Chapter Three.
Klein, in his short-sleeve black polo, light-colored casual pants, and brownish sneakers, looked every bit like someone who had accidentally wandered into the wrong side of town. Not club material. More like "freshly fired, still clinging to dignity" material.
He adjusted his non-prescription glasses—the ultimate disguise of someone trying to look smarter than they felt—and sighed. Second thoughts began piling up like overdue bills.
The neon sign above him flickered ominously: Twilight Hermit Order.
Klein muttered the name under his breath, tasting it like expired milk. "…Twilight Hermit Order."
Really? That was the name?
It was his first time hearing of such a place, and the longer he stared at the glowing letters, the less it resembled a club and the more it sounded like… well, a shady organization. Or maybe a clandestine society where everyone wore robes and argued about candle placement.
"Who the hell names a bar like that?" Klein scoffed, already questioning Roselle's taste in nightlife. "Sounds less like cocktails and more like a secret organization ceremony."
He tugged at his shirt hem, grimacing. "Perfect. I'm underdressed for my own doom." he was still holding his box.
Not to mention, he was still lugging around his sad cardboard box of personal belongings. The box was like a clingy ex—no matter where he went, it came along, sagging at the edges and reminding him of his misfortune. Nothing screamed "ready to party" quite like carrying a screwdriver and half-dead office mug into a nightclub.
And yet… despite himself, curiosity sparked. Roselle might have had questionable taste in names, clothes, life choices, everything really—but if there was one thing Klein trusted, it was that his senior had an unshakable eye for aesthetics.
Which meant whatever waited beyond those flickering doors wasn't going to be ordinary.
Klein, still in the middle of his dilemma, finally took a hesitant step forward—only to freeze.
From the distance, someone else approached the club entrance. And what made Klein stop wasn't the timing, but the hair.
The stranger was tall and lean, posture sharp as a blade unsheathed. Skin, pale as snow under the neon glow, caught the light like porcelain. But it was the hair that truly struck—silver, almost luminous, cascading like strands spun from moonlight. The kind of detail that grabbed attention and refused to let go.
A foreigner?
It was impossible to tell.
Then the stranger lifted their head—and their gaze cut straight into Klein.
For one impossible second, it didn't feel like being looked at. It felt like being peeled open. As if his soul was nothing more than a diary carelessly left unlocked.
Klein's grip tightened on his box.
And then—just as abruptly—the stranger turned away, slipping through the club doors without a word, without a sound.
The night swallowed them whole.
Klein blinked. His thoughts tripped over themselves. What the hell was that?
"I mean, sure, I look shabby," he muttered, lampooning his own nerves, "but did he really need to stare at me like I'm on death row?"
A car horn blared behind him, jolting him out of the spiral. He shuffled aside, clutching his box tighter.He glanced at the sleek black car idling by the curb, its tinted windows gleaming under the neon haze.
His face twisted. He was about to shout at the reckless driver for randomly honking when the driver's window rolled down, slow and deliberate.
"Yow! If it isn't my favorite junior!" The booming, boorish voice bounced off the narrow street, loud enough to scare a pigeon into flight.
Klein's face crumpled like a receipt pulled from the back pocket after laundry day. Of course. Of course it had to be him.
Behind the wheel sat a man with long chestnut hair that tumbled carelessly over his shoulders, blue eyes that sparkled with mischief, a sharp nose, and lips that curled into an annoyingly perfect grin. The finishing touch? Two neatly groomed little mustaches perched on his face like twin punctuation marks to his ridiculousness.
And damn it, Klein thought bitterly, he was actually good-looking. Infuriatingly so.
"…Roselle," Klein groaned, adjusting his box higher in his arms. "Why do you announce yourself like a street vendor trying to sell spoiled fish?"
Roselle leaned an elbow on the window, smiling like a cat that had swallowed an entire aviary. "Correction, my dear Klein: not spoiled fish. Premium imported tuna. The kind people would pay to get spoiled by."
Klein's eye twitched.
"Come on now, we are here to celebrate your unemployment!" Roselle declared grandly, like a drunk toastmaster at a wedding no one wanted to attend.
Klein pinched the bridge of his nose. "You make it sound like I won the lottery."
"Come on now, we are here to celebrate your unemployment!" Roselle declared grandly, like a drunk toastmaster at a wedding no one wanted to attend.
Klein pinched the bridge of his nose. "You make it sound like I won the lottery."
Roselle's grin widened. "Isn't it the same? Freedom, my boy! No more chains of routine. No more greasy cafeteria lunches. No more pretending to like Linda from accounting."
Klein deadpanned. "I liked Linda."
"You tolerated Linda," Roselle corrected smoothly, eyes glinting. "And tolerating is the greatest crime of all."
Klein sighed, shifting his box. He really wasn't dressed—or mentally prepared—for this circus. "Roselle, I'm not exactly in the mood to 'celebrate' right now. I just got fired."
"All the more reason!" Roselle banged the side of the car for emphasis, startling a stray cat into bolting. "Tonight, junior, you're not Klein the Jobless Engineer. You're Klein the Phoenix, rising from the ashes!"
"Pretty sure Phoenixes don't rise with a mug, a screwdriver, and three packs of ramen in hand," Klein muttered.
Roselle tilted his head, gaze sharpening with an odd glint beneath the bravado. "Oh, you'd be surprised what rises when the right fire is lit."
Klein froze for half a second, unsettled—but Roselle's grin snapped back into place before he could press further.
"Now, less brooding, more moving! Get in, before you scare away all the fun."
Klein could only sigh as he opened the car's door, setting his soggy little box of belongings down on the backseat like a child being dropped off at daycare. He kept only the essentials—wallet, ID, phone—the holy trinity of modern survival.
Sliding into the passenger seat, he muttered, "You know, normal people comfort their juniors with drinks, advice, maybe job referrals. Not… dragging them to cult-sounding nightclubs."
Roselle flicked his hair back with a theatrical flourish, shifting the car into gear. "And that is why normal people are boring, Klein. Utterly boring. You should thank fate you met me."
"I'd thank fate more if it gave me severance pay."
Roselle only laughed, the kind of laugh that made it impossible to tell if he was actually joking or if he really did find Klein's misery entertaining. "Severance pay doesn't buy memories, my boy. But tonight? Tonight you'll remember."
Klein leaned his head back against the seat, staring at the blur of neon as the car pulled away from the curb. His chest felt heavy with exhaustion, yet there was a spark—a twitch of something he couldn't quite name.
Roselle was ridiculous, infuriating, reckless… but he was right about one thing.
After years of routine, suffocating schedules, and suffering, maybe—just maybe—freedom was supposed to start with something stupid.
And walking into a place called Twilight Hermit Order certainly qualified.
Both of them stepped out of the car—the senior radiating valor and excitement like a hero on the cover of a pulp novel, and the junior trailing behind under his own personal storm cloud.
One strode toward the club as though it were destiny.
The other dragged his feet like he was being escorted to his own execution.
And yet, for reasons he didn't care to admit, Klein still followed.