CHAPTER ONE
"Question 1: Why did he make Scaramouche's lore so freaking sad?"


He wasn't looking when he was hit by a car.

His body flew for mere milliseconds and splayed limply on the road with an agonizing thud. He was a puppet with no strings. The crumpled paper you toss into the garbage can. A young, ambitious man fighting the force of inertia with . . . his own gravity.

Dang it, Kunikuzushi can hear Sara, their game story quest editor telling him to improve his choice of adjectives. He scoffed. Screw the beautifully descriptive words, the young writer was just dying on a rather dusty cemented road. There's nothing magical or poetic at the moment at all. The air was humid; the night was young, his body hurt, and he was slowly running out of blood.

'Will I die tonight?', he thought with overwhelming indifference.

Kunikuzushi wanted to laugh. It was getting hard for him to breathe but he wanted to double his pain with gregarious laughter. It's pretty funny.

Usually, the writer would be thinking and actually looking before he crosses the street but it's been several months since a story of his was accepted into the game they were developing, and—why is he thinking about that now?

The pain he'd felt then was nothing compared to now. He couldn't move—didn't dare since it hurt to even try. Darn it. His eyes were beginning to blur and he had to close his eyes.

His ears prickled at a sudden, obnoxious sound. The siren of an ambulance, perhaps?

Someone was screaming 'make way!' that pulled him out of his thoughts. It's ironic since he knew that kind of statement attracts more attention.

A gruff low tune of a voice, like a booming bass, wins over the chaotic sound. "What happened?"

He concluded that it must be the police.

Kunikuzushi wanted to laugh once again. The question triggered his sarcasm. Obviously, he was just lying on the floor because he was too lazy to get up.

"He. . . he collided into my car." A nervous female answered. "I thought he wouldn't cross the street. It wasn't . . . It's not my fault officer, I swear."

The young man knew it was indeed his fault, yet couldn't help but be irritated. Can they explain themselves when they're already certain he can give his side of the story the next day?

"Move." Another masculine voice interrupted, and suddenly lights blinded him. It must be the unsympathetic medic with their freaking insensitive mannerism of pointing flashlights at someone's eyes.

Can't they see he was awake? Wait, isn't he?

Someone wrapped something in his arm. The pain was so great, he couldn't help but flinch. The display of pain had him gasping for air. Did someone cover his face with a wet blanket because it was agonizing to inhale. There's a pressure on his pulse but his pain had won over everything else that he doesn't notice the contact.

"His pulse rate was slow. Can you hear me? It's okay. You're going to be fine. Just breathe."

'Oh, yeah. Breathing.' He scoffed. 'Almost forgot about that. Are you a genius?'

Two males in light blue uniform help him to a stretcher. The move pinpoints the exact place that hurts the most. He must have broken a rib. Even his arms and legs felt sticky now. His blood must have been all over the place. Gross. His first thought was of his former crisp white shirt, the only one he frequently uses for special events.

He scoffed, disgusted with his shirt—with everything. Of course, he'd find a way to somehow make his shirt irredeemable too.

The medics heaved his listless body inside the ambulance. They were busy tending to his wounds as he stared at the roof of the car with empty eyes. They must have given him some medicine or something since he couldn't feel the pain anymore. He just felt ridiculously tired; maybe a little bit melancholic, and a lot angry.

He really should have chosen another bar to nurse his hurt feelings.

It all started when Kunikuzushi read that article that said he should come out when he was feeling down. "Come out" usually means getting some fresh air slash meeting friends slash being sociable, but he instead chose to observe human beings while nursing a drink alone at a table.

Coincidence, or was it fate, that he found Ajax and their friends partying at the same bar. Apparently, the whole team for the game they were developing was celebrating without him, a rather obvious hint. The drama was so cringing, yet he couldn't find it in him to write it down and turn this noble misery into a somewhat tolerable comedy skit. Their game—Genshin Impact—has been doing well even without his participation for a while now, but seeing them acknowledge their greatest feat without him hurts him more than he thought it would.

This kind of plot twist was way too much.

If only Kunikuzushi could write a story as miserably great as his life and actually earn some money for a change, maybe they wouldn't exclude him.

Ajax began to dance with Kazuha and Yoimiya. He laughed, a tinkling sound of untroubled freedom over whatever Yoimiya said to him. Kunikuzushi was tending to his cold drink, leaning on the bar, and Ajax was still laughing when their eyes met.

His heart stills. The smile on Ajax's face slowly vanished. He blamed the politeness drilled on him when his friend was forced to give him a reluctant, timid wave.

"I didn't know you were here." That was what Tartaglia said when he approached him. They both know it was a lame observation. Childe has this sheepish look on his face. He's probably thinking about how he could explain this situation to him or something like that.

Kunikuzushi wanted to know how long it had been going on. Were they pretending to be his friends as well? This game has been INAZUMA's project since way back in college. The others joined their team later in college, but the other three, especially Ajax, have been his friends since high school.

'That's what abyss mages do in the game, Ajax. Betraying everyone.' Kunikuzushi wanted to make a scandalous scene and just scream his heart out, 'Didn't you promise me we'd develop this game even when I'm having a hard time writing the lore of Mondstat and Liyue?!'

'Do you remember laughing and saying, "Of course, you doofus! That'll be easy for you. I believe in you, man!" and I said, "Okay, actually, neat idea. Why don't I write us as villains in this story and write cool lore for us?" And you almost cried when I showed you the rough designs of our characters. Then you grabbed my waist to hug me while I struggled to break free from you, and you said, "You're a freaking genius, Kunikuzushi!" . . . Where did all that shit go, Ajax?'

Fortunately, he was wearing his white get-along-with-people shirt.

He'd like to make a scene, but he was feeling dead inside as if someone had torn his heart out or something. Usually, he'd be pretty pissed at their betrayal, but at the moment, sadness won over everything else. Is this how it feels to be betrayed?

Served him right for giving a very sad backstory to his character in-game.

"Look, Kunikuzushi, about this party—"

"No, it's okay, Tartaglia." He quickly interrupted, sputtering his friend's surname as if it was a curse instead of uttering his given name; Kunikuzushi downed his drink in one go before slamming the cup down. "I knew when I wasn't needed. Do contact me if you're interested in buying my part of the ownership."


"Face down in the dirt . . she said it doesn't hurt . . ."

He started singing old rock metal songs on the way home. This is not a good sign.

Either he was sad that everyone betrayed him or he was having a mental breakdown. He chose to think it was the latter. Kunikuzushi hated this song with all of his heart since it reminded him of his emo teenage days with Ajax and yet he began screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs as if he didn't usually skip it on his mp3 player.

There was a lump forming in his throat as he sang to himself. The streets were still lively even at this time of the day, and yet all he could think was, if a car managed to hit him while he was crossing the road, he would be darn thankful. Nothing matters anyway.

Kunikuzushi looked at the empty road, then up at the moon above him. . . that's when he realized, it must be nice to be a character loved by all. He should have written Scaramouche, his character in the game, to be a well-loved character at least. It doesn't matter who would love him. In-game, his character needed someone to tell him that he is important. One of them should be happy. So, if not him, why not his character?

Perhaps when Kunikuzushi quit the company, they would . . . maybe . . . just maybe . . . everyone would realize how much he meant to them and change his character's lore—

That was his sole regret, above everything else, the fact that he wrote Scaramouche, very similar to him. They share a disappointed mother, an overachieving, cold sister, and an old, wealthy family name that he was not acknowledged to bear. He had friends . . . who ultimately betrayed him at the end. He couldn't even do the task he was given, despite being a good villain.

The young writer was just thinking about it when he collided with something dark, and he flew in the air and his vision shook badly, like a camera falling from its tripod, and suddenly he was looking at a car's headlights, his body splayed to the ground. It was all so fast. He couldn't even catch his breath. Then he was having trouble breathing.

Darn. He thought he wanted to die. Didn't he have his head in the clouds, thinking of various ways to kill himself as he crossed the street? Wasn't that the reason why he was on this stiff ambulance bed, dying and afraid? He was surprised to find that he was scared.

It turns out he didn't want to die.

He just wanted a new beginning.

...


Someone was suffocating his face with a pillow.

Kunikuzushi was wide awake so fast, it was disorienting. He struggled to lift the pillow off of his face and was surprised that he managed to do it so easily.

The person behind the assassination attempt laughed languidly, the sound so achingly familiar that Kunikuzushi immediately stiffened.

"And here I thought, I can finally get the 6th place."

Ajax was standing beside his bed, but before he could insult the heck out of him, he noticed that his friend was wearing Childe's Snezhnaya outfit, a glimmering hydro vision on his waist. . . and is that a polar star bow on his back?

"Tartaglia?" He uttered, at a loss for what to say.

The ginger head grinned, his smile irritatingly smug, "Rise and shine, comrade. Pierro wanted to see us. He asked me to drag your small ass along. I hate this as much as you do, mind you. But orders." He gave an indifferent shrug.

Pierro? The 1st Harbinger? What the fuck?