Sean looked Stephanie over again. Her expression was perfectly normal, yet he found something strange about her. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was.
Aside from her different hair color, she gave Sean much the same impression as Stephanie in the real world. But after being apart for a while, he felt that something had changed in her, even though he couldn't detect what it was.
Lust? Sean checked again and found that Lust was merely standing there quietly, lost in thought.
Strange... Sean released Stephanie's hand. She showed no reaction to his sudden inspection and instead asked, "Are you done?"
"Not yet, um—" Sean blinked, deciding to be honest. "Do you feel that anything is wrong? Whether something happened to you, or the way you feel about me."
Stephanie stared at him thoughtfully for a while, then finally nodded. "I'm gradually starting to feel like... have I met you before? And we should be very familiar with each other."
Sean paused and looked at her in surprise. Was this a connection between their souls?
More than familiar—I'd invented every single one of your poses...
Was this a change brought about by the illusion, or...
Sean's gaze turned much more serious. Could it be that because Stephanie had also entered Peak of Soul's Return, the Stephanie he saw in the illusion had taken on some of her traits?
They clearly weren't in the same illusion, but there was only one soul. Were the real Stephanie and the illusory Stephanie resonating with each other?
Sean looked at her, instinctively wanting to give her a hug, but withdrew his hand halfway through.
He was eight now, while she was eleven... Hugging her somehow felt weird.
Still, that explained where his strange feeling came from. It was the familiar sensation