The V-tuber Who Became Obsessed With Me

Third-Person POV

Ethan barely slept.

Every time he closed his eyes, the phone call replayed in his mind.

Not the words. Those had been simple enough. The meeting had been postponed. That much was clear.

It was the voice that refused to leave him alone.

There was something painfully familiar about it, as though he’d heard it somewhere before and simply couldn’t remember where. Every time he thought he was close to placing it, the memory slipped away, leaving behind nothing but the same uneasy feeling that had settled deep in his stomach.

Jade was still out there.

Somewhere.

And every extra day he remained in someone else’s hands gave his captors more time to do whatever they wanted.

His phone rang before he could sink any deeper into those thoughts.

Susan.

He answered immediately.

"Morning."

"Ethan..."

The moment she spoke, he knew something was wrong.

Her voice sounded strained, as though she had been trying to hold herself together for hours.

"I need your help."

He sat upright.

"What happened?"

"The man I used for the fake passport... he was arrested."

His grip tightened around the phone.

"What?"

"The police raided his place this morning. They took everything. His equipment, his files, his client records." She drew a shaky breath. "Ethan... my name is in those records."

Silence settled between them.

"How bad is it?" he finally asked.

"I don’t know."

Fear had begun to creep into her voice.

"Maybe nothing happens. Maybe they never trace it back to me. But if they do..." She hesitated before forcing the words out. "I could lose everything."

Ethan rubbed a hand across his forehead.

"This shouldn’t have happened."

"I know."

"He’d been doing this for years without getting caught. It doesn’t make any sense."

Neither of them spoke for several seconds.

"Ethan..."

Her voice had grown quieter.

"I’m scared."

He closed his eyes.

"I’ll figure something out."

"You can’t promise that."

"No," he admitted. "But I can promise I won’t leave you to deal with it alone."

The line fell quiet.

"Thank you," she whispered.

After a few more words, the call ended.

Ethan remained seated on the edge of the bed, staring at the dark screen of his phone.

Too many things were happening at once.

Jade’s kidnapping.

The postponed exchange.

Susan’s contact being arrested without warning.

None of it felt like coincidence anymore.

And there was only one person he could think of who hated Susan enough to make something like this happen.

He opened his messages and typed a single sentence.

Can we meet? Sol’s. Thirty minutes.

The reply arrived less than a minute later.

I’ll be there.

Thirty minutes later, Ethan was already seated at his usual table beside the window in Sol’s Café.

The breakfast crowd had thinned, leaving the café unusually quiet. A waitress who recognized him placed a cup of coffee on the table without asking, but he barely looked at it.

His attention drifted toward the entrance every few seconds.

Exactly thirty minutes after sending the message, the bell above the door chimed.

Raina stepped inside.

Their eyes met almost immediately.

She walked over without hesitation and slid into the chair across from him with the same calm composure she always carried. Only this time, something about it felt different. There was no uncertainty in her expression, no trace of the woman who had stood outside his apartment the previous night with tears streaming down her face.

"Thanks for coming," Ethan said.

"You asked."

A waitress approached.

"Can I get you anything, miss?"

"Just water, please."

The waitress nodded and walked away.

Raina glanced around the café before her eyes returned to Ethan.

"I’ve never liked the coffee here."

He frowned.

"Then why did you keep coming?"

A faint smile touched her lips.

"Because you did."

The answer caught him off guard.

"You never noticed," she continued. "You always thought we kept running into each other by chance."

A weary smile crossed Ethan’s face.

"I’ve realized a lot of things lately."

"I’m sure you have."

Silence settled between them.

Neither of them reached for their drinks.

Neither of them looked away.

Finally, Raina folded her hands together on the table.

"So," she asked quietly, "why am I here?"

Ethan held her gaze for a moment before answering.

"I think you already know."

Raina let out a slow breath and leaned back in her chair.

"If this is about Susan, I really don’t have anything to say."

"No." He shook his head. "This isn’t about Susan. It’s about you."

A faint crease appeared between her brows.

"Me?"

"Why, Raina?"

There was no anger in his voice anymore. If anything, he just sounded exhausted.

"Why would you do this?"

She looked at him for a moment, genuinely puzzled.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You do."

He leaned forward, lowering his voice even though there was no one close enough to overhear them.

"I know you had something to do with what’s happening."

For several long seconds, she simply watched him.

Then she smiled.

It wasn’t smug or triumphant. It was the quiet smile of someone who had expected this conversation from the moment she received his text.

"I was wondering how long it would take."

His jaw tightened.

"So it was you."

"I noticed the passport lying on your apartment floor that day," she replied calmly. "The name on it wasn’t Jade’s and I knew you couldn’t have acquired it on your own . The only person that made sense was Susan . After that, I had my people look into it ."

She gave a small shrug.

"The rest wasn’t difficult to figure out. I mean what kinda of amateur leaves money trails lying around for an illegal transaction ?."

Ethan stared at her.

"You went through all that because of Susan?"

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she looked out the window, watching a couple walk past the café before speaking again.

"You know what stayed with me the most about that day?"

He said nothing.

"When you broke up with me... Susan smiled."

Her eyes returned to his.

"It wasn’t obvious. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it."

She paused, her voice remaining calm.

"But I did."

"It was the smile of someone who thought she’d finally won."

Ethan frowned.

"Raina..."

"I couldn’t forgive that."

He searched her face, trying to find the woman he’d fallen in love with.

She was still there.

He caught glimpses of her every now and then, in the softness of her eyes whenever she looked at him.

But there was something else now.

Something colder.

Something that made him feel as though he was talking to a stranger wearing the face of someone he loved.

"You’ve changed."

A faint smile crossed her lips.

"Have I?"

She lowered her eyes briefly before looking back at him.

"Or did I finally stop trying to become the person I thought you wanted?"

He didn’t answer.

She studied him for a moment before asking quietly,

"Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Do you remember college , our second year .

His brow furrowed .

"The rumors that spread after our design project."

"I remember them."

He frowned.

"People said you sabotaged the project."

"Exactly."

She gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

"People said."

She leaned forward slightly.

"Do you remember where those rumors came from?"

Ethan searched his memory.

After a few moments, he slowly shook his head.

"No."

"Susan."

The answer came so calmly that it almost didn’t register.

"What?"

"Susan started them."

He stared at her.

"No... she wouldn’t."

"I knew you’d say that."

There was no anger in Raina’s voice.

Only disappointment.

"She didn’t stand up in class and accuse me. She was smarter than that. She mentioned it to one person, then another, and by the end of the week everyone believed I’d sabotaged the project before I even had the chance to defend myself."

Ethan’s eyes drifted away from hers.

Fragments of those days came back to him.

The whispers.

The strange looks.

People avoiding Raina in the hallway.

He remembered all of it.

He just couldn’t remember where it had started.

"I never knew."

"No."

She nodded gently.

"You never did."

"Because nobody cared enough to find out."

The words landed harder than he expected.

"You’ve always believed the best in people, Ethan," she continued quietly. "It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you."

A sad smile appeared on her face.

"It’s also the reason people have always found it so easy to lie to you."

Ethan let out a slow breath and rubbed a hand across his face.

"So what am I supposed to believe now?"

"I’m not asking you to believe me."

She met his eyes without hesitation.

"I’m asking you to stop believing everyone else is innocent."

She sat back again.

"I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I’m not asking you to excuse them."

Her voice softened.

"But don’t look at me as though I’m the only person who’s ever crossed a line."

"You asked me why I’ve changed." She lowered her eyes to the untouched glass of water the waitress had placed in front of her, her fingers tracing the rim absentmindedly. "The truth is... I don’t think I have."

She looked back at him.

"For months I tried to become the person I thought you deserved. I told myself to be patient. To trust you. To believe that being gentle wasn’t the same as being weak."

A faint smile found its way onto her lips.

"I actually liked that version of myself."

The smile faded almost as quickly as it came.

"Then you broke my heart."

Neither of them spoke.

Outside, a car rolled past the café. Somewhere behind them, a coffee machine hissed before falling silent again.

"I cried," she admitted quietly. "More than I ever thought I would."

She laughed softly, though there was no humor in it.

"I kept telling myself you’d call. That you’d realize you’d made a mistake. That you’d come back and tell me we could fix everything."

She shook her head.

"You never did."

Ethan lowered his eyes.

"I know."

"No."

Her voice stopped him.

"I don’t think you do."

He looked up again.

"Do you know what it feels like to wake up and realize the person you built your whole future around has decided they don’t want you in it anymore?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"I spent days waiting for the pain to go away." She smiled sadly. "It didn’t."

"So eventually I stopped waiting."

A chill settled over Ethan.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I stopped expecting life to solve my problems for me."

She held his gaze.

"I started solving them myself."

"By hurting people?"

"If I have to."

The answer came so naturally that it unsettled him more than if she’d shouted it.

He stared at her.

"This isn’t you."

"Maybe not."

She shrugged lightly.

"Maybe it is."

A heavy silence settled between them.

"I’ve spent my whole life losing people, Ethan. My parents. My childhood. My peace of mind."

Her voice remained calm, but there was an old exhaustion behind it that he had never heard before.

"When I finally found someone who made me believe life could be different..."

She looked at him.

"I lost him too."

Something tightened painfully in Ethan’s chest.

"Raina..."

"So if something stands between us now," she continued, "I don’t wait for fate to deal with it."

Her eyes never left his.

"I deal with it."

The words weren’t spoken as a threat.

They were spoken as though she were explaining a simple fact about herself.

"And one day," she said quietly, "there won’t be anything left standing between us."

For the first time since she’d walked into the café, Ethan felt afraid of her.

Not because she raised her voice.

Not because she looked angry.

Because she genuinely believed every word she was saying.

She saw the fear in his eyes and smiled, though sadness outweighed everything else in it.

"I know that look."

He didn’t deny it.

"You’re wondering if this is the real me."

She looked down for a moment before giving a small shake of her head.

"I’ve asked myself that question more times than you can imagine."

She picked up her handbag and stood.

"You should tell Susan to leave Harrington," she said. "The law isn’t going to be kind to her, and I don’t think this is something that’s simply going to disappear."

She took a step away from the table, then stopped.

"Ethan."

He looked up.

"I meant what I told you."

There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in her voice.

"I still love you."

She held his gaze for another moment.

"And I haven’t given up on us."

Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked toward the exit.

The bell above the café door chimed softly as she disappeared outside.

Ethan remained where he was.

His coffee had gone cold long ago, but he didn’t notice.

He sat staring at the empty chair across from him, replaying every word she had said, wondering whether he had just watched the woman he loved fall apart...

Or whether he had finally met the person she had been hiding all along.