The smell of chlorine always made Mhari's stomach churn.
It was 4:15 in the morning. While the rest of Manila was still wrapped in the kind of sleep that came from warmth, dreams, and people who had somewhere safe to return to, Mhari Evangelista was on her knees, scrubbing the marble floors of the forty-second floor of Valerius Tower.
Her back screamed.
Not a sharp pain—worse. a dull, constant ache that had settled into her bones like a permanent resident. Three hours between her convenience store shift ending at 3:00 a.m and her janitorial shift starting at five.
She had learned to function on less. The human body was surprisingly resilient when it was given no other choice.
The mop moved in mechanical arcs.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
The gray water in the bucket reflected the fluorescent lights above—hars, unforgiving lights that revealed every flaw, every crack, evert part of herself she tried to ignore.
She had lost track of how many floors she had cleaned. How many toilets. How many executive desks where people left half–empty coffee cups and crumpled sticky notes filled with meetings she could never imagine attending.
The Janitorial staff rotated shifts, but Mhari always requested the earliest one.
Fewer people.
Less noise.
Less chance of being seen.
Less chance of being reminded that she did not belong.
"Hey, janitor."
Mhari's shoulders stiffened, but she did not look up.
She knew that voice. Knew the sharp click of those heels against marble. Knew the 2qy condescension clung to every word.
"Hurry it up," Chloe Reyes said. "Sir Rafayel has meeting here later. He doesn't like seeing dirt. Make sure this place is spotless."
Mhari kept her head bowed, her oversized hoodie swallowing her small frame.
"Yese, ma'am. I'm almost finished here."
"Finished?" Chole walked closer, eyes scanning the floor, searching for something—anything—to criticize.
She found nothing. Mhari was thorough. She had to be. Mistakes meant lectures. Lectures meant deductions. Deductions meant less money.
"Tsk. Fine." Chole waved a manicured hand. "Move your cart. The hallway smells awful. Like a dirty rag."
Like a dirty rag.
The words landed softly, but precisely like tiny blades.
Mhari's grip tightened around the mop handle until her knuckles turned white.
She had heard it before.
At the restaurant, whispered complaints about grease clinging to her clothes.
At the convenience store, customers wrinkling their noses as she rang up their purchases at two in the morning.
Even her aunt, back when she still had one, used to say she carried the scent of poverty like cheap perfume.
Like a dirty rag again.
It wasn't even the worst thing anyone had ever called her.
"I'm sorry," Mhari murmured, because that was what you said.
Sorry for existing.
Sorry for taking up space.
Sorry for smelling like the work that kept you alive.
Chloe rolled her eyes and walked away, heels clicking triumphantly down the hallway.
Mhari waited until the sound disappeared before exhaling.
Then she went back to scrubbing.
Her shift ended at exactly 1:00 p.m.
She returned her supplies to the janitorial closet and signed out on a clipboard that spelled her name wrong in three different ways. Mhary. Mari. Marri.
She had stopped correcting people months ago.
What was the point? They would forget her name five minutes later anyway.
The elevator took forever to arrive. She stood in the corner of the lobby with her hood pulled low, trying to make herself as invisible as possible.
People streamed past her in pressed suits and polished shoes, holding lattes and talking about deadlines, dinners, and plans.
Mhari watched them the way someone watched fish in an aquarium—separated by glass, unable to reach through.
The elevator doors opened.
She stepped forward, and froze.
Rafayel Valerius stood there.
He was laughing at something an executive beside him said, his smile effortless and warm. He looked like sunlight, if sunlight wore a tailored suit—clean, bright, untouchable.
Their eyes met for exactly one second.
"Good work today, Mhari," he said.
Five words.
Her name.
A polite smile. Then he walked past, already moving on to the next conversation, the next meeting, the next life that had nothing to do with hers.
Mhari stood frozen in the doorway.
He remembered my name.
The thought was dangerous. She knew it was. Still, for one fragile, foolish moment, she let herself hold onto it.
Then the elevator doors began to close on her cart.
She startled, pulled it inside, and pressed the ground-floor button. Watched the numbers descend while her heart slowly calmed.
By the time she reached the lobby, reality had already reclaimed its hold on her.
Impossible.
The word echoed in her mind like a verdict.
A man like him and a girl like me? Don't be ridiculous, Mhari.
She caught her reflection in the glass doors on her way out.
Dark circles.
Messy hair pulled into a ponytail that had given up hours ago.
A face that looked closer to thirty-four than twenty-four.
A faded hoodie with a stain she could never quite scrub out.
The reflection stared back at her, honest and unkind.
Mhari looked away first.
~ ☘️
The restaurant was a fifteen-minute jeepney ride away. She spent it standing, gripping a metal bar as the vehicle swayed through traffic.
She didn't sit. Even if there were seats available, she had learned long ago that standing was easier than dealing with the looks.
The heat of the kitchen hit her the moment she stepped inside.
"Mhari! You're late again!" the head cook barked without looking up. "Wash the pile by the sink. Lunch rush is coming."
"Yes," she said.
For the next four hours, her world narrowed to hot water, grease, and the scrape of plates. Steam clung to her skin. The dishwasher rattled beside her like it was threatening to give up at any second.
At 6:30, a waitress returned with a tray of dishes, nose wrinkled.
"Someone complained their glass smelled off," she said. "Make sure you check better next time."
Like a dirty rag...again.
Mhari nodded. "I will."
At seven, her shift ended.
She stepped back into the Manila evening—hot, loud, restless. Her hands were raw. Her stomach ached with hunger, but exhaustion won.
The ride home took twenty minutes.
She stood the entire way.
~ ☘️
Her apartment measured twenty square meters.
That was the size of her world.
It sat on the fourth floor of an old building in a neighborhood people politely called up-and-coming. The walls were thin. The plumbing unreliable. The air conditioner sounded like it was dying.
But it was clean.
Immaculate.
Her mattress lay on the floor, neatly made. Her clothes were folded and organized. The single-burner stove gleamed. The bathroom shone.
No one ever saw it. No one ever visited.
But this—this was hers.
Tonight, she barely noticed.
She collapsed onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling, listening to the city breathe around her. Engines. Voices. A distant television.
Life happening everywhere else.
Mhari reached for her phone.
The screen lit up, and something in her chest loosened for the first time all day.
Time for my real world.
The novel opened to the final chapter.
She skipped the comments. She wasn't ready for them.
She needed him first.
Duke Alistair von Dracoven.
The Mad Dog of the North.
The Shadow Duke.
The villain everyone loved to hate.
The man the story had spent three hundred pages painting as cruel, ruthless, irredeemable—until the final arc, when his backstory unraveled and suddenly, you understood.
Illegitimate son of a duke who never wanted him. A weapon, not a son. Sent to war at fifteen, victorious every time, feared by enemies and allies alike. The only person who ever showed him kindness was the heroine—and she chose someone else in the end.
The magic explosion that saved her cost him his sight.
Mhari's thumb hovered over the screen.
She knew what came next. She'd read it four times already, each time hoping the words would change, hoping the author would magically rewrite the ending between her first read and her second.
They never did.
She started reading anyway.
The Duke sat alone in his chambers, the great hall of Blackwood Keep silent around him. Once, this room had echoed with the footsteps of servants, the murmur of advisors, the clang of armor as his men prepared for battle. Now there was nothing.
Nothing but the sound of his own breathing.
The blindfold he wore was clean—the last servant who'd remained had seen to that before leaving, unable to bear the sight of their master's empty eye sockets. The healer had been honest, at least. No magic could restore what he'd lost. No potion, no prayer, no bargain with the gods.
He would never see again.
He would never see her again.
Not that it mattered. She was married now. To the knight. To the good one. To the man who would give her the life Alistair never could.
"Your Grace."
He didn't turn toward the voice. What was the point?
"The courier has returned from the capital. The Lady—" a pause, a swallow "—the Duchess sends her regards. And this."
Footsteps. The rustle of parchment pressed into his hand.
Alistair's fingers traced the seal. Her seal. The one she'd used since childhood, the one he'd memorized from the letters she'd sent him during the war, back when she still believed he could be saved.
He broke it open. Ran his fingers over the words he couldn't read.
A letter. For him. After all this time.
"What does it say?" His voice was rough from disuse.
The servant hesitated. "She... wishes you well, Your Grace. She hopes you find peace. She says she will always remember your kindness."
Kindness.
Alistair laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
"Tell me the truth."
Silence.
"I am blind, not stupid. What does it actually say?"
The servant's voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. "She thanks you for saving her life. She says she prays for you. And she asks... she asks that you not contact her again. For her husband's sake."
The parchment crumpled in Alistair's grip.
For a long moment, he didn't move. Didn't speak. The great hall of Blackwood Keep held its breath around him.
Then, quietly, he said: "Leave."
"Your Grace—"
"Leave."
The servant's footsteps retreated. A door opened and closed.
Alistair was alone.
He sat there for a long time. Hours, maybe. The afternoon light he couldn't see faded into evening he couldn't see faded into night he couldn't see. Time had lost meaning. Everything had lost meaning.
"If there is a next life," he whispered to the darkness, "I wish for a world where no one knows my name. A world where the dark is not a prison, but a place of peace."
He didn't move again.
When they found him three days later, the great Duke Alistair von Dracoven was still sitting in his chair, his blindfold in place, his face turned toward a window that showed him nothing.
The official record would say he died of his wounds.
Those who knew the truth said nothing at all.
~
Mhari's vision blurred.
Tears slid down her cheeks, unstoppable.
She hugged her phone to her chest.
"I wouldn't care if you were blind," she whispered. "I'd take care of you. We could be lonely together."
The wind rattled the window.
Her phone flickered once. Twice.
Then the screen went black.
Exhaustion pulled her under.
She didn't hear the sound.
Didn't notice the pressure shift. The cold. The metallic scent that didn't belong.
Didn't hear the heavy thud of boots on linoleum.
A man appeared in the corner of her room.
Massive. Bleeding. Dressed in leather and dark cloth from another century.
And over his eyes—
A blindfold.
His chest heaved. His scarred hands reached out, touching smooth walls, unfamiliar objects.
"Where am I?" he rasped.
Then he heard it.
Breathing.
Soft. Even.
He turned toward the sound with lethal focus.
A woman. Small. Exhausted. Alone.
Like him.
Alistair von Dracoven pressed his back against the wall and listened.
For the first time in years, he was not alone.
The thought did not frighten him.
~ ☘️
Outside, the city continued on, unaware of the miracle unfolding inside a twenty-square-meter apartment.
Mhari Evangelista slept on, dreaming of a man who could not possibly be real.
Three meters away, he waited for morning.