Seiji Fujiwara rose from the sofa without a word.
Long strides carried him across the room to where Mutsumi sat. She kept her eyes on her book, as if she hadn't noticed him at all.
Then he bent down and slid his hand directly into the neckline of her dress, fingers closing around her breast with the casual force of someone kneading dough.
Mai Sakurajima's brain crashed.
Time stopped. Her eyes went wide, locked on the scene through the gap in the door.
What... what is this?
Her gaze fixed on Mutsumi's face.
The scream, the struggle, the resistance she expected... none of it came.
Mutsumi stayed exactly as she was. Book in hand. Head down. Expression unchanged. She didn't even break the rhythm of turning pages.
She sat there like a doll with no nerve endings, as though nothing were happening to her body at all.
Why isn't she reacting? Can she not... feel it?
The blood in Mai's veins seemed to reverse direction, surging to her skull in one instant, then draining to nothing the next, leaving her hands and feet ice-cold.
Wait. Can't feel it? Like me?
Could it...
A violent tremor seized her body.
An absurd thought, and yet one that fit with terrifying neatness, erupted from the chaos in her mind.
Seiji Fujiwara has the same condition I do. Other people can't perceive his existence.
But he was using that power to commit a crime.
The light bleeding through the door crack seemed to freeze the blood in Mai's veins solid.
She thought of herself.
The silent exclusion. The way people's eyes slid past her. Standing in a crowd and being nothing more than a pocket of empty air.
That pain, she'd believed, belonged to her alone.
Now she'd found another of her kind. She should have felt relief.
Instead, this "kindred spirit" was using the same curse as a weapon, violating someone with complete impunity.
He had turned heaven's punishment into a tool for doing whatever he pleased.
And his victim was Mutsumi Wakaba.
The girl with world-class resources, once-in-a-generation talent, and a face that seemed designed by something divine. The flawless princess Mai had built up in her mind.
She could picture it with perfect clarity. In Mutsumi's perception, she was sitting in the private lounge, reading quietly, undisturbed. But an invisible monster was doing obscene things to her body, and she had no idea.
Sympathy for the victim. Fury at the man. And disgust, because someone who shared her condition was using it to assault a girl.
She remembered middle school. The swimsuit shoot. The producer's greasy hands reaching toward her. The table she'd flipped without hesitation.
I won't stand for this.
She couldn't watch an innocent girl be defiled by some monster who abused his power. Not while she stood right here.
She had to act.
Mai shoved the heavy door open.
Bang.
It slammed against the wall.
She stormed in like a cornered animal baring its teeth, pouring every ounce of strength into her voice.
"Stop it! You criminal!"
Her words echoed through the vast, silent lounge.
Seiji's hands went still.
He raised his head. The amusement on his face shifted to surprise.
Someone got in? Are the security teams dead?
The top floor had been cleared. Elevators locked down. Stairwell doors bolted. The protocol was absolute.
Wait. This girl...
His gaze settled on the figure in the doorway, chest heaving with fury.
A face both familiar and strange.
Familiar, because that face had once been a national darling, plastered across every screen and magazine cover in the country.
Strange, because the glow of prodigal brilliance had been replaced by pallor and exhaustion, the toll of malnutrition and years of grinding psychological weight.
Mai Sakurajima?
Seiji stared at the girl who'd burst into his lounge.
The former child star, a household name. In middle school, she'd been pushed into a swimsuit shoot, refused to play along with the industry's unwritten rules, and burned everything down. Her mother's small talent agency collapsed. The family's finances cratered. She was effectively blacklisted.
More importantly, Seiji knew her from his previous life.
Mai Sakurajima suffered from Adolescence Syndrome. Her specific symptom was "cognitive dilution," a condition that caused everyone around her to unconsciously ignore and forget her existence.
Ah. That explains it.
Understanding clicked into place.
The security system hadn't failed. It was simply that no one could guard against a person who "didn't exist." A physical presence that registered as a ghost on the cognitive plane.
This world keeps getting stranger.
I thought we were still in the slice-of-life arc, System?
But these people keep showing up one after another. Megumi Kato, Sakiko Toyokawa... and now Mai Sakurajima.
Are we about to hit the supernatural awakening arc or what?
Seiji kept the commentary internal, studying Mai with an even gaze.
"You... are you going to stop or not?" Mai's voice faltered under the weight of those eyes that seemed to see through everything, but she pressed on. "Miss Wakaba, don't worry! I'm here to help you!"
She directed her words at the person she believed to be the victim.
Based on Mai's own experience, doing something attention-grabbing would cause people to perceive her briefly, a temporary reset of her presence.
But Mutsumi didn't react.
Her gaze never once landed on Mai. From start to finish, Mai might as well have been empty air.
The shout she'd poured her entire being into was nothing more than a breeze no one noticed.
It's gotten worse?
Panic seized her. That familiar, crushing despair clamped down on her heart.
The righteous fire that had driven her through that door was doused in an instant.
Even this isn't enough to make someone see me?
Starting today... am I going to become a real ghost?
In the pit of Mai's despair, Mutsumi finally moved.
She'd felt Seiji's hands stop. The program she'd been running, the role of "girl reading quietly," glitched for a fraction of a second.
"What's wrong?"
She looked up. Those golden eyes, perpetually unruffled, met Seiji's gaze with perfect precision.
Her face was calm. Her voice was flat, without inflection.
"Aren't you going to continue?"
The words detonated inside Mai's skull.
Her pupils contracted to pinpoints. A current raced across her scalp.
A monstrous truth rose from the deep like a leviathan surfacing to feed.
She can see him.
She's talking to him.
She's... asking him why he stopped?
I'm the only one who isn't seen?
Mai's expression cycled through a kaleidoscope of revelation.
This isn't a crime.
This is a man toying with a woman... and the woman knows exactly what's happening.
Mutsumi Wakaba knew she was being touched. She'd known the entire time.
Mai's mind went blank.
Seiji watched the petrified girl in the doorway with open amusement. The journey from righteous fury to shock to dawning horror playing across her face was exquisite.
But the dish already in front of him took priority.
"Nothing." He turned back to Mutsumi, the smile on his lips sharpening.
His hand resumed where it had left off. One hand still kneading her breast, the other slid down her stomach and between her thighs. His fingers pushed her underwear aside and stroked along her slit.
While he fingered her, he narrated aloud, voice pitched for all three of them to hear.
"Look at you, Mutsumi."
His middle finger slid inside her. She was already wet.
"Still reading. But your skin's flushing. Throat to ears."
"Your breathing's off too. Each inhale shorter than the last."
Mai watched, paralyzed.
She saw Mutsumi's fingers whiten where they gripped the page.
She saw the tremor running through her body as Seiji's fingers worked in and out of her pussy.
She saw Mutsumi's ears flush red, vivid against pale skin.
Because Mutsumi could feel everything. She always could.
She was pretending otherwise. Playing the role the Common Sense Modification had written for her.
Miss Wakaba... is playing along with him?
Were they... playing some kind of game?
Confusion swallowed Mai's anger whole.
Seiji leaned closer, lips at Mutsumi's ear.
"Your body's more honest than that face. Your pussy's soaking my fingers. You're enjoying this."
Mutsumi's whole body jerked.
The composure shattered. Her breathing went ragged and a moan slipped through her nose.
The game was over.
Seiji pulled his fingers out, slick and wet. He wiped them on her thigh.
Then, with Mai's horrified eyes still on him, he picked up Mutsumi's underwear from beside the sofa, wrapped it around his cock, and jerked off into it.
Didn't take long. He came into the fabric, then tossed the cum-stained underwear back where it had been.
Mutsumi, now that the session was over, seemed to switch off. She closed her book with mechanical precision and stood.
Her gaze fell on the underwear that had been thrown back.
She saw the cum soaking through the fabric.
One beat of stillness.
Then she picked up the underwear, stepped into it, and pulled it on. His cum wet against her skin. Her face didn't change.
Mai's mind broke.
She's putting it on. With his cum still in it.
This man doesn't see her as a person.
And she just... accepts it.
Terror gripped Mai's heart like a fist of ice, crushing the air from her lungs.
She couldn't stay in this room for another second.
This wasn't a place where humans existed.
This was a devil's shrine.
The color had drained from Mai's face entirely. She turned and stumbled out of the room, fleeing as though the floor itself were swallowing her whole.
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