Base Zone.
Asta's hidden room.
When Caelus returned to the room with that letter of appointment in hand, feeling rather conflicted, he found he now had a very special guest behind him.
"Excuse me..." Asta stepped into the entryway, then paused slightly in her heels. "...No, wait, Caelus, this was my room to begin with, wasn't it?"
"That's true."
"..."
Caelus nodded and admitted it.
Asta blinked, a faint blush rising at the side of her face.
"Caelus..." She pressed her lips together, then tucked a strand of pink hair behind her ear and said with her usual poised grace, "...Even if this was meant as a reward for rescuing a researcher, this is a little too much, don't you think?"
"I guess it is..."
"What do you mean, 'I guess'?"
Asta said, sounding rather dumbfounded.
She lifted one jade-like foot and stepped fully into the room, her slim heels striking the floor with crisp little sounds.
Tap, tap.
The floor was made of a special material, and the heels she wore were brand-new, so Asta had no concerns. She walked straight to the worktable, pulled out a chair, sat down, and crossed her beautiful pale legs, the pointed toe of her shoe swaying faintly before Caelus's eyes.
"Mmm..."
She looked around.
Faint starlight poured in through the porthole, spreading across the spacious room like ambient lighting.
...That was designed to make naked-eye stargazing easier. How nostalgic.
Asta paused slightly.
Her gaze slowly swept across the familiar pale carpet and the star charts decorating the white wall. Then she noticed a coat draped over the chair before the computer desk, along with the cup and terminal Caelus had been using on the tabletop...
It felt a little strange.
The layout of the room was still exactly as she remembered it, but the air no longer carried the cool stillness of an unused room. Instead, it held a faint warmth that belonged to Caelus—a distinctly male presence.
"..."
For some reason,
Asta's eyes drifted toward the trash can beside the bed and fixed firmly on a crumpled wad of paper inside.
Click.
At that moment, Caelus shut the door, and the lock gave a soft sound.
"...!"
Asta's shoulders trembled slightly.
She suddenly looked up at the approaching Caelus, then switched which leg was crossed over the other, gently swinging her heeled foot to make herself appear calm and elegant.
"Caelus... what are you doing?"
"Hm?" Caelus opened the refrigerator, and cool light spilled out from within. "...Looking for something for you to drink. Uh, is black tea okay?"
"..."
Asta nodded. A few soft pink strands slid off her shoulder.
She reached out and accepted the black tea Caelus handed her. The tips of her ears quietly flushed a little red, and as she sipped from it, she raised a hand to smooth her hair and said as though nothing were amiss,
"This room was sitting empty anyway, which was a bit of a waste. If you're staying here... actually, I think that's pretty nice."
"Thank you, Station Master Asta, for the reward," Caelus said sincerely.
"Oh, so that's how you see it..." Asta listened, then lifted her brows slightly and said in an intentionally mature tone, "...Caelus, you actually want to do indecent things on a bed I've slept in, don't you?"
"The things I'm thinking are a hundred times filthier than what Asta is imagining."
"..."
"But a mature Station Master Asta wouldn't mind a little thing like that, right?"
"That's true!" Asta said in a huff. "It's just a younger boy having improper thoughts about me. That... that doesn't matter!"
"So I'm the younger one?"
"Hmph. Of course you are..."
She blushed slightly and looked flustered. When she lowered her head to take another sip of tea, she ended up coughing and choking on it, her face instantly going red—until even the tips of her ears and the side of her neck were flushed.
Caelus handed her a tissue.
Asta could only suppress her embarrassment. Even the way she sat with her legs crossed turned noticeably more restrained; her soft, shapely thighs pressed together as she used the tissue to dab at her lips. Then, somewhat flustered, she folded it into a little ball and tossed it into the trash can...
And then—
...staring at the trash can, Asta fell silent.
"..."
"Asta?"
"Mmm... hm?"
Asta pulled back her gaze, too embarrassed to admit that she was wondering whether the crumpled paper already in the bin had been used for anything decent at all. After all, she had never personally smelled that supposedly peculiar chestnut-blossom scent people talked about...
"...Right."
Caelus changed the subject and spoke first.
"Asta, I think I spent some of your credits using your account yesterday."
"Huh? ...It's fine. I don't care about that tiny amount of credits. It was just a little leftover balance I forgot to transfer out of that wallet, that's all. Besides, the note also said you could freely make use of the things in this room."
Asta turned her face aside and twined a strand of hair around her fingertip, once more using elegance to cover her embarrassment.
"But..." she said softly, "...how did you unlock a door with triple verification all at once?"
"Because I solved the exact same puzzle before," Caelus answered honestly.
"Huh?"
"Do you remember Rongcang Zhong? ...The Wubbaboo he was looking after happened to have one fragment of the broken access card. As soon as I touched it, I remembered how to solve the puzzle."
"Hmph, really..."
Asta still seemed a little suspicious.
This sharp young lady studied Caelus carefully.
His looks, his expression, his posture... she could read nothing from them. All she could conclude once again was that he was handsome and mild in temperament. He looked like a younger boy one might treat as a little brother, and yet there was also a faintly subtle air of maturity about him.
This guy was definitely strange...
"...Caelus." Asta pressed her lips together. "You're not allowed to do anything weird in my room, okay? Otherwise, I might just throw you out into space!"
"But Asta, my status seems a little special now..."
"Uh..."
Asta glanced toward the letter of appointment on the desk—
[Letter of Appointment: Lady Herta's Dog]
The two looked at each other.
Asta awkwardly tucked the hair by her ear behind it again.
"...My authority as Station Master is absolute!"
"Is it..."
"It is!" Asta declared with full dignity, then let a faint smile appear. "...But the cosmic psychology theory you told me about was pretty interesting, so I can choose not to hold this against you for now!"
"..."
"So you want to curry favor with me?"
"Curry favor with you..." Caelus chuckled softly. "...Then how about I cook you some noodles?"
"..."
For some reason,
Asta blushed.
Caelus gave her a puzzled look, wondering whether the Synesthesia Beacon had mistranslated his meaning.
...Actually,
the Synesthesia Beacon really was a rather miraculous thing. Not only did it allow effortless communication and reading across countless languages, but in Caelus's own experience, if he internally framed his thoughts in Chinese, Asta's voice sounded like Chinese dubbing; if he internally framed them in Japanese, then Asta's voice sounded like Japanese dubbing...
And unlike an ordinary voice actor, there was none of that faint stiffness or artificiality. It truly felt like Asta's own voice.
Silver Wolf's voice had that lazy tone with a touch of youthful sweetness, almost like a hybrid of Chinese and Japanese delivery, while Herta's puppet voice was clear and tranquil, exactly the sort of voice one would expect from a loli figure with a mature woman's personality.
As for Asta...
A slight disappointment was that when Caelus tried switching his inner language to Japanese, she still did not suddenly develop some odd little verbal quirk.
The Synesthesia Beacon's translation was simply too accurate. She was a genuinely refined young lady in both word choice and bearing, not the sort of commoner fantasy with exaggerated catchphrases...
Which meant that, conversely, perhaps she could also hear the double meaning in what he had said?
"...Uh, Asta?"
"You..." Asta blinked rapidly. "You can cook? ...The kitchen in this suite was designed in, but I've never actually used it."
"I suppose I can cook, yes."
"Mmm..." Asta gently folded her hands atop her lap and said very seriously, "Caelus, you really know a lot of skills, don't you? You can solve puzzles, cook, talk about psychology, and you even seem pretty good at winning Lady Herta's favor too..."
"You could say I'm a man with 1,999 skills."
Caelus said it with a perfectly straight face.
Asta, on the other hand, could not help laughing.
"What kind of way is that to put it? Mm, then can you make any kind of noodles that actually takes skill?"
"Knife-shaved noodles."
"Knife-shaved noodles? What's that...?"
"You don't know?!" Caelus said. "You hold a lump of dough in one hand, a knife in the other, stand in front of a pot of boiling water, then shave the dough into long, thin strips straight into the pot to cook!"
"...?"
...
After eating Caelus's knife-shaved noodles,
Asta finally left her own hidden room at an appropriate moment.
It was still afternoon by Herta System Time. Many researchers were moving through the station corridors, and each of them greeted Asta as they passed.
"Mmm..."
Asta inclined her head, graceful and composed, wearing a perfectly measured smile that was neither too warm nor too distant. Her heels clicked lightly, and even the curled ends of her pink off-the-shoulder bob remained impeccably elegant.
...That lasted exactly until she shut the door of her own suite behind her.
"...Whew."
Click.
The moment the lock engaged, it was as though all the strength had been pulled out of her. Her shoulders instantly relaxed, and the expression she had been carefully maintaining fell away, replaced by the unguarded laziness of someone no longer bothering to manage her face.
She tossed her outer jacket over the back of a chair without even trying to straighten it and then dove straight onto the soft bed.
Thump.
The blankets sank beneath her, and the mattress bounced slightly. Asta buried her face in the pillow, her pink hair scattering loosely across it. She had not even managed to take her shoes off properly—one pale, lovely foot still hung over the edge of the bed, with a high heel dangling precariously from the tip of her toes.
"What is wrong with that guy, Caelus..."
Her voice came out muffled in the pillow.
It sounded nothing like Asta's usual bright, slightly rising tone. If anything, there was a faintly childish note of complaint in it.
Rustle, rustle—
She rolled over, her pink hair spilling out as she hugged the pillow to her chest. Her long, beautiful legs curled inward, and with a soft pat, one of her high heels fell to the floor, revealing the soft pale sole of her foot and her round, adorable toes.
"I was supposed to come over and demand answers."
"But somehow... how did I end up chatting with Caelus about all sorts of totally unrelated things...? Mm, the way he talks really is interesting."
"...And the knife-shaved noodles were pretty good too."
...
At that same moment,
inside Asta's hidden room, Caelus placed the bowls and chopsticks into the dishwasher. Watching the incomprehensibly advanced machine hum to life, he sat down on the edge of Asta's bed with nothing much to do...
No mortgage pressure. No unpaid overtime. No threat of layoffs.
Now, he did not have to squeeze into rush-hour trains, nor lie to himself before falling asleep at night that tomorrow would somehow be better...
"My principles for self-cultivation: first, don't work. Second, let no one manage me. Third, stay alone. I maintain some very fine bad habits."
It was precisely to enjoy this unproductive, peaceful life that he had chosen to remain on the space station.
Asta...
And Herta too, perhaps they were both easier to get along with than he had imagined?
Maybe.
Caelus shook his head and took out his phone.
—Luofu Miscellany, activate!
"..."
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