Luna sat on the edge of her bed, fingers brushing the red glow of the SyncBand. Ten hours had become six. The silence between her and Leejun was no longer awkward—it was loaded. Heavy. Fragile.
Outside the window, the artificial stars of Amour's dome sky flickered. Too perfect to be real. Too quiet to reflect the storm inside her.
Leejun shifted beside her, elbows on his knees.
"I don't want it to end," he said, finally.
Luna's breath caught.
Not because he said it—but because part of her wanted that too.
"I thought this was just... data," she whispered.
"It was. At first." His voice was steady, but his hand curled tightly over his knee. "Now it's something else. Isn't it?"
Luna didn't answer. Instead, she glanced at the small holo-display on her desk.
SyncBond Expiration: 6h 02m
---
Elsewhere: Amour Academy—Faculty Boardroom
Professor Melrose stared at the pulsing chart displayed before the committee. Luna and Leejun's LP curve defied prediction.
"Are we sure the data's accurate?" Dean Vire asked, steepling his fingers.
"It's not just accurate," Melrose replied. "It's anomalous. Their sync rate stabilized even under high social volatility. That shouldn't be possible without pre-existing compatibility—or an override."
"Override?" another faculty member blinked. "You mean someone tampered with the pairing?"
Melrose paused. "I'm saying... either the algorithm made an error—or it discovered something new."
A beat of silence.
"Should we terminate the bond early?" Vire asked.
Melrose studied the thread on-screen, burning crimson like a heartbeat.
"No. Let's see how far it goes."
---
Back at the Dorm
Leejun stood. The air between them shifted.
"I'll go," he said. "Give you space."
Luna stood, too. "Wait."
Their eyes met.
The SyncBand thread pulsed—once, then again—brighter. A flicker, almost desperate.
Neither moved. Neither spoke.
> LP Sync Surge: +4
Status: Bond Re-stabilized
Luna stepped forward. So did Leejun.
And for one moment—one heartbeat—they stood in perfect sync.
The thread between them blazed.
---
Meanwhile: Riven
The pebble cracked under his boot.
His inbox was full of messages. Allies warning him to let it go. Sycophants asking if the rumors were true.
A single message from his sister: Stop watching. You're only hurting yourself.
But he couldn't stop.
He'd opened the student feed. Watched the sync spike in real time.
> Luna. Leejun. Surge +4.
His jaw tightened.
He closed the feed.
If the system thought it could decide who deserved Luna—it had another thing coming.
---
Ivy, Alone in the Lounge
The glass was empty now.
Her holo-tab pinged: LP Tier Rankings: Luna Chae — Rank 17 (+12)
She read it twice. Then set the glass down a little too hard.
"They always fall for the storm," she muttered.
But her voice trembled.
---
Back in Dorm 7B
Luna looked down at the SyncBand.
5h 49m
"Should we fight it?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Leejun's answer was simple.
"Only if you want to."
She didn't answer.
But she didn't step back, either.
And the thread burned on.
Amour Academy – Grand Atrium
The heart of the academy pulsed with tension.
Students from every department gathered, their uniforms a sea of jeweled tones and status badges. The Trial was over, but no one had moved on. Not yet.
Above them, a massive crystalline screen began to glow. The Academy crest shimmered, then transitioned into the official seal of the Heartlock Trial.
A hush fell as the Head of Amour, Madame Virelle, stepped forward to the central podium—regal, unreadable, her robes trailing faint lines of data-light.
"The Heartlock Trial has concluded," she announced, her voice amplified, crisp as frost.
All eyes lifted.
"All sync threads have been severed as of zero-seven-hundred hours. Emotional bonds have stabilized. LP calculations are now final."
Luna stood in the back of the crowd, her hand brushing her bare wrist where the SyncBand used to sit. She felt strangely… hollow.
Beside her, Leejun remained silent, unreadable.
> SyncBand Status: Disconnected
LP Bond Archived
Madame Virelle raised one hand.
"Presenting the top five pairs of this cycle," she said, and the screen shifted.
One by one, names and numbers appeared:
#5 – Cassian & Elira – LP: 7,894
#4 – Ren & Mirei – LP: 8,223
#3 – Ivy Song & Theo Lin – LP: 8,680
#2 – Riven Kai & Aria Mael – LP: 9,104
A beat of silence.
And then—
#1 – Luna Chae & Han Leejun – LP: 12,901
The crowd erupted.
Gasps. Shouts. The ripple of disbelief.
The LP bar beside their names surged upward in brilliant crimson, surpassing the threshold of all previous years.
Luna's breath caught.
Ivy turned away, face unreadable.
Riven stared at the screen, lips parted, rage flickering behind his eyes—but deeper, something else: loss.
Madame Virelle waited for silence before she spoke again.
"An unprecedented score. A sync record."
She turned slightly, as if looking directly at Luna and Leejun despite the crowd.
"However, such anomalies demand scrutiny. An investigation into the source of the spike will follow."
A murmur spread across the atrium.
Leejun stepped closer to Luna. "They're going to try to unravel it."
Luna's pulse skipped. "Can they?"
"I don't know," he said. "But they won't do it without a fight."
Their names remained glowing on the screen.
Not just a win.
A warning.
The crowd buzzed with excitement.
"They actually broke ten thousand—"
"No, twelve! Did you see the surge chart? Insane—"
"I thought Ivy would rank higher—"
"But Luna? She was nothing before this!"
Now they weren't mocking her. They were watching her like she was a legend. Or a threat.
Students began inching toward her and Leejun, some offering congratulations, others just hungry to be near the center of gravity.
"She's got main-character energy now."
"She glowed during the Trial. Literal SyncFlare."
Someone shouted, "Queen of the Heartlock!"
Luna blinked, overwhelmed. Just yesterday they were whispering about her like she was a bug under glass. Now they looked at her like she could rewrite the algorithm.
Leejun's hand brushed hers.
But just as a student stepped forward to ask for a holo-pic—
The doors at the far end of the Atrium slammed open.
The room went still.
Every holo-drone paused mid-flight.
A girl stood in the archway—shoulders back, long obsidian hair falling straight to her waist. She wore no house crest, no rank band. Just the standard uniform, pristine and cold.
Her gaze swept the crowd like a blade.
And above her head…
> LP Score: 0
Status: Transferee
Name: ???
The crowd froze.
Zero LP.
Not even a base score.
Not possible.
Every student started with at least a base compatibility rating—2, maybe 3, even the lowest-rankers.
But this girl had nothing.
She stepped into the room.
Every movement was graceful, calculated. Too precise.
The algorithm didn't recognize her. The system didn't categorize her. And no one had seen her before.
Yet she walked as if the Academy belonged to her.
Madame Virelle's gaze flickered toward the head table. Her lips pressed into a thin line. Even she hadn't expected this.
A few steps behind, a silent faculty member followed, holding a data-slate glowing red with system overrides.
The girl stopped only once—her gaze landing directly on Luna.
The screen glitched. A flicker of static.
Then—
> "New Trial Candidate: Initiated"
Gasps rippled again.
"But the Trial just ended—"
"She's not even in the LP system!"
"She's... outside the algorithm?"
The mysterious girl tilted her head slightly.
And then she smiled—but it wasn't warm.
It was like the calm before another storm.
The hush had not lifted.
All attention snapped from Luna and Leejun to the girl with zero LP.
Han Chohee.
Madame Virelle cleared her throat, but the tension didn't break.
"At this time," she said, "we welcome a new student—transferred under exceptional circumstances. Han Chohee, assigned to House Virelle pending placement."
Students whispered faster now.
"Han? Like—Han Leejun?"
"No way. She's his sister?"
"Adopted," someone corrected, as if that explained everything.
Leejun's face was unreadable, but his shoulders had gone rigid. Luna turned to him, brows furrowed.
"You didn't know she was coming?"
"She wasn't supposed to," he said quietly. "She didn't even pass the pre-screenings for LP integration."
Chohee stepped further into the light, now fully visible under the crystal display. Her eyes swept the crowd without flinching, but when they met Leejun's—just for a breath—they softened.
No one noticed. Except Luna.
And in that moment, Luna saw something in Chohee that made her heart squeeze.
That look—like she was bracing herself for the world to crush her before she could prove she belonged.
It was the same look Luna had worn her first week here.
The silence thickened, but Luna stepped forward. Just one pace.
Everyone noticed.
Leejun turned to her in surprise. "Luna?"
But she didn't stop.
Chohee's eyes widened slightly as Luna crossed the gap between them. Every step echoed against the marble floor.
And then—
"Hi," Luna said, gently. "I'm Luna."
Chohee blinked. "I know who you are."
A few scattered chuckles from the crowd, but Luna smiled anyway.
"I saw your score," she said softly, not to shame her—but to reach her. "Doesn't scare me."
Chohee tilted her head. "It should."
But there was no venom in her voice. Just warning.
Luna stepped closer, lowering her voice. "LP scores didn't mean much for me either. Not at first."
For the first time, Chohee faltered.
And something in her gaze cracked—like the smallest fissure in armor long-forged.
"You don't have to be alone here," Luna said.
Chohee didn't answer.
But she didn't walk away either.
Behind them, the crowd simmered with tension and curiosity.
And beside them, Leejun watched—torn between protectiveness and awe.
For the second time in a single day, Luna had changed the script.