Perspective: Astoria
Date: June 18, 1863
Time: 2:14 PM
Location: Sugi Valley — Northern Ridge Road
Of all the infinite realities, eras, and coordinate planes across the boundless expanse, Kaiser had chosen this one.
A forgotten valley in the middle of nowhere. No magic. No scientific progress. Just dirt roads baking beneath an unforgiving midsummer sun, telephone poles with peeling creosote, and the relentless, deafening screech of cicadas sawing through the humid afternoon air.
And an iron bicycle.
A heavy, single-speed, pitch-black iron bicycle whose chain squeaked with every full rotation of the pedal crank.
Kaiser stood on the pedals, leaning his weight forward as he fought the gravel incline. His cotton work shirt, faded from too many scrub-board washes and smelling of dried lye soap, was damp between his shoulder blades. His black hair was plastered in small, messy points against his forehead.
I sat sideways on the rusted rear luggage rack, my legs dangling off the left side, clutching a brown paper sack of dry flour and dried beans against my ribs with one arm and pinching the hem of Kaiser's shirt with the other.
"My legs hurt."
Kaiser didn't break his pedaling rhythm. "You're not pedaling."
"I'm holding them up, idiot. That's still work."
"Put your feet on the pegs."
"They vibrate. It's annoying."
"Drag them in the dirt, then."
"And ruin my shoes? These took three weeks of egg money."
"You volunteered." Kaiser pulled the bike over a dry rut in the clay.
"I agreed before I knew it was going to be this hot," I muttered, wiping sweat from the side of my face. "The morning paper said mild overcast."
"The paper gets here three days late."
"Then the editor should be shot."
Kaiser let out a short, quiet breath that was almost a laugh. "That's a bit harsh on old man Watanabe."
He crested the short rise, sat back down on the cracked leather saddle, and kept pumping his legs as the road leveled out between two dry irrigation ditches. Tall green reeds swayed on either side, dusty and yellowed at the waterlines. A yellow dragonfly hovered over the ditch, flicked its wings, and darted into the grass.
I shifted on the hard iron bars of the rack. My tailbone was already numb.
"This life is annoying," I said, looking out at the cedar-covered hills. "The power went out twice this week. If a bird lands on the wire, the whole valley spends the night eating boiled rice in the dark."
"The candles smell nice," Kaiser said.
"They smell like fat. And there are mosquitoes everywhere. One bit me while I was reading on the porch yesterday."
"I put a coil right next to your chair."
"That stupid coil didn't work. It just fed the mosquitoes confidence!"
Kaiser didn't argue. He kept pedaling, his eyes on the dirt road ahead. Wind moved through the rice fields in long green waves.
"Look at the ridge," he said, nodding toward the hills. "Clouds look nice today."
I looked up.
Giant white mounds of cloud drifted over the mountains under the blinding sun.
"They're clouds. We saw them yesterday. We'll see them tomorrow. It's just water."
The corner of his mouth ticked up. "They still look nice."
I stared at his profile, feeling that familiar, insoluble knot of irritation tighten in my chest.
He actually means it.
That was the infuriating part. He wasn't pretending to enjoy the dirt, the heat, or the squeak of the wheel. He genuinely liked looking at the clouds.
"We could just get internet," I said, leaning closer so my chin hovered near his shoulder. "Just a private relay. Small enough to hide in a matchbox. We could see what other worlds are doing. Watch a game or something."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because then you'd stay up all night instead of sleeping, and then tomorrow you'd complain your head hurts."
"My head hurts because our lightbulb is 40 watts and flickers whenever the neighbor turns on his thresher."
"The bulb is fine."
"It's yellow. It makes the whole house look like old-school."
Kaiser steered around a sharp rock. "If you hate this so much, why didn't you stay home?"
"Because you would've tried to balance all the bags on the handlebars like an idiot and dropped the flour."
"I've never dropped the flour."
"You would've started today."
I tightened my hold on the brown paper sack. The paper was warm from the sun. Inside was tea, dried fish flakes, and five kilos of flour.
"We could just make the groceries appear in her kitchen," I said. "Right on the shelf. We wouldn't even have to walk up this hill."
"Then the shopkeeper doesn't get paid."
"Make money, then."
"Inflation."
"Make a better economy."
"That's cheating."
"You invented the rule against cheating."
"And you agreed to it," Kaiser said.
"I was manipulated."
"You were drinking cold tea on the porch. Nobody manipulated you."
"Cold tea is persuasive when it's 30 degrees outside."
A dry chuckle slipped from his chest. The vibration traveled through his linen shirt straight into my fingers.
I frowned, staring down at our shadow stretching long across the dry grass.
To anyone watching from the porch of a farmhouse, we were just two local kids on an errand. A boy with dark hair and sunburned forearms, and a girl with pale white hair who looked like she belonged in a hospital rather than a farm hamlet.
Our official backstory in this province fit on half a page of an old census book.
Orphans of the war.
My parents had allegedly died during naval shelling on the southern coast when I was 7. Kaiser's had vanished in border clashes two valleys over. He had walked across two mountain passes on foot, shoes worn down to the cork, until he arrived in Sugi Valley when he was 12.
I had been sitting by the stone bridge when he stumbled into town with a canvas bag tied with string. He had looked at me, looked at the dry riverbed, and asked where a person could find drinking water that didn't taste like poison.
We had lived in the small wooden house near the shrine woods ever since.
4 years of split firewood. 4 years of pulling weeds in sweet potato patches. 4 years of patching cedar shingles before the autumn typhoons.
4 years of this.
I had lived through epochs where empires spanning 10 thousand stars bowed at a whisper. I had reclined on thrones forged from starlight, where time itself folded like velvet to suit my comfort. Kaiser had rewritten the fundamental laws of reality with a flick of his wrist.
Yet here he was, sweating through a cheap cotton shirt to carry flour to a 70-year-old widow who didn't even own a telephone.
Why?
The question sat in my chest like a cold stone. I looked at the curve of his shoulder, the steady push of his legs against the pedals.
There was no glory in this. No cosmic convergence. No grand destiny to unlock.
If we died here of old age, the universe would keep spinning without noticing that two gods had spent 50 years growing radishes in the dirt.
"Kaiser."
"What?"
"The chain is rattling. You didn't tighten it on Tuesday."
"I tightened it."
"You used the bad wrench. It's still loose. I can feel it wobbling every time you pedal."
"You have too much time to think back there."
"I'm trying to help you. A normal person would say thank you."
"A normal passenger would hold the bag still so it stops hitting my hip."
"The bag is heavy. My fingers are going numb."
"You've survived the birth of stars."
"Right now I'm carrying 5 kilos of flour in the sun. It's not the same thing."
Kaiser pedaled past a row of cedar posts, the chain rattling softly. "Do you want to do something tomorrow?"
I squinted at the back of his neck. "Like what?"
"We could go swimming down by the river. Or walk up into the forest behind the shrine."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Tomorrow is going to be hotter than today. I can already feel the heat settling in. Walking up a hill to stare at trees sounds like a punishment."
"The river is cool."
"The river has leeches, mud, and children throwing rocks," I said flatly. "I've seen trees and water across ten thousand worlds, Kaiser. There's nothing special about pine needles and wet moss. I want to stay inside, turn on the little fan, and not move all day."
Kaiser let out a quiet chuckle. "Fine. We'll stay home."
"Good. Because if you made me walk through pine needles, I would set the forest on fire."
Kaiser squeezed both brake levers.
The worn pads squealed against the rims. The bike slowed, crunching through gravel, and stopped under the shade of an old weeping willow beside a stone ditch.
He put both feet on the ground.
"Why did we stop?" I asked. "Did it break?"
Kaiser swung his leg over the frame, stepped off, and kicked the stand down into the dirt.
He turned around to face me.
The willow leaves cut the sun into patches of gold and shade across his face. His blue eyes—that deep, impossibly clear blue—looked straight at me.
He leaned against the handlebars.
"Are you going to complain the entire way?"
I sat up straight on the rack, chin raised.
"Yes."
Kaiser looked at me for two quiet seconds.
He stepped into the space between my knees, reached up, put a warm, calloused hand behind my neck, and leaned down.
His lips pressed against mine on a kiss.
It wasn't hurried, and it wasn't dramatic. It was just brief, quiet, and firm. His mouth was dry from the wind, tasting faintly of cold well water and the melon candy he had bought at the station depot an hour ago.
The road went quiet.
The cicadas seemed farther away. The heat lost its teeth. The heavy sack of flour in my lap didn't feel heavy anymore.
Then he stepped back.
His thumb brushed my jaw once before his hand dropped.
He didn't smirk. He didn't say anything clever. He just turned around, took the handlebars, and swung his leg back over the bike.
He kicked the stand up and pushed the pedal down.
The bike rolled forward, crunching back into the sun.
A few seconds passed.
Kaiser settled into his rhythm.
"Better."
My hand stayed against my lower lip, fingers pressing into the skin.
...Insolent bastard.
Heat flared across my neck, burning up into both cheeks.
I stared at the back of his head.
I should say something.
I should bring up the chain again. I should mention the mosquito. I should say anything at all just to prove it didn't work.
I considered continuing out of principle.
I didn't.
My hand dropped from my mouth and grabbed a fistful of his shirt instead, bunching the faded cotton tight. I leaned forward until my forehead touched the warm cloth between his shoulders, letting the sway of the bike take me.
A small smile touched my lips, pressed out of sight against his back.
One point to you.
Two minutes later, the road curved past a bamboo stand and opened into a dirt yard in front of an old wooden farmhouse.
The house was built of dark cedar weathered by decades of smoke, with deep eaves, grey roof tiles, and an open veranda under a bamboo awning. A small copper chime hung from the corner post, clinking in the breeze.
An old woman was sitting on a low bench on the porch, a shallow basket of green beans across her lap. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles, her white hair pulled back in a knot with an indigo cloth.
Kaiser rolled the bike to a stop in the yard and put down the kickstand.
"Mrs. Ren," he called out.
The old woman looked up from her beans, squinting over her reading glasses.
"You're late," she said, her voice rough as river gravel. "I thought you fell in the ditch."
"The hill's longer than it used to be." Kaiser reached back and took the sack from my arms.
I slid off the rack and stepped behind him right away. I stayed behind his shoulder with my arms crossed, looking up at the roof. Village elders were exhausting. If they caught you standing around, they asked if you were eating enough, told you that you looked pale, and asked when you were getting married.
"Don't make excuses," Mrs. Ren said, coming to the edge of the porch in her sandals. She looked into the bag. "What is all this? I asked for 2 kilos. What am I going to do with 5?"
"The festival's this weekend," Kaiser said, completely flat. "You're making buns for the shrine. Your knee acts up every time it rains. If I brought 2 kilos today, you'd walk down the ridge on Friday, slip on the stones, and break something."
"My legs are fine, you brat."
"Your knee clicks every time you sit down. Take the flour."
I pressed my lips together so I wouldn't laugh.
He argued with the old woman about flour with the exact same stubbornness he used when arguing about the rules of reality.
She is annoying.
Mrs. Ren set her basket of shelled beans down on the wooden deck. "Did you check the weir nets this morning, Koharu? The shrine festival needs trout on Sunday, and the current's been tearing the bamboo slats."
"I checked," Koharu said, turning to her grandmother. "Two of the cedar uprights washed loose after Wednesday's rain. The frames are stuck in the mud bank." She looked over at Kaiser, her dark eyes brightening with an easy, familiar hope.
"Kaiser, are you free tomorrow morning? I could really use an extra pair of hands with the timber frames. It's too heavy for me to haul up the bank alone."
Kaiser answered naturally. "Sure. I don't have anything going on."
My face went completely cold.
You literally just told me we were staying home.
Before Kaiser could take another breath, I stepped out from behind his shoulder. I folded my arms over my chest and looked directly at Koharu.
"We're busy tomorrow."
Koharu blinked, her hands still resting on the rim of the wooden tub. "Oh? But Kaiser just said he didn't have anything going on."
"He forgot," I said, my voice smooth and utterly flat. "We have plans."
Koharu looked between the two of us, confused. "What plans?"
"We're going to the western ridge."
"The ridge?" Koharu frowned slightly, glancing up at the distant, sun-baked hills. "In this heat? Why would you go all the way up there tomorrow?"
"To look at things."
"Look at what?"
"I haven't decided yet," I said without blinking. "But we're going."
Kaiser turned his head, looking down at me with an eyebrow slowly creeping toward his hairline. There was a quiet, infuriating amusement dancing in his blue eyes.
"You spent the last three miles telling me you'd rather burn down the forest than leave the house," he murmured.
I didn't flinch. I glared straight into his eyes, refusing to concede a single millimeter. "I changed my mind. My schedule is adaptive."
"I already told Koharu I'd help."
"Then break your word."
Kaiser stared at me. "What?"
"You heard me," I said, completely shameless. "Break it."
A sharp, rasping snort broke from the veranda.
Mrs. Ren was leaning against the porch post, shaking her head as she looked at us over the tops of her reading glasses.
"Stop badgering the boy, Koharu," the old woman muttered, waving a wrinkled hand dismissively. "Look at her—she looks like she's about to bite your arm off."
"Grandmother!" Koharu protested, a faint red flush creeping up her neck.
"Go find Marston down by the weir," Mrs. Ren continued, completely ignoring her. "He's a fisherman anyway. He knows river timber twice as well as this bookworm, and he owes me three bundles of dried kelp from the spring. Let these two run off to their hill."
Koharu sighed, rubbing the back of her neck with an awkward, sheepish laugh. "Yeah, that's true. Marston's probably down there right now anyway. Sorry, Astoria."
I didn't answer. I just kept my arms crossed, staring at her with cold, unblinking composure.
Mrs. Ren kicked the side of the wooden tub with her straw sandal, nudging it toward Kaiser. "Take the melon, Kaiser. You hauled all that flour up the ridge in this sun. Take it home and eat it before it warms up."
Kaiser reached down, hooking both hands beneath the massive, icy fruit. Water cascaded off the dark green rind as he lifted it from the tub, the cold weight settling against his chest.
"Thanks, Mrs. Ren," he said.
"See you, Kaiser!" Koharu called out, giving him a small wave as she stepped back toward the kitchen door.
"See you," Kaiser replied easily.
I gave Koharu one last, unyielding glare before turning on my heel and marching straight toward the bicycle.
The ride back down the valley was quieter, but the silence had teeth.
Kaiser had strapped the watermelon into the front wicker basket with an old hemp cord to keep it from rolling out. The descent was easier on his legs, the bike coasting along the sun-bleached dirt road with the breeze whipping through our hair, but I didn't lean against his back.
I sat stiffly on the luggage rack, staring at the side of his neck.
"Western ridge?" Kaiser asked after half a mile, not looking back.
"Yes."
"The place with the trees you've seen across 10,000 worlds?"
"Trees look different on Saturdays."
"Tomorrow is Sunday."
"Sundays too."
"In 32 degree heat?"
"Heat builds character and I get to order you around."
"You said walking through pine needles was a punishment."
"I like punishment now."
Kaiser let out a low laugh, shaking his head. "You're unbelievable."
I know what I am.
I stared at his dark hair fluttering in the wind.
I knew the reality of things. I was the One Above All.
I had lived through endless infinities, watching galaxies ignite and collapse like matchsticks. Kaiser wasn't going to leave me for a village girl who dried kelp and mended fishing nets.
The thought was objectively absurd.
Yet seeing her smile at him—seeing him casually agree to give away 8 hours of his day to haul river timber with someone else—had made something sharp and vicious twist in my chest.
His time here was finite. Every hour he spent sweating under the sun was an hour that belonged to our life together.
It's mine, I thought, my fingers digging into the rough wood of the rack. He's mine.
I wasn't going to apologize for it.
Our house sat at the far northern edge of Sugi Valley, where the dirt road turned into a mossy stone path leading up toward the shrine woods.
It was an ordinary, weathered timber cottage with paper sliding doors that rattled whenever the mountain wind blew, a drafty kitchen with an iron kettle sitting over a sunken hearth, and tatami mats that had faded to a pale, dried-straw yellow. There were no grand halls. No marble columns. No servants or divine choirs. Just the smell of dried tea, cedar shavings, and river stones.
Kaiser unstrapped the watermelon, carried it into the kitchen, and set it on the low cutting board.
I didn't follow him inside. I walked out to the back veranda, kicked off my canvas shoes, and sat down on the smooth, sun-warmed cedar deck with my legs dangling off the edge.
The backyard was just an overgrown patch of wild clover, tall dandelions, and three ancient persimmon trees whose leaves rustled lazily in the heat. Beyond the fence, the dark green wall of the pine forest stood silent under the summer sky.
This world is so plain, I thought, resting my chin in my hand as a black beetle crawled across a stone below my feet.
There was no magic to bend. No impossible horizons. Just dirt, heat, and blistered hands.
I couldn't understand why he wanted this. Why carry flour up a gravel hill for an old woman who barely gave him a nickel? Why spend an entire afternoon sweating over chores for people who would be dead and forgotten in 50 years?
Carrying 5 kilos of flour up a mountain road just for a watermelon made zero sense.
The kitchen screen door slid open behind me.
Kaiser stepped out onto the veranda. In one hand, he carried a chipped ceramic platter piled high with thick, crescent-shaped slices of deep red watermelon. Tucked under his other arm was a small bundle wrapped in faded brown butcher paper.
He sat down beside me on the wooden edge, setting the platter between our knees.
Without a word, he grabbed a slice, took a massive bite, chewed for two seconds, and then casually spat a black seed straight out into the yard. It sailed four meters through the air and struck a fence post with a sharp clack.
I looked at him, my expression deadpan. "You're 16 years old."
"That was a clean hit," Kaiser said, entirely pleased with himself. He gestured with his chin toward the plate. "Eat. It's cold."
"It's just plain watermelon," I told him, looking at the dripping red fruit. "What's special? A watermelon is 92% water and 8% sucrose."
Kaiser took another bite, juice running down his wrist. "Is it good, though?"
I clicked my tongue, picked up a slice, and took a small bite.
The cold sweetness hit my tongue instantly. Crisp, icy from the well water, and bursting with rich, clean summer juice that cut straight through the dry heat clinging to my throat.
...It's good.
I chewed slowly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an open compliment.
"Why did you do it?" I asked, looking sideways at him.
"Do what?"
"The flour. Riding two miles uphill in the middle of the day. You don't need money, and Mrs. Ren isn't your grandmother. Doing all that work just for a watermelon doesn't make any sense."
Kaiser looked out at the persimmon trees, his gaze quiet.
"I wanted something good to celebrate today," he said simply.
I frowned, lowering the melon slice. "Celebrate what? What's special about today?"
Kaiser turned toward me.
Before I could pull away, he reached over, took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and gave my cheek a gentle, affectionate pinch. A small, genuine smile touched his mouth.
"Happy birthday, Astoria."
I froze.
The half-eaten melon slice hung motionless in my hand.
"Birthday?"
The date flashed through my memory like a distant spark.
June 18.
My chest tightened, a strange, breathless stillness washing over me.
To an eternal entity, a birthday was a completely meaningless concept. It was just a speck of space-dust completing one more arbitrary orbit around a sun. I had existed before calendars existed. I had seen countless civilizations rise and turn to ash.
Celebrating the day a mortal body was born had never once crossed my mind.
Yet Kaiser had remembered.
In a forgotten valley without clocks, computers, or records, he had kept count of the days. He had ridden up that miserable hill in the blazing heat, carried 5 kilos of flour on his back, and argued with an old woman just so I could have cold fruit on the porch.
He didn't launch into a philosophical speech about mortality or the beauty of passing time. He didn't try to lecture me.
He just picked up another slice of melon, took a bite, and smiled.
I stared down at the dark green rind in my hands, my throat feeling oddly tight.
"Did you..." I paused, clearing my throat and forcing my voice back to its usual dry, demanding tone. "Did you get me a gift?"
"Yeah," Kaiser said. "I made it."
He reached beside his hip, picked up the small bundle wrapped in brown paper, and handed it to me.
I set my melon down on the plate, wiped my sticky fingers on the edge of my skirt, and pulled the hemp twine loose.
The brown paper unfolded.
Lying inside was a small white teddy bear.
I picked it up by the arm, holding it up in front of my face.
It was sewn entirely by hand from scraps of bleached cotton and faded linen. The seams were clumsy and uneven, stitched with thick black thread that zig-zagged across the torso. One arm was noticeably thicker than the other, the stuffing was lumpy, and for eyes, it had two mismatched wooden buttons—one dark brown, one pale ash.
I stared at the lumpy, crooked little thing for five full seconds.
"It's ugly." I said flatly.
Kaiser reached out his hand, completely unfazed. "Fine. If you don't want it, give it back."
My fingers clamped down around the bear's torso before his hand could even touch it, pulling it straight against my chest.
"I never said I didn't want it." I snapped, glaring at him.
A quiet, triumphant smile curved Kaiser's lips.
I looked down at the mismatched button eyes, my thumb brushing over the rough, bumpy stitches across the bear's belly.
He made this.
He had sat by the flickering kerosene lamp late at night, when the house was cold and quiet, pushing an iron needle through scraps of cloth with his calloused, mortal fingers. A creature capable of forging stars had spent hours struggling with thread and cotton just so I would have a toy to hold.
A ridiculous, overwhelming warmth bloomed in my chest. I hugged the ugly little bear tighter against my stomach, refusing to let him see the foolish, helpless softness taking over my face.
"You could have gotten a cake," I muttered, looking away toward the fence.
"I don't know how to bake a cake in a wood stove, Astoria," Kaiser replied, spitting another seed into the grass. "We don't have refined sugar, and I can't summon eggs without breaking the rules."
"The weather is too hot."
"I can't move the sun."
"And you were going to spend tomorrow fixing fish nets with that girl," I added, my voice dropping into a sharp, petty murmur.
Kaiser turned his head, sighing softly. "Mrs. Ren's husband died in the same war your parents allegedly died in. She has nobody except Koharu to pull timber out of the river. I was just trying to keep them from breaking their backs."
I pulled my knees up to my chest, burying my chin behind the teddy bear's lumpy head. "I don't care. I don't want to talk about her anymore. I'm tired."
"You completely made up that western ridge trip on the spot, didn't you?"
I narrowed my eyes at him sideways. "You can cancel your plans with anyone I tell you to."
Kaiser stared at me for a beat, then let out a dry, helpless laugh, leaning back on his palms.
"Sure, sure," he said, shaking his head. "Whatever you say is law."
I rested my cheek against the coarse linen of the bear, my chin held high.
"It is."
The rest of the afternoon slipped away in the quiet, lazy rhythm of the valley.
While Kaiser went out back to split cedar logs for the bath heater, I stayed inside the house.
Whenever he wasn't looking, I carried the white bear with me from the porch to the kitchen, propping it up on the low wooden table while I drank cold tea. Its mismatched button eyes stared back at me with a stupid, lopsided expression.
Every time I looked at it, the corners of my mouth curled up into a smile that I couldn't wipe away.
By 9 in the evening, the heat hadn't left the valley.
It hung thick and suffocating inside the small wooden bedroom, trapped beneath the heavy clay roof tiles. We had laid our thin cotton futons side by side across the tatami mats, leaving the sliding screen open to the dark yard in the desperate hope of catching a draft. The small, rusted iron fan in the corner was buzzing steadily on its low setting, pushing lukewarm air across our faces.
Then—click.
The fan slowed. The blades whirred to a crawl and stopped.
The tiny tungsten bulb on the ceiling died, plunging the room into pitch darkness.
The silence that followed was heavy and humid.
I lay on my back, staring up at the invisible wooden beams, sweat already prickling along my hairline. The cotton sheet beneath me felt like damp paper. Outside the screen, the high-pitched whine of mosquitoes circled the darkness like vultures.
"The power went out!" I stated into the dark.
From the futon next to mine, Kaiser let out a slow, tired breath. "I know."
"It is 30 degrees inside this room."
"Probably 31."
"My skin is burning. If I remain in this position for another 20 minutes, I will bid you farewell."
"You won't dissolve."
"I am suffocating, Kaiser. There's no air in here. Just heat and mosquitoes. This village is awful.."
"You were fine 10 minutes ago."
"10 minutes ago the fan was providing an illusion of coolness. Now I am being slowly burnt alive."
Rustling sounded in the dark.
Kaiser sat up. The floorboards creaked as he stood, his silhouette blocking the faint starlight coming through the doorway. He bent down, gathered his pillow in one arm, and scooped up both of our light cotton blankets.
He turned toward my futon.
"Get up," he said.
I blinked up into the darkness. "What? Where are you going?"
"We're sleeping outside."
I sat up on my elbows, staring at him in utter disbelief.
"What?!"
"There's cool air outside," Kaiser said, walking toward the sliding screen. "Inside, it's an oven."
"There is dust outside!" I pushed myself up from the futon, glaring at his silhouette. "There are bugs, insects, rats, and frogs! The grass will ruin the blankets."
"The grass is dry. And the wind is blowing down from the ridge."
"I am not sleeping in the yard like a stray dog, Kaiser. It's undignified."
Kaiser paused at the open door, his pillow tucked under his arm. He didn't turn around. "Fine. Sleep alone."
He stepped down off the wooden veranda and walked out into the dark grass.
I sat there on the tatami mat for three seconds, the thick, stifling heat pressing down on my shoulders like a hot wet wool blanket. The room was black, silent, and suffocating.
...He's actually leaving.
He's leaving me in here.
I clenched my teeth, grabbed the white teddy bear from beside my futon, tucked my pillow under my arm, and scrambled across the floorboards.
"You're insufferable! I hate you!" I hissed, stepping off the wooden deck into the cool, damp clover.
Kaiser didn't even look back, but I saw his shoulders dip with a quiet laugh.
He walked past the old persimmon trees to the flat rise at the edge of our yard, where the tall wild grass gave way to smooth, flat moss near a pair of ancient cedar pines. A steady, cool mountain draft was rolling down from the high ridges, rustling the needles overhead with a sound like rushing water.
The air out here actually moved. It lifted the damp hair from my forehead, cooling my skin immediately.
I stopped two paces behind him, crossing my arms. "The wind is nice. But there are still mosquitoes. In 10 minutes, we'll be covered by them, and I will personally hold you accountable for every drop of blood I lose."
Kaiser didn't answer. He dropped the blankets onto the grass, reached into his trouser pocket, and pulled out a pale bundle of folded netting.
I blinked. "What is that?"
"Mosquito net," he said, shaking it out. "Borrowed it from the shrine storage shed yesterday."
He moved quickly in the dim starlight. He tied two corners of the thin white mesh to the low-hanging boughs of the cedar tree, jammed a smooth bamboo pole he had hidden in the hedge into the soft earth for a third anchor, and tied the last cord around an old wooden bench sitting beneath the pines.
In less than two minutes, he had built a clean, square canopy of pale netting floating inches above the ground, completely sealed against insects.
He spread our two thin cotton blankets over the soft moss beneath it, threw the pillows against the tree roots, and crawled inside through the split flap.
He lay back, folding his hands behind his head, and looked out at me through the white mesh.
"Coming in?"
I stared at the little tent, my lips pressed into a thin line.
Inside our house, our futons were always placed on opposite sides of the room. He had laid them out like that on our very first night 4 years ago, maintaining a polite, respectful distance that belonged to two orphans sharing shelter.
I had never asked him to move them closer. My pride wouldn't allow it.
Out here, beneath the narrow white net, there was only room for one shared bed.
I bent down, squeezed through the mesh flap, and sat down on the blanket beside him, pulling the netting tight behind my feet so not a single bug could slip through.
Kaiser glanced at me in the faint starlight. "What's that look for?"
"Nothing," I said, looking away toward the dark fence. "I'm just annoyed."
Kaiser sighed softly. He reached behind his pillow, pulled out a flat piece of thick cardboard he had torn from an old notebook cover, and began waving it back and forth with a slow, steady flick of his wrist.
A cool, rhythmic pulse of air washed over my face and throat, carrying the sweet scent of crushed clover and pine resin.
My eyes fluttered shut. The tension drained from my shoulders, and an involuntary, contented sigh slipped from my lips.
"Much better."
"Gosh," Kaiser muttered, his hand keeping up the steady rhythm. "You're a handful. Only wanting princess treatment in the most dire of circumstances."
I leaned back against my pillow, looking up through the thin white mesh of the canopy.
The night sky was wide open.
Because there were no streetlamps, no neon signs, and no electric grids blaring across the valley, the darkness was absolute. And because the darkness was absolute, the stars above us were blinding.
A dense, glowing river of silver, sapphire, and violet dust arced across the black velvet heavens, so brilliant it cast faint, ghostly shadows across the grass. Thousands of burning diamonds crowded the sky, sharp and unblinking in the clean mountain air.
Kaiser looked up at the band of light, his eyes reflecting the silver dust.
"No smoke," he murmured, his voice quiet. "No light pollution. You don't get to see them like this very often."
I looked at the brilliant swath of light, my expression unimpressed. "If you wanted to see stars, you could have just told me. I could bring you right to them. We could stand on an asteroid above the galactic core, or watch a pulsar spin from 10 kilometers away. It takes less than a thought."
Kaiser shook his head slightly, his hand still moving the cardboard fan. "That's different. Out there, you're looking at physics. Down here, you're looking from the ground."
"It's the same light."
"It's not the same view." He tilted his chin toward a faint spiral cluster near the zenith. "Do you even know which galaxy this is?"
I glanced up at the stellar formation, running through the infinite catalog of cosmic cartography in my mind. "The Vaelen Arc. Sector 7. A minor spiral with 200 billion stars, scheduled to collide with its neighboring cluster in 4 billion years."
Kaiser let out a dry breath. "You ruined the mystery in 5 seconds."
"I provided factual accuracy."
"Same thing."
I turned my head slightly, watching his profile in the pale starlight.
I have seen them infinite times. I thought.
Across uncounted eons, I had watched stars ignite, burn through their hydrogen, collapse into iron husks, and scatter their ash across the dark.
Kaiser had been there for all of it. We had existed together before light was spoken into existence, before the boundless expanse was separated from the void.
He knows everything.
Yet here he was, lying on a patch of moss with dirt under his fingernails, looking at four distant suns with a look of quiet, genuine wonder on his face.
Why can he find this beautiful?
The question remained insoluble.
I couldn't understand the mind that chose to trade omniscience for a view through a borrowed mosquito net.
Kaiser's eyes drifted down from the sky, landing on my hands.
His mouth curved into an amused smirk. "Still holding the bear?"
I looked down. In the rush to follow him outside, I had kept the white linen bear clamped tight under my left arm.
"It's my bear," I snapped, pulling the cotton sheets higher to shield it from his sight. "What's your problem?"
"You told me it was ugly earlier. I almost took it back."
"It's mine now. Stay away from it." I glared at him through the dim light, my voice dropping into a dry, petty murmur. "Besides, you're nothing but a homeless boy making me sleep in the middle of a swamp. There's zero security out here. If a wild boar comes out of the cedar woods, we have no weapons."
Kaiser kept fanning the cardboard, unbothered. "I'm the security. I'll stay awake until you fall asleep."
I looked at him.
His black hair was messy, his eyes clear and calm, his chest rising and falling in an easy, steady rhythm.
Something inside me gave way.
I set the white teddy bear down on the moss beside my head, rolled onto my side, and slid across the blanket until my body pressed flush against his. I hooked my left leg over his shins, wrapped both arms around his waist, and buried my face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the clean scent of well water and sun-dried cotton.
Kaiser's hand paused on the fan. "What are you doing?"
"You're my body pillow," I declared against his collarbone, my voice completely unapologetic. "I left my proper pillow inside, and the moss is too hard. You're responsible."
Kaiser let out a soft groan, though his arm didn't push me away. "Really? I was hoping to sleep eventually."
"You should be grateful for the honor."
I shifted slightly, propping my chin on his chest so I could look directly up into his blue eyes.
Kaiser looked down at me. The faint, teasing sharpness in his face softened into something quiet and warm. He set the cardboard fan aside on the grass, raised his hand, and rested his palm gently against the crown of my white hair, his fingers combing lightly through the loose strands.
"Sleep well, Astoria," he said softly. "I'll keep watch."
A small, quiet flutter stirred behind my ribs.
"Fine," I murmured, closing my eyes against his chest. "But you can only sleep after I'm fully asleep."
"Deal."
The wind rustled through the cedar boughs above our heads, a cool, whispering wave that carried the heat of the day away into the dark mountains. For a long minute, neither of us spoke. There was only the sound of the pines, the distant chime on Mrs. Ren's porch down the ridge, and the steady, rhythmic beat of his mortal heart beneath my ear.
I stared into the darkness of his shirt, my thoughts drifting outward into the endless sky.
This life would end eventually. Fifty years, maybe sixty. A single blink in the span of reality.
"Kaiser?"
"Hmm?"
"After this world... let's go somewhere better next time. Somewhere with actual mystery, where electricity exists and I don't have to carry flour."
Kaiser chuckled softly. "Sure."
I tightened my arms around his ribs, pressing closer.
"We have infinity together," I whispered into his skin, the words quiet, fierce, and certain. "We'll always be together like this, right? Like you promised."
Usually, whenever I asked something like this across our lives, his answer was immediate.
An easy, dry yes, or an unbothered always.
This time, Kaiser didn't answer right away.
He looked past the white mesh of the canopy, his gaze rising toward the vast, glittering river of stars arcing across the void. His hand remained still against my hair.
A second passed. Two seconds.
Then, softly:
"Probably."
My eyes opened.
I pushed my hands against his chest, lifting my head to glare down at him with an indignant pout. "Don't say 'probably'! That's not an answer!"
Kaiser just smiled, reaching up to tap the tip of my nose. "Sleep, Astoria."
I grumbled under my breath, buried my face back into his neck, and let the warmth of his arms pull me into the dark.
Probably.
I didn't understand it back then.
Lying under the summer stars with grass beneath our blankets, with the scent of watermelon on our fingers and an ugly, hand-sewn white bear tucked beside my cheek, I did not understand that a moment could exist only once.
I did not know that infinity could end.
I did not know that one day, he would look at me across the cold expanse of creation, untie his soul from eternity, and say:
"I will live my own story and find my own happiness. Goodbye, Astoria."
The warmth vanished.
The smell of sweet clover, the cool mountain draft, and the sound of wind in the cedar pines collapsed into nothingness.
Astoria opened her eyes.
There was no grass. There was no summer sky. There was no iron bicycle, no cracked leather saddle, and no old woman arguing over flour.
There was only No Place.
The boundless, absolute silence of the cosmic void stretched around her in every direction—an infinite, freezing expanse of non-existence where light and matter had never been born.
She sat upon her throne of shifting, iridescent starlight, her white hair cascading like a frozen waterfall down her sapphire-blue sovereign robes. Her azure eyes, ancient and piercing, did not carry the soft warmth of a sixteen-year-old girl waking on a patch of moss.
They were cold.
Suspended in the empty space before her throne was a massive, translucent window of metaphysical light, rippling with the live, synchronized feeds of the Tri-Labyrinth Siege on the Sunken Isle.
In the center of the frame was Kaiser Everhart.
He was wearing his voice-distorted grey alloy armor, walking calmly through the volcanic sulfur fog. Over the private radio feed `Delta-Seven-Seven`, his voice was playing—smooth, relaxed, and intimately playful as he guided Elfina Lunaris through his makeshift satellite software.
"Did my princess really think I'd let her fight alone?"
On the split feed, Elfie was laughing, her face flushed with brilliant, radiant joy as she called him her mastermind.
Luna's pale, slender fingers tightened against the armrests of her starlight throne.
The crystalline light beneath her knuckles cracked.
He does not get to be happy.
The thought was not a whisper. It was an absolute, suffocating decree that reverberated across the dead silence of the abyss.
A bitter, poisonous rage surged through her chest—a fury so deeply intertwined with grief and longing that the two could no longer be torn apart.
She remembered the boy who had counted the days in a world without calendars just to buy a watermelon for her birthday.
She remembered the boy who had stayed awake by an oil lamp, stitching an ugly white bear with clumsy fingers just to make her smile.
And she remembered the boy who had walked away from eternity.
You taught me how precious a shared life was, she thought, her azure eyes burning with cold, celestial fire.
And then you chose to live yours without me.
He had taken an immortal entity who knew nothing but the cold, endless expanse of infinity, and he had taught her what it felt like to cherish a single, fleeting summer afternoon.
He had made himself the foundation of every meaning, every joy, and every purpose she had ever known.
And then he had removed himself from the happiness.
He had abandoned eternity so he could play mortal under a meaningless world.
He had discarded their infinite promise so he could smile at another girl, call another girl his princess, and laugh over 20-silver satellite subscriptions on a volcanic rock.
Luna stared at the boy on the projection, her celestial authority flaring in silent, terrifying waves across the void.
You are the sinner, Kaiser Everhart. Her fists clenched until stardust bled between her fingers.
And you will answer for it.
A ripple disturbed the dead silence of the abyss.
It was not a fluctuation of cosmic mana. It was not the shifting of timelines or the awakening of a preordained law.
It was an undisturbed, foreign frequency.
Luna froze.
Her azure eyes widened slightly, her fingers slowly uncurling from the crystalline armrest.
Impossible.
No Place was not a physical location. It had no spatial coordinates, no dimensional anchor, and no boundary. It was the primordial outside—a realm existing completely beyond creation. No entity she had ever formed possessed access to this void. No mortal, no sovereign, no god could step into her presence unless she permitted it.
Yet the silence broke.
A rhythmic, leisurely sound echoed across the boundless dark.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps. Literal, casual footsteps strolling across non-existence as if taking a Sunday morning walk through a quiet garden.
Luna turned her head, cold fury flaring across her face.
"Void. Who is that?"
The boundless consciousness of the Void trembled, its ambient weight shifting in rare, heavy disturbance. Before the abyss could formulate an answer, the darkness parted.
A young man casually strolled into the center of the void.
He had messy black hair, sharp features, and silver eyes that gleamed with effortless, infuriating amusement. Dressed in a sharp, tailored black coat that looked absurdly modern against the backdrop of eternity, he carried himself with the kind of relaxed swagger that belonged in a luxury high-rise penthouse, not the absolute origin of reality.
He stopped, took a deep breath of the empty vacuum, and smiled.
"Make yourself at home? Don't mind if I do."
He looked around the infinite, empty dark, nodding with casual critique.
"A bit bare on the furniture, honestly. High ceilings, though. Very open concept. I respect it."
Luna stared at him.
The Void stared at him.
For three full seconds, the supreme creator of existence and the primordial consciousness of reality sat in stunned, deadpan disbelief.
...Really?
Luna's eyes narrowed into slits of ice. Her voice was pure frost.
"Who are you? And how are you standing in my sanctuary?"
Before she could raise a hand to wipe his pattern from the tapestry of time, the deep, monolithic voice of the Void resonated through the dark, heavy with unprecedented gravity:
"He is the Singularity."
Luna's brow twitched. "The what?"
"His internal state is entirely isolated from external causality," the Void rumbled, the vibration solemn and warning. "The Singularity is immune to rewrite. You cannot rewrite him out of this world, One Above All. External authorial decree cannot enter his existence."
"The OTHER One Above All had created the 'Singularity' Role."
Oh... Kaiser you did that?
The man chuckled, dusting an imaginary speck off his lapel.
"Pleased to meet you in person. Truly an honor to meet the One Above All, creator of everything and all that grand title business," he said with a playful, theatrical half-bow.
"Azrion Vineheart. At your service, theoretically speaking."
Luna's jaw tightened. Her celestial aura flared, suffocating and sharp enough to cleave galaxies.
"You are disturbing my private space, Azrion Vineheart. Turn around and leave."
Azrion didn't move an inch. Instead, he grinned, raised his right hand, tucked his three middle fingers tightly into his palm, and extended his pinky and thumb.
He lifted the makeshift hand-phone directly to his ear.
"Ring, ring... Oh, hello? Operator? Yes, is this the hotline for people obsessing over Kaiser Everhart? Oh, how adorable. Yes, she's right here, I'll hold—"
A terrifying wave of starlight exploded from Luna's throne, shattering the empty space between them. Her glare was murderous.
"Where did you hear that name?"
Azrion dropped his hand, completely unbothered by the cosmic pressure threatening to crush him into dust.
"Oh, me? I have a very long history with him." He tilted his head, his silver eyes flashing with sharp intelligence. "So, Miss One Above All... why don't we have a proper discussion related to the Ceres Omega incident and the Quill?"
Luna's eyes dilated.
The Quill. Ceres Omega.
Before she could speak, Azrion's gaze drifted past her shoulder. He caught sight of the massive, floating projection hovering in the center of the void—the live metaphysical feed of the Tri-Labyrinth Siege on the Sunken Isle.
On the screen, Kaiser was walking calmly through volcanic fumes in his grey alloy suit, chatting playfully with Elfie over the radio.
Azrion blinked. He held up both hands.
"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Pause." Azrion leaned forward, staring at the screen with genuine fascination. "We can delay that for now. I'm way more interested in what's happening right here."
He turned toward the vast, formless expanse of the abyss, waving casually at the cosmic dark.
"Hey, your tomboy... I mean, Tommy."
A profound, offended silence fell over the void.
"...Who?" the Void rumbled back, confused.
"You," Azrion said, pointing a finger into the empty air.
The Void's deep, ancient frequency vibrated with monolithic indignation:
"I am the Void. The Boundless Mind. You cannot nickname me."
Azrion waved a hand dismissively. "Fine. Fanta? Or Bubbles. Yeah, your name is Bubbles now."
The Void paused.
"...What?"
"Okay, Bubbles, lock in and show us a clearer vision," Azrion ordered smoothly, clapping his hands once. "I'm interested in how this Kaiser performs compared to the Ceres Omega one. Now that I have the omnipotence of Singularity, I should be clearly dignified in—"
"You are not welcome here," Luna cut in, her voice slicing through his monologue like a guillotine.
"And you were not invited."
Azrion turned back to her, that brilliant, irritating smile returning to his face.
"You don't need an invitation," Azrion said smoothly. "You need the presence, and you need the outfit. And I have both."
Luna stared at him, her chest tightening with cold, simmering anger.
Who is this man?
Azrion didn't wait for permission. He casually snapped his fingers.
A pulse of silver and black causal energy condensed out of thin air, weaving itself into a sleek, ornate throne of polished obsidian and starlight right beside hers. He plopped down into it, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned back, resting his chin in his palm.
"I want to have a long discussion with the One Above All once this fun little show ends," Azrion declared, watching the projection with keen interest.
"Right, Bubbles?"
The Void did not answer. The abyss was completely, stonily silent.
Azrion nodded solemnly to himself.
"My message was so profound that the Void is taking moments to comprehend it. Understandable."
Luna's temple throbbed. She looked at Azrion, then stared at the screen where Kaiser was strolling across the volcanic rocks.
I cannot believe Kaiser would ever talk to someone like this. Who is this man?
The Void's voice echoed directly into Luna's mind, heavy and solemn:
"He is the sole Singularity of Ceres Omega. Kaiser Everhart was sent there as one of the subjects."
Luna's breath caught. She questioned the Void telepathically, her thoughts sharp with disbelief:
"What do you mean, this Kaiser? The one on the island?"
"Yes," the Void confirmed. "That Kaiser Everhart."
Azrion's silver eyes shifted toward her. The humor in his expression faded slightly, replaced by a quiet, dangerous glint.
"We both have a history of being betrayed by this person called Kaiser Everhart," Azrion said, his voice dropping into a colder, lower register. "He broke his promises. Left us behind while he gets to stroll around pretending to be a normal kid."
Azrion leaned forward, his sharp smile returning—this time laced with venom.
"So why not take revenge together, One Above All?"
Luna looked from Azrion to the screen.
She looked at Kaiser—the boy who had taught her what a summer afternoon felt like, who had stitched a clumsy bear by an oil lamp, and then shattered her eternity with a casual, cruel farewell.
A slow, chilling smile touched Luna's porcelain lips.
"Sure, Singularity," Luna murmured, her azure eyes burning with absolute, celestial judgment. "We can pay the sinner back."
Azrion's grin widened, satisfied.
"Excellent. We'll judge him appropriately."
Above creation, the two sovereign entities sat upon their thrones, their wills aligning into a single, terrifying decree. Kaiser Everhart had taken his happiness, broken his promises, and walked away from the wreckage of the past.
They were going to ensure he lost every single ounce of peace he had ever stolen.
They were going to make his life a living hell.
Perspective: Kaiser Everhart
Location: Sunken Isle — Volcanic Core
Man, I love life.
I walked at a steady, leisurely pace through the sulfur steam, my boots clicking softly against the cooled basalt.
Inside the filtered helmet of the grey alloy suit, the air was crisp, cool, and completely free of volcanic ash. Over the encrypted radio channel `Delta-Seven-Seven`, Elfie's cheerful voice was chattering happily, coordinating Class C's knights with textbook precision.
On the holographic heads-up display before my eyes, the Dwarvian Sentinel orbital feed was streaming in crystal-clear, high-definition resolution.
Every thermal signature on the Sunken Isle was mapped down to the meter. I could see Class A's defensive perimeter, Class B's stealth infiltrators, and every ambush vector across the entire island.
And the best part?
I didn't even pay the 20 silver!
Not a single copper.
Before leaving the royal docks in Lucentia, I had casually "borrowed" Cliffhanger's imperial merchant credit card, registered a disposable account with the Dwarvian Telecom Guild, and signed up for their premium satellite tier under a seven-day free trial.
7 days of full military-grade orbital surveillance without spending a dime.
The exact second this exam ends and I get back to the dorms, I'm canceling the subscription.
Cliffhanger won't even notice the pending verification charge before it's wiped!
A wide, peaceful smile spread across my face beneath the visor.
I am so smart.
I am so rich.
Life is amazing.
I Love life, nothing can change that!! 😃