Later that day, Arisa sat under her usual tree — or rather, Arisa’s usual tree — holding a book she hadn’t opened. Her hands were still trembling from what she’d seen. Lilianne.

The girl who was always the sun, always smiling… had looked terrified for a second. And not because she tripped. Not because of embarrassment.

No. It was like she saw something — someone — she wasn’t expecting.

"Do you remember me?" Arisa whispered.

There was no answer. Of course not. She wasn’t even supposed to exist in this way. This was all script, wasn’t it? A loop.

But what if it wasn’t?

Someone sat down next to her — uninvited.

She turned and nearly choked.

Prince Kael.

“I’m curious,” he said, watching her from the corner of his golden eyes. “You weren’t supposed to be there.”

Arisa blinked. “At the garden?”

He nodded. “That’s the heroine’s route. Not yours. And yet you interrupted it.”

Interrupted it.

He made it sound like a program breaking.

“I was just… I was told to go there,” she said carefully.

Kael looked up at the petals above. “Things have started changing. People are whispering about you. Staff, students. The NPC girl is acting off-script.”

NPC.

He knows.

This world was self-aware.

Or at least some of it.

Her blood turned cold.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t be here?” she asked, testing the line between truth and danger.

Kael gave a crooked smile. “No. I’m saying… maybe the background deserves a story too.”

Then he stood up and walked away. Leaving Arisa alone with a spinning head — and a terrifying realization: this world knew it was a story. And she wasn’t the only one rewriting it.