasn’t pretending…”

“Well, fine… ” She sighed. “But like I said, I’m not dumb. You didn’t make that armor yourself, and there are only two people in Kitran City who could have made it for you. And since Fissure didn’t recognize you back then, that only leaves one.”

Oh no… she’d figured it out. I mean, of course, she had! She was on the completely opposite side of the brain spectrum from me! She was way smarter than I could ever hope to be!

“Why are you working for Fractal?” Her gaze resumed boring into me.

Ugh, how should I even answer that?! The circumstances behind my job were so dumb! There was no way she would believe it!

…

Actually, maybe she totally would believe it exactly because it was so dumb. 

“I… uh, accidentally found his secret base --” I noticed her eyebrow rise. “-- and then he assumed I must have some kind of superpower, and uh… decided to make me his minion?”

…

Silence.

 Alright, maybe it had been a mistake to tell the literal truth. 

“Aster…” she finally broke the silence, while palming her face. “What?” She looked at me incredulously.

Oh… so she had just been stunned by the sheer stupidity of the situation? That’s better than thinking I’m an idiot, that’s for sure.

“You really are an idiot.”

Nooo!

“But more than that, your power really is ridiculous.”

Wait, what? Did she still believe I had a power? I didn’t have a power! I just had a really dumb breed of luck!

She let out a long sigh. “So, are you saying you have been forced to work for Fractal? Is that it?”

Well… That wasn’t exactly wrong, was it? When I’d first met Fractal, I hadn’t exactly been in a position to choose freely. But nowadays, I was quite glad I worked for him.

“Uh, kinda…?”

Another sigh.

“Alright, fine. I believe you.”

I was about to let out a sigh of relief, but then she continued.

“So why are you so laser-focused on finding me? What exactly did he tell you?”

Oh no… My heart wasn’t yet ready to confess my love! Aaa, quick, latch onto the second question!

“He said that… err, you two were allies at some point…?” I looked up at her for confirmation, to which she nodded. “And then one day you stole some of his equipment and ran away…?” I once again searched her expression for answers.

Of course, I still didn’t believe she would do that, but I also refused to believe Fractal lied to me.

“So that was his story, hmm?” she said, clearly irritated.

“I-is it wrong?” I dared to ask.

“It’s not wrong, but it’s omitting a pretty important detail.”

I gulped. “What… detail?”

She looked straight into my eyes and said in a chilling tone, “Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of her soon.”

What…?

“He said that on his phone when he thought I wasn’t listening.” She frowned. “And then when I asked him what he was up to the next day, he said he was working on a gift for me. I decided I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out what that was.”

Huh…? He’d said that?

But then…

Why would…

Aaah! I had no idea what to think anymore!

BottledChaos

A friendly reminder that you can read ahead (and get access to a few exclusive shorts) on my patreon.