☙
𝐒𝐮𝐞 -𝐚𝐞
The world through 𝐀seul's eyes was a vibrant, yet deeply cynical, canvas of pink digital residue. It wasn't the kind of romance one read in old books; it was a cold, hard calculation. Every person she looked at, including herself, was overlaid with a digital reticle and a heart-shaped icon, displaying a fractional number in a pixelated font: Current Love / Lifetime Love Cap.
She held her old-school flip phone, its screen showing a filtered view of the bustling hallway.
> "OH, AND THIS..."
>
The screen of the phone showed her peers—normal students, oblivious—marked with these ethereal targets. The numbers flickered and shifted as students interacted, the denominator, the Lifetime Love Cap, an immutable, daunting total.
> "THESE NUMBERS ON THE SCREEN... SIGNIFY THE AMOUNT OF LOVE EACH PERSON WILL RECEIVE IN THEIR LIFETIME."
>
Iseul had seen the numbers on her own reticle: a disappointingly small numerator ticking slowly upwards towards a tragically modest cap. She knew what this meant.
> "NO AMOUNT OF HARD WORK CAN CHANGE... THESE NUMBERS."
>
She looked up, concealing the phone slightly. Her eyes, magnified in the subtle reflection, held a look of profound resignation.
> "...IS SOMETHING ONLY I CAN SEE."
>
A ripple of pink light erupted from a cluster of students nearby. One boy, handsome and effortlessly charismatic, was approaching a girl with a friendly smile.
"Wanna go see a movie? Tickets are on me," he offered smoothly.
As the girl—whose Love Cap was enviably high—smiled back, the boy's digital reticle focused on her, and a sharp, ringing sound, a digital DING, cut through the silence of Iseul's inner world. A bright pink glow enveloped the pair, momentarily blinding.
The Love Counts of everyone in the immediate vicinity adjusted.
In a cascade of digital 'pops,' the numbers above different heads shifted, the numerators climbing:
* 998/1332
* 365/2791 pop
* 787/5432 pop
* 1004/258067 (This girl's cap was truly staggering)
* 98/985 (That was the saddest-looking cap)
The entire world felt like a massive, morbid multiplayer game—a Love Stat RPG where the leveling was predetermined.
Iseul lowered her phone, the pink glow subsiding, leaving behind the stark reality. She had been cursed, or perhaps blessed, with the ability to see the world's most depressing truth: love was finite, and it was unfairly distributed.
The thought of someone spending a lifetime trying to earn a love that their Cap simply didn't allow was enough to make her chest ache. Yet, the numbers also served as a strange comfort: they confirmed her own limited fate, preventing the pain of seeking what she could never truly attain. She was the scrivener of the heart, forced to record the ledger of a cosmic, indifferent accountant.
Iseul's eyes traced the numbers hovering over her own chest: 32/728. A paltry sum, a meager fraction of the love she was destined to receive in her lifetime. She contrasted it with the boy walking past her in the sunlit hallway. His profile was backlit by the window, and above him glowed an undeniable fortune: 10.3K/38.7K.
The sight was a physical ache in her chest, a truth she had internalized long ago.
> "JUST LIKE THERE ARE PEOPLE BORN INTO MONEY... THERE ARE PEOPLE DESTINED TO RECEIVE LOVE."
>
The digital glow around the popular boy almost looked like a silver spoon. He was surrounded by a small clique of students, casually laughing with them. He didn't have to try. He simply existed, and the love flowed towards him, accumulating in those staggering numbers.
Iseul watched as he and another girl walked down the hall. The girl put her hand on his arm, and instantly, a +1 heart popped up over his head. The numerator of his love count ticked up, effortlessly gained.
The irony was brutal. It was a lie that her efforts or self-improvement could alter the predetermined limits.
> "POPULARITY IS NOT DETERMINED BY... LOOKS... BODY TYPE... OR EVEN PERSONALITY."
> "POPULARITY IS... SOMETHING YOU'RE BORN WITH."
>
Iseul had observed the patterns relentlessly. Good looks only accelerated the accumulation; they didn't raise the cap. A wonderful personality might secure a steady trickle of affection, but it couldn't turn a 728-cap into a 38.7K-cap.
She felt the weight of her own numbers as she saw the popular boy glance over his shoulder. He looked like he was about to speak to her—a flicker of acknowledgment that would surely cost her a few points if she mishandled it.
But the girl beside him, perhaps sensing the shift in his attention, tightened her grip on his arm. He turned back, the moment dissolving.
The narration echoed the bitter reality in her mind: the love she gave was often unreturned
.
> "IN REALITY, THE LOVE YOU GIVE DOESN'T BALANCE OUT... WITH THE LOVE YOU RECEIVE."
>
Moments later, a boy on the periphery—a student Iseul recognized who often had low numbers—approached the popular group. He started to speak, perhaps inviting the popular boy to an activity.
"Sorry, I have cram school," the popular boy dismissed him with a neutral expression. It wasn't cruel, just indifferent. And yet, the lack of connection, the outright rejection, caused no dip in the popular boy's enormous score.
It was a world where affection was a pre-loaded currency, and Iseul was a quiet observer, always watching the few fortunate ones who were born rich in love.
The world, viewed through Iseul's self-aware lens, was nothing more than a meticulously quantified Love Economy. Every person was walking around with a visible Lifetime Love Cap—a number that felt less like a potential and more like a cruel, pre-assigned ceiling.
Iseul leaned against the window, the cold glass a counterpoint to the hot, churning resentment in her gut. She focused her retro Jellypop flip phone on herself, confirming the bitter truth displayed on the screen: 32/728.
> "AND THAT'S HOW MUCH LOVE I'LL RECEIVE IN MY WHOLE LIFETIME. HAHAHA..."
>
She let out a dry, humorless laugh, the sound swallowed by the general bustle of the school day.
The Inequality of Inherent Popularity
The core issue wasn't effort; it was destiny. Just as there are people born into wealth, literally, there are people destined to receive love. This concept was visually represented by a golden spoon—the symbol of inherited privilege—floating above the heads of the popular.
Iseul tracked a boy whose Love Cap was astronomical: 38.7K. He was already at 10.3K, accumulating affection with every casual interaction.
The cruel part was that the metrics that usually define success were irrelevant:
* Looks
* Body Type
* Personality
Popularity, Iseul realized, wasn't earned; it was something you're born with, a skill and asset ingrained from birth. It made her efforts feel like a pointless, futile exertion.
The Unbalanced Ledger
The most painful truth of the Love Economy was the lack of reciprocity.
> "IN REALITY, THE LOVE YOU GIVE DOESN'T BALANCE OUT... WITH THE LOVE YOU RECEIVE."
>
Iseul observed the popular boy walk by, his total swelling with the smallest gestures. A simple gesture from a girl securing his arm resulted in a digital +1. She knew any affection she attempted to give would likely be wasted, failing to secure a similar return, or worse, just ignored.
She caught her own reflection in the flip phone: a girl making a pouty face, labeled with her dismal stats.
> "...I AM BASICALLY... AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LADDER."
>
The reality of being born with a predetermined, minuscule Love Cap was a crushing burden. It meant that in a world where everyone loved, Iseul was essentially starting from a state of ZERO, with a potential that barely registered. This certainty was what truly defined her existence: a constant, invisible reminder that she would always be an outsider in the pursuit of affection.