Chapter 34

The underground parking garage they descended into was lined with dozens of luxury cars.

You can only drive one at a time, so why the hell does he own this many? How much is all this even worth...?

Erabelle was seriously calculating the value of this utterly unnecessary fleet when Dezeb casually opened the door of the nearest car and asked, almost as an afterthought,

“I heard you were injured?”

The vehicle—a disposable asset that cost as much as a luxury mansion—was equipped with multilayer defensive shields, an incorporeal-phase ghost system, and access clearance that was practically unrestricted.

With the right code, even the Imperial Palace wasn’t off-limits.

It looked like some sort of limited-edition model designed for elite criminals. The Empire certainly had plenty of holes in its security... and the man who held the largest stake in those holes was now asking after her health.

“I’m fine now.”

“I bet.”

His brief chuckle made Erabelle feel strangely uneasy. But a moment later, Dezeb was speaking in his usual tone again.

“Let’s head to the restaurant.”

“...Yes, sir.”

Aries Cider’s barking face flashed through her mind again.

“James started a new drama, you know?”

Despite the harmless topic, Erabelle still couldn’t quite relax.

The elegant young commander with a brilliant future ahead of him drove manually, one hand resting on the wheel while the other lazily held a cigarette laced with sedatives. A faint smile played on his lips.

This was what Dezeb always looked like in private.

“I’ve been a little out of the loop lately.”

“Sure you have.”

His lips curled into a sly smile. Beautiful and dangerous. If he were a celebrity, he could probably build an entire fanbase on that smile alone.

Dezeb’s beauty had nothing to do with personal taste and everything to do with survival.

“You don’t have the broadcast schedule memorized or anything, do you?”

“Absolutely not.”

The premiere was last week, on the 16th, at 8 p.m. New episodes air Mondays and Tuesdays at eight, and the rerun is on the 24th at 10 a.m. That’s in two days.

Erabelle quietly averted her gaze, startled by how readily the information came to mind. Dezeb narrowed his eyes.

“What do you even like about that guy?”

“...He’s... handsome...”

Her attempt to hide her fandom had already failed back when they lived together. Once he’d discovered four full boxes of merchandise, there had been no salvaging her cover. All she could do now was pray he never found the other eleven.

Still, come on. Everyone’s allowed at least one hobby. I’m a person too. Let me breathe a little.

She turned her gaze away with all the dignity she could muster—at least in her own head.

“Everything about him is artificial. His body proportions are completely ruined.”

He wasn’t even a mercenary. Why did body balance matter?

Besides, all the naturally beautiful people in this world were basically control-obsessed killing machines.

Actors, on the other hand—people whose moderately enhanced bodies had been perfected through advanced medical procedures—were harmless. A beautiful man who couldn’t kill someone with his bare hands? That was practically an endangered species.

“He’s also... cute...”

Erabelle muttered the last word almost as if she were making an excuse. But really, cute was the decisive factor.

For Erabelle, fandom wasn’t pseudo-romance.

It was pseudo-parenting.

Once someone started looking cute to you, it was over. Cute was the ultimate trump card. There was a reason mothers spent absurd amounts of money on baby products without batting an eye.

She had even preordered the limited-edition Blu-ray. She was planning to buy the new drama on Blu-ray too. She hadn’t watched it yet, but it was already amazing.

“That’s cute to you?”

Yes...

“Then what about me? Am I not cute?”

...No...

“You’re not answering.”

I did. In my head.

“Why not? I’m sure I have at least some cute qualities if you look closely.”

She’d need a high-powered space telescope to find them.

Something on the level of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, maybe, just to catch a glimpse.

“Y-Yes, absolutely.”

Still, Erabelle clasped her hands together and nodded emphatically.

Survival above all.ℯℯ𝑙.

Dezeb chuckled, apparently satisfied, and she let out a small sigh of relief.

Too soon.

“Really? Then tell me. What part of me is cute?”

“......”

“I’m waiting.”

“C-Can I... think about it?”

Just give me, say... three hundred years.

Erabelle’s thoughts scrambled desperately.

“Oh! Isn’t there a market nearby? Maybe we could pick up some groceries and watch a movie at home tonight, for a change...?”

“We always do that.”

Right.

She started thinking again.

“A new snack... a new movie... It’s been a while.”

“Oh, so I’m really not cute, huh?”

Commander Dezeb Avganis shot her a sidelong glance, plainly displeased.

“New, huh? It’ll obviously just be beer and snacks again. And the movie... what, James again?”

“No. Something without James...”

Goodbye, James...

Erabelle looked as though she had just lost the will to live, despite being the one who had suggested it. Dezeb snorted.

“Fine. Something without James.”

With that final blow, he turned the car toward the grocery store.

***

They stopped by the market, picked up some groceries, grabbed fried chicken for dinner from a nearby place, and finally made it back to Dezeb’s place shortly before nine in the evening.

His place...

They had spent most of her external-duty periods at Dezeb’s secondary residence in the capital.

Her request to stay somewhere else, made a year and a half ago, had been completely ignored.

This enormous penthouse high above the city barely even counted as “wealth” among nobles who owned everything from entire planetary systems to moons.

But to Erabelle, it was another world entirely.

She glanced absently through the vast glass windows lining the living room, watching dozens of pristine white yachts drift along the immaculate artificial waterway below.

For a moment, she could almost understand the peace enjoyed by the Empire’s wealthy citizens.

“What? You want to ride one?”

“Huh? Oh, no. I was just wondering where decommissioned yachts end up.”

“Why?”

He looked genuinely puzzled.

“I heard waste disposal can be profitable. I recently got certified in something geared toward used goods and resale, so I thought if I repaired whatever could still be salvaged and scrapped the rest, it might actually turn a decent profit.”

“Mm.”

He walked away before she had even finished explaining.

Guess he’s not interested in that kind of thing. Makes sense, I suppose... He owns an entire planetary system. Why would he care about the secondhand market?

Still, it wasn’t a bad idea.

Maybe she should seriously look into it.

“Stop staring. Let’s go.”

“Yes, sir.”

They slipped into their usual routine.

Dezeb shoved all the groceries into the refrigerator and turned on the TV. Erabelle changed into sweatpants, brought over a pile of cushions from the bedroom, arranged them in a formation honed through long experience, and flopped down.

Unlike Dezeb, she had already showered during the long-haul shuttle ride.

While he disappeared into the bathroom, she took the remote, popped a snack into her mouth, and started flipping through channels in search of something to watch.

It looked like a relaxing scene.

It wasn’t.

All because of Dezeb’s peculiar hobby: the moment you so much as hinted that something made you uncomfortable, he would keep prodding at it until you either admitted it outright or died.

Compared to that, Erabelle’s hobby was positively wholesome.

Since James is off-limits...

She chose something at random, and just as the opening scene began, Dezeb returned—fresh from the shower and dressed down—and lay beside her, curling his body around hers.

On the screen, her second-favorite actor, Alec Havalina, smiled brightly at the camera.

“Oh, so it’s fine as long as it isn’t James?”

Dezeb’s voice was playful, but there was a distinctly spiteful edge to it.

“I-It’s just a coincidence.”

“Sure.”

Erabelle curled in on herself and played dead, keeping her eyes fixed on the screen.

Not long afterward, her third-favorite actor, Lucas Valla, appeared.

It really had been a random choice.

And somehow the second lead was her number-three favorite.

Dezeb snorted and reached for a can of beer.

As he leaned closer, the scent of his still-damp skin—body wash mingled with lingering warmth—washed over her.

Erabelle tensed instinctively.

A chill ran down her spine.

She was used to it.

But not really.

“Keep eating.”

He gently pushed another snack between her lips.

She chewed in silence, still curled into herself.

“Is it good?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like they only changed the packaging.”

They traded pointless remarks like that while lying together in front of the television.

The movie itself, interesting mostly because of its cast, drifted along with hardly any plot to speak of. Their conversation did much the same—light and aimless.

“The navigator was an android?”

“Yes. A gestational model. Turns out there was a bounty on the fetus it was carrying. Nobody thought of that because they judged it by appearances... They figured it out halfway through.”

“That must’ve been chaos. What did you do?”

“Well, I just... closed my eyes and played dead...”

Dezeb laughed softly as he took another sip of beer.

Eventually, sometime around the middle of the movie, Erabelle fell asleep.

The room grew quiet.

The credits rolled across the screen while Dezeb sat in silence, watching her.

If she had been awake, the look on his face would have terrified her.