COZMART: Corner Shop of Visiting Gods

Eathan jolted upright, gasping like someone had yanked him out of a full-body reboot.

The dim, dusty ceiling of COZMART's storage room loomed overhead, its familiar yellowing tiles bringing a strange, grounding relief.

He sat there for a second, panting quietly. His hoodie was half-twisted around his torso, and his mouth tasted like cotton and regret. Blinking hard, he swung his legs off the battered couch and staggered to his feet.

The room around him was exactly how he remembered it:

Boxes stacked precariously, aging "Employee of the Month" certificates on the wall (all of which suspiciously featured Mister White, despite the year gaps).

For a moment, Eathan wondered if he had dreamed everything. Everything from the black-haired stranger, to the explosion, to the supernatural punch exchanges.

The word vessel still hung in the air like a noose.

He rushed out of the storage room, sneakers squeaking against the old linoleum.

COZMART greeted him with the same dim fluorescent lighting, same suspiciously full snack shelves. The register sat peacefully on the counter—uncooked, unshattered, unexploded. And contrary to Eathan's expectations, there were also no gaping holes in the walls, no shattered windows, and no smoking craters where the coffee machine should have been.

The neon sign above the entrance buzzed sleepily, flickering between "COZMART" and "OZMART", just like usual.

Perfectly normal.

Painfully normal.

Like waking up after being hit by a flight-convertible only to find the FC idling politely outside, asking why you didn't tie your shoelaces.

Eathan rubbed at his eyes, hard enough to see stars. Maybe he'd blacked out during practice. Maybe he'd hallucinated the entire fight after chugging too many caffeine patches.

Maybe this was another glitch.

Hell, in this day and age, it wouldn't be the first time someone had full-body hallucinations from soul compression lag or bad smart-noodle firmware. Even those would honestly be easier to swallow than—

A mild voice interrupted his spiralling thoughts.

"You're zoning out like an abandoned goldfish."

Eathan spun around so fast he nearly tripped over himself.

Behind the counter, exactly where reality had politely placed him, sat Mister White.

His boss looked almost offensively casual.

Cream-blond hair slightly tousled, a loose collared shirt layered over a black turtleneck, beige dress pants cuffed neatly at the ankles. In his hand, incomprehensibly, was a large brown sugar bubble tea, complete with extra pearls and condensation sliding dramatically down the cup.

The memory of the black coffee—the one handed off right before COZMART went up like a Hollywood pyrotechnics set—sucker-punched Eathan back into nausea.

He gagged reflexively, grabbing the edge of a shelf to steady himself.

Mister White raised an eyebrow, visibly offended.

"You have a nightmare or something?" he asked, eyeing him like he was a dumb kid who had swallowed an eraser by accident.

Eathan dry-heaved again, then forced himself to straighten up. His tongue felt thick, but he managed to croak out, "What... what happened last night?"

Mister White's expression didn't shift. He slurped his bubble tea, dark eyes half-lidded with mild curiosity.

"I should be asking you," he said. "I came in this morning and found you passed out on the couch. Drooling. Why didn't you just sleep at your apartment?"

Eathan stared at him.

Blinked.

Then stared harder.

"The explosion," he said slowly, like explaining calculus to a particularly slow ragdoll. "And the... weird guy. You know. Six feet tall, gorgeous hair, supernatural punching powers, definitely not human?"

Mister White tilted his head, the confusion on his face not entirely fake. He set down the bubble tea and folded his arms atop the counter, index finger tapping on the side of one sleeve.

"Explosion?" he repeated, as if tasting the word. "We're in a strip mall, Eathan. If anything exploded, the entire district surveillance net would've flagged it. I'd be filling out at least four insurance forms, and maybe even a spirit static balance report."

Eathan fumbled for his phone, desperate for proof, anything—but when he checked the news on every platform he knew, there was nothing.

No spiritual disturbance alerts.

No sirens.

No sensational hashtags trending overnight.

Just last night's grocery specials and a meme about haunted vending machines being back in stock.

But other than that—nothing.

Mister White drummed his fingers against the counter thoughtfully. "You sure you're not overworked?" He glanced meaningfully at Eathan's crumpled hoodie and scuffed sneakers. "You can talk to me, you know. I'm very understanding."

Stolen novel; please report.

The sincerity in his voice was almost insulting.

Eathan opened his mouth to argue, but a glance into those black, unreadable eyes made him falter.

There was nothing but concern there.

Warm, patient, quietly amused concern.

It felt as if he genuinely believed Eathan had just had a weird dream and slept in the stockroom like a lost raccoon.

For a moment, doubt flickered in Eathan's chest. In this city, people regularly blamed minor hauntings on broken sensors. A man could float six inches off the sidewalk, and someone would mutter "bad grav patch" and keep walking.

So maybe… maybe this was nothing.

Maybe he really did need sleep, like, immediately.

Mister White checked his strap watch and gave him a lopsided smile. "Don't you have class? It's Friday."

Eathan blinked down at his phone, disoriented.

11:00 AM.

His first lecture started in an hour.

Right—school, reality, bubble tea.

Not death matches and exploding convenience stores.

Mister White straightened, reaching under the counter. He tossed something toward Eathan with casual precision, hitting him square in the chest.

His wallet.

The one he had forgotten here last night.

"Don't lose it again," the man said lightly. "And wait for Chewie after your class. She's got tennis practice at your campus today."

Eathan caught the wallet, still half-wondering if he was trapped in some elaborate prank. He gave a half-hearted nod, muttered something vaguely polite, and turned toward the door.

He slowed just long enough to grab the trash bag by the door—because habit was stronger than confusion. The next second, a [SYSTEM] notification flickered in his face:

[Side Quest (updated)]:

Helping Hand!

▸ Perform a good deed for someone in need (Progress: 2/3)

Reward: Provided upon full completion of Side Quest

Eathan stared at the floating message and exhaled through his teeth.

"…Great," he muttered. "Still on track with the cosmic side quests."

As he stepped into the drizzle outside, Eathan couldn't help but glance back once, only to catch a glimpse of Mister White sipping bubble tea behind the counter, smiling with the ease of a man who'd never seen his storefront explode.

And somehow, that unsettled him more than anything else.

Despite the anxiety, though, there was nothing he could do about it for now. With a reluctant sigh, Eathan made his way to school to fulfill his dutiful role as a college grub. He met up with Luke near the cafeteria, both lugging their battered backpacks like two unpaid interns of fate.

Luke tossed him a grin, adjusting his limited-edition nano-fiber hoodie—something probably more expensive than Eathan's entire academic career.

"Ready to suffer?" he chirped, bumping Eathan's shoulder with his own.

Eathan made a noncommittal noise.

They were both CS majors. Same track, overlapping chaos. But this morning's class wasn't on algorithms or neural matrix theory—it was their humanities elective:

CHN 104: Introduction to Chinese Mythology.

To be fair, neither had picked it for the cultural enrichment. Word on the campus meshnet was that the professor was an easy grader, and the textbook was half AI-generated from scanned temple scrolls. Two times a week, it was meant to be a harmless, low-effort class perfect for a GPA boost.

Well, that and the fact that Emily Lutin—Eathan's long-standing, tragic, one-sided crush—also happened to be in that class.

It had taken Eathan great lengths to find out her course schedule last semester, including (but not limited to) bribing her roommate with a semester's supply of free bubble tea.

Worth it.

Absolutely worth it.

Luke chattered beside him, scrolling through something on his phone.

"Oh, did you get the email?" he said, offhandedly. "Old man Richard isn't teaching today. Heard he got into a car crash yesterday."

Eathan turned to him, startled. "Wait, what?"

Luke shrugged, adjusting his backpack straps. "Yeah. They're bringing in a temp replacement. No idea who."

Something twisted faintly in Eathan's stomach, but he forced it down. He chalked it up to caffeine withdrawal. Probably a coincidence. Maybe.

The humanities building buzzed with midmorning chatter, glitchy vending oracles flashing prayer codes on one side of the hall. As they neared Lecture Hall 309, Eathan noticed a crowd bottlenecking around the doorway.

A cluster of students—some from their year, others he didn't recognize—milled around with that specific electric excitement usually reserved for free pizza days or celebrity sightings.

Luke frowned.

"What the hell's going on?"

He pulled over one of his friends—a girl with LED-threaded sleeves and a pet AI mossball in a jar. She practically vibrated as she answered.

"New professor," she said, clutching her wristpad like it was holy text. "A total cutie."

She even wiped an imaginary drop of sweat off her forehead, as if she might overheat and faint on the spot any moment.

Luke's eyebrows shot up, intrigued. Dragging Eathan by the hoodie sleeve, he elbowed his way through the gathering crowd.

"Come on," he muttered. "Now I have to see this."

They pushed through the threshold of the classroom, and Eathan's world slowed to a crawl.

There, leaning over the podium, was a man dressed in a sleek, jet-black suit.

Slim-fit tailoring.

Jade cufflinks that caught the overhead lights.

He was typing something into the desktop monitor, one hand gliding across the keyboard with lazy precision. The man's face was mostly hidden by a veil of inky-black hair, head tilted down at an angle.

The moment Luke and Eathan entered the classroom, as if feeling the latter's gaze, the man lifted his head.

Their eyes locked across the room.

And every hair on Eathan's body stood on its end.

The breath trapped in his lungs froze painfully. It was that same horrifying pressure—the sensation of his internal organs folding in on themselves—surged up like a tidal wave.

The exact same feeling from last night.

It wasn't a dream.

It had never been a dream.

A heavy weight clamped down over Eathan's every muscle, like being pinned under thick velvet. It wasn't full paralysis, more like a firm hand gripping the back of his neck, reminding him not to move carelessly.

The man—the stranger—didn't react visibly. He broke eye contact with casual disinterest, refocusing on his laptop without missing a beat.

Around him, students whispered excitedly. Someone giggled.

Luke leaned over and muttered, "Damn. Even I might simp a little."

But Eathan barely heard him. His heart was slamming mercilessly against his ribs, too loud, too fast.

Once the classroom settled down,—an impressive feat in itself, considering half the people here didn't even belong to CHN 104—the man at the podium straightened.

The action was executed flawlessly smooth, almost too smooth, like liquid metal poured into the shape of a human.

He reached up with one hand, brushing a hand through his long hair. The strands shifted like black silk under his fingers, gleaming faintly under the lights. With his other hand, he grabbed the speaker's mic from the podium table. When he finally spoke, his voice was deep and polished, carrying an effortless authority that silenced the remaining chatter.

"Good morning," he said. "My name is Quine Long."

His emerald-green eyes swept across the room, unhurried. When they passed over Eathan's row, they lingered a half-second too long.

The corner of his mouth tilted up ever so slightly.

A knowing, private smile.

"I'll be your interim instructor," Quine Long continued, voice smooth as porcelain. "Until Professor Richard makes a full recovery from his… unfortunate accident."

Laughter flickered around the room.

Eathan didn't join in.

Instead, he tried to breathe normally, then tried especially hard not to think about how cold his hands were. Because now he knew—beyond doubt—that nothing had been imagined.

Whatever had begun at COZMART wasn't over.

Quine Long flipped a page of notes with effortless grace.

"Now," he said, and with a slight, almost predatory tilt of his head, he smiled wider.

"Let us get started."