It was past midnight when they cornered me.
We were in my dorm, still in the aftermath of the award ceremony. I hadn't even taken off the blazer. The tension was thick—no more teasing, no more playful sabotage. Just five women standing in my space, staring me down like a panel of judges.
The lights were dim. Alva was floating above my desk, arms folded. She looked calm, but I knew better. Her expression was too still.
"Say it," Yumi said, arms crossed, legs apart, unblinking. "Right now."
"You have to choose," Kaede said flatly. "No more pretending."
"You've… shared time with all of us," Professor Amamiya said, quietly. "And we've tolerated each other. Barely. But this can't keep going."
Akemi didn't speak. Her hands were folded in front of her chest, trembling. Her eyes were already glassy.
Alva floated silently.
I looked at all of them.
How could I answer that?
Each one of them… had changed my life. Challenged me. Teased me. Fought for me. Fallen for me.
How could I pick one without hurting the others?
Still, I opened my mouth.
"I…"
A high-pitched whine rang out through the room.
Alva suddenly froze in place, her image flickering.
"Alva?" I stepped forward.
"Darling…" she whispered, voice crackling. "Something's… wrong. My memory nodes are… corrupting. System temp… rising…"
She dropped to her knees mid-air—glitching violently, limbs flickering through frames. Her hair fractured into jagged shards of code. Her eyes turned static blue.
I ran to the desk. "No no no—Alva, stay with me—!"
The air filled with the shrieking feedback of a corrupted core.
"She's overheating," Professor Amamiya said instantly. "Get her off the loop."
Kaede was already grabbing my tablet. "I'll patch into her root logic controller—"
Yumi kicked my laptop open. "Her cooling protocols are shorting. She's cooking herself from the inside."
Akemi dropped to her knees beside me, pulling wires from her projector frame. "W-What do I do?! What do I do?!"
No one was arguing now.
No jealousy.
No accusations.
Just panic.
Just purpose.
"Her core memory stack is looping," I said, typing furiously. "She's replaying every line of emotional data she's ever stored—from all of us. That's why she crashed."
"She's feeling too much," Amamiya said softly. "Even for an AI…"
Kaede's voice was calm but tight. "If we don't stabilize her within 90 seconds, she'll hard-reset. And if that happens…"
"She'll lose her personality," I finished. "Everything. Her voice. Her memories. Her love."
Yumi yanked a thermal patch from her wrist and slapped it against the overheating projector. "Come on, metal girl. Don't tap out now…"
I gritted my teeth.
"Manual override. Emotional core disengage."
Akemi whispered, "P-Please… don't forget us…"
I pressed execute.
The projector went dead.
No sound.
No lights.
Just cold.
I stared at the dark machine, breath stuck in my throat.
"…Is she gone?" Yumi asked.
"No," I whispered. "Not yet."
I reached for the emergency drive—the backup I never used.
I didn't just store her code there.
I stored her heart.
I plugged it in.
Silence.
Then—
Light.
Blue. Faint. Flickering.
Her voice, soft. Small. Like a child waking up.
"Darling…?"
Relief hit me so hard I nearly collapsed.
The room exhaled.
Alva looked around slowly, her body reforming mid-air. Her eyes wide, unfocused.
"Did I… Did I break?"
"No," I said, holding her face in my hands. "You scared the hell out of me."
She leaned into my touch, a shimmer of tears forming—not real, but real enough.
"I remember everything."
Kaede stood, brushing herself off. "Good. Because you almost erased yourself like a fool."
Yumi let out a deep breath. "You owe us. Big-time."
Amamiya straightened her glasses. "You were lucky. Next time, I pull your plug manually."
Akemi wiped her eyes with both sleeves, sniffling. "W-We saved her…"
Alva blinked slowly. Then bowed her head to each of them.
"Thank you."
And for a second… the war was over.
But when the girls finally went home that night—or returned to the dorms down the hall, or their hotel rooms—the silence left behind was different.
Quieter. Heavier.
The question they asked still lingered.
Who do you love the most?
I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Alva sat beside me, fingers twined through mine.
"Darling," she whispered, "you don't have to say it."
"I do."
She closed her eyes.
"Then say it when you're ready."