Kiana was right.
In an amusement park, it seemed everyone was speaking at the top of their lungs and screaming with total abandon, and absolutely no one judged them for it.
"WAAAH!!!"
As the drop tower plummeted, Kiana's voice rang out from the seat beside him. Just as she had said, she was screaming without restraint, as if trying to expel every last emotion pent up inside her.
All her frustration, all her pain, everything she had been bottling up was seemingly released in this single moment.
Is that really it?
Shu watched her venting emotions she wouldn't normally dare to express, using a machine that probably didn't even fall as fast as she could run on her own. Then, the rushing wind blurred his vision.
He didn't quite get a clear look...
So, Shu and Kiana found themselves boarding the roller coaster next. This time, as soon as the safety harness locked down, Shu kept his eyes fixed firmly on Kiana's face. He was going to watch her carefully...
Suddenly, Kiana whipped her head toward him, an expression of sheer horror on her face. She raised her free hand and displayed a small object between her fingers.
Shu's attention was instantly derailed.
Huh? A screw?
Where did she get...
"Shu, your seat—!" Kiana stared at his safety harness with wide, panicked eyes.
Shu's face went pale.
Clack—
"Wait—!" The word nearly shot out of his mouth before he realized something was wrong.
If that screw had genuinely come from his seat, Kiana wouldn't be sitting there showing it to him. She would have already grabbed him and leapt off the ride right then and there.
Sure enough, when he looked back at her, Kiana was sporting a wicked, shit-eating grin.
"Wow..." Shu breathed out, completely defeated. "Where did you even get that?"
He wasn't angry about being pranked. He was just genuinely impressed that Kiana had managed to stash a loose screw just to scare him—all while holding his hand the entire time.
"Hehe, I found it back at the house," Kiana boasted proudly, revealing her mastermind plot.
What? At the house?
"So this was premeditated?!" Shu's face scrunched up like a prune. He was totally outmatched.
Who said Kiana was simple-minded? When it came to pulling pranks, she was a tactical genius!
Shu was about to say more, but he suddenly realized the slow clacking of the ascending coaster had stopped.
At the exact same moment, the grip on his hand tightened.
Wait—
The coaster crested the peak. After a agonizing half-second pause, gravity took the wheel, and the train plummeted straight down the sheer drop!
"OH, SHI—!!!"
In a world spinning completely out of control, the sheer G-force made Shu feel like the chassis beneath him was going to rattle itself into pieces. He couldn't even tell which way was up anymore.
The thin padding on the safety bar offered zero cushioning; it just dug painfully into his shoulders and ribs.
Shu didn't feel any thrill. All he felt was his body's desperate, screaming protests against this "extreme sport."
"Ugh..."
At a snack stall near the roller coaster exit, Shu slumped limply in a chair. Beside him, Kiana was gently rubbing his back to help him catch his breath.
"Uh... are you okay?" Kiana asked guiltily. She knew exactly why Shu was in this state.
It was all because she'd distracted him, making him completely miss the window to mentally prepare for the drop.
"I'm fine," Shu wheezed. His recovery rate was top-tier. It was just a bit of physical discomfort; the only lasting effect was a lingering sense of dread when he looked at certain rides.
But Kiana didn't see it that way.
She was genuinely afraid he was going to just drop dead right here. She couldn't help it—this version of Shu was much squishier than the one she was used to.
"Maybe we should relax for a bit..." Kiana suggested sincerely, pointing toward the park's internal food street.
Shu: "..."
"Hehe..." Kiana laughed sheepishly, but her skin was thick. She met Shu's gaze head-on, completely shameless about her ulterior motives.
"Alright, fine..." What else could he do?
He was happy to oblige.
—
The joyous hours at the amusement park flew by in a blur, and Shu once again experienced the terrifying, boundless stamina of an energetic teenage girl.
Kiana dragged him back and forth across the massive park all day, never tiring of any of the attractions.
The pirate ship, the giant pendulum, the bumper cars, the swing ride, the log flume... She dragged him onto some of them more than once.
"Shu, have you really gone bungee jumping before?" Standing at the edge of the jump platform, Kiana—already strapped into a harness—looked effortlessly relaxed. She glanced sideways at Shu, whose entire body was rigid with tension.
"I told you, I only tried it once!" Shu gritted his teeth, his jaw locked tight. "Just once! And a normal person would be nervous no matter how many times they've done it, right?!"
"Ah... actually, if you do it enough times, you really stop being nervous." Kiana left the second half of her thought unsaid.
If you could actually jump off this tower and take zero fall damage, you wouldn't be nervous at all.
Wasn't that exactly what happened back in Arc City? The moment he realized he had superpowers, he grabbed her, Mei, and Bronya and literally yeeted them all off an overpass!
He was actually quite the daredevil when he wanted to be.
The sensation of free-falling was terrifying to most people, but Shu seemed completely addicted to it.
The drop tower, the pirate ship, the roller coaster... all of these rides offered the thrill of weightlessness. But for some reason, bungee jumping was the one that really got him going.
Kiana had been baffled by it. That is, until the second time they stood on the platform. Watching the impatient way Shu stepped off the edge, Kiana suddenly understood.
Because he had grabbed her and dragged her down with him...
Tethered together, of course. Just a tandem bungee jump. Nothing to freak out over.
It was the feeling of taking control!
Having a favorite activity was a good thing! Kiana immediately dragged Shu back up the tower, and they jumped four or five more times, testing out all sorts of different aerial poses.
They did a running leap. They did the "trust fall" where they fell backward.
And finally, since arriving at the park, Kiana heard Shu let out his first genuine, exhilarated laugh.
That's right.
When you come to an amusement park, you're supposed to smile.
—
Evening was traditionally reserved for the Ferris wheel, but the two of them got sidetracked by a live performance in the park's central plaza.
A concert by a famous singer!
People online loved to mock hardcore fans, but in reality, who wouldn't want to buy a cheap ticket and scream their lungs out alongside thousands of other people, singing along with a "lead vocalist" they didn't even know?
Especially when the song was a massive pop hit that literally everyone knew the words to.
When thousands of voices are belting it out right next to your ear, and the lyrics are already bubbling up in your throat...
Do you sing... or do you stay silent?
"She is—the fantasy crashing through galaxies to fall into my dreams—the power searching for you across the stars—"
She is the only starlight... that life—or perhaps the gods—left behind for me during my darkest days.