f o u r 

Kira watched as Baekhyun left without another word. A frown settled on her face, confused for so many reasons. One, that Baekhyun seemed inherently annoyed over his reputation when he never used to care. Two, that she actually agreed to the absurdity of his proposal. Not only would it cause people to look, whisper, and stare, they would now become an unnecessary point of attention when Kira wanted nothing more to lay low as long as she stayed there.

But at this point, it didn’t matter anymore. He needed her as much as she needed him. Contrary to what people said that reputation wasn’t as important in high school as it did now in college, it still mattered to her. She brought her family’s name everywhere she went, just as Baekhyun wasn’t just Baekhyun and she wasn’t just Kira. No, he was the grandson of ByunCorp’s chairman, and Chise Akira was the heiress of Chise Group of Companies – one of the biggest companies to have dominated the entire South East Asia ever since the first generations.

It made sense to her now how she got into such a prestigious academy as this one despite her...not so impressive academic skills. Kira knew she wasn’t dumb, but finance was one of her weakest subjects, and her silent struggles would forever have to remain silent lest she wanted her precious attributes taken from her.

Kira sighed. In the eyes of others, people like her and Baek – young, attractive, part of the top tier of the society who had more money than they could use for – had everything. She supposed she did. Born with blessed genes and a net worth with more digits than she could count, she had a plethora of man’s material needs, but at what cost did it come? The fact that her name wasn’t hers to identify herself but rather something people to associate her with her family? The fact that she had no freedom and ironically enough, could never buy herself out of her misery? Or was it the fact that even if she didn’t want to, she had no choice but to follow the footsteps of her parents because she didn’t know anywhere else to go?

The answer was simple. She wasn’t her own person. She wasn’t even a normal young woman at this point. Everywhere she went, she’d have the brand of her family following her with the surname Chise tattooed across her forehead, a reminder that she was as untouchable as she was imprisoned in her own name. 

Kira wanted to laugh at that. Maybe this was why humans were so careful in giving their names to fairies. Fairies were conniving little creatures who would innocently ask for your name in return of a request or their companionships. Humans, feeble and ignorant, wouldn’t hesitate in complying as long as they got their end of the deal in exchange of something, completely unaware that these fairies would be using their precious names for something sinister.

Control. Enslavement. Property. Possession.

All it took was a name for someone’s entire life to be reduced into that.

Such a simple name – Chise Akira. Yet for this world, it meant so much more than that. Now she understood why this Kira had taken precautions into making several private accounts to be completely herself without the fear that anyone from her family’s employees could track her. Now she understood the prerequisites the Kira of this world took in making her real self – ironically the one hidden from the world – and the Kira she was supposed to be co-exist. 

In fact, she’d done such a great job at switching back and forth from the two identities Kira didn’t know which was which. She didn’t know who she was supposed to be.

At the back of her head, she could smell French sea air, along with the poignant aroma of freshly grinded coffee beans and sand crinkling between her toes. A getaway – a vacation somewhere in an old rest house in France owned by the