Chapter 475
Small vibrations continued to ripple from one side to another.
Carrying messages that did not need to be spoken aloud, because sound would never be enough to convey everything that wished to be delivered.
Carrying certainty that Aldraya was still there.
Still moving.
Still carrying out what had been instructed.
Still a part of him, even though she could no longer be seen by the eye.
And beyond that, beyond merely the news that communication had not been severed and the thread connecting them remained intact despite stretching across vast distance, Theo also received information that made something within his chest feel slightly lighter than before.
The two instructions he had given Aldraya before they parted.
Two things he had never told anyone, including the readers who might be curious about what he had actually asked of the silver-haired girl.
Had been carried out well.
Not merely carried out.
But carried out in a way that matched exactly what he had expected.
With a precision he could not doubt, because the vibrations reaching him carried with them the certainty that nothing had strayed from the predetermined path.
Everything proceeded as it should.
There was nothing to worry about.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing to change or adjust in response to conditions that might shift along the way.
"She truly isn't good at hiding her feelings."
The RWIA network stretching beneath the consciousness of Theo and Aldraya was never truly silent.
Never merely a channel used to send mission updates or confirmation that the two given instructions had been executed properly.
There were other vibrations that occasionally traveled from Aldraya's side.
Vibrations he never asked for, yet always received in the same manner each time.
Vibrations that carried questions—questions no normal being would ever think to ask in any context.
And those questions, delivered from Aldraya through telepathy that never broke despite the distance separating their bodies, always shared the same characteristics.
They always existed beyond the boundaries of what common sense would accept.
They always arrived with unpredictable frequency.
And their topics never repeated themselves in the same way.
Sometimes they came when Theo was seriously recording the smallest details of Ilux's movements.
Sometimes when he was enjoying the quiet of the morning with a deep inhale and a slow exhale.
Sometimes when he was contemplating how to sever the ties still connecting Ilux to his parents—the greatest obstacle to the scenario he had written.
And every time those questions came, Theo was never surprised.
Never disturbed.
Never showed any reaction that could be interpreted as rejection or discomfort.
Because he had long known Aldraya in a way he could never know any other being.
He had long understood that behind every strange question emerging from her ever-moving mind, there was something far deeper trying to be expressed.
The questions Aldraya sent through the thin thread of RWIA were incredibly varied.
So varied that no single category could neatly contain them.
No label could explain why a being who had only just begun the process of synchronizing with the four aspects of Theo's creative extensions would suddenly ask things that most people would never even think to voice.
Once, when Theo was absorbed in noting how Ilux rolled from his left side to his right for the umpteenth time, a vibration suddenly arrived from afar.
It carried a question that made the pen in his hand pause briefly before resuming its usual rhythm.
Aldraya asked why Theo had not decided to sleep with her.
A question that, to ears unaccustomed to the workings of her mind, might provoke an excessive reaction.
Yet to Theo, it was merely one of countless peculiarities he accepted with an unchanged, flat expression.
On another occasion, when Theo stood before the gate of the male dormitory, stretching his body after hours of tailing Ilux's shadow, another question arrived.
Delivered in the same flat tone, yet bearing an entirely different topic.
About what kind of woman's characteristics would arouse Theo—both in desire and in a sexual sense.
A question so direct that it left almost no room for interpretation beyond its literal meaning.
And the most absurd of all the questions Aldraya had ever posed—the one that made Theo realize that something within the silver-haired girl was moving in a way even he could not control, despite being the Great Author responsible for every word that inspired the birth of this narrative—was a statement that was also a promise he had never asked for, yet received with full awareness of its weight.
Aldraya said, in the same flat tone she used when stating she was well and ready to resume observing alongside Theo, that if Theo would not take the opportunity to sleep with her, then she herself would take that opportunity to offer her honor willingly.
There was no coercion whatsoever.
That was what she emphasized—without needing to repeat it twice—because the sincerity behind those words was conveyed so clearly through the vibrations traveling within the RWIA network.
A sincerity that could not be fabricated.
Because within a network that connected Resolve, Will, Intention, and Ambition, there was no space for lies or pretense.
There was only what truly existed within each of them, without the protective layers usually worn by beings accustomed to living among polite falsehoods.
And Theo, even though he knew with absolute certainty that all the questions Aldraya asked—all the strangeness emerging from her restless mind, all the topics ranging from the ridiculous to the profoundly serious with barely any space between them—were the result of her inability to express longing in the way other beings typically would, he never once criticized them.
Never mocked them.
Never intended to ridicule what he received.
Because he knew that behind the question of why he did not sleep with her, behind the question of what kind of woman aroused him, behind the blunt promise of honor willingly given, there was something trying to emerge.
Something searching for the right form to be expressed.
Something about the desire to be close.
About a longing that could not be spoken through ordinary words, because ordinary words would never be enough to carry the full weight within it.
And what happened instead—what became Theo's response to all the strange questions that continued to arrive from afar through a network that was never silent—was something he had never done for anyone before.
To be continued…