NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 2: An Exchange
Winter had arrived in NQSC, hushing the world beneath a blanket of white that piled up gently with the arrival of a steady and silent snowfall. In a semi-affluent neighbourhood filled with rows of terraced houses, a young girl walked home. Her tidy black hair was dusted with snow, and she was bundled in thick winter clothes that shielded her pale body from the cold. Clutching the straps of her bag, she moved in near-silence — nothing stirred but the sound of her boots pressing into fresh snow.
Her gaze drifted past an abandoned house, sealed with a thick and garish government-issued barricade tape that was stretched across its porch. A breathtaking man was standing before it.
The man was cradling a cup of plant-based coffee — a rare luxury these days, ever since the crisis in Antarctica had disrupted the waking world's supply chains, sending commodity prices into chaos.
Moving closer, she noticed his resemblance to her — black hair, pale skin — yet refined into something otherworldly.
His raven-black hair possessed a lustrous shade she couldn't name, one that instantly made her own tidy hair seem like a faded charcoal sketch in comparison. His uncovered porcelain skin, bared to the cold, was tinged with a flawless, disgustingly smooth alabaster hue that made a mockery of her own meticulous skincare routine.
'And he's a guy ...' She thought with a pang of indignant jealousy.
He had a face sculpted and angled with such deliberate, breathtaking perfection that it was almost offensive to look at — because it belonged not to a quiet, snowy, mundane street built for middle-class convenience, but to the hallowed halls of a grand marble temple — a fitting art piece chiselled by an enamoured craftsman.
While her own cheeks stung from the biting cold, the man seemed completely unbothered, dressed in nothing more than a black long-sleeved shirt and a simple pair of ashen trousers. The way his clothes clung to him suggested bespoke craftsmanship, tailored just for his frame. Both shirt and trousers pushed softly against his skin — teasing that, underneath the fabric, the man possessed an athletic muscularity. Not the overly-beefy physique of a bodybuilder, but the long, graceful lines of a dancer with the right amount of bulk, hinting at a tightly coiled, latent power beneath the surface. Every movement he made possessed a fluid, confident ease, making even a simple action — like drinking a cup of coffee — look elegant.
As the girl drew closer, the tranquil, melancholic scene before her seemed to shift and rearrange itself in her eyes. It was as if she were viewing a living painting, but one where the rules were reversed.
The quiet street, terraced houses, and falling snow blurred, muting into a soft-focus background, leaving only the man and the shadows surrounding him rendered in sharp, almost unnatural detail. The light near him acted as a selective artist, casting aside the mundane world to the periphery and focusing all of its celestial attention on its true subject — the man and his shadows.
The living shadows surrounding this hauntingly beautiful man seemed to possess a mystical quality — as if they ardently wished to venerate him. They pooled and deepened in harmony to accentuate his facial features while simultaneously imbuing his arresting onyx eyes with a dramatic, brooding depth. They crept and clung to his sacred form like devoted acolytes, striving to emphasise his perfection, leaving no lines or angles unadorned.
Even the soft snow, spiralling in lazy orbits, seemed to hold a reverence for him. They danced in an invisible vortex around his form, but never quite daring to land on him — save for a few impertinent flakes.
'An Awakened … h ... he's gorgeous!'
Her eyes locked onto the man with an intensity she knew was impolite, but she simply couldn't look away.
"Still bitter." The man uttered, lowering his coffee cup. His melodious voice laced with a deep, resonant masculine rumble that seemed too powerful for such a simple complaint. His face grimaced slightly, lip curled as the aftertaste rudely settled on his tongue.
"Ah … well, having it unsweetened is an acquired taste after all."
The young girl chimed in, now at a distance close enough to hear him. She stopped and smiled bashfully at the man, hoping to strike up a conversation.
His enchanting beauty was the sort that would make you forget your own name, and her teenage insecurities screamed at her to turn back lest she embarrass herself in front of this divine hunk. And yet, an inexplicable pull — a strange sense of familiarity — urged her forward, overriding her natural stranger-danger caution.
The young gentleman returned a polite smile. It was a small gesture, but enough to steal air from her lungs, making her increasingly self-aware. Despite the frigid cold, a flush of heat burned on her cheeks, betraying her awkwardness.
"I know. It's just that … drinking this brand of coffee is a personal ritual for me ... In preparation for significant life events."
"A significant life event? Are you planning to move to the Dream Realm too?" she squeaked, her excitement bubbling over.
"My family is moving to Ravenheart in a few months! Daddy got himself a promotion, and he'll be the government liaison for the Song Domain's bureau. I can't wait!" she added, slipping in a casual brag.
"Yes, the Dream Realm. Thinking of getting myself a place in Bastion ... eventually."
"Oh …" The single word fell from her lips, the excitement visibly draining from her voice. Bastion, so far away. The fleeting, impossible fantasy of seeing this man again shattered like a thin sheet of ice.
His polite smile remained, and she felt her heart give a painful little flutter in her chest.
A few moments of silence passed before he gestured with his cup towards the abandoned building. "I'm here to reminisce before I depart, hence the coffee. I used to live he … in this area long ago. Say, do you know what happened to this house? Why the ugly tape?"
His question snapped her back to the present.
"Oh, that," she replied, straightening up slightly. "The government seized it. It was like a second home for Neph ... I mean, Princess Nephis and her friends." A touch of pride entered her voice, hoping that being on a nickname basis with such an important figure of humanity will raise the stranger's impression on her. "I used to pop over there regularly. You know, before the whole Antarctica debacle."
The man tilted his head slightly, his polite smile unwavering. "A property associated with the famous Valor's adopted princess, seized? That seemed ... complicated. I would have thought her name alone would offer it some protection."
His observation was the perfect opening. "That's the strange part!" The girl leaned in, thrilled to be the keeper of such a juicy mystery. "It wasn't HER house. No one knows who the rightful owner is. The government searched every record and database they have — nothing. It's like the house doesn't officially exist."
"A ghost property," the man murmured, his gaze drifting to the peeling paint on the window frame. "How did the authorities handle such a puzzle?"
"They were stumped!" she confirmed eagerly. "Their mails requesting for information just kept piling up in the mailbox, left completely unanswered. They even sent officers to visit from time to time, hoping to meet the owner."
"Daddy chatted with one of the officers during one of their check-ups, you see … Due to local property abandonment law, they couldn't just outright seize it until a certain amount of time has passed."
"Bureaucratic limbo." the man murmured, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.
"Exactly!" she said, pleased he was following along. "Anyway, then daddy told them that Changing Star and her friends used it as a second home, of sorts."
"So, out of respect, the local council waited for them to return from their Third Nightmare before approaching them to deal with the situation."
Her focus snapped back to him. "And then they did come back! Well, some of them, at least. One day, while I was away, mummy told me she saw Effie and Cassie … oops … I meant, Saint Raised by Wolves and Lady Cassia visited the house. They were in there for hours before coming over to our house for a chat."
She leaned in again, the story reaching its peak. "They talked to my parents about our family's move to Ravenheart … and then they asked about ME." She let the end of her sentence hang in the air for a moment, the significance of it colouring her tone.
'At least they still remember her.' The man thought to himself.
She paused, her gaze drifting toward the brightly lit window of her house as if to gather her thoughts. It was a small but necessary respite from his overwhelming presence.
"They too, were asking mummy if she knew anything about the original owner. Weirdly enough, they couldn't remember it themselves." she continued, her excitement mellowing. "But no one around here remembers. I guess with the big move to the Dream Realm, people have bigger things on their minds ... immigration papers and all that."
"Next thing we know, the tape went up." She shrugged, indicating that she had shared all she knew regarding this matter.
The man turned his gaze to the house. The girl, for her part, resumed her unabashed ogling, but he seemed oblivious, his expression vacant as he stared wistfully.
'So no one cared to stay ... That makes sense. They have their new positions, new lives … mostly away from each other … Since they have no need for this place any more, Neph must have let it go after assuring the government she won't make a fuss if they seized it.'
"Rain! It's getting dark, come inside!" A voice called out from the residence next door. Through the large window, a woman's silhouette was visible, peering out into the dusk. From her angle, obscured by the glare of the interior lights, her adopted daughter appeared to be talking to a shadowy figure wreathed in an umbra that seemed to swallow the gloom.
Rain turned to shout back, "Coming, mummy!"
In that brief moment of distraction, a tenebrous serpent slithered from her shadow. Simultaneously, a sliver of the man's shadow detached itself. It was not a menacing shape, but a lively, playful one that glided surreptitiously across the snow. It slipped into the girl's own shadow and nestled within it, as if it belonged there all along.
When Rain turned back, there was nothing. The man, his coffee cup, the unnatural atmosphere around him — all of it had simply vanished.
She blinked, scanning the empty space.
As she walked towards her front door, she remained oblivious to the gift he had left behind. Had the lighting been better, she might have noticed her shadow was no longer entirely her own. It now clung to her heels with a new, deeper hue — a shade that was, against all logical reason, cheerful.