A reunion?
Kiana almost blurted out "no way."
Mei gently squeezed Kiana's hand, signaling her to stay calm.
Bronya put away her phone and looked at Arthur with a steady gaze, waiting for his answer.
Dan Heng adjusted his glasses, and Stelle and March 7th wore the expressions of people perfectly content to watch the drama unfold.
They glanced at Arthur, then at the trio of Kiana, Mei, and Bronya, who had suddenly grown noticeably tense.
Arthur was silent for a moment.
His memories of Cyrene and Castorice were somewhat hazy.
They seemed connected to certain warm yet faintly bittersweet moments from his university years.
That was a period when he, the Captain, had formed a relatively independent social circle after his childhood friends had gradually drifted apart in pursuit of their own futures.
Cyrene was quietly clever; Castorice was gentle and introverted. Both had been kindred spirits.
But all of that was in the past.
The person he was now was the Captain, someone shouldering the entire fate of a studio on the brink.
"I'll think about it."
Arthur finally shook his head, his tone calm. "The studio has only just started to turn around, and there's too much going on. I can't get away right now. Once things settle down... we'll see."
He hadn't refused outright, but he hadn't agreed either.
That gave the three girls a small measure of relief, but a thorn by the name of Cyrene had lodged itself in their hearts.
Phainon didn't press him, laughing it off.
"Totally understandable, starting a business is always hectic. Once your project's a success, we'll all celebrate together, get everyone in one place! We'll cook up a whole spread, and who knows, maybe Cyrene will turn your story into a book someday!"
They chatted a little longer, and then Phainon, noticing something going on back in the kitchen, stood up to leave and hurried off.
Quiet settled over the table again, but the atmosphere was entirely different from before.
Something subtle, probing, threaded with a faint undercurrent of tension, drifted silently between Kiana, Mei, Bronya, and Arthur.
Stelle looked left and right, whispering to March 7th, "Am I imagining things, or does this feel like a bit of a battlefield?"
March 7th nodded in solemn agreement. "And there's more than one person fighting in it..."
Dan Heng calmly finished the last sip of his tea and set down his cup. "It's getting late. We still need to push forward tomorrow."
The words acted like a signal, breaking through the slightly stifled air.
"Right, right, we should head out!" Kiana immediately agreed, standing up, though her eyes couldn't help drifting toward Arthur one more time.
Mei rose gracefully as well, her composed smile returning to her face, though a faint trace of thought lingered in the depths of her eyes.
Bronya quietly gathered her things.
When it came time to pay the bill, it was Kiana who grabbed it first, as expected, and Mei couldn't talk her out of it.
Stepping out of the Golden Grand, the cool night breeze swept over them, carrying away the warmth of the restaurant and the lingering scent of food.
It also cleared, just a little, the scattered thoughts weighing on their minds.
No one said much on the way out.
Kiana still seemed to be turning over two things: how much Phainon resembled Kevin, and just who Cyrene was.
Mei and Bronya were each lost in their own silence.
Stelle and March 7th murmured to each other in hushed tones.
Dan Heng walked at the far edge of the group, quiet as ever.
Arthur walked in the middle, feeling the chill of the night air, while names surfaced unbidden in his mind: Phainon, Mydei, Anaxa, Castorice, Cyrene...
But for now, the survival of the studio was what mattered most.
Some things didn't need to be examined too closely, not yet. But some stories needed to be told to the world first.
And there on the city street at night, the long shadows of their goodbyes stretched out behind them.
"See you tomorrow then! Captain, don't you dare be late!"
Kiana waved and pulled open the door of a black sedan parked along the curb, its sleek, understated lines doing little to conceal the quiet luxury beneath.
Mei gave a slight nod to the group and slipped in beside her. The window rose, shutting out the sounds of the street.
"Bronya, how are you getting home? Do you want a ride?"
Kiana lowered the window and leaned out to ask.
Bronya had already made her way over to a motorcycle with a bold, angular frame parked at the roadside. She was fastening her helmet, pressing down her silver-grey hair beneath it.
She shook her head, her voice slightly muffled through the helmet. "I'm fine. I've got the bike."
The engine let out a deep, powerful growl, and the motorcycle shot into the flow of traffic like an arrow loosed from a bow.
It vanished quickly into the night, leaving only the fading rumble trailing behind.
"Bronya is so cool!" March 7th exclaimed.
Dan Heng adjusted his glasses. "I'm taking the subway. See you tomorrow."
He turned and walked toward the entrance of the nearby station, his figure quickly absorbed into the moving crowd.
"Stelle, what about us?" March 7th looked over at her.
Stelle scratched at her tousled grey hair. "Me? I'll come with you today; it's on the way anyway."
The two of them wandered off together, laughing and chattering as they went.
In no time at all, the lively dinner had dispersed entirely, leaving Arthur standing alone at the edge of the Golden Grand's warm amber glow.
He stood there for a moment, got his bearings, and then set off in the direction of home, guided by the faint remnants of memory that weren't quite his own.
The home in those memories was a rental unit in an old residential building, not too far from the studio but not exactly close either.
The former him had rarely gone back since throwing himself completely into the studio, especially after things had started going wrong.
He had resented the back-and-forth commute, and resented even more the thought of facing that hollow, dusty space crammed with the traces of failure and the weight of the past.
More often than not, he had simply slept on the old couch in the office, numbing himself with overwork and exhaustion.
He passed through several streets that felt both familiar and foreign, turned into a quiet alley, and a dull grey apartment building came into view.
The motion-sensing light in the stairwell had a loose connection and flickered erratically.
He climbed to the fifth floor. When he drew out the long-unused key and slid it into the lock, he could feel its stiffness immediately. He turned it with some force, and with a click, the door swung open.
A smell rushed out to meet him, a mix of dust, stale air, and a faint trace of mothballs.
He reached in and switched on the entryway light.
The orange glow filled the modest space.
The layout was strikingly similar to the apartment Arthur had rented in his previous life. The furniture was simple, even a little worn.
A thin layer of dust had settled over the floor and every surface, a quiet testament to how long the occupant had been away.
His gaze moved across the living room.
An old couch, a glass coffee table, a television that had seen better days.
On the coffee table, a few outdated gaming magazines and some empty cans were scattered about.
Several photographs were pinned to the wall with coloured thumbtacks, their colours slightly dulled beneath the dust.
He stepped closer.
The most prominent were three photos arranged side by side.
On the left was a primary school group shot: Kiana beaming without a care in the world, Mei standing quietly beside her, and a silver-haired Bronya gazing at the camera with no particular expression.
The young Arthur had been caught with Kiana's arm looped around his neck, looking thoroughly put-upon.
The middle photo was from their middle school years, all four of them a little older.
The one on the right was taken after their high school graduation ceremony. The four of them stood at the edge of the school grounds at sunset, smiling brightly, faces full of hope for what lay ahead.
Those years of growing up together had been frozen in photos that had taken on the faint yellow tinge of time. Even through the thin layer of dust, the warmth and light of those days still came through.
Next to them hung another photograph, slightly larger.
A university graduation photo.
Arthur stood in the centre wearing academic robes, Dan Heng standing to his left in matching robes, expression composed. To his right, Stelle grinned with a V-sign thrown up for the camera.
Clustered around and behind them were more young faces: Phainon, his smile bright and open; Mydei, expression serious but with a warmth in his eyes; a girl with her head slightly bowed, only half her delicate profile and long hair visible (Castorice, perhaps?). And a little further back, another girl (Cyrene?) standing slightly apart from the rest.
She was looking off toward something beyond the frame of the photo, a faint smile resting at the corner of her lips.
On the back of the photograph, something had been written in ballpoint pen, the words worn and hard to make out.
Arthur reached out and gently brushed the dust from its surface.
The him in that photo had been surrounded by friends who shared his passions. Far away, his childhood companions, though contact had already grown sparse by then, were still part of his world.
He had carried with him a perhaps impractical dream of making his mark in the games industry, and he had carried it boldly.
Then had come the studio, and the setbacks, and failure after failure, and a social circle that quietly fell away.
The debts that grew heavier with every passing month. And then the childhood friends, returning in their own ways, each in turn.
Though it felt less like a homecoming and more like a kind of quiet scrutiny. Or perhaps... watching from the sidelines.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones