The skillet popped and sizzled. Hissing atop it, the eggs turned from translucent to white.

"If you don't know how to cook, what do you usually eat? Takeout?" Rowan asked idly.

Kaidu grunted an affirmative.

"That's not healthy, you know."

Another grunt.

Rowan sighed. He shook his head. A lost cause. He turned to Ikara instead. “We’ll have to register you as a member of the party. Tomorrow, we’ll swing by. Long as we go during daylight hours, it should be pretty quiet in the reception office."

She nodded. “Good by me.”

“Kaidu, you alright with that?”

Kaidu nodded, eyes shut.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep. You haven’t eaten anything yet.”

Kaidu lifted one eyelid and a single finger.

Rowan shook his head at him, unimpressed. “Any thoughts on a name for our party? Has it ‘emerged’ yet, or whatever?”

Kaidu shook his head. Ikara shrugged.

Rowan sighed and flipped the eggs. “I’m a one-man show over here, huh.”

“Five out of ten, could give me eggs faster,” Ikara offered.

Sighing again, Rowan slipped the eggs onto a plate and divided the soup into bowls. “Thanks, thanks. Bon appetit, or whatever.”

Coming back to life, Kaidu dug into the eggs and soup with vigor, outdone only by Ikara beside him, who lowered her face to the plate and slurped the eggs directly off it. Too tired to correct her, Rowan took his plate and sat beside the two of them. “Second floor. When are we going to hit it?”

“Not soon,” Kaidu said.

“No?”

Kaidu shook his head. “We’re too low level. What we need to do now is train. Train, prepare, and grind. Tomorrow, we hit the exclusion zones in town. I want to see how you fight,” he pointed at Ikara, “and as for you,” pointing at Rowan, “you need technique and practice, not to mention levels.”

“Can’t argue with you,” Rowan replied.

Kaidu turned to Ikara, who nodded as well. “You’re the boss, boss.”

“I’m not the party leader. Rowan is,” Kaidu replied.

Ikara blinked. “For real? No joke? Why?”

“Thanks,” Rowan muttered. He waved his hand. “In any case, I agree with Kaidu.”

Kaidu nodded. He slurped the last of his soup and stood. “I’ll see you in the morning. Five a.m., sharp.”

“Five a.m.?” Ikara complained.

“We’re much weaker than combat classes, and that will only become more true the higher level we become. If we want to stand up to them, we can’t afford to waste a moment of daylight,” Kaidu replied.

“Fine, fine,” Ikara grumbled. She stood and retreated to the room, then looked at Rowan. “Last call for anything in the room. I’m locking the door behind me.”

“Where’m I sleeping?” Rowan asked.

“The couch,” Ikara replied.

Rowan turned. A pure white couch stretched across the small common room behind him. “I’m too tall, I won’t fit. You take the couch.”

Ikara looked at him, then the couch. She nodded slowly and looked him in the eye, then closed the door. The lock clicked shut.

“You little—” Rowan glared at the shut door. You aren’t even officially a party member yet. Where do you get off stealing the room?

No, no, she saved my life. If she wants the room, she gets it.

He looked at Kaidu, who lifted an eyebrow. “You aren’t taking my room.”

“No, I…” Rowan sighed. Oh well. Couch it is.

He stood, gathered the dishes and put them in the sink, gave them a quick rinse. Kaidu vanished into his room so silently Rowan didn’t notice until the door clicked shut, and then he was alone.

Rowan plopped down on the couch. He stared at the ceiling, at the overwhelming whiteness of the room. No dirt. Not a smudge. As if Kaidu hadn’t lived here at all. It almost felt… lonely.

Kaidu, lonely? As if. He huffed out and flicked off the lights. Darkness fell over the room.

This is it. I can’t go home. I climb the Tower, or I die on the streets. He rolled over, uncomfortable. I almost died on the first floor. How can I guarantee I’ll make it past the second or the third floor, let alone to the top?

He rolled over again, this time to face the dark room. No. I can’t think like that, or I’ll defeat myself before I begin. I can do this. I will do this. If I die trying, then so be it.

Rowan shut his eyes. Tomorrow, we train. Back to the exclusion zone. A small smirk crept over his face as a thought occurred to him. I wonder if those combat classes with the frogs are still there. He rolled over and curled up, legs up so he barely fit on the couch.

Dark.

One light, a spotlight in the night. Math, lines and lines of it, extending to infinity. His pencil moved, but no matter how much he wrote, more replaced it.

The muted sounds of a distant argument. Head down, he buried himself in his homework.

“There’s no money! You can’t keep drinking!”

“Shut up! Your dumbass flowers don’t make any money either. Like you know any better than I do!”

“You have to stop! I know we don’t make much, but a little, if we can just save a little… We need to move to a better neighborhood. There’s an exclusion zone just a few streets over, now—there’s no fence, and you know what combat classes are like! I can’t raise my kids around that kind of danger.”

“Who cares? They’re going to be support classes, same as us. Might as well get used to getting pushed around by combat classes.”

“They…” His mother stuttered and fell silent.

The letters darkened, pencil digging deep into his paper. Rowan grit his teeth. I won’t end up like them. I won’t. I have to do better. Have to be perfect. Then the System can’t ignore me. I can do it. I can make it out.

A hand on his shoulder, big, calloused, warm. “Take it easy, kid. No point stressing yourself over the inevitable.”

Rowan shook him off. He focused on the math, brows furrowed, even as the numbers and letters twined around one another, evading comprehension. I can do it. I have to.

The math kept coming. More and more complex, until he couldn’t tell where the problems began and where they ended. He scrambled, desperately calculating, but there was no use. He drowned in it, wrapped up in the paper, scribbled pencil blackening the walls.

Not enough. I wasn’t perfect enough.

In the end, I’m no better than the rest of them.