Steam crowded the kitchen until the air felt thick enough to chew. It rolled up from a massive stockpot like a living thing, clinging to the ceiling and beading on the metal shelves. Each time the lid shifted, the room exhaled a deeper, richer breath—bone-heavy, creamy, and faintly sweet, the kind of smell that didn’t just sit in your nose but soaked into your clothes and hair like a stubborn promise.

  The Returner’s kitchen ran on sound as much as scent. A low simmer that never stopped. The wet scrape of a ladle along the pot’s bottom. The hiss when the flame was nudged higher. And over it all, the steady, blunt rhythm of a knife striking a cutting board.

  Yu was the one holding the knife. He wore a kappōgi—white, oversized, and humiliating in a way he couldn’t quite explain. The sleeves were rolled up, but the fabric still clung to his wrists from the steam. His bangs stuck to his forehead. The cutting board in front of him was stained from years of use, darkened by countless meals and someone else’s competence.

  On it sat a block of pork so large it looked obscene. A solid, pale-pink mass with thick seams of fat marbled through it like trapped light. Yu pressed the blade down. The knife sank slowly, meeting resistance like it was biting into something that fought back. When it cut through a dense layer of fat, white oil welled up and smeared across the steel. The board answered with a deep, heavy thunk, not the bright tap of vegetables but the dull percussion of meat and force.

  He swallowed against a dry throat and tried not to think about how absurd this was. I’m supposed to be practicing mana, he thought, and the word felt ridiculous in the steam-choked reality of the kitchen. Not… butchering pork like I’ve been kidnapped into a cooking show. The Returner stood with his back turned at the stockpot, stirring without urgency, like the broth was an extension of his body and time itself was something he’d already beaten into submission.

  Yu kept his voice small, like he could shrink the question until it didn’t sound like whining.

  “Um… the mana… I mean, the practice. When do I actually—” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

  “Control it while you do that.” Without looking over his shoulder, the Returner answered like it was obvious.

  “…Seriously?” Yu blinked hard, as if the steam had gotten into his eyes.

  “That’s the point,” he said. “If you need silence and a shrine to do it, you’ll die the first time your hands are busy and your head is loud.” The Returner didn’t turn. The ladle scraped once, slow and deliberate.

  Yu stared at the pork, then at his own fingers wrapped around the cold wooden handle. Mana control while prepping chashu, he thought, and the idea was so unreasonable it almost made him laugh. Almost. The kitchen didn’t feel like a place where laughter survived. He moved the knife again, pushing down through another layer. The blade dragged, then slid, then caught. The fat yielded with a wet resistance, and oil seeped out in slow, glossy threads.

  Yu tried to split his attention—half on not slicing his own hand open, half on whatever the Returner meant by “control.”

  At first there was nothing. Only the cold handle in his palm. Only the heavy truth of meat beneath the blade. Only sweat cooling at the back of his neck where the steam thinned just enough to make the air feel like damp cloth.

  He concentrated on his fingertips anyway, the way he’d been told. Not on the pork. Not on the heat. Not on the knife. On the inside. Feel it, he ordered himself. Feel the mana. Find it. Do something. Nothing answered.

  He cut again. The knife bit into fat and the board sounded off, deep and stern. Yu’s shoulders tensed. His grip tightened. The handle pressed into the crease of his palm, and the skin there began to ache from the repeated pressure.

  Then—A warmth. It wasn’t the kitchen heat, not exactly. That was everywhere, pressing against his face and arms like a wet hand. This warmth came from inside the contact point—where wood met skin—spreading outward in a slow seep. Yu paused mid-slice, breath catching.

  “Don’t stop. Keep going.” The Returner’s voice dropped behind him like a weight.

  Yu’s muscles twitched with the instinct to freeze, to chase the sensation like a startled animal. But the knife was still in the meat, and stopping meant losing the rhythm, losing the only thing keeping him steady.

  So he pushed forward again. The warmth returned, stronger this time, pooling in his palm.

  It felt like lukewarm water soaking into him from the inside—an impossibly gentle pressure beneath the skin. Not a spark. Not a flash. Not the dramatic glow people loved to clip and repost. This was subtle, creeping, half-imagined. But it kept coming back each time the blade moved.

  Yu’s throat tightened as he tried to hold onto it without grabbing too hard. The moment he tried to “catch” it, it slipped away. The moment he stopped thinking and simply continued, it returned. So it’s not a switch, he realized, the thought sharp in his mind. It’s a flow. He cut, and the “water” spread. He cut again, and it widened, seeping from his fingertips into the center of his palm, then toward his wrist.

  His breathing went shallow. His heartbeat made his hands want to shake, and shaking while holding a knife was a special kind of terror. He forced his shoulders down. He forced his jaw unclench. He forced his grip to stay steady even as his skin tingled. Behind him, the Returner spoke in the same calm tone he used for adjusting heat.

  “Living in that world is one path,” he said. “Not the only one.”

  Yu’s eyes flicked toward the pot, toward the man stirring as if nothing in the universe surprised him anymore.

  “What do you want to protect?” The Returner continued, voice even, almost casual.

  The question sank into Yu’s chest so heavily he felt it in his ribs. The knife kept moving, because the Returner had told him not to stop, and because stopping meant admitting the question had hit.

  Yu swallowed. Protect… what? The image that rose first wasn’t a place. It wasn’t pride, or adventure, or some heroic idea of “saving the world.” It was a quiet corridor of ancient stone. A girl’s boot hovering over a carved pattern. A whisper—Did I just hear someone’s voice?—that shouldn’t have been possible.

  His grip tightened unconsciously.

  “If there’s only one way to protect it,” he said, “then you’re not choosing. You’re just being dragged.” The Returner’s voice didn’t soften.

  Yu’s knife hesitated. The Returner’s ladle scraped the pot once.

  “Keep the rhythm,” he reminded him, and the reminder was both instruction and warning. Yu forced his hands to continue. Slice. Pressure. Yield. The board’s dull thunk. The white fat blooming into oil. The warmth in his palm, spreading like lukewarm water under skin. The sensation grew steadier as his motions steadied. It didn’t become brighter. It became clearer.

  Something existed there. Not just heat. Not just imagination. Presence. Yu finished the current cut with shaking patience, set the knife down carefully, and exhaled through his nose like he’d been holding his breath for minutes. He washed his hands at the sink. The water ran clear over his fingers, cold enough to sting. The smell of pork fat clung anyway, stubborn and primal.

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  When he sat on the edge of the counter, he expected the “water” sensation to fade with the motion stopping. It didn’t. It lingered in his palm, faintly humming beneath the skin, like a memory that refused to be dismissed.

  Yu stared at his hand as if he could see it. It’s still there, he thought, and his stomach tightened. The Returner lowered the flame with a twist, then shut the stockpot’s lid with a heavy clang that made the kitchen feel suddenly smaller.

  He turned, finally facing Yu. His expression didn’t shift—no smile, no threat, no encouragement. Just eyes that were steady in a way that made Yu sit straighter without meaning to.

  ?

  “Magic is a technique,” the Returner said, and his low voice filled the space between the counters and shelves like it belonged there.

  Yu’s shoulders drew back instinctively. Something about the man’s calm made every word feel like it was already proven.

  “You build it. You trigger it. You get an effect.” The Returner spoke as if listing steps in a recipe. “That’s what everyone calls common sense.” He leaned a forearm on the counter, close enough that Yu caught the faint smell of smoke and broth clinging to his clothes. Not unpleasant. Just… lived in.

  “And no one questions the foundation,” the Returner continued. “No one asks why mana exists in the first place.”

  Yu’s throat tightened again. He wanted to argue, but he didn’t even know what he’d say. The Returner’s eyes narrowed slightly, like he was measuring Yu’s understanding the way he measured heat.

  “It’s like air,” he said. “You breathe it. You use it. You ignore it.”

  Yu stared at his own palm. The lingering warmth felt suddenly accusatory.

  He’s right, Yu thought. Rize… Claval… everyone just treats mana like it’s a tool sitting on a table.

  The Returner’s mouth twisted—not quite a smile, not quite contempt. More like the expression of someone who’d once asked the same question and paid for it.

  “I didn’t accept that,” he said. “I called to mana itself. Not through a spell frame. Not through formulas. I didn’t ask the system for permission.”

  Yu’s fingers curled slightly, as if the warmth in his palm responded to the words.

  “I let it answer directly,” he said. “No chants. No circles. No structure in between. You open, and it comes.” The Returner lifted his own hand, palm up, showing it like it was nothing special.

  Yu’s breath caught. The “water” sensation in his palm seemed to pulse, as if it recognized the concept.

  “It’s not a conventional special skill,” he said. “It’s… different. Unusual.” The Returner’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “I called it [Bind.]” He let the word hang, then named it with the quiet finality of a knife coming down. Yu blinked once, slowly.

  [Bind.] The word landed inside him in two places at once—his mind, where it meant connection and restraint, and his palm, where the lukewarm “water” spread a fraction wider, like something waking up.

  “You’re thinking too hard,” he said. “Stop trying to force it into the shape you already know.” The Returner watched him like he’d seen that expression before.

  Yu swallowed. His palm felt hot now, not burning, but undeniably alive.

  “Watch.” The Returner straightened and extended his hand over the counter as if reaching toward something only he could see.

  ?

  His palm traced the air slowly, like he was smoothing a crease in fabric that wasn’t there.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then the space in front of his hand wavered. Not a visual effect on a screen. Not light bending through glass. The air itself seemed to ripple, as if the world had become water for a heartbeat. Yu’s skin prickled, every hair on his arms rising in warning.

  A thin seam of light appeared. It wasn’t a circle. It wasn’t a portal shaped like a door. It was a tear—narrow, jagged, edged with a pale glow that made the steam around it shimmer.

  Yu’s breath hitched. From the slit came a whisper of different air. The kitchen’s broth-heavy warmth met something cooler, cleaner, almost electric. It carried a scent that didn’t belong—dry stone, distant rain, something like wild herbs crushed underfoot.

  Beyond the tear, Yu glimpsed color that shouldn’t exist in this cramped kitchen. A sky tinted purple, like twilight stretched too far. A sliver of unfamiliar landscape. The sense of distance, of openness, of a world too wide to fit through a phone screen. Yu leaned forward before he could stop himself, fingers lifting off his thigh as if his body wanted to reach.

  The Returner held the tear there with the casual steadiness of someone holding a pot lid.

  “…How did you do that?” Yu’s voice came out trembling.

  The Returner didn’t look impressed with his own display. He shrugged once, as if Yu had asked how he stirred the broth without burning it.

  “Application is imagination,” he said. “Don’t let form trap you.”

  Yu’s gaze dropped to his palm without thinking.

  The lukewarm “water” sensation was stronger now, spreading like a slow tide across his hand. It felt like something inside him wanted to match what he was seeing, to answer it, to reach outward the way the tear had reached inward.

  For an instant, Yu had the dizzying impression that the boundary between his skin and the world was thinner than it should be.

  The Returner’s hand shifted slightly. The tear shuddered, then began to close.

  The glowing seam narrowed. The different air withdrew. The purple sky vanished as if it had never been there. The steam resumed its ordinary drift, reclaiming the space. In less than a second, there was only kitchen air again.

  Yu’s chest felt tight, like he’d watched someone crack open a door to the universe and close it before he could even stand and His fist clenched on instinct.

  The Returner stepped closer, the floorboards creaking softly under his weight. He stopped in front of Yu and looked down at him with that same neutral steadiness—no pity, no expectation, no false kindness.

  “My skill isn’t something you learn like a recipe,” he said. “It isn’t bestowed. It isn’t granted by a system.”

  Yu’s breath came shallow.

  “It’s inherited.” The Returner’s voice dropped, heavy with meaning.

  Yu’s eyes widened despite himself. His mouth opened, then closed again because he didn’t know what question would even make sense.

  The Returner extended his hand. Palm open. Waiting.

  Yu stared at it. The kitchen seemed to quiet around them, the simmer reduced to a distant pulse. Even the steam felt still.

  If I take his hand, Yu thought, and the thought came with a cold edge of dread, I can’t pretend this is temporary anymore.

  He didn’t trust his own reasons. He didn’t trust the world. He didn’t trust whatever invisible rule had already been broken once. But he remembered the ruins. He remembered the suspended boot. He remembered the whisper of a voice that shouldn’t have heard him.

  And he remembered the question: what do you want to protect? Yu lifted his hand. It trembled. He pressed his palm into the Returner’s.

  ?

  Light surged. Not like a lamp turning on. Not like a screen brightening. It was a flood—sudden, blinding, pouring through the point of contact as if the Returner’s hand had been a gate and Yu had just unlocked it.

  The sensation slammed into Yu’s fingertips, raced up his arm, and hit his chest like a wave. Heat and pain arrived together. Yu’s breath tore out of him.

  “Ghk—!” His knees almost buckled. He gripped harder, not out of strength but out of desperation, because letting go felt like it would tear something vital loose.

  Inside him, the lukewarm “water” sensation didn’t just spread. It exploded. It burst outward in ripples, like a dam breaking. The vague seep became force. The half-imagined warmth became something with weight and motion, surging through him like liquid light under his skin.

  For a heartbeat, Yu couldn’t tell where his body ended and the sensation began. His teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. And in the middle of the roaring, luminous pressure, he heard it. A voice. Not spoken in the kitchen. Not carried by air. A presence that called him from inside the flood like an echo from a place he couldn’t see.

  Yu. His heart clenched. The sound was faint, almost swallowed by the rush of heat and light, but the shape of it was unmistakable. The memory of it hit harder than the pain. It was her. Not a full sentence. Not an explanation. Just his name—soft, intimate, impossible.

  Yu’s vision blurred. His fingers tightened until they hurt. Don’t break, he told himself, the thought violent in its simplicity. Don’t lose this. Don’t waste it. The vow formed in his chest with the brutal clarity of a blade. I have to protect. Not because it sounded heroic. Not because someone told him it was the right thing. Because he had already screamed once into the void and the void had answered in a girl’s startled whisper. Because if there was even the smallest chance he could reach again—properly, intentionally—then doing nothing would be the same as watching her die and calling it fate.

  The light peaked. Then, slowly, it began to withdraw. The roar softened into a pulsing hum. The pain dulled into heat. The heat cooled into that same lukewarm “water,” only now it was everywhere in his palm, steady and real.

  When Yu could finally breathe again, the Returner released his hand. Yu’s palm stayed raised, trembling, as if it didn’t remember how to lower itself. It felt hot, almost feverish. His fingers twitched with leftover electricity.

  The Returner turned away without ceremony, stepping back toward the stockpot as if he’d simply handed Yu a tool and expected him to learn by bleeding on it.

  “Use it,” he said. “Master it, kid.” His voice drifted over his shoulder, calm and final.

  The ladle dipped into the broth again. The simmer continued. The kitchen returned to its ordinary, oppressive life. Yu sat there, staring at his hand like it belonged to someone else.

  The lukewarm “water” sensation spread through his palm in a slow, steady tide. Not fading. Not imaginary. Certain. It felt like a key waiting to turn.

  Everysekai

  by Bluesycobalt

  > Female Lead with cast of developed side-characters

  > A lot of poking at Isekai tropes

  > Rational and Underpowered Protagonist fighting for her life

  > 1500-2500 Word Chapters

  Updates MWF at 7:10pm EST