The unnamed planet where Lu Fenghan was stranded had long days and short nights. Daylight lasted a full thirty two Leto hours, while after sunset, eighteen Leto hours would pass before the planet once again welcomed the sunrise.
However, as a member of the Space Force, Lu Fenghan’s biological clock did not depend on sunlight to regulate itself. He divided his time into periods for staying awake and sleeping, then had Pojun help him enforce the schedule.
He had also found several bags of nutritional supplements and two cans of nutritional paste among the wreckage of the escape pod. Combined with the fruits of the plants that had grown from the seeds scattered there by those who had come before him, at least he would not starve to death.
Lying in the grass, Lu Fenghan broke off a blade of grass and held the stem between his lips. His eyes were half closed as he gazed at the “sun” hanging in the sky.
There was nothing around him except the sound of the wind.
Pojun took the initiative to speak. “What are you thinking about?”
“Qi Yan. I’m thinking about how to leave this place. I’m thinking about going to find him.”
“But according to the conditions we currently have, you cannot leave this place to find my designer.”
Pojun completely failed to realize that his words were only making matters worse. He continued in a perfectly logical manner, “The unnamed planet we are currently on is outside the Alliance’s star domain. We cannot connect to the Star Network, which means we cannot send out a distress signal and no one knows that you are here. There are no inhabitants on this planet, nor does any technology exist here. Therefore, it cannot provide the conditions necessary to construct a spacecraft or starship. The only thing we can hope for is that some unlucky person will land on this planet. However, after rigorous calculations, you may regard that probability as infinitely close to zero.”
Lu Fenghan accidentally bit down too hard and snapped the blade of grass between his teeth. Its bitter juice spread across the tip of his tongue, causing his brows to crease involuntarily.
“You think I don’t know any of that?”
Pojun answered, “Of course you know.”
“Do I need you to remind me?”
Pojun remained silent for five seconds. Then, in the same matter of fact tone, he uttered his sudden realization.
“Oh, I understand now. This is what humans call… becoming angry out of embarrassment.”
“…”
Lu Fenghan raised an eyebrow. “If you weren’t made by Qi Yan…”
Pojun immediately picked up on his words. “Then?”
Lu Fenghan said, “Then you would never have another chance to speak again.”
Pojun wisely began keeping silent.
…..
Half an hour later, Lu Fenghan, who had been resting with his eyes closed, suddenly spoke.
“Pojun.”
“What is it?”
Lu Fenghan sat up and brushed the bits of grass from his clothes. His voice was casual and unconcerned as he said, “Last night, I saw a strange shadow inside that cave. It might have been my eyes playing tricks on me. Of course, it might also have been a ghost.”
Pojun: “!”
After returning to the cave where they were temporarily staying, Pojun seemed to have completely frozen. No matter how many times Lu Fenghan called him, there was no response.
Lu Fenghan did not insist. He manually activated the light source on his personal terminal and walked toward the depths of the cave, finally stopping before the rock wall where the words had been carved.
Although the amount of time he had spent on this unnamed planet had only barely been enough for the wound on his temple to develop a hard scab, he was beginning to understand why, among the four people who had accidentally landed on this planet, the two who had not died from illness had ultimately chosen suicide out of hopelessness.
The person who had left behind that message probably had not managed to hold on either.
Alone, trapped by gravity on a barren planet, watching the sun rise and set while constantly waiting for a hope that was so faint it was almost impossible to believe it would ever arrive.
He did not know how long he had stood silently before those lines of writing before finally turning around and walking outside.
Before long, Pojun discovered through its statistical records that, as time passed, Lu Fenghan spoke less and less.
More and more often, after Pojun had finished speaking at length, the only response it received from Lu Fenghan was a brief, “Mm.”
Most of the time, Lu Fenghan wandered aimlessly across the surface of the planet. When night fell, he would stare blankly at the stars flickering in the sky.
“Which direction is the Lagoon Nebula?”
The wild grass grew thick and luxuriant. Lu Fenghan lay on the grass, the tips of the blades tickling beneath his chin yet he did not move away. His gaze swept slowly across the sky, searching intently for something.
Pojun answered, “Based on the star charts currently available in my database, I am unable to answer your question.”
It was the answer he had expected.
A sharp, bitter ache spread through Lu Fenghan’s heart.
He remembered the two of them once lying shoulder to shoulder on a bed, with Qi Yan raising his hand and using his fingertip to trace the location of the Lagoon Nebula for him.
He had even thought that once he could no longer see Qi Yan, at the very least, he could look toward that direction and know that the person he missed was somewhere on one of the planets within that stretch of starfield.
But now, even that small wish had become an impossible luxury.
Hope…
Hope.
The single word “Okay” that Qi Yan had given him in response had become a thread, firmly suspending him, holding him up together with his hope.
Pojun spoke again. “What are you worried about?”
What was he worried about?
Erich was holding the front line, so there should be no problems there for the time being. Even if the Alliance was teetering on the brink of collapse, Nie Huaiting was still there to support it.
The only person he was worried about was that absentminded little darling of his. He did not know how he was doing now, whether he was all right.
Lagoon Nebula.
“How is Qi Yan? Has he woken up?”
Elisa shook her head in silence. “Not yet. The medical robot has already treated his wounds but he’s been asleep the entire time.”
August pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was too slow to react.”
He sat in the chair against the wall, his fingers interlaced. He took several deep breaths in succession before continuing, “At the time, we… we were arguing over a formula. He and I had different ideas about it. Qi Yan mentioned that he had done an extended calculation for this formula two days ago but he wasn’t sure where he had put the draft paper he had used for the calculations. You know, things like this happened quite often before.”
“At that moment, he called out ‘Lu Fenghan.’ He asked Lu Fenghan whether he had casually left that sheet of draft paper on the sofa.” August inhaled slowly, his breathing unmistakably strained. “Elisa, do you know? He was instinctively seeking confirmation from Lu Fenghan. He was trying to confirm whether his memory was correct.”
“But where could his Lu Fenghan be? He must have had a brief moment of clarity. Or perhaps the logic in his mind had become chaotic and he could no longer make it reconcile with itself. He could no longer deceive himself, because he realized that he couldn’t find that person.”
“In that instant, Qi Yan… was extremely, extremely frightened. His face went terribly pale. He got up and searched the entire room, then opened the door and went outside to look for him but he simply couldn’t find the person he was looking for! Then he saw a piece of metal. It was very dull, very dull.” August’s narration faltered. He paused for a moment before continuing, “In his panic, he dragged it across his arm. He did it with tremendous force, over and over again, until he finally drew blood. Then he just held that piece of metal in his hand and stood there quietly, allowing the blood to run along his fingers and fall to the floor, one drop after another.”
“He was injured. He was waiting for Lu Fenghan to come and bandage his wound, to apply healing gel, to wrap it with a bandage… But he stood there for such a long time and no one came.”
August’s voice choked.
“How could he have waited for him? How could he possibly have waited for him…”
Elisa’s eyes reddened and she turned her back.
Normally, Qi Yan’s emotions were expressed so faintly. He almost never revealed any intense feelings.
Through the closed door came two brief notification beeps from the medical robot. Elisa wiped away her tears and opened the door to go inside.
Qi Yan was lying on the bed. He was far thinner than when he had first returned. His usual clothes hung loosely from his body, as though they had been filled with nothing but wind.
He turned his gaze toward the place where the sound had come from. There was a faint expectation in his eyes, as though he were waiting for something.
Then, in the very next second, that expectation went out.
Qi Yan felt as though every part of his body hurt. His chest hurt especially badly. The obvious palpitations made him so uncomfortable that he felt like vomiting.
Elisa sat down beside Qi Yan’s bed and asked gently, “How are you feeling?”
Those words seemed to break through some kind of emotional restriction inside Qi Yan.
He could not speak.
His eyes slowly reddened and tears began slipping down his cheeks as though they could not stop. The fingers of the hand resting beside him trembled violently as he gripped the bedsheet with all his strength, until they had turned blue white and were completely drained of color.
He forced every sob back down into his body. Only when his entire body had begun to tremble faintly did he finally manage to speak in a hoarse voice.
“It hurts so much… Elisa, it hurts so much…”
Tears immediately followed from Elisa’s eyes as well. She hurriedly placed her hand over the back of Qi Yan’s cold hand and asked him, “Where does it hurt?”
One of Qi Yan’s hands clenched over his heart, pulling the fabric of his clothes into layer upon layer of wrinkles. The pain caused his entire body to curl inward and he could not speak.
He heard his own hoarse voice, then stared fixedly at a certain point in the empty air.
He thought, Lu Fenghan wasn’t here. What use was there in telling him that it hurt?
What use was there in saying that he was cold, that he was tired, that he was in pain, that he was afraid?
He wasn’t here anymore.
It was as though, at the very instant that miniature starship had turned away and disappeared from him, a piece of his heart had been forcibly carved out.
And that hollow space had remained empty ever since, never to be filled again.
Between the false and the real within his consciousness, there was no longer anyone willing to become his anchor.
It was as though he had been transported in an instant from the lush, deep green of summer into an endlessly long winter. Even if he curled himself up beneath the covers on his bed, the snowmelt would still rise around him, congealing into a bone deep cold that seeped into every part of him.
Because of his long term use of medication, Qi Yan’s pain nerves had become extraordinarily sensitive. Elisa listened helplessly as he unconsciously called out again and again that he was in pain yet she did not dare touch him and did not know what she should do.
All she could do was cry with him.
No one knew how much time passed before, within the stagnant air of the room, Qi Yan’s hoarse voice finally sounded again.
“He… was good.”
Qi Yan’s eyes were red and glistening with moisture. It was as though he were telling Elisa about him yet at the same time, it seemed as though he were remembering him alone.
“He…”
The sound stopped there.
Suddenly, Qi Yan lost the ability to find the words he needed.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to describe him.”
Perhaps there was not a single word, not even a single character, that could adequately describe Lu Fenghan.
Yet more than anything, Qi Yan wanted there to be another person who remembered him just as he did.
“He… was good in every way.”
Elisa nodded heavily. Through her tears, she managed a smile. “I know. He was very good. He was very good to you.”
“Mm. After he ordered the escape pod to detach, I called his name. He told me he was there but now, I can never find him again.”
Qi Yan’s voice was very soft.
The emotions that had been lurking beneath the depths of the sea surged violently upward, gripping his heart so tightly that even breathing became painful.
“He also apologized to me. He knew that I would never forget the things I had seen, so he told me that, if I could, I should forget that part of my memory.”
“But… but I really did meet him.”
“How could I bear to forget?”
Eight years ago, it had been this person.
Eight years later, when he returned to Leto, the person he encountered was still him.
What could he do?
He could not bear to forget.
He could not bear to lose even the tiniest detail, not even the smallest fragment of memory.
He began thinking about how he could freeze his memories in place, how he could make them remain permanently fixed, how he could preserve this tiny trace of existence that was all he had left so that he would never lose it again.
He had even begun to fear the future.
Ten years from now, twenty years from now, how would he prove to himself that meeting Lu Fenghan had truly happened?
How would he prove that it had not come from his own fabrication?
That it had not merely been another delusion created by his mind?
Elisa gathered Qi Yan’s cold fingers into her hands and choked back a sob as she said, “I know… You don’t have to forget. You can remember him for as long as you want. As long as you still remember him, he hasn’t truly left.”
Qi Yan looked at Elisa and murmured to himself, “But why… why am I so sad? Why is it… so cold?”
The longing he had suppressed to the absolute limit finally broke through its restraints. Once again, Qi Yan felt that unbearable pain, as though something were being violently torn from within him. Tears spilled uncontrollably from his eyes once more.
“Even just for one second would be enough, Elisa. I really, really want to see him one more time…”
Elisa closed her eyes for a moment.
She remembered twenty years ago, when Lin Zhi had been pregnant. The two of them had sat together in the garden, basking in the sunlight.
They had looked forward to the arrival of that new life. They had imagined holding his hand as he learned to walk, teaching him how to speak and write, watching him make friends and, once he grew a little older and found himself at a loss because of his feelings, telling him, “This is love.”
But she had never imagined that this scene would one day come to pass under circumstances like these.
Slowly unfolding Qi Yan’s fingers, Elisa spoke in a gentle voice. Her eyes were moist as she looked at him and told him, “Because you love him. You love him and that is why you’re sad, why you can’t bear to let him go, why you want to remember him and don’t want to forget.”
Qi Yan slowly blinked his sore, aching eyes.
He… loved him?
When the question surfaced in his mind, he remembered that hurried kiss aboard the starship.
It had been burning hot, a little painful yet soft and warm.
Like an ancient star in a vast and dazzling nebula, piercing through layer upon layer of dust and illuminating his eyes from impossibly far away.
Elisa was right.
He loved him.
He loved Lu Fenghan.
Outside the window, the rain began falling again, soft and continuous.
Qi Yan swallowed back a sob. The moment he thought of that name, tears began flowing down his cheeks once more.
So this was how it was.
Before he even knew what love was, before he had been certain whether he could ever fall in love with someone, he had already fallen in love with him.
✦ ✧ ✦
Vynellia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
This chapter was powered by questionable decisions. The next one may require coffee.
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✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 50 · I am Pojun.Chapter 51 · Unable to deceive oneselfChapter 52 · Resurrected from the deadChapter 53 · Hello, General!Chapter 54 · My hand is injured.Chapter 55 · Come to my place.Chapter 56 · First VictoryChapter 57 · Self-introductionChapter 58 · Never changedChapter 59 · One reasonChapter 60 · Gentle and restrainedChapter 61 · Only you are allowed.Chapter 62 · To the Souls of the FallenChapter 63 · His reliefChapter 64 · His ambitionChapter 65 · Date TimeChapter 66 Part 1 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 66 Part 2 · Abducting PlanetsChapter 67 · Did not leaveChapter 68 · Perceiving EmotionsChapter 69 · My own effortsChapter 70 · Bright FlameChapter 71 · Dress codeChapter 72 · Take me with you!Chapter 73 · MirageChapter 74 · I’m used to it.