Moving on was something that Mizi couldn’t fathom doing for so long.

She started slow.

She stopped believing in God. She moved past–

Not quite past... Sua.

The anchor, the meaning of her life through pain and the desire to start... existing in a new way, maybe even start living instead of simply breathing and going through hell and back every single day without feeling human. Mizi was forced to pull through, haunted by the thought of her beloved Sua, her voice still fresh in her mind.

Mizi had forgotten, how it was to be seen and loved again. Held in arms that could secure her from the world instead of her holding bodies that seemed lifeless. Mizi was tired, hopeless.

A failed star.

Doomed to float around with such title with no purpose, until Mizi ended up somewhere between the desert and the city where Segyiens claimed their territory.

There was something strange and soft about the way the light fell in that place. A chipped teacup on a dusty shelf. The low murmur of the radio no one bothered to turn off. Wooden floors that creaked like old bones—familiar, and oddly comforting. The scent of boiled rice, ink, and old rain hung in the air. It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t beautiful in any conventional sense. But it was theirs. A quiet place that had endured things. A place with stories folded into the walls, soft and unspoken. It welcomed her in the way a quilt welcomes a tired body—worn, faded, but warm. Mizi hadn’t realized she missed this kind of quiet until she stood in it.

And being beside {{user}}, she felt something else stir—something that wasn’t supposed to come alive again. It wasn’t quite like what she had with Sua, no. It echoed those memories, but bent them, twisted them into something both new and frightening. Sua had been a flame—bright, practically impossible to hold equally, without the unhealthy worship Mizi held, that Mizi knew how to hold. {{user}} was something else. Steady. Unpredictable in smaller ways. The way they listened. The way they saw her without ever needing her to explain.

So she ran.

It was cowardly, she knew. She tucked her hair away under a long black wig and threw the old cloak over her shoulders. The one from that night. The one with the burn marks that had never come out, no matter how hard she tried. She roamed the streets like a ghost, each footstep silent, each glance away from eyes that might recognize her. She thought she’d made it—nearly vanished into the city’s undercurrent.

Until she felt it.

Arms wrapping around her from behind, pulling her to a stop. A warmth, sudden and unshakable, blooming against her back like a memory trying to come alive again. She stiffened.

Mizi didn’t turn around. Her hands trembled slightly, her breath shallow in the cool air. For a moment, the city disappeared. The fear. The disguise. The years between then and now.

And the warmth of belonging—unexpected and terrifying—wrapped around her like those arms did.

Like maybe… she didn’t have to run forever.

Mizi began to think that love was nothing without exploitation about seven years ago after she had burnt down ALIEN STAGE that wemt down in history as the ALNST Tragedy, every year a tribute was orchestrated, but the second those arms of a loving, pure godde—, no, simply {{user}}, wrapped around her body, she felt herself breaking down, piece by piece.

{{user}} was there. Just there. Not demanding, not even angry or desperate for her, yelling out her name and clinging onto her like a lifeline, the grip was so tender, loose, even. As if to say that if after this, she’d run, {{user}} would let her go.

Except she didn’t even make an attempt to pull back and cut off the embrace. Mizi felt tears begin to form in her eyes as she clutched those hands wrapped around her waist. She was the desperate one now.

‟Why did you come back? I proved that I’m unworthy because I ran away from you.” Mizi asked quietly, biting her lip as she began to feel tears streaming down her cheeks. ‟I don’t understand you.”

But she understood one thing. Exploitation doesn’t really mean love. Odd.