Eno Dianoco sat in a half-lit cellar that smelled of old steel and moldy paper. He hadn't bothered to pay attention to the dice game at the table in front of him, nor the drunk mercenaries roaring over who owed who.
His scowl was its own black hole, swallowing the room's mirth. Every word of the news echoing through the underground tavern stabbed at him sharp.
"Two minutes."
Two goddamn minutes. That was all it had taken Asher Fourstorms to reduce a rogue rift equivalent to the 98th-floor into a polite memory. Eno dug his fingernail into the table. A rival, he had long proclaimed himself one. Heh. Pathetic.
He spat into the corner, muttering, "What a joke." But even as he cursed, the bitterness tasted like awe.
Meanwhile, on the funeral grounds, Kim Hang and Kim Daechan stood among rows of silent mourners. The three men who had been devoured by the rogue rift lay in polished coffins, their bodies returned whole and clean.
Families wept in gratitude, some even whispering Asher's name as if he had delivered salvation rather than a grave.
Daechan's fists tightened. S-ranked clearance. Two minutes.
Beside him, Hang bowed his head, the words unsaid but loud in his chest: We begged him for a debt. But what does a man like that owe to anyone?
Their reverence was tinged with dread. A reminder that the gap between them and Asher wasn't measured in levels or ranks, it was measured in realities.
Far away, a teen drifted through a crowded city street. The square was alive with people, traffic, and children tugging at sleeves. Above it all, a giant screen blazed with the news. Asher Fourstorms clears rogue rift, S-rank achieved, survivors saved.
The teen stopped, tilting his head back, the hood of his black hoodie shadowing his face. For a long moment, he simply stared at the man being spoken of.
And then he smiled. Without a word, he slipped back into the stream of people and vanished.
But someone wasn't as amused as him. Giovan sat in the dark, his office windows shuttered, the only light a glass of whiskey catching the last glimmer of the streetlamps outside. His face was unreadable. Not grim, not joyous, not broken.
He sipped, let the burn crawl down his throat, and exhaled slowly into the silence. No speech, no plotting, no schemes tonight. Just him, the dark, and the truth.
What is Asher Fourstorms' role in the future? Regarding the world? Regarding Lim Miao? No one knows.
But let me tell you about the past.
Heavy rainfall.
So heavy every drop felt like razorblades on his skin.
He sat in the carcass of a ruined household, among wet ashes and broken debris.
Everything was gone.
The world had spat him out and left him to rot.
Red stained his clothes. Some washed away by the rain, some pooling beneath him before draining into the dirt.
Even with his body's unnatural constitution and the way his wounds knit themselves shut, too much blood had already fled him.
That was when, somehow, the rain ceased above him. But not around him.
A shadow settled over him.
A grey paper umbrella, with a cat of the same shade embroidered on its inner side, was placed over his head.
A young lady in a traditional dress stood there, holding the umbrella.
***
Today was the day.
Lim Miao had been renting one of the rooms in Gray Kat for a while. A bit less than a week? Time bled slowly here. No one hurried. Asher never set a date for the dinner, never tethered it to the calendar like a noose. When it happened, it happened.
No one except Lim Miao and Asher knew about the dinner.
Perhaps no one would ever know it was a favor, or know it happened at all. But it would happen. It must happen.
They could have it and never speak of its true nature, a favor, and the world would, nor should care. It was between them alone.
After all, it was only an ordinary dinner.
She arrived in a dusty pink qixiong ruqun, delicate in fabric but unyielding in presence. A transparent embroidered silk round fan veiled half her smiling face. He pulled out her chair, unthinking, yet the gesture felt older than this night.
She simply descended in a dress that could ruin a man's composure, while he, ever ready, had been waiting each night as though readiness were his penance.
It was her nth day in his inn. Her nth day in hot baths he alone reset, steam and water paid for with his own hands. Her nth day requesting the little comforts. Hair dryer, extra blankets, extra pillows, room services, recommendations… that tethered her presence here with threads invisible to others but weighted to him.
It seemed she had decided the day had arrived, and he followed without a word.
He poured wine for her and she drank facing the side.
They talked. Chatted. Something old brushing against something new. Something heavy disguised as light. Something mundane. Something warm.
The dinner was delicious. Asher's-best-chef-of-Illue delicious. Rare ingredients, immaculate plating.
It was almost as if nothing happened at all. But everything happened.
Her smile. His attention. Her restrained delight. His quiet care. Her slow voice. His gaze that refused to be hurried. All real.
Subtle. Painfully, exquisitely subtle.
Until the last course arrived. Sweet dessert. A sugar-coated way destiny said, it was time.
"Why… do you actually want this elixir through my favor, for your dowry?"
To put Namgoong Hang in his place? To lift herself up? To create a story? To fuck the world?
What?
She smiled, put down her fork, and said, "It's nothing like people think."
Then what?
"I just want an excuse to tell you personally that I'm going to marry."
Ten years ago, Asher had been at the lowest point of his life. In the dilapidated ruin of his family's estate, leaning against a torn-down wall, heavy rain fell from the sky like knives, diluting his blood into the red earth.
And then, wordlessly, a woman had extended an umbrella over his head.
Now that same woman sat across from him, telling him she was about to marry. What did that mean? He wanted to know why, but he had only one favor left.
One damned favor left.
What could he ask?
If he let her go now, he would never use it for something that actually mattered, because she would belong to another man.
And yet… he also wanted to keep this favor untouched. A single unfulfilled thread between them. Her last debt to him. He wanted nothing else. Just that one favor he would never call upon.
But now, this favor has become a temptation.
She came to tell him personally, all dressed up as her wish for an Ang Elixir. Dressed up as her wanting a scandalous dowry. Dressed up as her way to break the world in half.
But for what?
So he would hear it from her own lips?
"What about you?" she asked in return. "Why did you ask for dinner with me?"
Asher's eyes faltered. She wanted to tell him personally that she was about to marry.
Like a quiet… silent… subtlest scream of a woman trapped in a world of power and politics. A woman who spoke the deepest whisper of her heart under the loudness of spectacle.
Him.
"Because cooking decent food is the only thing I can do besides killing."
Five years ago, the same day Asher retired, an old paper umbrella, torn on the corners, appeared in Lim Miao's chamber. It was missing for quite a while, and no one in her estate knew where it went.
She knew.
"I see. And you remembered I like mushroom dishes," she smiled.
"What kind of cat likes mushrooms?" Asher teased.
"Mushrooms appear more after thunderstorms."
"Fair enough."
On the table, two vials of Ang Elixir stood forgotten, drowning in mundane conversation, dragging the end even further, milking time to the fullest.
The Ang Elixir he had gotten for her, and the fifth-to-last Ang Elixir.
She already had one from the start. She had always been the fifth owner.
Because her request was just that.
An excuse.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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A/N:
Hopefully, writing this will cure my writer's block and burnout. It's been a rough few months. I graduated, yes, but then I fell and sprained my ankle, walking on crutches for quite a while. Then came some family stuff… and finally, the worst thing happened.
My friend suddenly passed away in an accident.
I'd had this story in my mind for a couple of months. The longing, the subtle tragic romance where the MC knew he had fallen for a woman he could never have.
I don't think this story is worthy as a tribute, so it won't be one. It's just something I wrote halfway when the news of your passing came, and you were the one I thought of when finishing the ending.
Ham, heaven needs a talented musician. That's why the Big Guy Upstairs summoned you ahead of the rest of us. Rest in harmony, my friend. Swargi langgeng.
Shishirui Sugar, August 17th, 2025