Coat

But no one paid her any attention.

Of those present, Translucent was the peeping type. He hadn't said a word the entire time.

The Deep was sizing up Starlight's figure and plotting something. He hadn't heard her complaint.

As for Ryan, when he took off his coat, it was usually to fight someone.

Naturally, Ryan wasn't taking it off.

He ignored Starlight's resentful look and continued talking about superhero work.

"Get ready. Your debut matters. If you screw it up, your farewell party won't be far behind."

"Would I retire like Lamplighter?"

"Maybe they'd send you somewhere dangerous to die. It'd be a great honor."

"Don't scare me. I won't screw up. Look, I'm even wearing the outfit properly."

Starlight showed off her scandalous outfit, looking utterly timid.

No one comforted her. The meeting went on, and once Ryan had covered everything he needed to, he left.

After the meeting, Ryan walked out of Seven Tower and saw someone hurry out after him.

She was a capable-looking female employee.

It was Ashley, the woman who had just argued with Starlight.

She got straight to why she'd followed him. After Starlight's debut, Ryan would have a similar one of his own.

She wanted to hear his thoughts.

Ryan had thoughts, all right. He didn't like Starlight's pandering outfit. He wanted Ashley to get him a cool superhero suit.

Ashley tried to persuade him to accept whatever Vought International made for him.

Ryan obediently replied that if he didn't like it, he'd tear it up—along with her clothes.

Speechless, Ashley decided Ryan was much harder to deal with than Starlight and left with a headache.

Ryan headed into the street. A light rain was falling, but it wasn't enough to warrant an umbrella, even if he walked around for a while.

At most, his hair would gather droplets like dew.

He walked past unfamiliar faces and unfamiliar traffic lights. The city was certainly bustling, but back when he'd lived in a little house behind walls, there hadn't been this much scheming.

Ryan went to see a movie alone before returning to Seven Tower.

Life carried on quietly. In the blink of an eye, several days passed.

At Lamplighter's farewell party, Homelander, as leader of The Seven, was supposed to give the speech.

He was meant to express his sorrow at a teammate's departure.

But Homelander didn't show up. Maeve spoke in his place.

Maeve had returned unexpectedly. She was a female superhero with black hair and a way of speaking that sometimes sounded like a man's.

She was forceful but knew when to be tactful. Her power gave her a body so tough that bullets couldn't penetrate it.

The media had portrayed her and Homelander as the model couple.

Ryan met her at Lamplighter's farewell party. She stood before the media cameras with a microphone in hand.

"Lamplighter was a good teammate. I still remember the flames he lit, blazing with people as their fuel."

After a long pause,

Maeve put on a wistful expression before continuing.

"To criminals, he was the last superhero they wanted to cross. To me, he was an irreplaceable teammate. Today, let us say goodbye to this hero."

Applause thundered throughout the venue when she finished.

Ryan didn't know Lamplighter, but surrounded by that sea of applause, he could feel how much people missed him.

Someone who was still remembered after stepping out of the spotlight had truly made it big.

Maeve stepped down from the podium after her speech and ran into A-Train, Ryan, and the others.

A-Train went up to her. He wanted to know when Homelander would be back.

The answer was:

"In the next few days, probably."

Maeve flexed her fingers as she gave him the date.

It was also her first time meeting Ryan.

"Who brought this handsome kid who looks like Homelander?"

Ryan looked up at the heroine.

"No one brought me. I figured I could get here on my own two feet."

"You even talk just like him."

After that remark, Maeve said no more. She had things of her own to handle, so she parted from her teammates.

She left alone.

A-Train stayed beside Ryan and looked at him.

"Maybe don't sit in Homelander's seat for the next few days. He's got a bad temper."

"But I've seen people online praise him for being gentle, polite, and gentlemanly. A real superhero."

"People have said the same things about me online. They probably just copied and pasted it."

"..."

Ryan understood and said no more. He'd known what kind of bastard Homelander was when he'd watched the original series.

The man had stood atop the Empire State Building and gotten horny at the moon.

He'd even said he could do whatever he wanted.

The man truly had no limits.

Still, they would meet eventually. Ryan had known that day would come. He stopped thinking about Homelander and looked toward the stage.

Vought International's seating area was packed with distinguished guests. Some had never appeared on camera, yet they were tycoons in their respective industries.

Lamplighter's farewell party was drawing to a close, and Starlight was brought out.

Dressed in her skimpy outfit, Starlight stepped before the crowd for the first time.

The media cameras and the announcement that she was the newest member of The Seven stirred up even more excitement than before.

Her speech, on the other hand,

was full of clichés about dreams.

"I'll work hard and live up to your expectations. I'll do everything a hero can, so that tomorrow, you can smile just as brightly."

Ryan and A-Train stood below the stage, watching Starlight under the lights. She looked a little like the star of the show.

Ryan could see that Starlight's eyes had already gone dreamy.

That was normal. Ryan understood.

With the spotlight on her and high society watching, how many people could stay calm?

Not many. Starlight certainly couldn't.

She kept talking about her dreams. Ryan and A-Train stopped listening. Neither had anything else to do,

so they went to play snooker. Ryan didn't have any dreams himself.

The only people who did were idealistic students in their ivory towers and people asking finance companies for loans.

Few people would borrow from a finance company unless they had hopes for the future—unless they believed tomorrow would be better and they'd make a fortune.

In any case, Ryan didn't hear all of Starlight's speech. He played pool with A-Train until evening.

Then Starlight called and invited him to dinner.

She was grateful because he'd been the one to tell her the good news that she'd be coming to Seven Tower.

There was no reason to refuse.

Ryan checked his phone. It was almost dusk, so he invited A-Train along, but A-Train waved him off.

Dinner with Starlight was out, he said. If Ryan was going to cop a feel, though, he could bring him along.

Unfortunately, Starlight hadn't invited Ryan to do that. He parted ways with A-Train and went to meet her alone.

He found Starlight downstairs from Seven Tower, where she'd invited him to eat.

It was a fast-food place that sold burgers and fries.

Starlight blushed shyly.

"I haven't gotten paid yet. Once I have some money, I'll treat you to something better."

Ryan wasn't particular about dinner. He nodded and went inside with her.

Starlight was in regular clothes. Having only just become a superhero, she didn't seem to have much name recognition yet.

Even without sunglasses, no one recognized her right away.

She didn't order much.

A few portions of fried chicken legs and pizza filled the fast-food table when they arrived.

The food was decent. Ryan drank his Coke and stirred the ketchup with a fry.

Across from him sat Starlight, unable to hide her delight.

"Did you see me today? Everyone cheering for me when I became a superhero?"

"I saw, I saw."

"I've never experienced anything like it. I feel so warm inside."

"Oh."

"Ryan, are you listening?"

"I'm listening, I'm listening."

"You're paying more attention to that fry than to me."

"You're so annoying."

Ryan hated chatterboxes at mealtimes, and Starlight was exactly that—her face and mouth never stopped.

He finished eating to the sound of her chatter.

After dinner, Starlight said she wanted to see the meeting room in Seven Tower.

From now on, she'd have a seat there.

Just thinking about it made her too excited to sleep.

Ryan told her not to sleep, then. She argued that skipping sleep would be bad for her skin.

Women were such a hassle. Ryan hadn't planned to go with her, but his new X-ray vision picked out a figure in the meeting room.

The figure he saw through the walls and glass made him decide to accompany her.

They took the elevator up Seven Tower. As it climbed toward the place she'd dreamed of reaching, Starlight's eyes sparkled with excitement.

The elevator stopped high in the tower. In the corridor, Starlight looked over everything along the way.

She'd seen it all before, but now that she belonged here, it felt welcoming.

Her gaze moved ahead as she walked.

Before long,

she reached the meeting room door. Outside it was a relief of The Seven.

Homelander, A-Train, Lamplighter...

The lifelike carvings of the superheroes were mesmerizing. Starlight pressed a hand to her chest and took a deep breath before pushing open the doors.

Inside, the first thing that caught the eye was the wall of glass.

The lights were off. Looking out the windows,

she saw scattered stars on the horizon.

Below, lights made the streets bright as day.

Starlight stared through the glass.

"This is New York. I'm finally here."

She had barely finished speaking when someone knocked on the table.

Standing in the meeting room's darkness, Ryan looked toward the sound.

The person hidden in the dark seemed to have knocked to draw attention.

He slowly stepped away from the table and into a brighter patch of the room.

Beyond the glass, the pale moon cast its cold light across his face.

Starlight recognized him. The dark green superhero suit and the stink of dead fish gave him away. It was The Deep.

"You came to see the night view too?"

"Yeah. Like it?"

When Ryan saw no one paying attention to him, he watched in silence.

The Deep approached Starlight in the meeting room.

"I heard your speech today. It was great."

Starlight didn't buy it.

"I saw you eating burgers down there. You ate three in a row."

"I was hungry then. But since you're here, I'd been planning to call you if you didn't show up."

"..."

Invited to meet in a place this dark, Starlight could more or less guess what The Deep wanted.

"I'd advise you not to touch me."

"But are you sure? Turn me down, and everything you experienced today will be nothing more than a one-day dream."

"What do you mean?"

"I call the shots in The Seven. If I'm unhappy, you'll have to go back to Iowa with your childish dreams."

"..."

Starlight found it bitterly ironic. One moment she'd been telling Ryan how she'd shone today, and the next she faced a choice between her dignity and her dream.

As leisurely as he'd been when Ryan arrived, The Deep invited Starlight to have some fruit.

Helpless, Starlight looked at Ryan. He normally didn't care what happened to other people.

But the sight of The Deep using his position to pressure her rubbed Ryan the wrong way, so he cut into their conversation.

He addressed Starlight first.

"If you want to say no, just say it."

Ryan knew that if she agreed, it would mean she had made her choice.

It was her decision. Ryan looked out through the glass wall of the conference room.

The stars still shone in the sky, but the star on the ground seemed about to go dim.

After a long while,

Starlight's face went blank. All the joy she'd shown during the day was gone.

"Stay out of it. I don't want to go back to Edward State and live with my mother in that tiny, rundown house."

At the same time, The Deep wore a smug I won expression.

Ryan had no idea what The Deep thought he'd won. But he understood Starlight's decision and sighed.

He extended his hand and threw a punch.

As the sun had risen and set, Ryan's superpower had grown so strong that even he no longer knew its limits.

The first thing his superpower had given him was strength.

An unseen blow struck The Deep in the face, twisting it and sending white teeth flying from his mouth. His head snapped sideways, dragging the rest of him into the wall.

Boom.

The Deep smashed into the wall, cracking it. Chunks of masonry fell and buried him, leaving it unclear whether he was alive or dead.

Starlight stared blankly at the boy beside her, a head shorter than she was.

He sat on the conference table, bringing himself level with her eyes.

"The Deep got one thing wrong. In The Seven, my word carries more weight."

"Huh?"

"Now, where were we?"

"...You're a bastard too."