CHAPTER 55: POOR APARTMENT

The hallway light sputtered once as Lucen keyed in the door.

Second floor. Cracked linoleum. One stair loose enough to throw off your step if you didn’t remember where it was. Gen followed just behind, quiet. Not asking questions yet. Not making jokes either.

The kind of silence that only felt normal when you’d been hit by too many things in one day.

Lucen pushed the door open.

It stuck halfway, then gave with a low wooden groan. He stepped inside without pause. Gen paused in the doorway.

It was small.

Not just small in the cheap apartment sense, small in the ’this-is-a-storage-room-someone-pretended-was-a-studio’ kind of way.

One desk, warped from water damage. One thin mattress laid out next to the wall, half-covered by a rolled blanket. No kitchen. Just a cold-box tucked under a shelf and a half-functional burner someone had etched a heat glyph on out of frustration.

Lucen didn’t look around. He knew what it looked like.

He walked in, kicked his bag down next to the desk, and sat on the edge of the mattress like he always did. Shoulders loose. Not relaxed. Just settled. Like there was no use pretending the place was worse than it already was.

Gen stepped inside. Slowly. Closed the door behind him without being told.

The air smelled like old tea, scorched chalk dust, and faint metal probably from whatever half-burnt sigil Lucen had tested and forgotten about two nights ago.

Gen’s eyes tracked across the room.

The cracked plaster. The scorched glyph remnants etched directly into the wall above the mattress. A few loose mana rods resting against a cup of instant noodles.

He didn’t speak for a moment.

Then, deadpan he finally did. "I’ve seen better rooms in abandoned safezones."

Lucen rubbed one palm against the back of his neck. "Yeah. But were those rooms twenty-two credits a week?"

Gen blinked. "No. Because they were condemned."

Lucen smirked. "See? You’re just jealous."

Gen didn’t return the smile. He stepped over a burn mark near the doorway, old, circular, with a faint trace of cold still clinging to the stone and crouched by the desk.

He looked at the warped surface.

"Is this... from a spell?"

Lucen leaned back, propped on his elbows. "Frost sigil test. Got the ice part right. Forgot about the rebound path."

"Blew backwards?"

"Through a box of ramen and my dignity."

Gen chuckled once. Dry. Then went quiet again.

His hand hovered over a patch of charred wood. "You’re not practicing support spells in here."

Lucen raised an eyebrow. "You seen my class card."

"Yeah," Gen said slowly. "But I also saw you walk out of that gate with three unbroken ribs and a calm face. Most tracers get winded pulling aggro for more than thirty seconds."

Lucen looked away. Let the silence stretch.

The window buzzed softly in the background. Some distant train running glyphs too old to suppress vibration.

Gen stood up.

"You’ve been soloing runs before?."

Lucen’s voice didn’t shift. "Nope, and you’ve got no proof."

"I’ve got context clues and decent pattern recognition."

Lucen didn’t answer. Just leaned forward, grabbed a mana bar from under the desk, and bit into it without checking the expiration date.

The plastic crinkled loudly in the space between them.

Gen stared for a moment longer. Then turned and walked slowly to the window.

The city lights filtered in through the half-stuck pane. Outside, Kyrel buzzed in its usual too-quiet way. Somewhere across the block, someone argued with a vendor over drift core recycling rates.

Gen leaned one shoulder to the wall. Watched the streets.

"You know," he said, tone soft, "I’ve seen A-Ranks with private floors in high-rises. I’ve seen B’s treated like royalty for getting lucky with loot. You..."

Lucen swallowed. "Me?"

"You live like a guy trying not to be noticed."

Lucen didn’t look up. "Sounds smart."

Gen nodded slowly. "Also sounds lonely."

Lucen leaned his head back against the wall. "People ask fewer questions this way."

Gen turned. The gold of the city lights caught faint on the side of his face.

He studied Lucen for a long second.

Then said, "If you ever want a better room. Or a better team. You let me know."

Lucen blinked once. "Is this your version of a friendship bracelet?"

Gen smirked. "No. This is me offering backup when your paper walls catch fire."

Lucen didn’t smile.

But he did nod.

Once. Small.

Gen pushed away from the wall. "Alright. I’m leaving before the mold spores start asking me questions."

Lucen walked him to the door. No shoes. Just the sound of floor tile tapping under bare feet.

As Gen stepped out, he glanced over his shoulder. "By the way," he added, "when someone asks what kind of spells you run... maybe stop dodging the question."

Lucen tilted his head. "Why? I like the mystery."

Gen laughed once.

Then disappeared down the stairwell.

Lucen closed the door.

The quiet came back fast.

He looked around his tiny room, sighed, and sat back down at the desk.

Still smelled like cold metal and chalk.

The perfect place to pretend no one was watching.

—

Lucen lay flat on the mattress.

No blanket. No pillow under his head. Just the thin pad against his back and a slow, fading awareness in his chest.

The room didn’t breathe.

Some places did, dorms, safehouses, even broken city blocks. You could feel those rooms inhale when you stepped inside. Like they still had people in them. Conversations stuck to the walls. Arguments in the paint.

This place?

It held its breath.

The dim window glow pooled in one corner. The rest of the apartment fell into quiet shadow. No spell traces active. No screens open. Just the faint, slow hum of old circuits buried somewhere in the walls.

Lucen stared up at the ceiling crack he’d memorized weeks ago. The one that curved slightly left, like it had changed its mind halfway through being a structural flaw.

He didn’t blink.

Didn’t move.

’It’s fine,’ he told himself. ’Quiet is good. Quiet means no one’s asking things.’

Still.

His mind drifted.

First to the shape of the desk.

Then to the water stain on the far wall.

Then to a memory.