CHAPTER 242: CHAPTER 242: A CHANCE

Uno sighed and leaned back in his chair, his blue eye now looking into that deep green. "I didn’t break any rules." He raised his hands in mock surrender. "I know, I know, I don’t have a good history about that, but listen to me."

"Well..." Connor lifted his cup, swirling the untouched espresso before setting it back down. "I’m here, am I not?"

"Let’s say," Uno began carefully, "that our first meeting... wasn’t what you thought it was."

Connor’s brow arched. "What are you referring to here? The day you appeared while Elias was training, or later when you decided to stick to me like a barnacle?"

"First," Uno said quietly. "I came because of you, not Victor."

Connor blinked once, then let out a quiet laugh that didn’t sound particularly amused. "Because of me," he repeated. "Right. Not the man who executes gods for you and is your friend, but the mortal you decided to study in your free time. Tell me, are you allergic to self-awareness, or does it just not scale well with divinity?"

Uno smiled faintly. "You make it sound like I had a choice."

"You always have choices," Connor said smoothly, though his fingers tapped once against the porcelain. "That’s the entire problem with you Gods, you treat people like variables, not consequences."

Uno leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table. "You misunderstand. I came because something in the ether shifted. Elias and Victor are... inevitable constants. But you..." His gaze softened, though it still carried that impossible stillness, like watching the tide pretend to be calm. "You weren’t supposed to exist in their pattern at all. And yet, there you were... standing in the middle of it, looking at me like you already knew who I was."

Connor met that stare evenly. "And that startled you."

"It intrigued me," Uno corrected gently. "Your signature doesn’t match this plane. It’s woven with something that shouldn’t be there, something I didn’t create."

Connor frowned, though his expression didn’t lose its composure. "You’re saying I’m... what, a clerical error in your cosmic filing system?"

"I’m not as arrogant as you think I am," that earned a skeptical look from Connor, but he wisely didn’t say anything. "I’ve created the plane of existence, the rules, but... from there on I was just watching. I didn’t control everything and I never wanted to."

Uno’s voice stayed even, but there was a weight beneath it, a faint tremor of truth trying to surface. "When I noticed you," he continued, "you were... fading. It wasn’t death. It was absent. The world was rewriting itself without you in it."

Connor’s brows drew together, the only crack in his composure. "You make it sound like I was being erased from a hard drive."

"That’s not far from what it felt like," Uno said quietly. "Reality corrects itself when something that shouldn’t exist appears inside it. You were that correction. The universe was trying to fix the mistake."

Connor gave a soft, incredulous laugh, though the edge of it was uneasy. "And here I was, thinking the worst thing I’d done last year was skip a board meeting."

Uno didn’t smile this time. "I tried to let it happen at first," he admitted. "I told myself it was natural order, that I shouldn’t interfere. But you didn’t vanish easily. You fought it." His gaze lifted to meet Connor’s again, pale blue against deep green. "You resisted me, resisted reality. You were still there, even when the ether was trying to forget your name."

Connor leaned back, the humor leaving his voice entirely. "So you interfered."

"I anchored you," Uno said, his tone soft but deliberate. "A fragment of me, small and harmless, I thought, woven into your signature to keep you from being unmade. It shouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t think it would change anything."

Connor studied him for a long, motionless moment, then said, "But it did."

Uno’s silence was answer enough.

The café’s ambient noise seemed to dim around them, the murmur of conversation and the clatter of cups fading into a distant hum. Connor let out a long breath, the corner of his mouth twitching with something that wasn’t quite amusement. "You really don’t know how to leave things alone, do you?"

"I couldn’t," Uno said simply. "You were already halfway gone."

"And now I’m what, partially divine?" Connor asked lightly, but there was no real humor in it, only a polished sort of resignation. "That’s one hell of a side effect for a rescue mission."

"It’s not divinity," Uno said quickly. "It’s... resonance. You carry a frequency that mirrors mine. It keeps you stable. But if it ever awakens, if the piece of me inside you stirs..."

"I’ll what?" Connor cut in. "Glow? Ascend? Start speaking in riddles and floating above my office desk?"

Uno’s lips curved faintly despite himself. "No. You’ll start to remember what it feels like to not belong anywhere. And that kind of realization breaks most beings."

Connor’s jaw tightened, the faintest flicker of emotion crossing his face before it vanished again. "You really know how to ruin breakfast."

"I came to warn you," Uno said. "Not to hurt you."

"Good," Connor murmured, finishing his coffee in one smooth sip. "Because if you did, I’d invoice you for emotional damages."

That earned him a quiet laugh from Uno, real and almost human.

Connor stood, smoothing his jacket, his tone light but his eyes darker than before. "Let me make this simple. Whatever you did to keep me here... keep it that way. No awakenings, no divine frequencies, no existential upgrades. I like my life exactly as it is."

Uno nodded, though there was something in his gaze that said he wasn’t sure it would be that simple. "You really think you can keep pretending nothing happened?"

Connor slipped his hands into his pockets, the faintest smile ghosting across his lips. "I’m a CEO. Pretending nothing’s wrong is 90% of the job description."

Uno huffed a quiet laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "You’re the only human I’ve met who could turn existential instability into a business metaphor."

"Comes with the salary," Connor said easily, though the pause that followed wasn’t easy at all. The sunlight caught on the edge of his sleeve, and for a moment, his reflection in the glass looked almost like it didn’t belong to him, as if Uno’s words had already started tugging at the edges of his existence.

He didn’t like the feeling.

Connor turned back toward Uno, voice steady but quieter. "You said the world was erasing me because I wasn’t supposed to exist."

Uno nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Then you’re responsible for the reason I do exist now." Connor’s tone wasn’t accusing, but it wasn’t forgiving either, it was the voice of a man building logic around something far too large for comfort. "You gave me that piece of you, anchored me, and made sure I stayed."

"I did," Uno admitted.

Connor tilted his head slightly. "Then you don’t get to leave me alone with the side effects."

Uno blinked, caught off guard. "Connor..."

"No," he interrupted, still calm. "You don’t get to drop a fragment of yourself into my soul and then act like it’s a warning label I should read on my own time. If I start... feeling that absence again, that pull toward nothing..." His voice softened, more vulnerable for its steadiness. "you fix it. You stay. You make sure I don’t forget what being here feels like."

Uno’s expression faltered, just enough to show the crack in his composure. "You’re asking me to stay close to you?"

Connor’s mouth curved into a faint, wry smile. "I’m asking you to take responsibility for your mess. Anything more than that would sound like forgiveness, and I’m not sure I’m there yet."

Uno’s fingers twitched against the edge of the table, as though holding back the instinct to reach for him. "You think you can live with this tether between us? With me?"

"I’ve lived with worse partnerships," Connor said dryly. Then, after a beat, his tone softened. "Besides... maybe it’s not a partnership. Maybe it’s a reminder that even gods don’t get to walk away from consequences."

Uno let out a slow, almost disbelieving breath. "You’re giving me a chance."