[Somewhere Between the Stars and Trouble]
Once in a thousand years (or so), the exalted Council of Light met.
A tradition broken at least six times in the last century alone.
A circular chamber of divine beings hovered above a swirling map of a fractured world. Chaotic shroud emanated from cracks across its surface. A once pristine realm, now shattered and torn.
"Once again we find the world falling apart at the seams!" a deep voice rumbled — the kind that cracked like thunder and echoed with divine weight. "We find ourselves in need, yet again, of a chosen one."
"Or maybe," sighed a goddess wearing a crown of thorny vines, "we stop giving pointy sticks to the emotionally unstable?"
Murmurs rippled throughout the assembly.
"We've tried heroes. Chosen ones. Legendary sword-wielders. One guy even had a talking wolf." The sun-eyed god rubbed his temples. "None of them fixed the issue. At least not for very long."
"That's because you keep picking the same self-obsessed morons," said a new voice — soft and smooth, yet playful. It drifted in like smoke, dancing between the other voices.
All heads in the chamber turned as she stepped into the light.
A loose cloak. A mischievous grin. Trouble in goddess form.
"Ah…" the sun god sighed. "It's you."
"I have a candidate," she said.
"No."
"Hear me out."
"No."
"She's going to do it anyway," the thorned goddess muttered.
The roguish woman ignored them and waved a hand. The swirling map faded and was quickly replaced by mist — and at its core, a simple scene:
Within it, a young man in a hoodie and headphones crossed a busy street, a plastic bag clutched in his hand like treasure.
"What is this?" the sun god growled.
"This…" the trickster goddess grinned, "this is potential."
[Bao and Embarrassment]
The day had been long and strenuous — the kind of long that started with the same old automated email replies from jobs applied to weeks, or even months ago, each one soulless in its rejection. That was followed swiftly by an awkward phone call with a mother who still wondered how her son hadn't landed a job in this economy. And it all climaxed with standing alone in the rain, outside a 24-hour dumpling shop — because they didn't deliver, and they were the only place in town that served the good kind of bao buns. Not that frozen supermarket trash.
This was salvation. In dough form.
He was halfway across the crosswalk when a voice called out, like a siren in the street.
"Hey, it's… it's you!"
That voice. That tone.
He stopped suddenly and slowly turned - like a man checking to see if the monster in a horror movie was still behind him.
Yep. Her…
Same ponytail. Same sharp eyes. Same aura of impossibly out of reach.
A girl from back in high school. The one who definitely caught him that one time reading a manga with a very questionable title under the desk during group work.
"Me?"
"Wow, it really has been a while, hasn't it?" she said, stepping closer.
"Oh, yeah. A couple of years now?"
"I bet you've been up to all kinds of things, haven't you?"
"You… bet'cha!" He hadn't.
He held up the bag of bao buns — his proudest achievement in years.
"All kinds of bao."
She blinked. "Just now?"
"Yup."
A moment passed. She smiled — friendly, but a little confused.
"Cool. Well, I gotta run. Take care, alright?"
She was already halfway down the street before he remembered to breathe.
I swear I get pity points every time I talk to her.
He turned, cheeks burning, and walked toward home — face redder than the crosswalk light that blinked green behind him.
He stepped forward.
[Timing is Everything]
The trickster goddess sipped from a divine smoothie cup that definitely shouldn't have existed in her world.
"He's not much," a booming voice grumbled.
She smiled. "No, but he's different. He doesn't have delusions of grandeur — he simply dreams of escape. That's a special kind of desperation."
As the boy walked down the sidewalk, the crosswalk signal flickered. A van came screeching around the corner — too fast, and a little unrealistically so.
The goddess stood still.
"Right on cue, Truck-chan," she whispered, smiling into her smoothie.