He stumbled out of COZMART’s back room, hair a mess, hoodie half?zipped, the aftertaste of cheap toothpaste still in his mouth. The [SYSTEM] overlay blinked up automatically at the edge of his vision.
[Humanity]: 54%
He blinked at it for the third time, as if the number might suddenly decide it had been a typo.
In the front, Chewie was mid?crime.
She stood over the counter trash can, calculus textbook peeled open, fingers hooked under a cluster of pages. The expression on her face suggested the book had personally offended her ancestors.
“What are you doing?” Eathan asked.
Chewie froze. “...Nothing.”
She was still holding the pages in a way that was very, very not?nothing.
He squinted. “Is that your calculus homework?”
“Possibly.”
“Are you about to shred it?”
She shut the book with a crisp snap and jammed it back under the counter. “No.”
“Right.” He stretched, then allowed his HUD to flicker again into visibility just because he could. “Anyway. [Humanity] went up.”
Chewie’s eyes flicked to him, then to the faint glow around his wrist. “The journal?”
“Apparently, logging my feelings is now a buff.” He tapped his arm. “Behold, the power of forced introspection.”
She made a face like she’d bitten a lemon.
“Told you. Captain Li wouldn’t assign you something useless. He’s an overthinker, not stupid.”
“I reserve judgment.”
“Judgement is exactly the thing we do not want you losing,” she said. Then, almost too casually: “Also, remind me—what is ‘Soulce Spring’ and why has it destroyed my training schedule?”
Eathan blinked at the pivot. “…What?”
Chewie slid onto the stool, scowling at the ceiling. “Half my equestrian class spent yesterday shrieking about ‘SS break.’ Instructor said the whole week’s a write?off because all the ‘mortals migrate home to overeat.’” She mimed quotes in the air. “Li Wei also has three memos complaining about ‘holiday staffing gaps.’ So.”
Her eyes narrowed at him.
“What are you doing for it?”
“Oh.” Eathan rubbed the back of his neck, buying a second. “Well COZMART’s on holiday hours, so… Sera mentioned a new café near campus. Good spirit static rep, too. Luke wants to meet up there before he gets shipped off to his family’s yearly cake-eating ritual.”
Chewie stared. “So you’re going to hang out and eat cake instead of training.”
The way she said it was automatic—same flat cadence she used for “you missed a parry” and “your footwork is illegal.” A throwaway jab, meant to sting just enough to be funny.
It still landed.
Something in Eathan’s chest flinched before he could stop it. For a heartbeat, the words didn’t mean cake; they meant while Mister White’s core is drifting somewhere you can’t reach. His fingers tightened around the edge of his sleeve. He forced them loose again.
Guilt flared up, embarrassingly sharp.
“I mean…Captain Li’s training modules.” He heard himself say, too fast and a shade harder than he liked. “He literally said mortal routines are part of the curriculum. Friends, homework, not turning into a full?time haunt—”
“This is… maintenance. It can’t be helped.”
Chewie’s head tilted a fraction. The defensive edge didn’t match the content. For a second she looked like she might poke at it—ask why his shoulders had gone stiff, why he was reciting Li Wei’s advice like an apology.
Then the moment slipped past, the way they sometimes did with Eathan; his face had already smoothed over into his usual deadpan.
“…Uh-huh.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. Go moisturize your soul.”
A beat, and she added, lighter, “If the cake sucks, write a scathing review on InterGram. ‘Portions: tiny. Ambience: lies. Emotional damage: medium.’”
The joke came out a little crooked, but it was her version of a bandage.
“Yeah,” he said. The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Sure.”
Chewie didn’t push. She just swung herself off the stool, slung her bag on, and headed for the door.
“Text me if something tries to eat the café,” she said, adjusting the strap across her chest.
“Same to you and your horse.”
“Horses are prey animals,” she muttered. “They all want to eat me.”
The bell chimed shut behind her.
Eathan exhaled slowly, rolled his shoulders out. The ache under his breastbone didn’t vanish, but it receded enough to live with.
Cake instead of training, huh.
He shoved the thought down, grabbed his jacket, and went to catch the train.
***
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
The café near campus was new enough to still smell like fresh paint and overpriced optimism. Fairy lights drooped from the ceiling. The chalkboard menu had too many adjectives. Students occupied every other table, laptops open, pretending to study over suspiciously aesthetic drinks.
Emily ditched them after an hour, making apologetic noises about a lab check. Luke was claimed next; his mom video?called, then physically called, then “we need help with the annual family argument about icing flavours” happened.
Which left Eathan and Sera lingering at a small window table, their plates mostly crumbs and fork?trails.
“The cake was actually good,” Sera said as they stepped out into the chill. Their breath puffed white. “I was prepared to be betrayed.”
“High praise,” Eathan said. “I’ll add it to my review. ‘Food: edible. Ambience: confusing. Company: fine.’”
She bumped his shoulder with hers. “Rude. I am at least decent company.”
“Fine. ‘Company: above average.’”
“Much better.”
They walked in comfortable silence for half a block, boots crunching over old leaves. The subway entrance loomed ahead like a glowing mouth. Sera had her camera strap looped twice around her wrist, thumb flicking through the latest shots.
Eathan realized, dimly, that his shoulders had been up around his ears since Chewie’s “instead of training.” The normality of this—their shared orbit of exams and gossip and café reviews—felt almost too easy, like he’d accidentally stepped out of the war for an afternoon.
You spent the afternoon eating cake while Mister White—
“Hey,” Sera said suddenly, half?laughing. “Look.”
She turned the camera toward him.
On the small screen, COZMART glowed in twilight—neon smear, OZMART sign missing its C, interior lit by fridge light. Behind the glass, he could see himself in miniature: head bent over the register, wristpad gleaming.
“You’ve been using my part?time job as homework,” Eathan said.
“For a project,” she corrected. “Urban liminal spaces. Places that look ordinary until you stare too long.”
“Rude again.”
Sera smiled innocently. “You should see the other shots. Campus at 3 a.m., the laundromat that refuses to die, that weird alley behind the library.” She flipped through: Emily half?blurred on Westpoint lawn with Luke juggling a frisbee. Chewie at COZMART, profile caught in the fridge glow. Him just now at the café, mid?laugh with a fork in his hand.
She slowed down over that one, then glanced sideways at him. Her gaze flicked between the camera and his face.
“You ever feel like you’re two completely different people depending on where you are?”
The question landed like a pebble dropped into water. Eathan’s pulse startled.
“Hypothetically,” he said too quickly.
“Like ‘campus you’ and ‘home you’ and ‘strange corner?shop manager you,’” Sera went on, ignoring the deflection. She thumbed back to the COZMART shot, then to the lawn, then to the café. “I’ve been trying to write the blurb for this series and I keep circling that idea. Same person, different… versions.”
He frowned faintly. “Different masks?”
She made a face. “Masks sound fake. I mean more like… exposures.”
He blinked. “Different what?”
“Exposure settings.” She jogged the camera in her hand. “Same subject, different light. Different shutter speed, different ISO—”
“English, please.”
“The photo doesn’t stop being you just because it’s not your whole life in one shot,” she said. “You don’t yell at the picture for not showing your GPA and your childhood trauma and your favourite snack at the same time, right? It’s just… how the light hit you in that second.”
Eathan went very still.
“Like, every time I take a picture of you, I’m not capturing ‘fake Eathan’ or ‘real Eathan.’ It’s all you,” Sera went on. “It’s just that café?you looks different from part-time-job?you because the light and the context and your expression are different in that moment. Doesn’t mean one of them is lying.”
They had slowed without noticing. The subway entrance was a few metres away, light puddling at the top of the stairs. Students flowed around them like water.
Eathan stared at the photo of himself behind the COZMART counter. Hoodie, vest, hair doing that stupid cowlick thing Mister White used to flick. The guilt that had been gnawing at him since Chewie’s throwaway comment squirmed.
“Feels more like I’m a rental body sometimes,” he said before he could stop himself. “Someone else’s… film in my camera.”
Sera stopped walking.
He realized he’d said it out loud a second too late.
“Whoever told you that owes you two cakes,” she said flatly.
He tried to laugh it off. “Metaphorically.”
“No, literally.” She stepped in front of him, blocking his path so neatly he almost ran into her. Her camera bumped his chest. “Eathan.”
Her voice had lost all joking edges. She searched his face in that unnervingly observant way she had when she was composing a shot.
The city rumbled past them, indifferent.
“All you get to decide on, is what version of you takes the picture,” she said. “The rest is just lighting.”
He opened his mouth with a deflection queued—wow, deep for someone who draws cursed caterpillars in the margins of her notes—and the joke just… didn’t make it out.
Because the way she said it wasn’t abstract. It felt terrifyingly specific.
COZMART?him, Westpoint?him, the version of him that had stood under a bleeding sky with antlers shadowing his vision.
Which one gets to be “you” when it counts?
Eathan swallowed.
“That’s a weird amount of faith for someone who’s seen my GPA,” he said instead, voice rougher than he liked.
Sera’s mouth twitched. “Your GPA can’t take photos like that COZMART shot, so it doesn’t get a vote.” She bumped his arm again, lighter. “Text the group chat when you get home. Wherever that is tonight.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I will.”
He watched her disappear down the stairs, camera bouncing against her hip. The word home stuck like a burr.
***
That night, COZMART was back to its usual soundtrack: fridge hum, occasional car whoosh outside, the antique clock ticking away on the wall like it had a permanent grudge against temporal existence.
Eathan sat behind the counter, journal open, pen hovering. The [SYSTEM] layered its new prompt over the page in neat, round font:
[IDENTITY LOG – ENTRY #029]
Dormancy Protocol: Day 94 - 22:57
Prompt: What does “you” mean, right now?
Great. No pressure.
He thought of Jin Chan, of Erzhong Ren, of the arrays humming in the walls. Of Luke arguing with error messages. Of Emily rolling her eyes. Of Sera’s camera and her quiet certainty.
Of Taeril’s empty stool. Of a drifting core in a place called the Realm of the Passing.
He started writing.
[IDENTITY LOG – ENTRY #029]
Dormancy Protocol: Day 94 - 22:57
Prompt: What does “you” mean, right now?
Sera said people are “different exposures” of themselves.
COZMART?me, Westpoint?me, Area?001?me, whatever?Qilin?thinks?I?am.
I keep worrying one of them is fake, and the rest are the “real” me. Like there’s a correct answer and I’m going to choose wrong and get smited by multiple?choice.
Maybe that’s not how it works. Maybe they’re all just angles.
The part I can control is which version of me is holding the camera when it matters.
When we go after Mister White, I want it to be me holding it.
Qilin can help with the focus, but he doesn’t get to decide the shot.
He stared at the last line for a long moment, then underlined me hard enough that the nib scratched.
The page shivered faintly.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION:
Habit Reinforced: Daily Identity Log (current streak: 29)
[Humanity] has increased by 1%! (54% → 55%)
A breath he hadn’t realised he’d been bracing slipped out of him.
Fifty?five percent.
Not fixed. Not safe. The cliff was still there—drop and all. But the railing felt a little thicker than it was yesterday.
Outside, the streetlight on the corner flickered once, then steadied. [Calamity Radar] painted the neighbourhood in calm greens, with only the usual yellow blips of late?night subway weirdness and a distant amber flare where some minor spirit was probably arguing with a parking meter.
Eathan closed the journal. The cover warmed under his hand, then cooled.
He switched off the counter lamp. COZMART sank into its familiar half?dark, lit by fridge glow and street smear. HeavenOS floated quietly at the edge of his vision, numbers dim but there.
55% [Humanity]. A shop laced with arrays. Friends who said “you” and meant him, not the god hitchhiking behind his ribs.
A little further from the edge. A little closer to stepping into the Realm of Passing on his own two mortal feet, when the door finally opens.