The V-tuber Who Became Obsessed With Me

Chapter 102: It all seemed like yesterday

Almost a month had passed since the night everything fell apart.

Some days it felt like it had happened yesterday.

Other days it felt like I was remembering someone else’s life, like I had borrowed memories that no longer belonged to me.

Thirty-one days.

I lay on the bed in the safe house my grandfather had arranged for me, staring at the ceiling for what had to be the hundredth time that week. It had become a habit. Whenever my thoughts grew too loud, I searched for something meaningless to focus on instead. The hairline crack stretching away from the light fixture. The curtains swaying gently whenever the sea breeze slipped through the small gap I always left open. The slow sweep of the second hand across the clock above the wardrobe.

Anything.

Anything except the thoughts I was trying so desperately to outrun.

The problem was that they always found me anyway.

Because every road led back to Ethan.

Thirty-one days.

Thirty-one days without hearing his voice.

Without receiving a single reply.

I had called more times than I cared to admit. His name remained at the top of my recent calls, a reminder I couldn’t bring myself to delete even though every attempt ended the same way.

No answer.

I had visited his office more than once, pretending I happened to be nearby. I waited across the street, convincing myself I wasn’t waiting for him at all.

Maybe this time...

Maybe he’d look up.

Maybe our eyes would meet.

Maybe something would change.

It never did.

Or perhaps he saw me every single time and simply chose to look away.

If that was the case...

I couldn’t even blame him.

After everything he had learned in that warehouse, silence was probably the kindest thing he could offer someone like me.

It still hurt.

Not in dramatic bursts.

Not in the way stories usually described heartbreak.

It was quieter than that.

Persistent.

The kind of ache that settled somewhere behind your ribs and refused to leave no matter how ordinary the day appeared to everyone else.

Sometimes I caught myself smiling because I remembered something ridiculous he’d once said. The smile never lasted. Reality always arrived before it could.

The version of us that laughed together no longer existed.

Somewhere along the way, I had started watching his apartment building.

Not intentionally.

At least...

Not at first.

It began with driving past on my way home.

Then slowing down.

Then parking across the street for five minutes.

Eventually I knew exactly what time his lights came on each evening.

I knew what time he left for work.

I knew he still bought coffee from the little café two blocks away.

I knew he still wore his earbuds while walking.

His routine hadn’t changed.

He had.

Even from across the street I could see it.

The warmth that used to live so naturally in his expression had disappeared. His shoulders seemed heavier now, his smile gone, his eyes carrying a quiet emptiness that unsettled me far more than anger ever could.

It looked as though someone had quietly switched off a light inside him.

I knew who had done that.

Me.

The realization sat in my chest every day.

And still...

I couldn’t stop watching.

I kept telling myself it was because I wanted to make sure he was safe.

That was true.

Just...

Not the whole truth.

Kuro’s final phone call hadn’t left me either.

Ask your grandfather about Felix.

Ask him about your father.

I must have replayed those words a hundred times over the past month, turning them over until they had almost lost their meaning.

Every time I reached the same dead end.

Was he telling the truth?

Or was it simply one final attempt to poison me against my grandfather before everything caught up with him?

The worst part was that I had no way of knowing.

Grandpa didn’t answer questions he hadn’t chosen to answer.

And nobody else dared answer them for him.

For a while I considered asking Frank to investigate.

The thought didn’t survive very long.

Frank had already risked enough because of me.

Dragging him into my grandfather’s world again wouldn’t just be selfish.

It would be dangerous.

The last month had changed everything.

Kuro had been captured less than a day after escaping.

To the public, he was the man responsible for Tengu’s murder.

Only a handful of people knew that story wasn’t entirely true.

Grandpa had decided to remain in Harrington until he was satisfied every loose end had been tied off. Which meant I was living inside a beautiful safe house with three bodyguards, expensive furniture and absolutely no freedom.

Malcolm had vanished with his wife.

No farewell.

No explanation.

Perhaps disappearing was the smartest decision anyone had made since that night.

As for me...

Lumi♡Live had simply disappeared.

The audience filled the silence exactly the way audiences always did. Some believed I was burned out. Others thought I was preparing something massive.

Normally I would’ve cared.

Normally I would’ve checked every comment.

Every theory.

Every hashtag.

This time...

I never opened any of them.

For the first time since becoming Lumi♡Live, the internet’s opinion of me felt completely irrelevant.

Because none of it mattered.

Not if Ethan wasn’t there to see it.

I closed my eyes.

Somewhere over the last month I had become so focused on uncovering what Kuro meant, on wondering what Grandpa was hiding, on chasing answers that might not even exist, that I had overlooked the one thing I couldn’t afford to lose.

Ethan.

I hadn’t simply lost someone I loved.

I’d lost the version of myself that only seemed to exist around him.

The version that laughed too loudly at Nathan’s terrible stories.

The version that argued over films until two in the morning.

The version that forgot to watch every word before speaking.

The version that felt... normal.

That version disappeared the moment Ethan looked at me in that warehouse.

And I wanted her back.

More than answers.

More than revenge.

More than the truth.

I wanted him back.

Not because I needed forgiveness.

Not even because I deserved it.

I simply couldn’t accept that our story had ended there.

I sat upright on the bed.

The movement felt strangely decisive.

If finding the truth about Felix had to wait...

Then it would wait.

If confronting Grandpa had to wait...

Then it would wait too.

But Ethan couldn’t.

I needed him to hear me.

Not Himari.

Not Lumi♡Live.

Not the girl Kuro had exposed to the world.

Just...

Me.

The girl who had laughed with him over cheap takeout.

The girl who had fallen asleep during movie nights.

The girl who genuinely loved him.

I would find a way to make him listen.

If it took weeks...

I’d wait.

If it took months...

I’d still be there.

I looked back toward the ceiling.

The crack above me hadn’t changed.

Neither had the determination settling quietly inside my chest.

Only now, it felt different.

Heavier.

Less like hope.

More like something that refused to let go.

Looking back...

Maybe none of this had truly started inside that warehouse.

Maybe it hadn’t even started the day I became Raina.

Maybe it had started much earlier.

Even further back before college