Sleep was a traitor. Every time Na closed her eyes, she saw two bowls: her own chaotic, heartfelt nest of noodles, and his perfect, lifeless cloud. She heard his cold voice: "Unlearn that heart of yours."
After the third hour of staring at the glowing moss on her ceiling, she gave up. She needed to move. To do something with her hands that wasn't documented failure. She pulled on a sweater and soft shoes, and slipped out of her room.
The Pavilion at night was a different creature. The magical lights dimmed to a soft, sleeping glow. The distant, exotic calls of the forest were quieter. The air was cool and still. She wandered, not aiming for the grand arena or the terrifying steel temple of Jin's kitchen, but following the scent of old wood and dried herbs.
She found a small, secondary kitchen tucked behind a curtain of hanging wisteria. It was clearly for staff or for personal use, not competition. It was warm and cluttered, with copper pots hanging from hooks, bunches of drying chilies and garlic, and a well worn wooden counter stained with decades of oil and effort. It smelled like a real kitchen. It smelled, faintly, like home.
A soft light was on. And she was not alone.
Jin Long stood with his back to her, at the old stone sink. He wasn't moving. He was just staring down at something in his hands.
Na froze, about to retreat back into the shadows. But something about his posture stopped her. In the dim, golden light of a single old lantern, he looked different. The imperious, unyielding straightness of his spine was gone. His shoulders were slumped, just a little. He looked… smaller.
He was holding a clay pot.
It was a simple, rustic thing, the reddish brown clay unglazed in parts, blackened from long use at the bottom. It was exactly the kind of pot her grandmother had used for slow simmering soups, for braising meats until they fell apart with a sigh.
He traced a thumb over its rim, a gesture so slow and tender it seemed to belong to another person entirely. The harsh lines of his profile were softened by the lantern light, and in his eyes, reflected in the dark kitchen window, Na saw not calculation or gold fire, but a deep, aching weariness. A loneliness so profound it filled the quiet room.
Her anger from the day, her defiance, all of it drained away, replaced by a startling, unwanted pang of… recognition.
Before she could think, her feet carried her into the kitchen. The old floorboard creaked.
He didn't startle. He didn't turn with cold fury. He simply went very still, his shoulders tightening almost imperceptibly, the mask sliding back into place so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined the vulnerability. But he didn't vanish. He didn't order her out.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice low, but lacking its usual cutting edge. It was just tired.
"I couldn't sleep," Na said, her own voice barely a whisper. She moved to the other side of the counter, giving him space. "I… I needed to practice. Somewhere that didn't feel like a lab."
He made a noncommittal sound, his gaze returning to the clay pot. He set it down on the counter with a gentleness that contradicted everything she knew about him.
An awkward silence stretched. The kind that usually, between them, was filled with criticism or defiance. But the night was too soft, the kitchen too warm for that. Na's eyes fell on a basket of fresh ginger and a bundle of spring onions on the counter.
Without a word, without asking permission, she picked them up. She found a small, well used knife and a cutting board scarred with a thousand cuts. She began to slice the ginger into delicate slivers, then the scallions into fine rings. The motions were automatic, soothing. The familiar snick snick of the knife on wood was the loudest sound in the world.
She filled a kettle from the tap and set it on the old gas stove, clicking it to life with a soft whoosh of blue flame. She found two simple, handleless cups (the kind used for tea tasting.)
Jin watched her, not moving from his spot by the sink. He didn't speak. He just observed, his dark eyes unreadable in the low light.
When the water steamed, she poured it over the ginger and scallions in a small teapot. The sharp, clean, instantly comforting scent of ginger scallion tea filled the kitchen—the first aid kit of Asian households, the cure for chills, for nervous stomachs, for unease.
She let it steep for a minute, then poured the pale golden liquid into the two cups. Steam rose in gentle curls.
Still silent, she picked up one cup. She walked around the counter, the old floorboards whispering under her feet. She stopped an arm's length away from him, not looking at his face, and held the cup out, placing it on the counter next to the clay pot.
She didn't say "This will help," or "You look like you need it." She said nothing. The offering itself was the only language that felt right in this quiet, stolen moment.
For a long time, he didn't move. He stared at the cup as if it were a foreign artifact, its purpose unknown. The steam curled up, fading into the air between them. Na thought he might ignore it, or worse, sweep it onto the floor in a return to his cold persona.
Then, slowly, he reached out. His fingers, long and elegant, closed around the warm cup. He didn't drink. He just held it, letting the heat seep into his skin, staring into the golden liquid.
"My… mother," he said, the words so quiet they were almost lost in the hum of the old refrigerator in the corner. He cleared his throat, the sound rough. "She used to make something similar. When I was very young. Before I understood what I was. Before the world… turned cold."
Na's breath caught. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking through the steam, into a memory.
"What happened?" she asked softly, the question leaving her lips before she could stop it.
He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. The mask was clearly battling with the man. The man won, but just barely.
"She learned that warmth is a vulnerability," he said, his voice flat now, as if reciting a grim fact. "That to love something is to give the world a weapon to use against you. She… adapted." He finally took a sip of the tea. His eyes closed for a fraction of a second, a fleeting glimpse of something like peace, or pain, crossing his features. "The tea stopped. The lessons changed."
He took another sip, then set the half empty cup down with a decisive click. The moment of vulnerability was over, sealed shut. He turned his head and looked at her directly. In the lantern light, his eyes were just dark, human eyes. Exhausted.
"Your tea is adequate," he said, but the criticism lacked its usual bite. It was almost… an acknowledgment.
"A kitchen shouldn't feel like a tomb" Na said, surprising herself with her own boldness.
"A kitchen is a place of work. Efficiency. Not sentiment," he replied, but the old mantra sounded rote, hollow.
"You told me to unlearn my heart," Na pressed, her voice gentle. "But what do you do with yours? Where does it go?"
For a second, something raw and fierce flashed in his eyes—not at her, but at the universe. A dragon's frustration at its own cage. "It goes where it cannot be harmed," he said, each word final. "It goes away."
He pushed away from the counter. He didn't look at her again. He walked to the kitchen entrance, pausing for only a second with his back to her.
"Do not be late for practice tomorrow," he said, his voice regaining its familiar, cool distance. "One hundred pulls. Documented."
And then he was gone, melting into the shadows of the sleeping Pavilion.
Na stood alone in the warm, fragrant kitchen. She looked at the clay pot he had been holding. She looked at his teacup, sitting beside it, now empty.
He had drunk it. He had shared a memory, however painful. He had shown her a crack in the armor, a sliver of the lonely man trapped in a cage.
She picked up the cup. It was still warm from his hands. She washed it carefully, along with her own, and put them away.
The encounter changed nothing, and yet it changed everything. He was still her impossible, cold mentor. He still believed her heart was a liability. But now she knew a terrible, complicating truth: he hadn't always thought that. His world had frozen his heart to save it. And he was trying, in his own brutal way, to teach her to do the same.
As she walked back to her room, the night seemed less silent. It seemed full of echoes. The war wasn't just about cooking anymore. It was about two very different kinds of survival. And she was no longer sure which one was right.