Chapter 186: 187 | My Nap Has Been Scheduled
I didn’t argue. Mostly because arguing with Cheon when she’d already decided something was like trying to convince the ocean to stop being wet. Pointless and exhausting.
The kitchen island held a spread that would have fed a family of four. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Fresh fruit. Some kind of vegetable situation I didn’t recognize but assumed was healthy because Cheon never let me eat anything fun.
"You cooked all this?"
"I ordered most of it. The eggs are mine."
I sat down and started eating. The eggs were perfect because of course they were. Cheon approached everything with the same obsessive attention to detail whether she was planning a tactical operation or scrambling breakfast.
She sat across from me with her own plate and watched me eat in that way she had. Like she was cataloging every bite for future reference.
"How was training?"
"Productive. Noel knows things about my abilities I didn’t even know."
"And the part where you kissed her?"
"Also productive."
Cheon’s expression didn’t change but something shifted behind her eyes. "You’re collecting women like other people collect trading cards."
"That’s not fair."
"I’m not judging. Just observing."
"You’re always judging."
"Someone has to maintain standards."
I shoved more eggs into my mouth to avoid responding. Cheon and I had developed a rhythm over the past week. Push and pull. Challenge and acceptance. She called me on my bullshit. I deflected with humor. Eventually we met somewhere in the middle that felt like actual communication.
"I’m worried about tonight," she said finally.
"Me too."
"You don’t seem worried."
"I’m very good at not seeming things."
She reached across the table and took my hand. The contact sent a small pulse through the drain that I’d learned to recognize as her particular flavor. Honey and lightning. Order and chaos perfectly balanced.
"Mera and I will be nearby. If anything goes wrong—"
"I know."
"Rome. I’m serious."
I looked at her properly for the first time since walking through the door. The bags under her eyes. The tension in her shoulders. The way she held my hand like I might disappear if she let go.
Cheon Hae-Won, the untouchable class representative who organized her emotions on spreadsheets and approached relationships like business negotiations. Looking at me like I mattered more than her carefully constructed plans.
I brought her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles.
"I’ll be careful."
"You’re never careful."
"I’ll be careful-adjacent."
"That’s not a real word."
"It is now. I just invented it."
She pulled her hand back but the corners of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. I’d take it.
"Eat," she said. "Then sleep. I’ve scheduled four hours of rest before you need to start preparing."
"You scheduled my nap?"
"Someone has to."
I finished breakfast while Cheon watched. The food settled heavy in my stomach. Good weight. Grounding.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number.
REMEMBER. NINE O’CLOCK. CRIMSON LOTUS. ALONE.
Vivian. Reminding me like I could forget the most ominous meeting request I’d received since waking up in this body.
I showed the message to Cheon.
"She’s thorough," Cheon said. "I’ll give her that."
"You sound almost impressed."
"I’m impressed by competent execution regardless of the source." She paused. "I looked into her. Your sister."
"Half-sister."
"Same father. Different mothers. She’s twenty-three. Graduated from Stanford with dual degrees in business administration and computer science. Currently holds a position in Angelo Corp’s R&D division that’s technically junior but reports directly to a senior vice president who’s been with the company for thirty years."
"How do you know all that?"
"I know things about everyone, Rome. It’s what I do."
Right. Cheon’s ability let her see people’s Essentia like code. Reading between the lines of someone’s professional history probably came naturally to someone who literally perceived the world as data streams.
"What else?"
"She’s engaged. To the son of a tech mogul your father has been trying to partner with for years. The engagement was announced six months ago. No wedding date set."
"Arranged?"
"Almost certainly."
I processed this. My father using his daughter as a bargaining chip for corporate alliances. Not surprising. Vito D’Angelo treated family like chess pieces. Always had.
"Anything that explains why she wants to meet me?"
Cheon hesitated. "Nothing concrete. But there are gaps in her record. Three months two years ago where she took medical leave. No details about why. Her apartment lease was terminated during that period and she moved into company housing on the Angelo Corp campus."
"That’s weird."
"Very."
I pushed my empty plate aside. The food sat heavy now. Not comfortable. Warning weight.
"She knows something about our father. Something she thinks I need to hear."
"Or something she wants you to believe."
"Same difference in my world."
Cheon stood and collected the dishes. I watched her move around the kitchen with the kind of domestic competence that still caught me off guard. The class representative. The strategic genius. The girl who could optimize a battlefield with a glance.
Loading a dishwasher like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Go sleep," she said without turning around. "I’ll wake you at six. That gives you time to shower and dress before Marco drives you."
"What will you do?"
"Research. There’s more to find if I look harder."
"Cheon."
She stopped. Her back still faced me but I could see the tension in her spine.
"What?"
"Thank you."
A long pause.
"You don’t have to thank me for caring about you, Rome. That’s just what people do."
"Not in my experience."
She turned around. Her grey eyes met mine across the kitchen island. Something raw lived in that look. Something she usually kept hidden behind spreadsheets and schedules and the endless organization of her carefully controlled life.
"Maybe your experience sucked."
"Yeah. Maybe it did."
We stood there for a moment that stretched longer than it should have. Two people who’d stumbled into something neither of us had expected. Something that kept growing despite our best efforts to manage it into neat categories.
Then Cheon looked away.
"Bed. Now. Or I’m scheduling your nap with calendar reminders every fifteen minutes."
"You wouldn’t."
"Try me."
I retreated toward the bedroom. Partially because I was actually exhausted. Mostly because Cheon’s organizational threats were never empty.
The room was dark and cool. Blackout curtains blocked the afternoon sun. The sheets smelled faintly of Mera’s perfume from wherever she’d crashed after burning through her Essentia reserves.
I stripped down to boxers and collapsed onto the mattress.
Sleep should have come easy. My body was tired. My brain was fried. Every reasonable part of me screamed for rest.
But my mind wouldn’t stop spinning.
Noel’s kiss in the training room. The way she’d looked at me afterward like I was a puzzle she couldn’t solve.
Aurora on the observation deck. Telling me she needed time. Asking me to wait.
Cheon in the kitchen. Cooking eggs and researching my mysterious sister and pretending this was all normal.
Mera somewhere in the penthouse. Probably drooling on expensive throw pillows after exhausting herself trying to watch over me.
Laurana in her apartment. Surrounded by research notes about abilities she shouldn’t know I possessed.
Five women who knew what I was. Who’d chosen to stay anyway.
And one more waiting in the wings. Aurora. The final heroine. The endgame of whatever twisted narrative the system had dropped me into.
Six down. One to go.
Then what?
