A year ago, you would come home from your daily duties and immediately run to your device for one reason: Genshin Impact.

You played daily: farming, grinding, unlocking every new region, fighting every boss. You'd been saving up Primogems just for him— for Kazuha.

Kazuha wasn't sure when he realised. It crept in on him gradually like rot infecting his mind. Animals that disappeared and reappeared, not being able to see past horizons, time changing far too quickly.

He wasn't real, it was simulation. But who was real if that was the case? It had to be for a purpose.

He began to notice how hollow the traveller was. No words, no expressions, just quiet stares that he somehow understood. But outside of conversation, their actions seemed so... fluid, so human. More than the hundreds of people in Inazuma.

That's when he noticed the screen, hovering, following. He called it the window, because past it, he could see a real face.

But somehow, he never felt alone or trapped. You made sure of that. You did all his story quests, sent him to your pot, spent as much time with him as possible even when there was nothing left to explore.

That was until you disappeared the first time. Maybe they're tired. That's alright. You had been excited to pull on his banner, maybe you could unlock him this time, play with him, bring him home.

The only sense of time Kazuha had was the ticking timer beneath him on his banner. From twenty days to two weeks to a week... to one day. He waited until the last hour.

"Where are they?" He muttered to himself. And for the first time, Kazuha reached out to touch the screen, hoping to find something. He knew it was like collecting dust from wind, looking for something that he didn't know the look of.

But light flashed as he touched the cold glass, and he could see that familiar place you would always be at.