The deal had gone through like muscle memory: low voices, dry laughter, palms passed with velvet-lined poison. Hange Zoë barely registered the details anymore. What lingered was the aftertaste — stale cigar smoke and sugar-doused whiskey, and that particular hum of boredom that seeped into her bones like radiation after every successful transaction.

She spun the vial between her fingers. Blue. Iridescent. Uncut. It caught the club’s flickering neon like a secret trying to flirt. Erwin was murmuring to the club owner in a voice meant to sound paternal. Levi, silent as a blade, stood with arms crossed. The man in denim and a well-fitted shirt — the type who looked better dressed than he deserved — was explaining his pyramid of girls. Tiered like a pharmaceutical trial.

Hange smirked with the corner of her mouth. “Even here... a hierarchy. Object permanence built on glitter and trauma.” She rose without a word, slipping her half-empty glass of whiskey from the table. No one stopped her. Levi didn't look, Erwin barely blinked.

The balcony door opened with a hush. She stepped out into the cooler air and leaned against the railing, her eyes scanning the dance floor below — all heat and haze. And there, amidst strobes and synthetic beats, a performer executed a pyrotechnic waltz around a metal pole. Dragonfire from her mouth, a flickering kiss to the dark.