If you'd like to read up to 20 chapters ahead, you can support me on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Thanarit
Thank you for all your support. it really keeps the story going.
Ren found three vegetables in Rhea's refrigerator and used all of them. Eggs, rice, half a cabbage. Rhea sat on the counter while he cooked and offered commentary on his technique that he did not ask for.
"You chop like you're in a hurry," she said.
"I am in a hurry."
"You're always in a hurry. What's the rush? It's eight in the morning."
"I have work."
"On a Sunday."
"Gates don't observe Sundays."
She swung her legs against the cabinet. "Okay, fair." A pause. "Can you cook other things?"
"Yes."
"Like what."
"Things."
"That's not an answer, mister."
"I can cook. That's the answer."
"I'm adding it to my data," she said. "Mister can cook. Mister chops fast. Mister is apparently a very important guild doctor which I thought was a joke for three months." She tilted her head. "What else don't I know about you?"
"A lot."
"Is the rest also impressive or is it mostly worrying?"
Ren thought about his Abomination army, his interdimensional background, the people who had declared him dead, the eye of Nyarlathotep currently sitting in his inventory.
"Both," he said.
Rhea accepted this, filed it, and moved on without comment.
They ate at the small table by the window. The city was still coming awake outside. Rhea worked through her bowl quickly, made a sound that meant the eggs were good, and looked at him.
"So," Rhea said.
"So."
"What are we now, mister?"
He looked at his rice.
"I don't know," he said.
She propped her chin on her hand, watching him. "I don't need a label if you don't. I'm not asking you to announce anything. I'm just asking what this is, for you, so I know where I'm standing."
He thought about the night before: the enemies and the path and what it cost to let someone in. The woman in the memory with the blurred face. Rhea's head on his lap, the old movie going, and her holding his face against her chest without asking a single question.
"I think," he said, "that you are the best company I've had in a long time."
Rhea waited.
"And I can't promise you things I don't know yet," he said. "I don't know where I'll be in a year. I don't know what my situation looks like. I have things I'm dealing with that I can't explain and some of them are dangerous."
"I know," she said.
"You know?"
"I don't know the details. But I know you're not a normal person. I figured that out pretty early." She picked up her chopsticks again. "I'm not asking you to be something you're not. I'm just asking if I'm someone you want around."
He looked at her.
"Yes," he said.
She smiled. Small, the same one from last night.
"Then that's enough," she said. "We don't have to call it anything. We're just us. I'll be here when you want me, and I won't push when you don't. Is that okay with you?"
He exhaled. Something in him settled.
"Yeah," he said. "That's okay."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "But mister."
"What."
"If you disappear for months without texting I will find you and it will not be pleasant."
"I'll text."
"Actual texts. Not one word responses."
"That depends on the situation."
"Two words minimum," she said. "I'm alive. Done. Minimum two words."
He looked at her. "Fine. Two words."
She nodded, satisfied. She leaned over and stole a piece of egg from his bowl.
"Good," she said, eating it. "Now hurry up, you have work apparently."
He looked at his stolen egg, then at her. He picked up his chopsticks and kept eating.
When he left she stood at the door in an oversized shirt and saw him off with a wave that had no performance in it, just a wave.
"Text me when you get back," she said.
"Sure," he said.
She pointed at him. "Actual sure, not maybe-sure. I know your sures."
"Actual sure," he said.
She let him go.
He walked back through the morning city with his hands in his pockets, and somewhere around the second intersection he realized he was not thinking about enemies or paths or costs. He was thinking about whether he still had eggs at the clinic.
. . .
He pushed the clinic door open.
Lu Changcheng, Chu Xinghe, and Lucy were sitting in the reception area.
Lu had his tea. Chu had his hands clasped on his knee. Lucy had her notebook open and her pen ready, which meant she had been waiting a while.
Ren stopped in the doorway.
"Why are the three of you here."
"We have clinic business," Lu said.
"At eight forty-five."
"Guild matters don't observe—"
"Sundays, yes, I just said that to someone else." He stepped inside. "Where is Bone Saw."
All three of them said, at the same time: "The closet."
Why does that man love a closet so much, Ren thought. He is a Legendary-rank berserker with an obsidian skeleton and a Law that kills anything that bleeds. He is hiding in a closet.
"He is not being considerate," Ren said. "He is being a turtle." He dropped into the reception chair. "What clinic business."
Chu Xinghe smiled.
It was the smile Ren had seen at the restaurant. The one that meant something had been noted.
"You're wearing the same jacket as yesterday," Chu said.
"I didn't go home last night."
"No," Chu agreed, pleasantly. "You didn't."
Lucy's pen stopped moving.
"Doctor," she said. "Did you spend the night out?"
"Yes."
She put the pen down. Her eyes moved from Lu Changcheng to Chu Xinghe to Ren.
"You?" she said. "You specifically?"
"Is this surprising."
"A little," she said. "I thought you were made of stone and cigarettes."
"I contain multitudes."
Chu Xinghe had both hands over his mouth, which was not subtle.
"Was it the girl from the restaurant?" he asked, through his hands.
Ren looked at the ceiling.
"It was the girl from the restaurant," Chu said. He lowered his hands and straightened. "Doctor. I am genuinely pleased."
"Stop."
"She seemed lovely. Funny. She drew a sun on your order pad."
"I'm aware."
"And you went out and didn't come home." Chu tilted his head. "That was fast."
"It wasn't—" Ren stopped. "It wasn't like that initially. Things developed."
"Things developed," Chu said softly, like someone receiving sacred information.
"Doctor," Lucy said, her pen back in her hand, "what's her name? What does she do? Where does she study? How long have you known her? How did you meet? Is she local? What's her—"
"I'm not answering any of those."
"Just the name."
"No."
"Just a first name."
"No."
"Doctor." Lucy set her pen flat on the notebook. "I have looked the other way about many things in this clinic. The heads. The skin. The procedure room that makes sounds I have decided not to investigate. I feel I have earned this."
Ren looked at her.
"Rhea," he said.
Lucy wrote it down immediately.
"Is she nice?" Chu asked.
Ren looked at the table for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "She's nice."
"Is she dangerous?" Lu asked.
Everyone looked at Lu.
"I mean that sincerely," Lu said. "Is she dangerous?"
"She's a political science student working two part-time jobs," Ren said. "She is not dangerous."
"You can never be fully sure about a person," Lu said.
"Brother Lu," Ren said.
"I'm just saying."
"She is a twenty-year-old university student who makes takoyaki. She is not dangerous."
Chu looked at Lu. "He's a grown man."
"I know he's a grown man. This is not about capability." Lu paused. "It's like having a daughter who starts dating someone you can't fully check."
Chu stared at him.
"A daughter," Chu said.
"In a general sense."
"You called him your daughter. Specifically."
"I said it was like—"
"You said daughter."
Lu Changcheng, Guildmaster, Legendary rank, picked up his tea with complete dignity and drank it.
"What is her surname?" he asked Ren.
"No."
"Where does she live?"
"No."
"What year is she in?"
"Second year. That's all you're getting."
Lu set the tea down and looked at his hands. "Fine. Just be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"You spent the night out and came home in yesterday's jacket," Lucy said. "That's not careful, that's human."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Ren said.
"Fair," she said, and wrote something else down.
They talked for a few more minutes, actual clinic matters, a guild scheduling note, and then Lu and Chu stood and said their goodbyes. Lucy collected her notebook. They filtered out, and Ren sat in the reception chair and thought about eggs.
"Bone Saw," he called.
"Yes, Father."
"You can come out."
A long pause.
"I'm fine in here, Father."
Ren looked at the closed grafting room door and decided not to pursue this right now.
. . .
In the corridor, Lu fell into step beside Lucy. Chu had already gone ahead.
"Lucy," Lu said.
"Yes, Guildmaster."
He was quiet for a moment. "Gather what you can on this girl. Full background. Use the intelligence division."
Lucy stopped walking.
She looked at him. He kept moving.
"Guildmaster," she said. "Isn't that a bit—"
"Excessive?" He glanced back. "I have a feeling. Just a feeling. Humor me."
She looked at his back as he walked away.
So, she thought, the Guildmaster can get jealous after all.