We knew no bounds... Fell at the speed of sound...


The lyrics of "Just Look Up" washed over the club. Under the strobing lights of the dance floor, Lucy's face seemed to shift, morphing from a stranger's into something painfully familiar.


Suddenly, words from Les Misérables flooded Max's mind. But they weren't just words; they twisted into ancient, alien hieroglyphs, drilling into his brain.


Images flashed like a strobe light: Lovers embracing. Babies crying. The twisted metal of a car crash. The sterile white ceiling of a hospital room.


"What?" Lucy looked at him, confused. "Why are you asking about my blood type all of a sudden?"


"Because," Max muttered, his eyes unfocused, staring at nothing, "sometimes the blood type reveals a person's true nature..."


Lucy giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. "Heh. Is that like believing in Tarot cards? I thought you were a pragmatic guy, Max. Didn't peg you for the superstitious type. Alright then, analyze me. What's a Scorpio's personality like?"


She smiled, convinced this was just part of his game—some elaborate flirting technique.


"Scorpio..." Max let out a long, ghostly sigh. "Scorpio and I... our stars just don't align."


"Uh..." Lucy froze.


With no goodbyes, no, not for me... Your pride put up the fire in the flames...


Max looked up toward the center of the stage. Through the writhing mass of dancers, his gaze locked with Hazel's for a split second before they both looked away.


It felt like déjà vu, or a memory from a life that was both real and an illusion. He had seen this scene before.


This exact moment, mirroring a moment from a different timeline.


The only difference was that in that other life, the girl on stage had been a total stranger. Just a passerby without a name.


The future had changed.


But it hadn't changed completely.


He was like a butterfly flapping its wings, but so far, he was just making tiny ripples in the massive river of time. The inertia of history was a heavy thing. It kept pushing most people along their original tracks, dragging them toward their fate.


It was true for Lucy. It was true for Hazel on stage.


There is no place to hide... True love doesn't die...


"Is that the type you like?" Lucy asked. Her voice sounded a little hurt as she watched Max stare intently at the stage.


Max's "reverse game" had completely thrown her off.


What did I do? she thought. I'm a Scorpio, so what? Why are the stars suddenly against us?


She couldn't tell if he was just incredibly dense or if he was politely telling her to get lost. She glanced at the girl on stage—purple eyeshadow, leather jacket, swaying dangerously with the music. Lucy felt a sudden wave of insecurity.


Was playing the innocent, pure girl a strategic error? Did pragmatic guys prefer the bad-girl flavor these days?


"Of course not," Max denied instantly.


Please, he thought. You're a wolf in sheep's clothing, hiding a dagger behind a smile. She's a rose with thorns. Both of you would shred my hands if I got too close.


"She's just an acquaintance," Max said aloud. "I was just thinking about how fate toys with us. Destiny is a hard thing to fight."


He was talking about Hazel, but he was looking right at Lucy.


For a second, Lucy felt a bizarre panic rising in her chest, like he had just read her entire soul with a single glance.


"Really?" She tried to change the subject, desperate to shake off the awkwardness. "I didn't expect you to know a beauty like that. Is there... a story there?"


A story? Max thought. Yeah. There are two.


In one story, the romance died in a prison cell before it ever began. In the other, it ended with me taking my own life just as things were starting.


But that was a little too heavy for a nightclub conversation.


"No," Max said flatly. "Except for the time she pinned me against a wall, nothing happened."


"Uh..." Lucy blinked.


She pinned him? And he calls that nothing?


Wasn't this guy supposed to be a total deadbeat, a workplace washout?


And yet, could a broke loser really get a beauty like that to pin him against a wall?


Suspicion flickered clearly in Lucy's eyes.


Is this guy just trying to puff up his own value? she wondered.


Just then, the music faded. The singer on stage had swapped out at some point, and the club was gearing up for its next round of chaos. Suddenly, a shadow loomed over their table.


"Uh... hey. What a coincidence," Max greeted, his voice thick with awkwardness.


"Oh, it's a coincidence, alright!" Hazel's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "How did you know I was here? Stalking me?"


"No, no, no! Don't get the wrong idea," Max stammered. "I'm just here with a friend. I had no clue you were the resident singer."


Seriously, he thought, does this woman have telescopic vision? Did she install military-grade contact lenses? How does she spot me in a crowd this big?


"Max," Lucy chimed in, her eyes wide, "Do you two actually know each other?"


Without those oversized black-rimmed glasses covering half her face, Hazel had lost her intellectual vibe and replaced it with pure, unfiltered allure. Her features were softer, yet her charm had skyrocketed.


Even though Lucy hated to admit it, Hazel was in a league of her own—both in figure and looks. Lucy felt a massive, screeching alarm of crisis go off in her head.


"Max? Heh." Hazel turned her gaze to Lucy, sitting opposite Max, and let out a cold, mocking laugh.


"You call him that pretty affectionately, don't you? What's the deal here? Two days ago, you were making a deep, soulful confession of love to me, and today you bring a date to the bar where I work just to show off?" Hazel smirked at Max. "Lining us up back-to-back for a seamless transition, huh?"


I...


Seamless, my foot! Max screamed internally.


He could tell from the playful cruelty in her eyes that she was deliberately trying to torpedo his date.


Sure enough, Lucy's expression turned sour instantly.


It wasn't because she was jealous of their chemistry. It was because she realized... she'd misjudged him. He wasn't a mark; he was a player!


What happened to the honest, simple guy I thought he was?


"Hey, come on! Is that really necessary?" Max sighed, exasperated. "We're neighbors, for crying out loud. If you frame me like this, how am I supposed to show my face?"


He didn't really care what Lucy thought, but he couldn't just let someone slander him out of thin air. The Mason family name had a reputation to uphold, didn't it?


"Frame you? Heh," Hazel scoffed. "Are you denying you confessed your undying love to me?"


"Uh... well, that..."


"Do you want me to get the DJ to play the live recording? Just to heat up the crowd?"


Max broke into a cold sweat.


Heat up the crowd? He didn't know about the crowd, but if she played that recording here, he would die of shame. He'd practically explode out of his shirt.


" Hazel, I was wrong!" Max surrendered instantly.


"Heh! That's more like it." Hazel smiled, satisfied.


"Max," Lucy asked, looking aggrieved like she'd just been force-fed a bowl of dog food, "are you two... in that kind of relationship?"


"Of course not!" both shouted in unison.


They glared at each other. Max cleared his throat.


"Ahem. This is my neighbor. We've only met a few times, but there was a slight... misunderstanding in the middle."


"Misunderstanding? Ha!" Hazel let out her trademark icy laugh, winding up for another verbal assault, when a voice shouted from backstage.


"Hazel! What are you doing? Get back here and take your makeup off! We have a team dinner soon!"


"Okay, coming!"


Hazel shot one last glance at the pair, her eyes sweeping over the two glasses of juice on the table, before letting out a final "Hmph" and storming off.


Thanks to Hazel's little performance, the atmosphere between Max and Lucy had officially turned weird.


"You guys..."


"It's not what you think," Max said tiredly.


"Mm. I can tell. But she seems to hold a pretty big grudge against you."


"It's a long story." Max sighed again.


Lucy had a sharp eye; she could tell there was more bad blood than romance there. But Hazel's appearance had triggered a sense of urgency in her. The blockhead sitting across from her was taking too long to make a move.


I guess I have to take the initiative and drop a bomb, she decided.


"Um... Max," Lucy said, lowering her head and twisting her fingers together, looking the picture of shy hesitation. "I have a question I want to ask you."


It was such an obvious setup, a classic scene. Even if Max were the densest material in the universe, he could see what was coming.


Staring at her face—shy, pretty, and perfectly composed—Max felt his mind drift into a trance.


The scene before him overlapped with a hallucination he'd had earlier. It was as if he had personally lived through this moment before. Not just this moment, but eighteen years of joys, sorrows, partings, and reunions...


"Um... how do you feel... about me?"


"Uh..."