Golden Pavillion

The apartment was quiet with a kind of emptiness that felt heavy, like it was waiting for something that would never come. Rei sat by the wide window overlooking Sakura Avenue, legs pulled close, a cup of untouched tea cooling on the low table beside her. The city outside glowed in its usual Mirage pulse, neon veins, blurred traffic and the hum of nightlife below.

Takumi had left her another schedule for the following week: etiquette drills, stakeholder meeting, brand prep, demo event, speech modulation and the itinerary went on. She had barely glanced at it before setting it aside. Every minute of her life was now clocked and measured, her movements observed, her words filtered. She barely found time for her morning katas and even her private evenings felt owned.

Still, somewhere in that tightening cage, she’d found a little crack. She picked up her phone, scrolling through her saved contacts until she found one labeled simply Golden Pavilion. Her lips softened into a private smile, remembering the first time she’d eaten there. Karasu had taken her after a long night at the club, saying the place had, “dumplings worth dying for and ears in all the right corners.” Back then, she’d thought it was a joke. Now she understood.

Her thumb hovered over the call button. He was telling me they can pass things along, she thought, her pulse picking up. She had to be subtle, like seasoning, never too much. The phone rang twice before a polite voice answered, “Golden Pavilion, what can we prepare for you tonight?”

Rei smiled faintly, settling into the rhythm, “I’d like the house special soup dumplings, plenty of chili oil, extra coriander,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “And maybe some lotus buns. The kind that taste better when they’re warm — you know, like the old days.”

On the other end the sound of a pencil jotting down notes scratched through the background clamor of a steamy kitchen. “Very good, Miss Rei,” came the reply. No hesitation. They’d understood, they knew who she was. When she hung up, she felt the faintest tremor of adrenaline. It was absurd, risking everything for a few coded words hidden in a food order. But it was something, a thread across the silence.

She drank her cold tea then walked to the mirror while waiting, adjusting the position of her cropped sweatshirt. Rei looked at herself, not as Takumi’s project or as Kuroda’s model asset, but as herself; the woman Karasu had once called little fox. The name still stirred something deep in her chest.

The air in Karasu’s office was thick with smoke and static quiet; the kind that hummed between machines and memory alike. The single desk lamp cut a wedge of gold through the darkness, illuminating the paper in his hand: a copy of a receipt from Golden Pavilion Dim Sum. To anyone else, it was meaningless. To him, it was everything.

“Customer requested extra coriander and chili oil. Said the lotus buns tasted better when they’re warm, like the old days.” Karasu read the line twice, then again. The coded phrasing was subtle, perfectly so. Better when they’re warm, she was telling him she was all right; still holding on, still remembering him. Like the old days, that was the part that undid him.

His thumb brushed the edge of the paper, tracing the faint grease stain, the tiniest mark made by the restaurant clerk copying her words. It was the only way she could speak to him now; through coded orders and mundane flavor notes, translated and carried by people who didn’t even know the weight they were smuggling.

He leaned back in his chair, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling. “Soup dumplings,” he muttered under his breath, lips curling with something that wasn’t quite a smile, “Dressed in love, huh, little fox?” The silence of the room didn’t answer, but his chest tightened all the same. She was alive, still trying to reach him through the static, still his, even if only through the faint scent of coriander and sesame oil.

The phone buzzed on the desk. One vibration, short, the new careful internal signal for Aoi’s arrival. Karasu stubbed out his cigarette and straightened, his voice even when he clicked a door opener and simultaneously spoke, “Come in.”

Aoi slipped inside, quiet as always, data slate in hand. His expression was drawn tight, focused, “I’ve pulled the latest internal data from the Kuroda servers. You were right about Kaoru. He’s been spearheading something beyond standard memory mapping.” He set the slate down, bringing up lines of code and snippets of transcribed dialogue, “Eidolon’s architecture has changed since the first phase. It’s learning.”

“Learning what?”, Karasu’s expression hardened. “Everything,” Aoi said simply, “Behavioral mimicry. Personality synthesis. It’s not just rendering avatars anymore. It’s building interactive constructs that adapt from emotional feedback. The system is teaching itself to speak, to improvise – based on its data source.” Aoi shook his head in impulsive disbelief, holding up the slate showing a graph about realism parameters.

“Data sources?”, Karasu asked, though the answer already burned cold in his chest. Aoi hesitated only a moment before replying, “Rei. Every word she says, every gesture, every neural pattern they recorded and keep recording according to the data – the system is modeling from it. There’s a prototype, an internal build, where the AI refers to itself in first person. It’s beginning to sound almost human… sounding more like her.” The silence that followed was thick enough to slice. Karasu’s hand tightened around the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening.

“So they’ve made a bonafide artificial intelligence for the construct?”, he said at last, voice low, measured, “And they’ve caged it behind a corporate firewall.” Aoi nodded grimly, “It sure looks like it. They’re testing it privately under Takumi’s direct supervision. Each iteration gets more convincing.”

Karasu’s jaw flexed, the faintest tremor of fury breaking through his composure. He turned his gaze toward the window, Chochin sprawled beyond it, flickering in blues and reds, pulsing like circuitry, “He took her body. Now he wants her soul too.” He rose, pacing once, twice, the scent of smoke following him. “Keep watching their servers,” he said quietly, “If they push a public version of Eidolon, I want to know the second it goes live. And Aoi—”

“Yes, boss?”

“Give this message to the Golden Pavilion,” Karasu murmured, voice soft but commanding, “send the order with extra lotus buns to her. Tell them to write on the receipt: The soup will stay warm – like the old days.” Aoi nodded and took his leave. Karasu flicked his lighter open, the flame catching briefly against his reflection in the window.

A knock broke the stillness in Rei’s apartment. She hurried to the door. The delivery boy smiled politely, eyes lowered in professional detachment, “Your order, miss. Paid online, yes?” He handed her the plastic take away bag. “Yes,” she said, forcing calm into her voice, “Thank you.”

The moment the door closed, she set the bag on the counter and reached for the receipt, pretending she wasn’t desperate to see it. The thin paper was still warm from the printer. And there, in tiny looping script, was a line that didn’t belong to any kitchen code or delivery note: the soup will stay warm – like the old days.

Her breath caught. She read it twice, then again, her throat tightening until she could barely breathe. She knew it was from Karasu, it was a direct quote from a previously insignificant evening dining there. It meant the world to her; she sensed the hidden meaning: I miss you too. Hold on. I’m still fighting for you. The words blurred; not from ink, but from the tears she refused to let fall, wetting her eyes.

For a long time, Rei stood there in her quiet apartment, the city’s light washing over her bare feet, the smell of dumplings and sesame filling the air. She traced the ink with her fingertip, as if she could feel him there. He was still out there, watching, fighting.

She sat down, finally opening the box of dumplings. The steam rose between her hands, fragrant and warm; a fragile bridge between two worlds. As she ate, slow and silent, she mouthed, the words never leaving her mouth and meant only for him, “Stay safe. I’ll hold on.”