(Trigger warning)

In the end, I never found happiness.

Miss Lin, with the devotion of a lifetime, offered me the fruit of her carefully cultivated joy, hoping to spark some light within me. I held that enchanted golden apple, a gift that could change the course of fate, but something had clamped tight over my senses. All I could taste was bitterness—no sweetness, no savor.

Perhaps she is one of the lucky players with an authentic, genuine game.