Outside the night window, the city's neon lights flickered on one by one, while only half the office's overhead lights were lit, leaving the room dim.
Dan Heng made one final check of the code repository's commits, then closed his laptop with a soft click.
He stood up and looked over at Arthur, who was still sitting in front of his computer, his face looking somewhat pale in the glow of the screen.
"Arthur."
He walked over, his voice steady as ever, but his gaze behind his glasses carried a scrutinizing weight.
"Are you sure you don't need me to stay? There are some low-level engine optimizations, plus a few lingering issues from before. I could lay out a framework tonight."
Arthur lifted his head from the screen full of messy mind maps and scattered setting notes. He rubbed his aching brows and smiled at Dan Heng.
"No need. You've already done more than enough. I have a rough sense of where the technical side is heading, and tomorrow I'll need you sharp for the hard parts. Go home and rest."
Dan Heng didn't leave right away. He was quiet for a few seconds, his gaze sweeping over the familiar, stubborn shadows under Arthur's eyes, then settling on the cup of instant coffee at his side, long since cold, barely touched.
From their university days to founding this studio, this good friend of his, nicknamed "Captain," had always been like this whenever he got swept up in an idea: reckless, relentless. Only back then, most of those ideas eventually ended up in folders no one ever opened again. But this time...
"Get some rest," Dan Heng finally said, brief and to the point. His tone carried a barely perceptible, stiff sort of concern.
"What I want to see tomorrow is a clear-headed designer, not a programmer in need of emergency care."
Arthur let out a small laugh and nodded. "Understood. I promise not to drop dead."
Dan Heng said nothing more. He picked up his bag, turned, and left. At the doorway, his steps paused.
He glanced back once: Arthur had already buried himself in the screen again, fingers moving quickly across the keyboard, his silhouette in the dim light carrying an all-or-nothing kind of focus.
The door was gently pulled shut.
March 7th had already packed up and was tugging at Stelle, whispering something pointless about whether pulling an all-nighter reading materials would actually kill them. Seeing Dan Heng leave, she jumped to her feet.
"Boss, we're heading out!" March 7th waved, her face carrying the easy relief of someone finally off the clock, mixed with a bright curiosity about the new assignment.
"See you tomorrow! I'll make sure I've dug up everything there is to find on every game out there!"
Stelle gave a small yawn and rubbed her eyes. "Yep, yep, bye boss. Evernight is waiting for me at home. I promised to watch the new cartoon with her tonight."
The "Evernight" was her younger sister, with whom she was incredibly close. Young, yet unusually mature, she always waited quietly for her older sister to come home.
"Be careful on your way." Arthur responded without looking up, his typing unbroken.
Kiana and Mei stood as well. Kiana stretched out a long, exaggerated yawn, then threw an arm around Mei's shoulder.
"Let's go, Mei! We said we were checking out that new dessert place today! I heard they have super huge cakes!" She said it just a touch too loudly, her eyes flicking toward Arthur's direction.
Mei, pulled along by her arm, smiled with patient resignation and stood. She spoke to Arthur in a gentle voice. "We're heading out then. Don't stay too late."
"I know. Have fun." Arthur looked up and pulled a smile for them.
Kiana pursed her lips as though she wanted to say something, but in the end, Mei gave her a soft tug, and the two left together. Their voices faded, and the office suddenly felt a great deal more empty and quiet.
All that remained was the tap-tap of Arthur's keyboard, and...
In the corner, Bronya was still seated at her workstation, her monitor on, unfinished code on the screen. She showed no sign of leaving.
Arthur wrote a few more lines about the world he was building before it dawned on him that someone else was still there. He turned. "Bronya? It's late. Aren't you heading home? Seele must be getting anxious."
Bronya's apartment was shared with a girl named Seele, the two of them close friends. Seele had a somewhat introverted, timid nature, but she depended on Bronya deeply.
Bronya's hands stilled for a moment. She didn't look up. Her voice was calm.
"I'm staying. There are some scene compositions I want to think through more carefully. And besides," she paused, "you need someone you can bounce ideas off of on the spot."
Her reasoning sounded thorough. Professional. But Arthur watched the faint tension in the line of her profile, and he understood it was more than that.
That bank card had been more than money; it was a quiet form of companionship and support. She was afraid that, alone with this vast and newly born vision, he might feel completely without footing, or worse, fall back into the kind of single-minded, tunnel-vision stubbornness that used to grip him.
A wave of warmth, tangled with a deeper weight of responsibility, rose in his chest. He was just about to say something when:
"Brrring, brrring!"
A clear, slightly urgent ring from a phone shattered the stillness of the office. Bronya's brow furrowed, a flicker of irritation at the abrupt interruption, but she picked up the phone from the desk anyway.
The caller ID on the screen showed a simple cartoon rabbit icon, labeled "Seele."
She pressed answer.
Before she could even raise it to her ear, a voice came through, soft and urgent, thick with anxiety and dependence, close enough that Arthur could catch fragments of it: "Bronya-nee-san!
When, when are you coming home? The hallway's motion-sensor light seems broken, it keeps flickering... I, I'm a little scared... and, I tried to boil some noodles, but I put in too much water, and it looks like it's going to boil over... what do I do, Bronya-nee-san..."
The voice trailed smaller and smaller, edging toward a helpless, teary whimper.
In Bronya's lake-blue eyes, the faint trace of annoyance at having her work interrupted dissolved instantly. What replaced it was something almost instinctive: a soft, quiet tenderness, and a kind of fond exasperation.
Without thinking, she lowered her voice. Her tone held its usual lack of inflection, yet anyone listening could hear the soothing intention beneath it.
"Seele. Don't panic. Turn the heat down first, or tilt the lid open a little. I'm on my way back."
"R-really? But Bronya-nee-san's work..."
"Work can come home with me." Bronya cut her off, brooking no argument. "Ten minutes. Wait for me."
"...Okay!" came the reply from the other end, flooded with relief, carrying the faint sound of a sniffly breath.
Bronya hung up and began saving her files and shutting down her equipment in silence. Her movements were still composed, but compared to her usual absolute efficiency, there was the faintest, almost imperceptible edge of hurry.
Arthur watched it all without a word.
When she had packed her things and slung the backpack carrying her drawing tablet over her shoulders, he finally spoke, his voice soft. "Go on. Seele's waiting. Be careful getting home."
Bronya reached the door. Her hand closed around the handle. She paused for just a moment, and didn't turn around.
"You too." Her voice was low, but it reached him clearly. "Don't stay too late."
Then she pulled the door open, and her slight figure slipped quickly into the shadows of the hallway beyond. The sound of her footsteps faded in an instant.
The office fell completely silent.
Only Arthur remained, and the screen in front of him.
The bitterness of the long-cold instant coffee seemed to grow sharper.
Dan Heng's parting words, "get some rest," and that look of quiet worry. Bronya's blunt farewell from the doorway. The complicated emotion beneath Kiana and Mei's seemingly breezy departure. March 7th and Stelle's barely contained eagerness for the new task...
Every image, every sound, settled slowly and gathered into a heaviness on his shoulders.
He leaned back into his chair, eyes closed against the dull ache behind them. Images and fragments churned and collided in his mind:
The dark clouds gathering over Nagazora City at the first signs of catastrophe. A young woman's trembling but resolute hands. The stirring of the Herrscher core within Mei.
Kiana's signature grin, a little goofy, impossibly radiant. The cold metallic sheen of Bronya's Herrscher of Ice form...
And further back, belonging to a different self, the memories of the Captain: the bridge of the Hyperion, the Valkyries fighting in their full glory.
The journey through the imaginary trees. The endless river of stars beyond the windows of the Astral Express, the stories of nameless travelers who met and parted ways...
These worlds, so dazzling and fierce, so sorrowful and full of hope, existed right now only within one person's mind, like a treasure buried on a solitary island. And he was the one who had to draw the first map: clear enough for others to follow, compelling enough to make them want to.
He opened his eyes. His gaze settled on the blank document on the screen, the one titled Honkai Impact 3rd, Chapter One.
His fingers returned to the keyboard.
In the silence of the deep night, the tapping began again.