The Misread Deadline

After playing the part of the cowardly, universally despised male lead, I had finally completed my mission.
Before faking my death, the System gave me one day to say goodbye to my targets.
After three years of biting my tongue, I let loose, going scorched-earth on each and every one of them.
Ive been sick of you for ages, you damn poser!
Three years of tutoring and your brain is still underdeveloped? Are you an idiot?
Who in their right mind would want to be engaged to an old woman like you? You've already got one foot in the grave!
Just as I sent the last message, basking in the glow of sweet satisfaction, the System shrieked in my head.
We're screwed, Host! I misread the date
Your actual exit date is in SEVEN DAYS! Aaaah!
Me: "?"
The next second, the doorbell rang, sharp and frantic.

1
This was my third year playing the part of the universally despised male lead.
And I had finally completed my mission.
For three long years, Id been the timid, spineless protagonist everyone loved to hate. A ghost at school, my adoptive sisters beck-and-call boy at home. I had no friends, and my familys affection was a currency I could never afford.
My only stroke of luck was an arranged engagement, a marriage alliance set up by the family. But on the day of the engagement party, the truth detonated: I was the wrong son, switched at birth. A fake heir.
The real Sterling heir had been found.
In an instant, the worlds scorn, which had been a steady drizzle, became a hurricane directed straight at me. I was, once again, public enemy number one.
Perhaps that was the final straw. The System, silent for three years, finally flickered back to life.
Congratulations, Host. The Universally Despised mission is complete. A substantial reward awaits you.
Tomorrow, you will return to your original world.
I blinked, processing. "What about the 'me' in this world?" I asked.
The System chuckled reassuringly. Don't you worry about that. Hell just disappear.
It sounded too easy.
"Are you sure this is it? The final curtain? No more missions?"
The System puffed out its digital chest. Absolutely! You can cash your check and check out tomorrow!
A wave of relief washed over me. The System granted me one final day to say my goodbyes. But as I thought about it, who was there to say goodbye to? My death would probably cause less of a ripple than a stone tossed in the ocean.
Bored, I picked up my phone, scrolling through my contacts. Just then, it buzzed. A message from "The Poser," my nickname for her.
I'll have the tailor send your suit for the gala tomorrow.
For God's sake, don't wear one of your own hideous ones. You're an embarrassment.
That was my sister, Isabella Sterling. Or rather, my adoptive sister now. The true-born daughter of the family. From the moment I entered this world, shed looked at me with nothing but disdain. She was a creature of sour moods and venomous words, constantly belittling me. My taste was trash, my intelligence laughable. A kind word from her was rarer than a unicorn. My very presence seemed to offend her senses.
But she was the Sterling heiress, Dads only daughter. No one dared cross her. Even Mom told me to just grit my teeth and bear it.
I had borne it. For three years. Id been her doormat, her errand boy.
But I was leaving tomorrow.
And today, I was done bearing it.
Me: You think your taste in clothes is any better?
Me: Attachment: Image
Me: Is this supposed to be a suit or a pile of shit?
Me: That wasn't a typo.
Me: You act like youre some fashion guru, but honestly, even with your rotten personality and non-existent friends, exactly zero people give a damn about you.
A long pause followed. Then, a single question mark appeared from Isabella. The shock must have short-circuited her brain. The "typing..." indicator blinked on and off for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, she wrote: What's wrong with you?
My fingers flew across the screen.
Nothing's wrong with me.
I'm just sick of your bullshit.
You damn poser.
Silence. She was probably seeing red, a fury so pure it could power a small city. What did I care? I put her on mute.
A soft knock on my door. A maid peeked in. "Mr. Sterling, the car is waiting. It's time for your school event."
Even as the fake heir, my parents felt some lingering obligation, enough to see me through high school.
The ride to school was heavy with unspoken tension. The driver, sensing the storm brewing at home, was silent, afraid to say the wrong thing.
The car hadn't even come to a full stop when I opened the door and a furious voice lashed out.
"Bruce, do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you?"

2
I looked up. A girl stood before me, chest heaving with rage, her eyes shooting daggers. I gave her a slow, deliberate once-over.
"And why, exactly, were you waiting for me?"
Janet Thorntons jaw dropped. "?"
"I was taking pity on you!" she sputtered, her voice incredulous. "No one wants to be your partner for the coming-of-age gala tonight. I was doing you a favor by being your date, and this is the attitude I get?"
The Thorntons and the Sterlings were old family friends. Janet and I were, for all intents and purposes, childhood friends. With her sharp, vibrant beauty, she was one of the most popular girls at school. Our parents had once even floated the idea of an engagement between us.
An idea Janet had publicly and viciously shot down. I still remembered the look of pure disgust on her face, as if shed been forced to swallow a fly.
"Engaged to him?" she had sneered. "Are you insane? Are you trying to make me puke?"
Her very public rejection had made me the laughingstock of our social circle for a solid year. But her reaction had served its purpose, earning me a cool 100 experience points and completing a third of my mission.
Thinking back, I didn't really want to give her a hard time. But then, a couple of her cronies passing by decided to chime in.
"Yeah, Bruce. Making Miss Thornton wait for you? Who do you think you are?"
"Don't tell me you're still playing hard to get. It's pathetic."
Janet's lips pressed into a thin, hard line. She took a step forward, her voice tight with anger. "Bruce. I'm talking to you!"
I looked up, feigning confusion. "What is it? You're blocking my way to the building."
She laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. "Did you not hear a single word I just said? Aren't you even going to apologize?"
I blinked. "Apologize? To who?" I paused for effect. "To you?"
"Do you really think you deserve one?"
Janet froze, stunned into silence.
"You decided to wait for me, but you never told me," I continued, my voice calm. "What am I, a mind reader? And for the record, I never asked you to be my date. So who exactly is this little drama for? Here, let me get you a tissue. Maybe if you squeeze out a few crocodile tears, it'll be more convincing."
Her two hangers-on jumped to her defense.
"Janet was just trying to be nice because she felt sorry for you! And you throw it back in her face!"
"Why are you being so nasty? You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"
I shot them a bored look. "Duh, of course it's on purpose. What's the point of saying it if it isn't nasty?" I looked them up and down. "Did you two share a single brain cell and lose it? As nasty as my words are, the three of you aren't exactly deserving of poetry."
Janet was the first to snap out of it, lunging forward to grab my arm. "Bruce"
My bodyguard smoothly stepped between us.
I glanced back at her, my voice dripping with condescension. "While I'm feeling generous, you've got five seconds to spit out whatever else you have to say."
But the expression on her face wasn't the fury I expected. It was confusion. A deep, unsettling bewilderment.
"Bruce, today you're" she stammered. "Are you sick?"
Id braced myself for an explosion, a tirade, anything.
But this? This was all she had?
I'd been surrounded by a bunch of amateurs. All this time, Id seriously overestimated them.

3
I ignored Janet and headed straight for the principal's office upstairs. I had more important things to do.
A school gala held no appeal for me. It was just an excuse for the beautiful people to dance and take pictures. As the resident outcast, I was never anyone's first choice for a dance partner, so I hadn't even bothered to prepare, showing up in a simple hoodie and jeans.
When I came out of the principal's office, the way people looked at me in the hallway had changed. Their whispers were like the rustling of dry leaves.
"So he's not really a Sterling..."
"That explains it. He never had that Sterling air about him..."
"He and his sister are from two different worlds. Poor Isabella, having to put up with an adopted brother like that."
The winds carrying the news of my true identity had finally reached the school.
I glanced at my phone and saw twenty missed calls. All from Isabella. A number that had been dormant for a decade suddenly flooding my screen with calls and texts. I almost thought shed bought one of those spam-call packages online.
I didn't bother calling back, just tapped open her messages. There were too many to read. The last one caught my eye.
Isabella: I'm coming back tomorrow.
She was still overseas on a business trip. I stared at the message, unsure how to respond. Finally, I just locked my phone. Whatever. It was her house. She could come and go as she pleased.
As I was heading downstairs, I ran into Janet again. She was dressed in a formal gown, her features sharper and more mature than I remembered. Seeing me, her lips tightened, suppressing her irritation.
"Bruce, why haven't you changed yet?" she demanded in a low voice.
"I'm not dancing," I said, frowning.
Janet seemed to be on a different planet today. From past experience, her dance partner for the night should have been Alex Ryder, the most popular guy in our year.
As she was about to say something else, my bodyguard stepped forward, politely but firmly blocking her path.
"Miss Thornton, Mr. Sterling is engaged to Miss Lockwood."
Janets expression instantly turned to ice. "I know that! You don't have to tell me!"
I cupped a hand to my ear. "Let's go," I said to the bodyguard, turning away.
Once in the car, I saw a few of Janet's friends swarm around her. They were whispering and gesturing towards my familys car, smirks on their faces. Janet's expression shifted from confusion to utter shock. I could guess what they were telling herthe juicy gossip about my parentage.
The car began to move.
Suddenly, Janet shouted my name, her voice filled with urgency. "Bruce!"
She started running after the car, her gown hindering her steps. The driver accelerated, and the window slid shut, cutting off the sound of her frantic calls. I watched her figure shrink in the rearview mirror until she was just a tiny, dark speck.
I turned to the bodyguard beside me. "What do you think she's doing?"
He considered this for a moment. "Training for a marathon, perhaps."

4
When I got home that evening, the head maid hurried to greet me.
"Mr. Sterling, Miss Lockwood came by this afternoon," she said. "She left when she found you weren't home."
Eleanor Lockwood. My fiance. But since the news about my identity broke, she hadn't contacted me for a week. The engagement was nothing more than a business arrangement brokered by our parents. I understood she had no feelings for me.
"What did she want?" I asked.
The maid thought for a moment. "She said she couldn't reach you, so she came to check."
My parents were away, and Isabella was out of the country. It was just me and the staff at home.
I pulled out my phone. Sure enough, buried under a pile of group chat notifications was Eleanors icon, glowing with a red dot.
Are you free? Id like to talk about the engagement.
My impression of Eleanor was neutral. She was conventionally attractive, but her eyes were cold, and she had a habit of looking down her nose at people. We had only met four or five times, and each time she was like a statue. No matter what I said, no matter what topic I tried to broach, she would turn her head away, her disinterest a palpable force field. She wouldn't even spare me a glance.
I'd heard she was a prodigy, skipping grades since elementary school before returning from abroad to take over her familys company. An alliance with her was, frankly, above the Sterlings station. But the Lockwood family owed ours a debt from long ago, so I was the one who lucked out.
Eleanor was probably resentful, but she couldn't defy her family. So she took her frustration out on me with a suffocating cold shoulder. I, in turn, was an expert at quietly taking the abuse. After a while, Id almost forgotten what she looked like, except for the memory of a very sharp jawline.
I dialed her number and put it on speaker, busying myself with other things.
"Bruce," her voice, steady and cool, came through the phone. "I called to discuss the engagement party."
Our first attempt at an engagement party had been spectacularly derailed by the whole "real heir" drama, forcing a hasty postponement.
"Nothing to discuss," I said casually. "I'm calling it off."
Silence on the other end.
Then, "You're calling it off? Why?"
"No reason," I said breezily. "Just don't feel like being engaged to you."
I was leaving tomorrow. The kid gloves were off. I was done playing their game. It was time they realized they weren't the center of the universe.
"Look, I'll be blunt," I explained with mock sincerity. "It's your age, you know? I don't have a geriatric fetish."
Her voice was tight, suppressing a volcano of rage. "I am only six years older than you."
"Only six years?" I exclaimed, feigning shock. "That's huge! You'll be thirty in a few years. After thirty comes forty, and after forty, you're halfway to the grave. It won't be long before you're pushing up daisies."
Eleanor took a deep, shuddering breath. Each word sounded like it was being ground between her teeth. "Who told you to say that?"
I was losing patience. "That's not important. The point is, you're getting on in years. Let's just call it a day and go our separate ways."
Without waiting for a reply, I hung up. The key to winning these arguments was never to let them drag you into justifying yourself. I might be the fake heir, but so what? In this narrative, she was the old one, and I was the one who couldn't be bothered.
With that mess handled, I opened my phone, accepted a new friend request, and sent over a list of instructions for the new house. Time for a long bath and a good night's sleep.
Just before bed, I summoned the System one last time.
What time are you picking me up tomorrow?
The System seemed off. It stammered, unusually solicitous. Well about that
Why don't you get some rest first? You've had a long day.
After fighting three battles with three different people, I was exhausted beyond belief. I figured the System was just busy and didn't think much of it. I'd sleep soundly, and when I opened my eyes, Id be back home in my own world.
And I did sleep soundly. In my dreams, I was a master of martial arts, leaving my tormentors bruised and beaten. I woke up feeling sore all over.
I yawned and stretched, habitually reaching for my phone.
It had exploded with missed calls and unread messages.
The Poser: I'm almost home. I brought a doctor.
The Firecracker: I knew it was the fake heir thing that pushed you over the edge. I'm coming to see you!
The Ice Queen: I was up all night thinking. Is someone else trying to steal you away? We need to talk. In person.
Downstairs, the maid's panicked voice drifted up.
"Mr. Sterling, you have guests"
"And I don't think it's just one"
Seriously? You guys move this fast?
"System!" I hissed. "Get me out of here, now! They're storming the castle!"
There was a long, painful silence before the System spoke, its voice barely a whisper. Host I I misread the date
A cold dread washed over me. "And?"
The System offered a weak, digital laugh. Your escape date is actually in seven days
I froze.
What?

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