Even if I hated myself for it all over again, I chased after him.

When I first noticed the man with wine red hair and quite a boring face, I assumed he was just a representation of someone I knew from the other world. There were different types of people and this man along with everyone else who looked and acted the same way belonged in the "bland" category.

But the more instances we ran into each other, the more I became sure my initial impression wasn't true. The way the man would push his hair off his forehead and how a displeased but expectant look crossed his face every time he did made me stop and reconsider. They were such a Rin thing for me to ignore.

And in our recently-concluded meeting, I made sure to observe him as Cavya or whatever that inflated kitten head called himself led the briefing. Everything he's saying I already heard from Heather, so I watched the man instead. I made sure to do it between pockets of space when he wasn't looking at me.

It's strange. It's as if he could sense I was studying him and was just returning the favor to tell me how creepy it was. I wouldn't blame him though. My friends had always reminded me how "judgy" my face could look when all I was doing was watch people.

But even then, I kept seeing Rin in the small bits of gestures and facial expressions. I made sure to clear my head and convince myself that this was just some unfortunate caricature of Rin and everyone like him. This was a programmed game after all. Of course, some people would be based on real ones those boxes scientists classified people into.

I had to make sure. When Cavya dismissed us, the man had never fled out of the room quicker than this. Was someone chasing him? Why was he so eager to get out when he had walked in so calmly as he did earlier?

Our footsteps creaked against the floorboards, the outpost's corridors and bolted doors passing by us. The other people from both our parties flitted off into various directions upon reaching the wide landing leading to the stairs leading to the ground floor. I stood at some sort of a crossroad. The south led back to the way we came from, while the east stopped at another locked door. To the west was a short but wide corridor ending in a wide, open window showing nothing but pink and lilac canopies. Up north was the continuation of the corridor, and the man was already rounding the corner at the opposite end.

I cursed, and broke into a run. My soles thudded against the floorboards in loud footfalls. If I went any faster, I would have shaken the entire second floor. "Wait!" I yelled after the man as the last of his cloak disappeared into the corner. "Hey!"

Some heads turned to me due to my hollering. That falcon lady certainly gave me the shivers, but they're the last of my worries. I needed to be sure. For exactly what reasons, I didn't know. I wouldn't know until I knew I wasn't hallucinating or being hopeful.

The corner came and I flung myself into it. A dimmer and narrower corridor laid itself bare. Deep into it was the man, his footsteps, if anything, turning longer and faster. Like me chasing down a dream I have lost sight of, I took after him.

"Hey! I just want to talk!" I shouted. His shoulders rose and fell in a familiar flinch. The Rin I knew could never stand being yelled at. He'd either cry or do exactly what this man seemed to be doing now—run. He showed no signs of stopping or even slowing down, so I poured more strength into my legs to try and close the distance. "Hey, Kora!"

I figured using the name his party called him would be helpful.

It wasn't.

The man, even though I was sure he's the one called Kora, forged ahead. The outpost was a long building, almost like a wall, so maybe that's why this corridor seemed to go on forever and why I couldn't somehow catch up. But it'd run out, eventually. At the end, would there be another corner or would it be as it was—the end?

"Hey! Slow down!" My fists clenched at my sides as frustration clawed at my insides. The man made no indication of doing so. He just kept getting farther, going to a place I wouldn't ever reach if I, as much, fell back a few steps. I couldn't lose him. Not now. I have questions, and when I do, I want them answered.

So, to put an end into this whole thing, I opened my mouth. "Rin!"

The footsteps stilled. I slowed down as well, taking stock of the man's back turned to me. It's nowhere near Rin's physique but the way he carried himself—shoulders slumped with some sort of weight, arms lanky at his sides, and how his legs never quite bore his weight fully until he was forced to—was similar. Too similar.

And how he stopped when I called him by his name and not when I used his cringy gamer tag confirmed everything. This man was Rin. There's no denying it now.

"Are you going to ignore me forever?" I asked, swallowing lungfuls of breath to disguise my huffing.

"I am entitled to ignore whomever I choose," Kora said without turning to me. Oh yeah, turn defensive at the first sign of confrontation—that's Rin alright.

Then, he started walking away once more. I scoffed. "So that's it, then?" I braced my hips and shook my head. "We get stuck in this place together and this is how you treat me?"

Kora sucked in a breath and whipped towards me. The glint shining in his narrowed eyes was unmistakable. He's angry. At me or at our circumstance, I wasn't sure. Maybe both. "You know what, Hye-jin," he seethed. "I was ready to move on with whatever...insanity this is. Then you show up in all your smug glory, expecting me to treat you like a princess. Get out of your head. I'm no saint. And I'm not the one who said that about me."

The memory of that night played at the back of my mind. It's not like I regret saying that to him, just that I didn't appreciate it being thrown back at me and within this context. And get out of my head? When had I done that? All I was asking was for Rin to acknowledge that we're stuck in this place together—by his own fault, in fact—and if I was lucky, apologize for ruining my life. Again.

"Stop twisting my words, Kora," I hissed, stepping closer towards him. "You should get out of your head. You must think you're so special that I came running the moment I realized it's you. Trust me, it's not. You're not that great."

If he's hurt by everything I have spewed, he didn't show it. That's one thing he changed about himself. "Then why have you come screaming at the top of your lungs, begging me to stop and look at you?" he asked. The way he phrased it made it seem like I was the one who wasn't ready to move on. "You're not special, either, Seline. I have the freedom to ignore you and you can't demand that from me. Not anymore."

"Fine," I said. My own face felt hot against the humidity in the corridor. I wasn't getting worked up—that much I promised myself. "Ignore me all you want, but don't forget it's you who got us here in the first place. Aren't you going to do anything about that?"

Kora snorted. "Why? Are you itching to go back? Do you feel like you've left something important, someone who would die if they're left on their own?" he said. "Why should I do something to make your life better when I couldn't even figure out how to make mine acceptable?"

"Because I've spent so much of mine making it so!" I screamed. Something scalded a trail down my cheeks and the back of my hand swiped at them. I hated this. So much. Just the thought of me telling myself not to cry any more than I did for this man and for my past built more lumps in my throat than what I could handle. It was that night all over again. Just a different place, seeking justice with a different voice, and eyes shedding a different set of tears.

It's the same thing. Just in a different world.

Kora didn't reply. He stared at me with a flat gaze, with no hint of remorse for everything that happened and what was happening between us. Could this man have some sense of responsibility? I shouldn't have hoped he would, eventually. That has been my biggest mistake.

So, I continued. "All I thought about these recents years were how to help you, how to help your family, how to prepare your meals, how to clean the house, how to keep the fridge stocked. It's always you, you, you," I looked at the floor and noted how some of my tears had made small and almost unnoticeable splotches against the thin layer of dust coating it. "When would it ever be me?"

"Nobody asked you, Hye-jin," was Kora's silent answer. As gentle as ever. It infuriated me then. It still sent my nerves on edge until now.

My head snapped up to meet his cold, hard eyes. "Sorry?"

"Nobody asked you to throw your life for me," he said. I couldn't quite understand the pain dancing in his green eyes. "Yet you did. And now you're blaming me for everything that went wrong in both of our lives. Is that fair?"

I couldn't believe I was even hearing this from him. "Oh, you want to talk about fairness?" I said. "Then what about the time when—"

"What's going on here?" came a woman's voice a few paces from us. I turned to find her striding towards us with more curiosity than anger in her face. Her luscious blond fringe reminded me of a bowl turned upside down.

Something bumped against my shoulder, driving me a step back. "Nothing," Kora answered on his way past me. This little—

Without turning to me or even showing any sort of signs of our conversation affecting him, he went ahead the blond woman. "Let's go," he said in a tone as flat as the dusty floorboards. The woman's eyes flicked from him then to me. I turned to hide my teary eyes. We didn't need another spectator feeling sorry for me. One was enough.

I waited until their footsteps faded in the distance, leaving me in my misery. It might have been something I brought upon myself, but there's no denying the reason it even existed was that man walking away.

It was this misery that took every face I owned in its embrace and told me I would never be more than what people knew me as. But I wouldn't run from it. I'd face it head on and prove to him that I didn't need him to survive or to restart my life, whether it's in this world or in the one we left. I would take more and more faces as necessary, until I could look at his eyes without being weighed down by the memories they carried.

Now that I knew Rin was itching to get rid of me, I should forget him before he could. That's the only way I could clean my slate and live, knowing I had won. I have a different face, so this time, I was going to make different decisions.

No matter the consequences.