Chapter 3

[New here. Quick question: is this a murder scene, or the aftermath?]

[This is what it looks like after two vampires finish dinner.]

[Streamer, you've worked hard. Sending you about 2,000 dollars. Go treat yourself and pick up an iron supplement.]

My phone buzzed a few times. I picked it up for one look, and suddenly my head wasn't spinning anymore and my hand didn't hurt... okay, it still hurt a little.

But that wasn't important.

While Lucas was still too weak to stop me, I took his keys and went back to grab some toiletries and a change of clothes.

The rich viewers had assigned me a captivity mission, so I had to commit.

There were only two apartments on this floor, mine and Lucas's, but we didn't really interact much.

But things weren't like this ten years ago.

Come to think of it, Lucas and I had known each other since childhood. Back then, he was still a gentle boy a little older than me.

But after his mom ran away because she couldn't take his dad's abuse anymore, he grew quiet and withdrawn.

Not long after that, he personally called the police and reported his father for child abuse. His dad got locked up, and after that, he was the only one left living there.

People in the building all said Lucas had bad luck, like he drove away his mom and sent his dad to prison. Even my parents told me not to play with the boy next door anymore.

But when I passed his door, I still couldn't help peeking inside, and I saw Lucas picking at damp, moldy bread because he was starving.

I got so scared I ran in, smacked the moldy bread out of his hand, and handed him the two liquor-filled chocolates I'd been saving in my pocket.

He was so hungry back then that he wolfed both chocolates down in just a few bites.

I'd originally planned to split them one each. Before I could even cry over the two empty wrappers, Lucas dropped to the floor.

I froze for a second, then panicked and ran around yelling that Lucas had been poisoned by chocolate.

Someone in the building immediately called 911.

That was when I found out Lucas could pass out dead drunk from just one liquor-filled chocolate.

The community stepped in to help Lucas after that, so he didn't have to go hungry anymore.

But then my mom got sick. It happened fast and hard, drained our family dry almost overnight, and in the end, she passed away without a sound.

My dad seemed to age overnight too. Carrying a huge bundle, he left without a word to find work out of town. Once he left, he never came back.

The community helped me too, so I didn't have to go hungry either.

But my home turned into a one-person household too.

People in the building called Lucas and me pitiful kids, wondering how much trauma we carried because we'd both grown up without parents.

But they were wrong.

I went to school every day cheerful as ever. I got along with everyone, made friends just fine, and always had a smile on my face. I was ridiculously upbeat.

Every time I saw Lucas heading the same way as me, I'd speed up and put some distance between us.

I wasn't like him, that gloomy, lonely kid who was obviously starved for love.

And after I saw the floating comments, those thoughts were basically confirmed.

Lucas and I really were different.

As my neighbor on the same floor, his bleak, lonely childhood left him longing for warmth, so he imprisoned the bright, warmhearted heroine.

As for me, after I ran into the hero, I accidentally voiced my suspicions.

After the hero rescued the heroine, I passed Lucas's door and saw him lying on the floor covered in injuries after trying to end his life.

And in the end, just like before, I was the one running around yelling that Lucas had tried to kill himself, and I personally called 911.

That gloomy, lonely villain who was obviously starved for love died in the summer when he was nineteen.

And I, the cheerful side character who drifted through everybody else's world, just went off to college like normal.