Star now stood alone in the dim room, surrounded by Aliana's hypnotized friends. Their empty gazes stared into nothingness as Star did what he always did — he spoke to them.
Not like a leader rallying his troops.
Not like a friend sharing a laugh.
But like someone reciting a script—a story he had told over and over, as if hoping the words might eventually mean something.
"You're my friends now," Star said. The words hung there, weightless, like dust in stale air.
"I found you because... I needed to." He didn't look at them when he spoke. He wasn't really talking to them at all.
There was obviously no response. Not that he expected one.
He stood stiffly, his black cloak slightly shifting with his every breath. His face remained void of emotion — not by choice, but because it was all he knew.
"My master says the only way to have friends is with magic... because people don't like me when I talk to them."
Aliana's heart squeezed.
"When I try to talk without magic, they run away... They think I'm weird."
He didn't sound angry neither did he sound sad.
He just sounded... empty.
"Master says that's because the world is full of monsters in the day... and I am one too."
Aliana trembled as she almost lost her balance hearing that.
"So I only go out at night. That's when I can find friends."
Star shifted his gaze toward the six cup noodles on the table.
"When I bring friends, Master gives me food. If I don't bring friends, I don't eat."
There was no bitterness in his voice, just a dull acceptance, as if he had never questioned this life.
"If there are more than ten friends, Master sets them free. He says they are lucky."
Aliana's stomach twisted.
"I don't know where Master takes them. But he says they go somewhere better."
Silence.
Star stood there for a long moment, staring at his unmoving "friends."
"You will all like it here... You have to."
The hypnotized people didn't blink. Didn't flinch.
Star just stood there, alone again — surrounded by people, but lonelier than ever.
Aliana, still trembling by the window, felt a wave of emotions crash over her — fear, confusion, but most of all...
Pity.
Star wasn't just dangerous — he was a victim too.
He didn't understand friendship. He didn't understand freedom. He only knew obedience, survival, and manipulation — because that's all his master had taught him.
Her heart broke a little as she realized...
He didn't even know he was being manipulated himself.
Aliana's fingers trembled against the cold windowsill, her breathing shallow as she stared at Star — the boy with dark skin and lifeless eyes. His words echoed in her head, more haunting than the eerie silence surrounding them.
"I don't know where Master takes them. But he says they go somewhere better."
Her heart raced.
He doesn't know.
Star truly believed his master's lies. He thought "setting his friends free" was an act of kindness — not realizing that every person he collected was walking into a fate far worse than the hypnotic spell they were under.
And those cup noodles—his reward.
Was that really all he lived for? Was his entire life reduced to a simple trade—capture people for food?
_ _ _
Aliana's gaze drifted to the table where the six cans of cup noodles sat. The sight of them, so ordinary yet twisted by the dark reality Star lived in, made her stomach churn.
The room remained silent except for Star's steady breathing. He was still standing in front of Aliana's hypnotized friends, staring at them as though waiting for a response he knew would never come.
Finally, his voice broke the silence again.
"Tomorrow night... I will find more friends."
It wasn't a choice—it was a statement of fact. An endless cycle.
Aliana bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
I have to do something.
But what?
Her friends were under some kind of spell. She didn't know how to break it.
And the Master... what if he came back?
She wasn't sure how powerful the cloaked guy really was, but the master—the dark aura around him, the way he vanished into the forest with her friends—he was a different kind of danger.
And then...
Star slowly walked over to the cup noodles and picked one up.
For a moment, he just stared at it.
The faintest flicker of something—regret? longing?—crossed his face. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, but Aliana saw it.
He turned back to the silent crowd of his "friends" and lifted one of the cup noodles, turning it in his hands like he wasn't sure what it even was anymore.
"Master says this is how I live," he murmured, placing it carefully in front of a boy like it was some sacred offering. "So... this is how you'll live, too."
It wasn't just that Star didn't know how to be a friend—he genuinely believed friends were just as empty and obedient as he was.
Aliana's throat clenched around a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Saving her friends was why she'd come. But now...
Now she wasn't sure who needed saving more.