Kai got home after three more F-rank dungeons.

The honest version of the walk was that his left side had been talking to him since the second gate, a specific conversation about what pushing through damaged muscle actually costs. By the third gate, he had stopped noting it and just continued.

After completing the last gate, he bought groceries at the store. On his way home, he made sure to mask his body condition. His left arm swung easily and naturally the whole way home after a bit of practice.

Leo opened the door before he knocked.

He didn’t say anything immediately. His eyes went to Kai’s face first — the quick check he had developed over the last two weeks, the one that read whether something was wrong before anything else happened. Then down to his left side, which Kai had been keeping neutral the entire walk home.

Leo’s eyes stayed there for one second longer than a casual look would.

Then he looked up with a grin. "Kai! You’re home early! How many dungeons?"

"Only a couple," Kai said, and handed him the bag.

Leo found the snacks before Kai even got through the door. He stood there holding the bag and looked at it for a second, then looked up.

"You keep buying this... Aren’t we–" Leo looked at the bag and did not finish the question. He had started to ask it the way he asked it every time, out of habit, because for most of the last year the answer had been yes, and habits were hard to stop even when the answer changed.

"We can afford it now," Kai said. "And it keeps you full. So enjoy them, you deserve it."

Leo’s eyes widened before a massive grin appeared on his face, and he rushed towards the kitchen table with the bag. Kai followed behind him and then helped him take out the stuff as Mina came in from the hallway a couple of seconds later and started putting things away.

"How’s the side?" she said.

Kai set the can down with a sigh. "Manageable," he said. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Mina sighed before pointing to a chair. "Sit down," she said. "I’ll finish those. And yes, it was obvious to me, you were flinching a bit."

He sat while Leo was already at the table with his snack. He glanced at Kai, then backed down without saying anything and just kept eating. Mina put the last of the groceries away after two minutes and then moved some pills in front of Kai with a glass of water.

"The notice," she said. "How close are you?"

"Six more days at the current rate," Kai said. "Probably less if conditions stay consistent. Possibly more if something goes wrong."

"And something going wrong includes what happened on your side today."

"Yes," he said.

"Then you slow down." Mina crossed her arms. "A destroyed body doesn’t run gates."

"I’ll think about it since it isn’t–"

"Kai." Leo had gone quiet when Mina’s voice rose a bit.

"Fine, I promise," Kai said before reaching over and ruffling Leo’s hair. "Good thing I have, Leo smiles to help me recover quickly."

Leo blinked. "Really?"

"Have I ever lied about that?" Kai asked with a raised brow.

Leo tilted his head before shaking it. "Nope." Then he smiled, the real one.

Something in Mina’s face softened. "Then you also need to eat properly and sleep longer," she said. "You’re not going out tomorrow if your side isn’t ready. One bad run costs more than one rest day."

"Okay," Kai said.

Mina glanced at Leo. "Finish your snack."

Leo took a bite and looked between them. "So we’re fine?"

"Yep," Kai said.

Leo nodded before continuing his snacks and showing him some videos of other people’s dungeon runs.

...

They were eating dinner while Leo talked through most of it.

Streams and forums and a team that had apparently cleared a D-rank gate in the eastern district with three people, which he considered the most impressive thing he had heard all week. Mina asked questions while Kai ate and listened, and let the conversation happen around him.

It was the most normal two hours he had experienced since the system went live.

He noticed it quietly. The world outside had reorganized itself entirely in less than a week. In here, the table was the same, Leo was the same, and Mina was the same.

That was more stabilizing than anything he had learned in a dungeon.

After dinner, Leo went to his room, and Mina cleared the table while Kai stayed in his chair and opened his status screen. They had eleven days left before they were kicked out. And based on his total progress, he could reach the goal in seven days if he continued pushing himself.

The fact that it was possible eased something in his chest.

He closed the screen.

Mina came back and stood at the counter without doing anything with it.

"What’s wrong? You have that familiar look again." Kai said with a smile.

"I found a different job," she said. "Administrative position at one of the new player coordination offices that opened in the northern district. They need people to manage logistics for gate teams. The pay is better." A pause. "It starts next week."

Kai looked at her and thought about what it had cost her to find and apply for a job in the middle of four days of the world reorganizing itself, while watching him come home with a hurt shoulder and a hurt side and saying nothing about either beyond asking the right questions at the right times.

"That’s good, but Mina–"

"You’ll handle the notice, I know." Mina said softly. "But I want to help with everything else. I’d rather we both be moving at the same time instead of one of us standing around waiting."

Kai looked at her as his mind flashed through everything Mina had taken on. From finding a new job to taking care of the house, and watching him come home hurt twice.

"Mina," he said.

She looked at him.

"Thank you," he said. "And go ahead with the job. You will do amazing."

Something shifted in her face as she looked away first. "Go rest your side," she said. "You’re running again in two days."

...

After a couple of hours.

Kai was lying on his bed, scrolling through the forum and the news of the recent dungeons being cleared. And then he put it down after seeing nothing new and closing his eyes. He was almost asleep when Leo knocked on the door frame.

"Come on in," Kai said.

Leo leaned against the frame without coming all the way in. The hallway light was behind him, and he looked younger in it, or maybe just more like himself from before he’d started checking Kai’s face when he got home.

"Are we actually fine?" Leo said.

Kai answered immediately.

Because hesitation would scare Leo more than the truth. He reached over and squeezed his cheek once. "We’re actually fine. I promise."

Leo stood there for a second. "Your side looks bad."

"It’ll heal fast."

Leo nodded, pushed off the door frame, and went back down the hallway. Kai listened to his door close.

He used to follow Kai around, asking about everything. How elevators worked. Why did the sky change colors, or whether fish could get thirsty? Now he asked one question, got the answer, and went to bed.

Kai chuckled before leaving his room and going to the kitchen quietly. He moved through the area to find some snacks and place them in a lunch box before writing Leo’s name on it. Then made lunch for Mina and a note of reminder for both of them.

After placing them in the fridge, he returned to his room as his status screen flickered once at the edge of his vision, unprompted.

[External Attention: Increasing.]

[Scaling Effect: Active.]

He was getting stronger without doing anything. The distortion did not care what he was doing. It cared that people were watching. That was all it needed.

For a second, he could still feel it, that moment when everything aligned. He closed the screen. He had written two names on packages in a quiet kitchen. The system had treated that the same way it treated a dungeon clear. He did not know yet what that meant for the ceiling.

He knew what it meant for why he was finding it.

He closed his eyes.