The birds chirped happily in the distance. Bright sunlight filtered in from the window. Warm air from the heater brushed against my bare skin.

“Mmm…”

I was in heaven. My body was intertwined with the world’s comfiest body length pillow that had a dream-like softness and a cooling feature. I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. I hugged the pillow tighter to my body and enjoyed the soft sensation as it pressed against my skin.

Something about my situation nagged at me in the back of mind, preventing me from going back to sleep. The sensations filling my chest were different from what I remembered. Ah, that was right. This feeling was similar to what it felt like when I logged into Violent Evergarden as Alice Phantasmagloria.

I had logged out last night to continue looking into Violent Evergarden trends, so why did it feel like I was still logged in..?

My eyes shot open in disbelief. This wasn’t my bed. The pillow nestled in my chest drew back, revealing a petite girl with a teasing expression on her face.

“Aria, you said that you would only show your skin to the one you loved. Does this mean that you love me?”

I tried to follow Lily’s gaze down the length of my body, but the red Witch Mark at the center of my chest just above two exposed hills stopped me. I dumbfoundedly alternated my gaze between my breasts and Lily’s own naked body. Memories of last night returned and I came to the abrupt realization I was completely naked.

“Get out!”

I shrieked in embarrassment and kicked Lily off the bed. In record time, I grabbed the blanket and hid underneath it. My face was on fire so much that I didn’t even dare to peek out to see what Lily’s reaction was.

“I get it, I get it. You don’t love me. No need to be violent. Since that is the case, why did you end up naked in my bed?”

“You don’t remember?”

I mumbled while hidden in the safety of the comforter.

“Sorry. I tend to have nightmares when I sleep alone. I don’t remember much outside of them. Did I do something?”

Genuine unease colored Lily’s tone. I thought back to last night with how Maxwell’s Cursed Mark flared up and Lily’s grim fate poured cold water on my overheating head. I sat up on the bed and poked my head out of the blankets, pointedly not looking in Lily’s direction.

“It was nothing. I wasn’t comfortable on the sofa so I moved to the bed. I was hot with the comforter on so I took off my clothes. I meant to wake up before you, but I was too comfortable and slept in.”

I made up a random story. Lily didn’t seem to buy it, but she didn’t pursue the matter further.

“I’ll get dressed in the bathroom and give you a few minutes. You should take that chance to get dressed.”

“Okay.”

I heard Lily rummage through her closet and then close the bathroom door. I glanced around her apartment and the coast was clear. My clothes were vaporized by Maxwell’s Cursed Mark, but I did have an ace that might rescue me from total despair.

I quickly found my phone and relogged into Violent Evergarden. Terra answered my prayers as I was clothed once more when I logged back in. A familiar, suffocating feeling in my chest greeted me. Now that I had experienced what true freedom felt like, it made suffering through binding my chest twice as miserable.

I got up from the bed and skimmed through the WHO forums on my phone while I waited. As soon as Lily left the bathroom in her school uniform, I ran into it and turned on the shower. I logged out and gave myself ten minutes as Alfonse Lockengard to show my appearance to Dad.

After ten minutes, I logged back into Violent Evergarden and turned off the shower. I examined myself in the mirror while I waited for the appropriate amount of time it would take to towel and dress myself. Logging out should have cleared any damage or wounds I took, but should I say as expected of the world’s strongest Cursed Mark?

“...It is still there.”

When I pulled my hoodie and blouse to the side to reveal the base of my neck, I clearly saw Lily’s bite marks from last night. There was no way she could have missed it earlier when I woke up.

I straightened my clothes and left the bathroom. Now that I got a good look at Lily’s face, I realized that she had tears in the corner of her eyes.

“I-I’ll take responsibility!”

“...Responsibility?”

Why was that word coming up now and why did I suddenly feel a sense of dread?

“You said that you only wanted to show your skin to the person you loved, but I ended up seeing it. Then, everything works out if I make you fall in love with me!”

Oh. OH.

“Don’t be silly, Lily. That was an accident. I don’t want to become lovers with you just because you saw me naked. Love is something more precious than that.”

“But..!”

“No buts. Treasuring yourself and your partner is part of what makes love so wonderful. It doesn’t make sense to force love because of a sense of responsibility.”

“...I see.”

Lily nodded, but I could tell she didn’t really understand my words. I barely understood them myself. I settled on being satisfied with making Lily drop her crazy idea.

Geez, I never thought someone would tell me that they would take responsibility. Usually, it was the guy that said that…

Lily went the extra mile and made us breakfast. I questioned her about her dreams while I ate.

“I never remember my nightmares in particular. Just the feeling of terror remains behind.”

“I see. When do you have these nightmares?”

“Every day unless I have a friend over. It was rather unusual for me to have one like last night.”

I took a bite and pondered over Lily’s words.

“When your friends spent the night and you did not have any nightmares, did you sleep in the same bed?”

“Yup, yup. Fi loves to sleep with me. Ah, but Fi has become busy recently and said she wouldn’t be able to spend the night.”

Fi must be the name of the friend Lily was talking about. Judging from what I heard earlier, Fi likely enjoyed being naked in the house like her. She probably slept that way too.

I didn’t want to remember it, but Maxwell’s Cursed Mark only calmed down after my clothes were removed. Was the warmth of another person’s body the key to preventing the Cursed Mark from flaring up?

I blushed at the thought. Lily’s remaining time would shorten every time that Maxwell’s Cursed Mark activated. If that was the case, then I could not let Lily spend the night alone.

We gathered our things and prepared ourselves for the first official day of Saint Freya Academy. We left the apartment together. At the same time, I heard the sound of someone dropping their keys.

“Eh?”

“Mu?”

“Fwuah?”

We all let out a dumb sound of exclamation at the unexpected encounter. I couldn’t handle the silence, so I spoke up my trademark greeting.

“Y-Yaho, Letty..?”

“...”

“...”

— ❀❁✿ —

I wanted to cry. Not a single word from the teacher entered my ears. I really needed to pay attention, but Letty’s piercing stare hung over my neck.

Nobody had talked on the way to school. Even if I played the role of a bright, sunny character, I was actually a shadowy loner in disguise. My cheat code, laughing foolishly, didn’t work! I could not handle the situation of being caught spending the night at Lily’s apartment.

It was like I was a cheating husband caught spending the night at another woman’s home. Wait, I wasn’t even in a relationship with Colette. It shouldn’t matter who I got along with. Then, what was with her gaze!?

I signaled to Lily with my eyes for help, but Lily averted her gaze and whistled innocently with a blue face. Somehow, I thought she might be a repeat offender of today’s situation. I turned to my one last ally, Rose. Rose gave me a bright, encouraging smile.

Ugh, I took 10000 points of damage from melting under the blinding sun. I couldn’t let Rose know of my misdeeds(?). I was alone in handling this one. The bell rang before I figured out my game plan.

I picked up my stuff and followed the others. It was almost too late when I realized where we were heading.

“What is wrong, Alice?”

“Aria, why did you stop?”

“Are you unwell, Alice?”

“E-Everyone… What is our next class?”

Beads of sweat dripped down my back. Rose’s nonchalant voice sent me straight into the depths of despair.

“Why of course, it is gym class.”

“I see… Sorry, I suddenly need to use the restroom. Go ahead without me.”

I feigned indifference and mechanically walked away. I didn’t have the mental capacity to address the quiet voice that barely reached my departing figure.

“After all, you…”

— ❀❁✿ —

I trudged down the stairs with heavy steps as Alfonse Lockengard. I was skipping classes for the first time ever, but it couldn’t be helped. The TV was on and I heard familiar voices on it.

“What is taking Aria so long?”

“Haha, maybe Alice is skipping.”

“...Lily, you wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”

“...Urk!”

I froze in shock at the entrance to the tv room. For some reason, my friends were in the middle of taking off their clothes on tv.

“W-What the hell, Dad!?”

“Al!? No, this isn’t what it looks like. I promise!”

Dad shot up from the sofa in a panic. His laptop fell over, revealing the frozen image of the girl, Alice Phantasmagloria, as his desktop background. A shudder went through me.

“I’m calling Mom.”

“STOOPPP!!!”

Dad instantly crossed the distance and snatched my phone from my hand before I managed to make the call. Dad was a calm, stoic individual that I looked up to. I had never seen him as flustered as he was today.

I understood. I experienced something similar this morning when Letty caught me leaving Lily’s room earlier. There was a perfectly valid explanation on why Dad had made my Violent Evergarden character his desktop background and why he was watching the livestream of my friends changing clothes for gym. I was sure of it. That didn’t stop the goosebumps from breaking out on my skin.

“You have 1 minute to explain.”

“Got it. How much do you know about Saint Freya Academy? It shares the same timezone—”

“45 seconds.”

“–and doesn’t this girl look similar to your Mom and Sariel?”

Dad pointed at the Alice Phantasmagloria background he had for his laptop. No, no, no. Panic filled my heart. How did this happen? Dad continued as if worried I didn’t agree with him.

“We all need to do our part to save the world, but dawn at Astraea Academy is dusk here. The only streams I can follow are ones that match our timezone. I was hunting until I saw this girl, Alice Phantasmagloria.”

“So what?”

“It was like lightning struck me. I suddenly gained a new daughter. She even behaves similarly to you and Sariel.”

I grew nervous. I couldn’t let Dad find out I was Alice.

“I saw the footage of her at the entrance ceremony. She made a fool of herself in front of everyone.”

“Exactly! It was that footage that made me feel so strongly like she was part of our family. She behaved just like you did when you were very little. That smile on her face was nearly identical to yours whenever you were horsing around.”

“I, uh, what? That girl is nothing like me!”

“True. You don’t have any friends while Alice not only has friends, she even has a fanclub.”

I couldn’t get over the fact that Dad just roasted me for having no friends. The worst part was that I couldn’t even argue back.

“Wait, Alice has a fanclub? Why!?”

I used what little free time I had to look into information about Magical Girls and what was happening around Camellia Maxwell. I hadn’t looked into Saint Freya Academy at all, mostly because I was terrified of what I might find.

“Did you see her face when she asked Rosabella Dawnkeeper to be her friend? She has a clumsy earnestness that makes you want to root for her.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, Dad pulled up a clip of the moment in question. A girl with long brown hair tied in twintails and a red hoodie fidgeted in place as she called out to the other girl.

“Ummm!”

“Yes?”

Color drained from my face. Eh? What was this? There were over 50 million views on this short clip.

“My name is Alice Phantasmagloria. Will you be my friend?”

The girl blushed as she looked up at the school princess. Her eyes glistened with bashfulness and she held her breath as she waited for her prayers to be answered.

My heart took unrecoverable damage. This was me? No way. I wasn’t this cute. I was a shadowy loner who didn’t belong on the main stage. Even so, I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl on the screen.

“Of course. It would be my pleasure. Thank you for talking to me, Alice.”

Alice’s face lit up with pure joy, like a kid getting exactly what she wanted for her birthday.

“Well, have you become a fan, Al?”

“As if I can become a fan of someone who looks like my sister!”

Don’t joke with me. I refused to be labeled as a fan of my alternate self.

“Alice has over a 100 thousand friends scattered across Terra. Meanwhile, my son…”

Dad sighed to himself. There were thousands of comments on that short video of people saying that they would be Alice’s friend. Alice had surpassed me many times over again and it only took her a single day to do it.

Most players that streamed their perspective of Violent Evergarden instantly became idols. Alice may be popular, but she was but a minor side character standing on a bonus stage. Those standing on the main stage at Astraea Academy were the ones who captured the attention of the entire world.

“...Still, why would Alice skip gym class?”

Dad murmured to himself. Several comments on the stream echoed Dad’s sentiments. There were even disgusting comments lamenting the fact that they couldn’t see Alice in her underwear.

Ugh, this was exactly why I wanted to avoid other players. There was nothing I could do when we were in the same class. I wouldn’t be surprised if my ‘fanclub’ started a full fledged investigation to get to the bottom of my disappearance.

I had several reasons for skipping. The Witch Mark on my chest would instantly reveal me as a Player. Additionally, I was a man. It was too much to ask me to change with all the other girls. Finally, I didn’t know how to explain the bite marks Lily had made.

I had hoped to spend this break figuring out how to explain myself to Colette. Instead, I only ran into more troubles. I shook my head in defeat.

Dad was serious about following Alice’s life through the various different player streams. Not everyone handled the fate of the world depending on the 1000 players nearly as well. Compared to getting dead drunk or violent, keeping up to date on a girl who reminded him of his family was a rather harmless behavior.

I said goodbye to Dad, but he wouldn’t let me leave until I had promised to watch more footage of Alice on my own time. As I returned to my room, I thought over what I had learned.

I had exposed my disgraceful appearance to the world, but everyone was rather supportive. I even had my own, small fanclub. Maybe it was okay for me to continue being Alice Phantasmagloria a little longer.