Su Yu's harmless, affable smile returned to his face.
"Now… it's time to head home and eat some pizza. Want to come along?"
Bronie lifted her head and looked at the hand extended toward her.
It was an invitation.
An invitation from the victor—and yet one as gentle as that of a father or an older brother.
Bronie stared at that hand for a full three seconds.
The emotions swirling in those gray eyes were rather complicated.
A mixture of confusion, disappointment, and even a trace of anger.
"…I'm not going."
She didn't reach out.
Instead, as if she'd been electrocuted, she snapped her head to the side, dodging Su Yu's gaze.
That gray spiral ponytail whipped through the air in a stubborn arc, the tips brushing across her dust-covered shoulder.
Su Yu's hand paused in midair, but he didn't feel the least bit awkward at being rejected.
"Not coming?"
He raised an eyebrow slightly, a hint of amusement in his tone.
"What's wrong? Think the pizza at my place isn't good enough? Or do you feel like losing to your Senior Brother is too much of a hit to your pride?"
"Who cares about that?!"
Bronie whipped her head around, her voice climbing an octave.
She braced both hands against the ground, but her eyes were locked dead on Su Yu, finding this whole thing utterly absurd.
"A game? A workshop? A network supervisor?"
She practically spat the words out through gritted teeth, every syllable dripping with mockery.
"You went to all this trouble, put on a whole show in front of my mom, even threw down with me… just so I'd go work as a computer-fixing IT admin at that lousy workshop of yours?"
Bronie pointed at herself, then jabbed a finger at the drone wreckage on the ground that was still spitting electric sparks.
"I am the Maze City Hack Bunny! The number-one hacker in Arc City! My battlefield is in the data streams, behind the firewalls of those big corporations! Not writing code in some crappy game of yours!"
She drew in a deep breath, her chest heaving violently.
The humiliation of being treated as a "waste of talent" was suffocating her.
What she found even more incomprehensible was this man before her, and that white-haired brute-strength girl.
"And the two of you…"
Bronie's gaze swept over Su Yu as though she were studying some enormous riddle.
"That white-haired girl can crush steel pipes with her bare hands, and your skills are unbelievable too…"
"With power like that, with skills like that… you could clearly do anything! Rule the underworld, topple those financial conglomerates, even become a super-villain—anything would be better than this!"
She didn't understand.
She truly didn't understand.
In this city where the weak were prey for the strong, where everyone was clawing their way upward with all their might.
Why would two lions willingly disguise themselves as house cats, curled up in a tiny little rented apartment, wasting their lives on something as laughable as a "game dream"?
"What a waste… an absolute waste of God-given gifts!"
Bronie growled in a low voice, a tremor in her tone—the kind that came from despairing over those who refused to live up to their potential.
The wind on the rooftop was still strong, carrying with it the distant clamor of the commercial district and the nearby desolation of the old town.
Su Yu listened quietly to her tirade.
He didn't argue back, didn't explain, and the smile on his face didn't so much as waver.
Then he did something Bronie never expected.
He didn't turn and leave, nor did he lecture her from on high.
He simply took a few strides and walked over to Bronie's side.
Then he plopped straight down onto the rough concrete ground, covered in dust, grease, and drone fragments.
He just sat there casually, cross-legged, less than half a meter from Bronie.
This distance broke that invisible barrier of opposition, turning it into a kind of equal, side-by-side companionship.
Su Yu gazed at the brilliant, dazzling sea of lights of Arc City in the distance.
"Bronie."
He suddenly spoke.
It was the tone of an old friend chatting idly late into the night.
He turned his head to look at the girl beside him, bristling like a little wild rabbit with its fur all puffed up.
Looking at the defiance in her eyes, the stubbornness on her face, that heart restless and unsettled because of its youth.
"What do you think…"
Su Yu toyed with the cigarette in his hand, his gentle gaze settling on her face.
"What kind of person are you, really?"
The question came too suddenly, too out of the blue.
Bronie was stunned.
She opened her mouth, but the bellyful of rebuttals and mockery she'd prepared instantly caught in her throat.
What kind of person?
I'm Hack Bunny.
A hacker.
Cioara's adopted daughter.
A rebel of this city.
These answers flashed through her mind, only to be rejected one by one.
Because she could tell from Su Yu's eyes.
What he was asking wasn't about these surface-level labels.
What he was asking about was something far deeper.
"I… what kind of person am I? A bored person? A thrill-seeker? Or… a ghost with no place to belong, who can only search for a sense of existence in the online world?"
Bronie looked at Su Yu.
That man sat in the dust, with a backdrop of starlight filling the sky and the city's neon glow.
His gaze wasn't sharp, yet it seemed able to pierce through her goggles, through her disguise, and stare directly into her bewildered soul.
The wind blew past.
Stirring up the dust on the ground.
In this moment, the tense, on-edge atmosphere on the rooftop vanished.
Su Yu was in no hurry to press Bronie for an answer.
He merely toyed with the one-yuan coin in his hand, letting it nimbly flip and dance between his knuckles, as if performing some silent magic act.
The night breeze blew past, ruffling the loose strands of hair over his forehead.
"Actually, I asked Kiana the very same question."
Su Yu suddenly spoke, breaking the silence.
"I asked her, what kind of person do you think you are?"
Bronie's ears instinctively pricked up.
Although she called the girl "the white-haired freak" out loud, and privately thought she was a single-celled organism, she still felt an instinctive curiosity toward that fellow kindred who could crush steel pipes with her bare hands.
Would that seemingly dim-witted fellow give some profound, unfathomable answer?
Something like "a warrior burdened by destiny"? Or "a Vigilante who walks through the darkness"?
Su Yu turned his head, looked at Bronie, and the corners of his mouth curled into a helpless yet doting smile.
"She thought about it for a long time, then told me with a completely serious face—she's a… Paramecium that wants to become a hero."
"…Huh?"
Bronie was stunned.
The bubble gum in her mouth nearly fell out.
Those gray eyes went perfectly round, filled with an "are you kidding me" sense of absurdity.
"A Paramecium? That… single-celled organism? That protozoan whose brain isn't even as big as a walnut?"
Bronie couldn't hold back and let out a short, scoffing laugh.
"Isn't that just too hilarious? Does she have some misunderstanding about her own IQ, or does she have a grudge against herself?"
"Right? Pretty ridiculous."
Su Yu shrugged, wearing an "I knew that'd be your reaction" expression.
"Any normal person who heard that would think, what the heck kind of answer is this—it's way too unserious. They might even wonder if this kid really did get her head slammed in a door."
He paused, reined in his smile, and his gaze turned serious.
"But, Bronie."
"You find it absurd because you're not her. You haven't lived through the nights she spent wandering the streets of Arc City, haven't seen the way she battered herself black and blue just to protect ordinary people."
"Nor have you ever felt that… feeling of clearly thinking yourself small and clumsy, yet still wanting to give everything you have to reach for that threshold of heroism."
Su Yu extended a finger and lightly tapped the empty air in front of Bronie.
"That's the difference in perspective."
"You can't understand Kiana's Paramecium logic, so you think it's a joke."
"In the same way…"
Su Yu's voice dropped low, staring directly into Bronie's eyes.
"Cioara can't understand your Hack Bunny logic either."
"In her eyes, those hacking skills you take such pride in, those glorious feats of yours dominating the dark web—they're probably just like the Paramecium in Kiana's words: dangerous, childish, even utterly senseless."
"You're not Kiana, so you can't understand her. Cioara isn't you, so she can't understand why you'd risk your life to do those things."
Bronie was stunned.
She opened her mouth, wanting to argue back, but found she couldn't find the words.
That high wall named the "generation gap," which had always stood between her and Cioara, seemed to have been chiseled open into a breach under these words of Su Yu's.
So it turned out… it wasn't that Cioara was being unreasonable.
It was that they had never once stood on the same wavelength.
Su Yu continued, "Just now at the bar, you pointed at my nose and cursed at Cioara, calling me an open-minded parent."
He gave a self-deprecating laugh.
"The truth isn't like that."
"I'm an ordinary man too. I'm also afraid of Kiana getting hurt, afraid that one day she'll walk out the door and never come back, afraid she'll be swallowed up by dangers I can't see… Sometimes I've even thought about whether I should just lock her up at home and let her become a happy good-for-nothing who only knows how to eat pizza."
Bronie looked at him.
That man, cold as a devil in battle, now revealed on his face a trace of the fragility and inner conflict that belonged to an ordinary person.
"But, compared to those things…"
"What I worry about more is—if I broke her wings, so she could no longer do what she wants to do, no longer become who she wants to become… would she still be Kiana?"
"I know that idiot's personality. Once she's made up her mind to do something, even eight horses couldn't drag her back. If I forcibly held her back, it would only push her further away, and might even destroy her."
Su Yu lifted his head, his eyes blazing as he looked at Bronie.
"What I want to tell you is, the one who can truly decide the course has never been me, nor Cioara."
"We're just lighthouses, or harbors. We can provide you with supplies, can shine a light when you lose your way."
"But we can't decide your life for you."
"The only one who can grasp the helm and decide where this ship sails… is you yourself."
The wind on the rooftop seemed to die down.
Bronie sat there, both arms wrapped around her knees, her face buried in the crook of her arms.
Only that head of messy gray hair trembled faintly in the wind.
No one had ever said these things to her before.
Cioara only ever said "No," "Dangerous," "You're not allowed to go."
Yet this man before her told her—the helm is in your hands.
"So…"
Su Yu's words suddenly took a turn, his tone growing relaxed, even carrying a hint of slyness.
"I'm not here to coerce you into joining my workshop."
He winked at Bronie, like a wicked senior schoolmate scheming up a prank.
"If you really don't want to come, that's fine too."
"I can help you smooth things over. We can forge an employment contract, make a fake work badge, and I can even play along with you in front of Cioara, making her believe you've truly turned over a new leaf."
"That way, you won't have to come work for me, you'll be able to set Cioara's mind at ease, and you can keep on being your Maze City Hack Bunny. How about it? Pretty good deal, right?"
Bronie's head snapped up.
She looked at Su Yu, her eyes filled with "are you out of your mind."
"You… you're serious?"
Her voice stammered a little.
"Do you know what you're saying? Vouch for me? Help me deceive Cioara?"
"If… if I get into trouble out there in the future, if some enemy comes knocking at my door, or if I get nabbed by the cops… then Cioara will definitely come settle the score with you!"
"This… this is way too dishonorable! Do you have any idea how much trouble this could bring you?!"
She panicked.
She really did panic.
That sense of "street code," of brotherly honor carved into her very bones from her time roaming the streets, made it impossible for her to accept a proposal that shifted all the risk onto someone else.
It wasn't fair.
It would drag Su Yu down with her.
Watching Bronie's frantic state, Su Yu smiled.
He smiled very happily, very slyly.
The fish had taken the bait.
"Bronie."
Su Yu softly called her name.
"Don't you find it strange?"
"What?" Bronie was taken aback.
Su Yu pointed at himself, then pointed at her.
"We've clearly known each other for less than three hours. Just ten minutes ago, we were even throwing punches at each other."
"But now, you're already worrying about whether I'll get dragged into trouble, worrying about whether it'll cause problems for me."
Bronie froze.
That was true.
Why?
Why would she care so much about this man's situation?
Su Yu leaned his body slightly forward, those black eyes seeming able to see straight through a person's heart.
"Then what about Cioara?"
"The woman who picked you up, raised you to adulthood, cooked for you, washed your clothes, who went from being a top-tier assassin to a bar owner for your sake…"
"Every time you left without a word, every time you charged into those dangerous dens of tigers and wolves—"
Su Yu's voice was very soft, yet every word landed like a heavy hammer, slamming fiercely into Bronie's heart.
"Have you ever thought…"
"Whether she, just like you're worried about me right now…"
"Has been worrying about you?"
Boom—
Bronie's mind went blank.
All her rebuttals, all her excuses, all her rebellion and resentment shattered in this instant.
She looked at Su Yu, her lips trembling, yet unable to make a single sound.
She thought of Cioara's eyes, always shot through with red veins.
Thought of that warm yellow lamp on the bar counter that was always left on every time she came home late at night.
Thought of, just now in the bar, Cioara's hand gripping that polishing cloth so tightly.
So… that's how it was?
So this was… worry?
That feeling of having to become tough, naggy, and unreasonable, all because you were afraid the other person would get hurt.
Just like how she'd worried a moment ago that Su Yu would get dragged down with her.
Cioara… had been bearing this feeling all along? No—her pain had to be a hundred times more intense than what Bronie herself bore.
Because they were family who lived together.
Bronie lowered her head.
Big, heavy teardrops, without any warning, rolled down from those gray eyes, splattering onto the dust-covered concrete and blooming into little dark circles, one after another.
She had always believed she was mature, strong, capable of holding her own ground—the "Maze City Hack Bunny."
But in this moment, before this man she'd known for only three hours.
She discovered she was as childish as a kid who'd never grown up.
Every disguise had been seen through.
Every excuse had been shattered.
"Senior Brother…"
She called out softly, a sob in her voice.
This time, there was no teasing, no provocation.
Only a deep, heartfelt… submission.
Su Yu said nothing more. He simply extended his large hand and placed it on the hood of this little rabbit's hoodie.
It was a silent comfort, and also a silent encouragement.
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