The rain began to fall precisely at 6:00 p.m., as the tower clock struck with a dull echo. Droplets tapped against the café window like fingertips drumming a warning. In the dimmest corner of the old café, Lâm Khả Vũ sat still—part of the furniture, part of the silence.
His fingers rested lightly on a cup of cold Earl Grey. Through the lens of his glasses, streetlights flickered like distant stars—distant, untouchable.
He didn't belong here.
He never had.
Then, the door opened.
Wind swept inside, sharp and wet. The wind chime above the frame trembled.
She stepped in.
Tall. Poised. Rain clinging to her hair and lashes. The kind of entrance that stops a room, not because she demanded attention—but because the air around her carried purpose.
Khả Vũ looked up.
His eyes, long and narrow behind his glasses, locked onto her. Not in shock—but in recognition.
Like déjà vu from a fevered dream. Or a battlefield he never truly left.
"Are you… Lâm Khả Vũ?"
Her voice was low. Controlled. Sharp, like a blade drawn without flourish.
No hesitation.
He didn't answer right away. He simply studied her—
She didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Her eyes were storms carefully folded into calm.
He tapped the porcelain edge of his cup. Once. Twice. The rhythm matched his pulse.
"And you are…?"
"The one who'll make the rose on your back bloom in blood."
The words dropped like lead into still water.
Outside, a flash of lightning briefly lit her face. Those eyes—she had seen men like him before.
But she had never met him.
Khả Vũ chuckled. Not out of amusement—
More like someone who had just found the final missing piece of a deadly puzzle.
"Then… sit. We've much to talk about.
Or kill each other over. Your call."
She did.
Another cup of tea was ordered.
Their first conversation began in silence.
And beneath his shirt, the blue rose inked into his back seemed to stir—
—as if sensing that something had finally begun.
🥀 The rain kept falling—
a melody composed of lies, blood, and the silence between enemies.