"Here we are." Jun opened the door and stepped aside so Su Yi could get a good look inside. "This is where you'll be staying from now on."

"It's great." Su Yi smiled gently at him before following him into the apartment. Then she turned to him, and said, "thank you, Jun. For helping me, I mean."

Jun ignored his reddening cheeks and waved his hand dismissively. "It's nothing. It's what friends do, right?"

"Right." Su Yi beamed and helped him move her suitcase into the bedroom.

Afterward, they both worked together to unpack and sort out the rest of the apartment. After all, it had just been sitting here unused for a long time. Once they were done, they both collapsed onto the sofa and waited for the food delivery to arrive.

It had been a long time since Jun could relax, and he knew it must've been the same for Su Yi.

Living in that house with the vultures, eyeing her every second of the day, waiting for her to screw up so they could send her away somewhere so she wouldn't continue to taint the family name.

Since they were young, he had always protected her in ways that might seem unnecessary to some, but to her, it wasn't. The host Su Yi might not remember the things that Jun had done for her, but the world's Jun and the System did.

It hurt the System to see Su Yi this way, and it, being partly his fault, made it even worse. The one person who was meant to always be there for her hurt her in one of the worse ways possible.

The memories she lost might never come back, and not only was that something Su Yi would have to possibly live with for the rest of time, but so would he. Some days, the guilt was a little too much, but seeing her alive in front of him made it a little easier.

A life without Su Yi was not worth living at all.

It took a lot of mental power for the Systems to manifest in the worlds that the Hosts went to.

Mostly, the Systems stayed in the Host's mind space and spoke to them that way; it was much easier and they could conserve their power for things that were of more importance.

A Host could go their entire world-hopping journey without glimpsing their Systems appearance, so it was even more special that Jun had shown himself to Su Yi.

A melancholy feeling would always appear when he stood in front of a person who had no recognition of him. And the affection and love that had always bloomed on her face whenever she saw him had long since disappeared.

Like now, when he showed up in the room in his specter form, she didn't turn his way and was still conversing happily with the other Jun.

Once again, his hands clenched by his side as he watched her getting along with someone else like she had done with him before the incident.

The funny thing was that the other person was not him, but at the same time, it was him. It was a Jun who had been conjured up by the world's consciousness to play a role that had been his so long ago.

It was laughable, and the pain clawed at his bleeding heart and made him want to rip it out so they could see how torn apart he was.