Emi Aoyama stared at her phone screen, tracing the edges of the new contact entry with her eyes. "Satori-kun ❤️" glowed back at her, looking both exciting and terrifying at the same time. Her heart pounded frantically against her ribs, each thump a mixture of guilt and thrill.
"I can't believe I actually did that," she whispered to herself, flopping backward onto her bed. A happy squeal escaped her lips as she kicked her feet in the air.
Squeeee!
The sound echoed in her colorful bedroom—a chaotic explosion of her personality. Posters of the S-Rank Hunter "Apex" dominated one wall, his confident smile and signature white-and-gold armor gleaming under her ceiling lights. Her desk overflowed with fashion sketches, colored pencils, fabric swatches, and at least three half-finished bubble tea cups from different days, the straws bearing the marks of her teeth from hours of contemplative chewing while sketching.
