After changing into the formal outfit she hadn't worn in ages, Rudolf fixed a practiced smile onto her face.
As the host of this banquet—at least, the former host—she had to stand at the entrance before it began and exchange pleasantries with every guest who arrived.
Once the banquet was officially announced open, she moved through the hall like clockwork, repeating the same social lines that came out every year, without fail.
She had long since memorized every face on the invitation list. With anyone she met, she could smoothly bring up two or three details about their recent lives, as if she'd been keeping a private ledger.
A crystal glass in hand, she drifted past long tables draped in pristine white cloth trimmed with gold. Every dish had been prepared by the Symbol family's top-tier private chef team—lavish, meticulous, flawless.
Rudolf didn't touch a single one.
She laughed at the sort of jokes that only belonged in gatherings like this. She traded carefully measured words with the powerful and the wealthy. And every so often—too often—her gaze slid toward the side door.
No matter how tightly she tried to clamp down on the anxiety in her chest, Speed Symbol still hadn't appeared.
If she hadn't been told Speed Symbol would attend, she could've made the rounds, offered her courtesies, and slipped out with an excuse.
But she couldn't.
If Speed Symbol showed up, Rudolf had to speak to her—openly, visibly, in front of everyone—before she could leave. Otherwise, the outside world would interpret it as discord between them.
And that would make people hesitate.
Especially when Speed Symbol hadn't fully relinquished power yet. On paper, she was still the Symbol family's head.
The wall clock kept turning. Every tick of the minute hand tightened the knot in Rudolf's stomach. She didn't even notice her phone had died—shut down to a black screen—hours ago.
"Who would've thought even Luna could get this impatient?"
From a shadowed corner on the second floor, Speed Symbol looked down over the hall, faint curiosity creasing her wrinkled face.
Others might not notice. But she had watched Rudolf grow up. To her, Rudolf's impatience was practically flashing in neon—every movement sharper, every pause shorter, every glance more frequent as time passed.
Speed Symbol shook her head, disappointed. If it were truly something important, she would have known. For Rudolf, this level of restlessness already counted as losing composure.
Even as she criticized her granddaughter in her heart, she still began walking down.
The side door opened.
Silence spread from that doorway like a stain, creeping across the room. Conversations faltered mid-sentence. People turned instinctively, confused by the sudden drop in sound.
And when they saw who stood there, the entire hall went dead quiet.
Eyes widened. Someone blinked hard, as if the sight would vanish if they blinked again.
It had been three years since she'd shown her face.
Everyone except Rudolf had assumed she'd abandoned the position completely.
So what did her return mean?
But Speed Symbol ignored the room's stunned silence. She walked straight to Rudolf, wrapped an arm around her with a familiar intimacy, and spoke in a voice so low only a horse girl could catch it.
"I don't know what you're in such a hurry for," she murmured, "but go."
Then, in Rudolf's disbelieving stare, she patted the shoulder that had already tightened like a drawn bow.
Normally, they would've exchanged a few more words in front of everyone—something warm and polished, a performance for the crowd. But Speed Symbol hadn't come back for small courtesies. She was here to announce something. Everything else was noise.
And no matter how much she criticized Rudolf… she was still her grandmother.
"Why are you still standing here?"
Rudolf snapped back to herself, nodded once, then turned and left the hall without looking back.
She didn't care about the eyes following her.
She only wanted to return to Tracen.
To return to Eternal Meteor.
The moment she cleared the doors, Rudolf began to run.
Her legs exploded with power—so violently that her dress tore apart along the seams. Under the moonlight, she drove forward with everything she had, sprinting toward Central Tracen as if the distance itself were an enemy.
In the corner of a dorm bed, a rectangular glow suddenly lit up, washing pale light over Eternal Meteor's face.
Wrapped in her blanket, curled against the wall, she stared at the screen.
"Eleven-thirty," she muttered. "So… I really got stood up."
She squinted at the time, then tossed the phone aside with careless force and rested her chin on her knees, pulling her posture tighter again.
Silence returned.
Maybe a minute passed.
Maybe five.
She didn't know.
All she knew was that something sour and aching rose in her throat—so sudden and senseless that even she thought it was ridiculous.
Getting stood up was common. It happened all the time.
Rudolf had warned her she'd be busy.
Meteor had prepared herself. She'd told herself it wouldn't matter if they didn't see fireworks.
And yet now, at this exact moment, it hurt so much she almost laughed at herself.
"X," she said quietly, "am I getting softer?"
"Yes," X answered. "You're getting softer."
Meteor let out two self-mocking laughs.
"Then I guess this is what I deserve."
She didn't wait for X to ask what she meant. The words spilled out on their own.
"If I get soft, that's a sin."
"I made that decision at the start—so why… why am I softer now?"
"Is it because of Rudolf? Because of how carefully she looks after me? Because of the things she says about the future? Or because of—"
"Do you hate her?"
X cut in sharply.
"Hate her?"
Meteor sounded genuinely startled. She'd already told X what she felt about Rudolf.
"How could I hate her?" she said. "Didn't I say I like her?"
"I mean after getting stood up."
Meteor shook her head without hesitation.
"If I let one broken promise erase everything she's done for me, that would be cruel."
Her phone buzzed at her feet.
Hope flashed before she could stop it. She snatched it up—knowing it probably wasn't Rudolf, but unable to help herself anyway.
It wasn't a message.
It was her alarm.
The one she'd set so she wouldn't get carried away and miss the fireworks.
On the screen, a note sat beneath the alarm time:
Watch fireworks.
Meteor stared at those words, then slowly dragged the edge of her blanket over her legs and lowered her face into the fabric.
"You know what you look like right now?" X asked.
"What?" Her voice came muffled, hoarse, from under the blanket.
"Like the Eternal Meteor who first came to this world—hiding under the bridge."
Meteor didn't answer. She didn't even want to know why X chose now to say that—was it mockery? A cruel joke about how ugly she must look crying?
She didn't have the energy to care.
"Exactly the same," X continued. "So confident at the start. Exactly the same when you end up eating dirt and crying. And exactly the same when—"
X paused deliberately, refusing to finish.
Meteor still didn't lift her head.
Because at that moment, her ears—flattened against her white hair—shot straight up.
Someone was charging up the stairs.
Not footsteps in the hallway. Stairs. Heavy, fast, urgent—so loud she could practically feel the panic in the person's chest. The sound climbed closer, floor by floor, rushing toward her level.
But after what had happened tonight, Meteor didn't dare hope.
She didn't dare.
She stayed buried in her blanket, unmoving.
Only her ears, standing rigidly upright, betrayed the truth inside her.
The footsteps skidded to a sudden stop right outside her door.
Meteor finally raised her head—eyes wide, disbelief tightening her face—as the smart lock verified the fingerprint and began to disengage.
The door slammed open so hard it nearly kissed the wall.
Rudolf stood there in a torn formal dress, chest heaving, breathing ragged and loud as she fought for air.
"And the same Rudolf," X finished softly, "who will always find you."
This time, Meteor didn't ignore it.
She couldn't hear anything else.
She looked at Rudolf—still in that banquet dress, still breathless, still forcing herself upright through sheer will—and with what felt like every last scrap of strength in her body, Meteor pulled her lips into a smile.
A smile that looked more like crying.
"You're finally back," she whispered.
"President."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 95
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 89
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 53
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 61
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 65
Uma Musume: From Beginner 61
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 37
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