Chapter 13: A Dinner Partner at 1 A.M.
Bread. Water. That was dinner, apparently.
Adrian stood at the counter in the dark kitchen, eating a slice gone slightly stale at the edges, sweeter than he remembered bread being. He swallowed. Cracked the water bottle. Drank half of it in one go like his body had just now remembered it existed.
His eyes drifted to the phone on the counter.
The mission was still sitting there, patient in the way only a piece of software could be.
☐ Eat one proper meal before the day ends. In the company of another person, preferably.
Six hours left, give or take. He did the math without much interest. Not tonight’s math, not with his legs this tired and his eyes doing that heavy thing they did right before sleep claimed you.
He finished the bread. Drained the rest of the water. Set the glass down next to the sink, too tired to rinse it, and told himself that was also tomorrow’s problem.
The bathroom light was too bright for how little he had left in him.
He washed his hands. Brushed his teeth on autopilot, staring at nothing in the mirror in particular, and by the time he spat and rinsed his reflection looked like someone who’d been awake for considerably longer than one very strange evening actually warranted.
He changed into a shirt that had no business being called pajamas, just the softest thing in the drawer, and grabbed the phone off the counter on his way past.
One last check.
☐ Eat one proper meal before the day ends. In the company of another person, preferably.
Still empty. Why couldn’t it just be a normal eating mission.
He set the phone face-down on the nightstand and dropped onto the mattress like it owed him money. The second his head hit the pillow, whatever reserve of energy he’d been running on quietly clocked out.
One last thought tried to surface before the rest of him followed it under.
Her hand against his jaw. Pretend it didn’t happen. Sure.
He didn’t get any further than that. The thought didn’t even finish landing before sleep took the rest of the sentence with it.
Darkness. Then vibration.
Bzzzt.
The phone buzzed once against the mattress, close enough to his head that it registered as noise before it registered as meaning. He didn’t move. It stopped.
Started again.
He reached for it without opening his eyes, thumb finding the screen through pure muscle memory, and the light hit his face a half-second before his brain caught up with what it was looking at.
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WARNING: BEGINNER FOUNDATION MISSION APPROACHING EXPIRATION.
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Time Remaining: 00:52:41
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He stared at it for a solid three seconds without processing a single word. Then he looked at the clock.
1:07 a.m.
He sat with that for a second before it fully landed.
Huh...You’re kidding me.
The room tilted for a second the way rooms do when you go from horizontal to vertical too fast on too little sleep, and he blinked through it, phone still in hand, mission still sitting there smug and unfinished.
☐ Eat one proper meal before the day ends. In the company of another person, preferably.
He was awake now. Not the good kind of awake. Just the blunt, unwelcome kind of alertness that came with realizing, at one in the morning, that he was officially screwed.
He rubbed his face with both hands, dragging them down slow like that might reset something.
Checked the time again. Still 1:07.
Less than an hour. Food, technically, wasn’t the hard part. There were places open at this hour, he just had to find one and get there. That was solvable. Annoying, but solvable.
In the company of another person, preferably.
That was the problem.
He sat there for a second, staring at the wording like it might soften if he looked at it long enough.
He ran through the options anyway, mostly out of obligation to himself.
Calling someone at one in the morning to come eat with him. Asking someone to come over was worse, somehow.
Rose.
He didn’t even let that one finish forming.
He grabbed his phone properly this time, thumb already moving.
Twenty-four-hour restaurants near me.
The search populated fast, a scatter of pins and star ratings glowing against the dark. He scrolled, thumb flicking without much patience.
One was fifty minutes out. Not happening. One had a 2.3 and a top review that just said "avoid," which felt unambiguous enough not to need further research.
Then one closer to reasonable.
4.2 ⭐️(1).
One rating so it was new. Fifteen minutes away. Open 24 hours, no asterisks.
He studied it for a second. Not amazing. Not terrible.
Good enough.
That settled it. He swung his legs off the bed, grabbed whatever clothes were closest, nothing that would survive a formal inspection, but enough to not get arrested, and pulled them on standing up, half-hopping into a shoe near the doorway.
Keys. Wallet. Phone.
He was out the door before he could talk himself into just accepting the mission failure and going back to sleep.
The streets were empty in that specific way only one a.m. managed. Traffic lights cycled through their colors for nobody. He didn’t particularly pay attention to the rest.
Adrian drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting against the door, fighting to keep his eyes open as he drove.
He was annoyed. Genuinely, quietly annoyed. Mostly because driving through an empty city at one in the morning because a phone app with delusions of grandeur wanted him to have dinner with a stranger before a countdown hit zero was never in his bucket list.
This is my life now.
He didn’t know whether to laugh at that or be concerned about it. Decided he was too tired to do either properly.
Then he saw it. A low building up ahead, sign still lit against the dark, windows glowing warm and yellow like the only honest light left on the street.
He pulled in.
No atmosphere waiting for him inside. Just a diner that stayed lit because someone had to keep it that way at this hour.
Warm fluorescent light hit him first, then the smell. Coffee gone slightly bitter from sitting too long, eggs, butter, the particular grease-and-toast smell every diner seemed to share regardless of state or city.
The diner was mostly empty except someone by the window, alone, thumb scrolling.
Adrian stepped in. The bell rang above him.
A woman looked up from behind the counter. Mid-twenties, hair yanked back in a way that said this wasn’t the start of her shift, name tag pinned slightly crooked. Claire.
"Table or counter?" She asked with a docile glance.
He scanned the room. Only a dude at the end. The only girl seemed to be...her.
"Counter."
She tipped her head toward the open stool and dropped a menu in front of him before turning back to the coffee machine.
He opened it, and his eyes went straight for the numbers before the food, same reflex it always was.
Claire noticed. She let it sit for a second before saying anything.
"You can skip the left side." She didn’t come any closer to say it. "That’s the expensive stuff."
He looked up. "That obvious?"
"A little." She was already walking off, unbothered.
Omelet. Toast. Not a normal meal to have at one a.m. He ordered it anyway.
"Anything to drink?"
"Water’s fine."
She nodded and turned to put the order in. She soon returned with the plate, set it down without ceremony.
"Enjoy."
He looked at the omelet, then at her.
He took a bite. Better than a gas station diner had any right to be at one in the morning.
"How is it?"
He chewed. Swallowed. "Surprisingly...good."
"Good." She nodded in slight appreciation. She was already turning before he’d decided whether to say anything else.
Bzzzt.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. The screen lit before he’d even unlocked it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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BEGINNER FOUNDATION MISSION
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☑ Assist in unloading all furniture ⓘ
☑ Arrange all furniture inside the apartment ⓘ
☑ Unpack all essential belongings ⓘ
☑ Dispose of empty boxes and packing waste ⓘ
☑ Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity ⓘ
☑ Eat one proper meal before the day ends. In the company of another person, preferably. ⓘ
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🎉 Mission Complete! 🎉
🏆 Rewards:
💰 +20 Wealth Points
🎁 Starter Reward — Unlocked
🔍 Investment Insight (Lv.1) — Unlocked
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He read it twice, mostly to confirm it wasn’t a hallucination courtesy of drowsy eyes.
Then he looked up. Claire, three stools down, wiping the counter, completely unaware she’d eased his problems.
A single bite counted? Apparently the bar had been on the floor this whole time. He didn’t argue with that
He pocketed the phone, dropped a couple bills on the counter, and left the rest of the omelet half-finished.
~~~
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