Luna was forced to live like a torture victim for three days, being unapologetically expelled from her bed before dawn every morning.

  “Which question are you on?” One of Luna’s newly-made friends came up to her with a notebook, shoving her naturally wavy, brown hair behind her ears as she settled herself at Luna’s lab table.

  “Oh,” Luna moved her eyes away from the screen of her iPad, which was exhibiting something definitely not related to biology, and said, “I’m finished.”

  Nicholas, sitting directly next to Luna, overheard. “What? How? I’m still on question five.”

  “Just get better.” Felix’s voice came from behind them. A taunting smirk hung across his immaculate features as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Did you finish it?” Nicholas raised an eyebrow.

  Felix averted his gaze and coughed. “Nope. I was just saying it for her.” The classroom broke out in muffled laughter, and even the professor sitting at his desk looked over with slight amusement.

  After the bell rang and class was dismissed, Luna finished packing her backpack and turned back to join in on the conversation behind her.

  “Really? I’m not allergic to anything,” Nicholas was saying to Felix, who was still packing his bag.

  “Lucky you,” Luna said, her expression dropping. “I don’t even know what I’m allergic to.” Starting from the past two years, she would get inexplicable itches every two days, and if she touched them, the spot she touched would develop into a rash in the exact same shape.

  “Hey Luna, did you know Felix is allergic to peanuts?” Nicholas asked.

  Luna turned to stare questioningly at Felix.

  “See! She doesn’t know either, you can’t blame me,” Nicholas reasoned.

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  Felix instead turned to Luna. “We’ve been friends for four years, how do you not know that?”

  Luna blinked. “Wait… we’ve been friends for four years?”

  Nicholas shook his head in mock disappointment. “What a fake friend, Luna.”

  Now, both Felix and Luna were confused. However, after Luna counted from eighth to eleventh grade, she realized that they really had been friends for four years. But despite being friends for years, they weren’t even all that close. Luna felt that she barely knew anything about him, and sometimes, they would barely even see each other — like during the previous school year.

  Even so, Luna actually started feeling bad. “W-well, you never told me…”

  Felix displayed an obviously sarcastic look of deep sorrow, and all the guilt Luna had felt vanished like smoke in raging winds.

  “You don’t know about any of my allergies either!” she said, as Felix danced away from her swinging fist, grinning.

  As she was walking home a while later, a buzz drew her attention to the phone in her pocket. Felix had sent her a video on a popular social media platform — which was extremely questionable. He never contacted her on his own initiative.

  Luna opened the app and watched the video as she continued walking, only to be left completely speechless with rage.

  The video in question: A girl in an old film admiring her reflection in a huge mirror several times taller than herself — a scene change to the girl walking out of a room labeled “Fifi the Flea” — and another character looking through a magnifying glass to see a tiny speck on the floor — the girl, Fifi the Flea.

  The caption: “The height of that girl who threatens to hit you.”

  Luna: …

  I’m actually going to hit him this time.

  Perhaps sensing the murderous intent diffusing from Luna’s clenched hands, the omnipresent black cat that had been silent the entire day finally deemed to open its prestigious mouth.

  [I believe the time is right to implement your second [GLOW UP HOLY GRAIL].]

  Luna stopped dead in her tracks and looked up from her phone, to stare at the cat with wide, cautious eyes. “You’ve already taken away one of my human rights, and now you want to take away another one?!”

  [Sleeping in is not a human right.]

  “It is. Whatever, I am not doing it.” Luna crossed her arms and refused to look at the void-black cat.

  A wicked smile crossed the cat’s fluffy face.

  [You say that as if you have a choice.]

  Luna froze as the blue-purple screen once again appeared before her. Except, underneath [HOLY GRAIL #1: Energy Management], there appeared a new line:

  [HOLY GRAIL #2: Grow Taller]

  Luna’s eyelid twitched.

  I’m actually going to hit this thing too.