Chapter 4
After they stepped out of the restaurant, Noir told Zeth to go bring the car from the parking lot.
Zeth went right away, as Noir asked, and pulled up to the entrance. But the moment he arrived, Noir's expression shifted—his eyes sharp, filled with a sudden anger Zeth didn't understand.
"No… get out of the car," Noir said, his voice low.
Zeth stepped out, confused and worried. Noir slid into the driver's seat without another word and drove off, leaving Zeth standing alone in the rain-soaked light of the restaurant's entrance.
Noir sped down the road as if trying to outrun something inside him. The clouds above gathered tightly, dimming the sky until it looked bruised. A heavy rain began to fall, tapping against the windshield faster and faster.
He pulled over near a bridge, the kind of place where the wind carried the sound of water below. Noir stepped out of the car, letting the cold rain strike him without resistance.
His breath trembled.
His hands trembled.
His thoughts were louder than the storm.
He wasn't just angry. He wasn't just sad. He was both at once, tangled together, strangling each other.
Stella's face had shaken him…
Her voice, the way she looked at him—
It had all felt so familiar.
Astra.
The name echoed inside him.
For a moment, while the rain soaked through his clothes, he remembered things he spent years hiding from:
the warmth of Astra's smile… the way she used to look at him with trust he didn't deserve… and the day everything fell apart.
He had buried it so deeply he thought it would never resurface.
But Stella's presence had cracked the ground open.
Noir closed his eyes tightly, trying to steady his breath. He wasn't the kind of person who lost control. He wasn't supposed to feel this much.
He forced himself back into the car, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned pale, and drove back to the restaurant.
By the time he arrived, Zeth was gone. The rain had lightened, falling in a slow, silvery curtain over the street.
Stella stood beneath the restaurant's entrance, waiting for the rain to stop. She had forgotten her umbrella and held her arms close to keep warm.
Noir stopped walking when he first saw her. The dim light, the soft rain—
she looked even more like Astra than before. The resemblance hit him so deeply that his chest tightened.
He took an umbrella from his car and approached her slowly.
Stella glanced up at him, then looked down again, unsure.
"Hey…" Noir said gently. "I want to apologize for what happened earlier."
The words felt strange coming from him. Noir never apologized. In his world, everything he did had always been justified. But tonight something broke that rule.
"It's not your fault," Stella replied softly, though her eyes still held confusion.
"It is," Noir insisted, his voice quieter. "I mistook you for someone else. And that wasn't fair to you. I shouldn't have acted the way I did."
He handed her the umbrella.
"I won't trouble you again," he added, stepping back.
Stella watched him walk away, left with a confusing mixture of uneasiness and curiosity. There was something about Noir—something heavy and hidden, like a past made of shadows.
Noir paused before entering his car. For a moment, he looked back at Stella.
Her silhouette under the faint light felt like the memory of Astra standing in the doorway long ago, saying goodbye without saying it.
He tore his gaze away and sat behind the wheel.
It felt like he was leaving Astra behind all over again.
With a deep breath, he drove toward his luxurious home, hoping rest would silence the storm inside him.
Later, when he reached his mansion, he pulled out his phone and called Zeth.
"Where are you?" Noir asked, his voice steadier but tired, as if the rain had washed away everything except the emptiness he was left with.