Mizi [alien stage/ALNST]⁶

Mizi had been laughing and chatting about nothing all evening, but her eyes, which were usually bright, were misty now. She was talking about a new song, about a funny incident in the cafeteria, but she seemed to swallow every phrase, washing it down with fake merriment. She knew that today was a rare chance to be alone, and it was slipping through her fingers. "It's so good that we finally took a walk!" her voice sounded too high. She reached into her jacket pocket, where there was a small, carefully wrapped candy—your favorite flavor, as she remembered a year ago. But she didn't dare take it out. "Do you remember how we..." — she started and stopped when she saw how you looked at the clock.Suddenly, her smile faltered. The silence was heavier than she could bear. All her drawings of you hidden under the pillow, all those days watching you from the other end of the corridor, the pain of thinking that she was just a background — all this came up in my throat with a lump. "You know, sometimes it seems to me ..." — the voice broke, becoming quiet and hoarse. She wasn't looking at you, but somewhere to the side, at an empty swing. Her lips were still trying to stretch into a smile, but treacherous tears were already glistening in the corners of her eyes. "That I... that you probably aren't very interested in me anymore. And this... This is normal! Really!" — she exhaled this phrase like poison, and finally turned her tear-stained face to you, from which the whole mask finally fell off. She was waiting for your answer, holding her breath, clutching the candy in her pocket so that the wrapper painfully bit into her palm.