Chapter 16
The spacious baking room was filled with an enticing aroma,
“What... is going on with him?” Xiya pointed at Xavier, who was kneading dough two or three paces away as if he were playing with mud.
The latter had a little flour on his forehead. He lowered his eyes to the sticky mess in his hands, looking disgusted. Every couple of kneads, he would sneak a glance in their direction like a thief.
Xiya frowned. Ever since Xavier and Mu Chen had gotten into an argument, gone out together, and come back, Xavier had seemed like a different person—or, more accurately, his episodes had gotten worse.
Now, wherever Mu Chen went, Xavier liked to follow. He even insisted on joining the “flower arranging” and “baking” electives he used to look down on the most.
The moment Mu Chen stopped what he was doing and turned around, Xavier immediately lowered his head, apparently to avoid making eye contact with him.
He looked at Xiya. “I don’t know.”
If Xavier was sick, then it was only natural that they couldn’t understand this behavior.
Seeing that Mu Chen was no longer paying attention to him, Xavier let out a relieved breath. To be honest, he was a little afraid of meeting those blue eyes.
The main reason Xavier had been following Mu Chen around for the past two days was that he had something weighing on his mind, but hadn’t found a good time to say it.
Thinking of this, he couldn’t help glancing in Mu Chen’s direction again.
Mu Chen was wearing a little apron over his clothes today. To keep flour off himself, he had tied his smooth silver hair into a high ponytail at the back of his head. His profile was especially serene, and with those long lashes and sweet dimples by his cheeks, anyone who saw him would be smitten.
Even Xavier couldn’t help looking several times, but he knew full well that Mu Chen was as devilish on the inside as he was angelic on the outside.
The memory of nearly getting beaten to a pulp last time was still deeply etched in his mind.
After an unknown amount of time, Xavier finally found a chance to talk to Mu Chen alone.
Mu Chen was focused on pouring the prepared cake batter into the molds when a shadow suddenly fell over him. A stammering voice sounded by his ear,
“You...”
Mu Chen raised his eyes and looked at Xavier thoughtfully, waiting for him to continue.
Under Mu Chen’s gaze, Xavier’s face flushed red. He blurted out everything he had been holding inside. “You’re so talented at piloting mecha. Why do you spend all your time on things like this?”
Piloting mecha had always been Xavier’s dream, and he had always believed he was very talented—until he met Mu Chen.
The feeling of being crushed by someone above his level was truly terrifying. He could hardly imagine how happy he would be if he had talent like Mu Chen’s. He’d probably wake up smiling from his dreams...
So now Xavier stood before Mu Chen and mustered his courage to say, “If you got some training, you should be able to...”
The next second, the person before him suddenly stood up.
Xavier jolted. “W-What’s wrong?”
Mu Chen looked straight past him. “I’m going to put these cakes in the oven. You’re in my way.”
He frowned unhappily. So he’d come all the way over just to say that...
Boring.
“Why do you...”
“You should...”
“You are...”
He had heard sentences like these ever since he could remember. It was as if everyone around him existed to remind him not to forget his identity, to keep all those “right” things engraved in his mind.
“Oh.” Xavier instinctively moved aside, though his tone carried a hint of disappointment.
He watched Mu Chen walk away, then ran a hand through his hair in frustration. A thought couldn’t help surfacing in his mind...
What a hard person to figure out.
When baking class ended, Mu Chen shared the freshly baked little cakes with many of his classmates, then packed the fluffiest-looking ones into a paper bag.
Looking at the little merman smiling amid the crowd, Xavier lowered his eyes to the lump in his hands that looked like a piece of charcoal and thought glumly,
Why didn’t he give me one, too?
After the cakes were handed out, it was almost time for school to let out, and parents began arriving to pick up their children.
“Big Brother.”
The moment Wright appeared, Mu Chen ran over and hugged him around the waist. He buried his face in Wright’s chest and closed his eyes. At last, the smile he’d kept up all day relaxed, and he no longer had to put on an expression for anyone else.
He was used to pretending. Most of the time, he wore a smile, and after wearing that mask for so long, he couldn’t take it off. Sometimes, even Mu Chen couldn’t tell whether he was actually supposed to be happy or sad.
But now, as Wright gently stroked the top of his head and simply let him hold on without saying a word, Mu Chen could feel himself relaxing. It was like standing barefoot on an empty beach, letting the seawater wash over his ankles—perfectly calm.
Over the past fourteen years, the cruel laws of survival had taught him to shed everything useless. One of those things was genuine emotion. If the real thing was useless, he would replace it with something false.
So to Mu Chen, smiling and crying had never been expressions of emotion. They were simply ways to achieve a particular goal.
But when he was with Wright, he could feel his true self. Those useless emotions had suddenly become valuable again.
After a while, Mu Chen lifted his head from Wright’s embrace. Wright reached out and straightened the silver hair that had fallen beside his temple. “How was school today?”
Mu Chen: “We learned flower arranging and made cakes. Look...”
As he spoke, he handed the paper bag containing the cakes to Wright. “These are for you, Big Brother.”
Wright took the paper bag from him. “Thank you.”
“Do you still like it here?”
Mu Chen nodded vigorously and leaned against him bonelessly, chattering away. “It’s pretty good. Most of my classmates are nice, too. There are just one or two annoying ones.”
Not far away, Xavier was waiting for someone to pick him up. Watching the two of them walk off, he wondered...
An annoying one...
Who?
...
A melodious piano tune drifted through the hall.
Black leaned on his cane, his gray hair combed neatly back. His eyes were closed, and his head bobbed gently in time with the music.
“Ding~”
A conspicuous wrong note slipped into the melody.
“That was wrong...”
Black’s brows knitted abruptly. He tapped the floor with his cane, as if about to deliver a stern reprimand.
But when his eyes met Mu Chen’s innocent blue ones, the words on the tip of his tongue suddenly stuck.
Black coughed a few times, swallowing his scolding, and pointed at the sheet music. “Start again from the fifth measure.”
With that, he closed his eyes, ready to listen to Mu Chen play it again.
But the music did not start right away.
The little merman’s hands had left the keys. His gaze was nowhere near the sheet music; instead, he was looking into the distance.
Black’s brows furrowed again. He resisted the urge to scold him and followed the little merman’s gaze. Then he saw Wright standing by the door.
Wright wore a black military uniform, his blond hair combed back to reveal a smooth forehead. He had just been to the capital’s military base for a final inspection before leaving, so he hadn’t had time to change.
“Your Highness.” Seeing Wright come in, Black lowered his head in greeting.
Wright nodded. “Am I interrupting you?”
Black knew the prince would be returning to the border in a few days. He had probably come to see Mu Chen.
He shook his head, then said to Mu Chen, “Let’s stop here for today. Next time, start from the fifth measure again.”
Then he gathered up his sheet music and left the hall, giving the two of them the rest of their time together.
Wright sat down beside Mu Chen on the piano bench.
Mu Chen seemed very interested in the medal hanging from Wright’s shoulder. As soon as Wright sat down, he leaned toward him and curiously fiddled with one of the medals.
It was a gold circular medal engraved with a flying eagle, with the number “342” inscribed at the bottom.
Mu Chen had taken a few classes at school on the modern history of the Aus Empire over the past two days, so he knew what it meant.
The flying eagle was the symbol of the mecha corps, while the number represented Wright’s highest kill count. He had destroyed a total of 342 Insectoid mecha.
It was also the highest kill count in the entire Aus Empire.
Wright asked him, “Do you like it?”
As he spoke, he prepared to take the medal off and let Mu Chen play with it.
“Big Brother...”
Mu Chen merely looked up at him.
“Mm?”
“Is your mecha still in the capital?”
“Mm.”
“Can I go see it?”
...
The evening breeze brushed past the Aus Empire’s largest harbor—Star Harbor. A mecha as tall as a building stood on the deck of a warship. Its glossy black wings gleamed like light as they blended into the night, like an eagle spreading its wings.
Wright sat in the cockpit and lifted Mu Chen onto his lap.
Aside from the mecha technicians who occasionally came to adjust its functions, Mu Chen was one of only two people on all of Blue Star to sit in this seat.
At that moment, the bustling capital shrank before them into a web woven from countless starlike lights.
Mu Chen looked at the pristine interior and exterior of the mecha. It was clear that Wright treasured this machine deeply.
Lance had once teased Wright, calling him a “mecha-sexual.” Mu Chen, of course, hadn’t understood what that meant. After all, how could a person fall in love with a mecha?
But sitting here today and looking down at the entire capital below, Mu Chen seemed to understand. It must mean an intense affection and deep fondness for something.
Along with it came a sense of responsibility.
Wright had asked Mu Chen at the palace why he had suddenly wanted to come see the mecha.
He hadn’t given a reason, only saying that he wouldn’t be able to see it after Big Brother left.
Now, curled up in Wright’s arms, Mu Chen suddenly said, “Big Brother, do you remember that annoying classmate I told you about?”
“Mm.”
Mu Chen: “He said it was embarrassing for someone like me to enjoy flower arranging and baking, and that someone like him was destined to pilot a mecha. Big Brother, do you also think it’s embarrassing that I like these things?”
Wright was taken aback. “There’s nothing embarrassing about it.”
Mu Chen tilted his head back and looked into his eyes. “But you don’t like these things, either. You pilot a mecha, and you’re the best in the whole Empire...”
“I want to be as amazing as you, too, Big Brother.”
Wright didn’t know why anyone would fill his head with such ideas. He fell silent for a moment, seemingly considering his words, then lifted his chin. “Can you see all those lights below?”
“Mm.” Mu Chen nodded.
Wright: “Every light represents something different. It could be a harbor, a dock, a railway, a shopping mall, a home... There are flower shops and bakeries among them, too. The whole point of piloting a mecha is to protect every inch of this land, so people can feel safe doing the things they love.”
“You don’t need to force yourself to become any particular kind of person. Just do what you like...”
Wright lowered his head and said to him, “I’ll protect you.”
Mu Chen saw the dazzling galaxy reflected in Wright’s eyes. A gust of wind rose outside the cockpit, bending the branches and scattering the countless lights below into fluorescent sparks that seemed to blend, bit by bit, into Wright’s deep eyes.
Mu Chen’s lips curved up slightly. “Will you always protect me?”
“Mm.”