Chương 261: Chapter : 261

"Yeah, well," he said, his voice sliding back into its familiar lazy drawl.

"If you tell anyone I was in the library having feelings, I will deny everything. I have a reputation to protect. I am the guy who sleeps through briefings and argues about chips. Very cool. Very unemotional." Ira did not laugh. She did not smile. But she looked at him, and her pale, empty eyes held something that had not been there before. Not warmth, exactly. Not yet. But the possibility of warmth. The recognition that warmth existed and that it was not as terrifying as she had been led to believe.

"Your secret is safe," she said.

"Statistically, no one would believe you were capable of emotional depth anyway."

"Ouch," Ken said, clutching his chest.

"Right in the pride. Although my pride is pretty tough. It has to be, living with Naomi." Ira's eyes lingered on him for a moment longer. Then she turned back to her book, opening it to a new page for the first time all day. Ken stood up, stretched dramatically, and shuffled toward the door. He paused in the doorway, his back to her, his hand resting on the frame.

"Hey, Ira," he said without turning around.

"Yes?"

"If your brother ever raises his hand at you again... tell me. Okay?" It was not a threat. It was not a promise of violence. It was just a sentence, spoken quietly and casually, the way you might remind someone to close the window before it rained. But the meaning underneath was clear and unmistakable. Ira did not respond. But she turned the page of her book, and the tiny, almost invisible crack in her wall remained. Ken left the library and walked down the hallway.

He passed the living room, where Laxmi was still reading her magazine, and the kitchen, where Naomi was arguing with Sayma about proper vegetable storage techniques, and the front door, where Risa was watering the flowers by the gate. He did not stop at any of them. He just walked upstairs, found his bed, and collapsed onto the mattress face-first without bothering to take off his shoes. He lay there in the dark for a while, staring at the pillow. His dark eyes were open. His breathing was slow and even.

The goofy, lazy mask was off, and underneath it, his face was quiet and still and uncharacteristically serious. Then he rolled over, stared at the ceiling, and whispered to the empty room.

"Ripping a little kid's doll apart. What a piece of work." He closed his eyes. The silence of the estate wrapped around him like a blanket. Somewhere downstairs, a door closed softly. Somewhere outside, an owl hooted. Somewhere in the library, a girl with no emotions sat alone with a book she could finally read. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

And the crack in her wall, small and fragile and barely visible, let in just enough light to remind her that the world outside was not as cold as she had been taught to believe.

For the first time in what felt like forever, the 13th Unit had absolutely nothing to do. No missions. No training drills. No emergency briefings. No early morning runs through the district while Zinia shouted encouragement and Laxmi set things on fire out of pure excitement. Just a long, glorious, beautifully empty stretch of nothing, stretching from breakfast to bedtime like a golden road paved with laziness and snack breaks. It was, in Ken Eliot's professional opinion, paradise.

He was sprawled across the living room sofa in his signature pose. Horizontal. Motionless. One arm draped over the back of the couch, the other resting on his stomach. His navy blue suit jacket was folded into a makeshift pillow behind his head. His tie was somewhere on the floor. His shirt was untucked, naturally, and his shoes had been kicked off and left in different corners of the room like a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to his resting place.

His dark eyes were half-closed, fixed on the ceiling with the glassy, unfocused stare of a man who was not thinking about anything in particular but was very committed to not thinking about it. Outside, the morning sun was bright and warm. The birds were singing. The flowers in Risa's garden were blooming. The world was peaceful and pleasant and full of possibilities. Ken was ignoring all of it. His mind had drifted, as it often did on lazy days, toward a very specific destination.

A small, cozy house on a quiet street in the Iron Rose District. A kitchen that smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. A mother who made the best caramel pudding in the entire Belmontia Empire. A younger sister who complained about everything but always saved him the biggest portion. Caramel pudding. Warm, soft, golden caramel pudding with the butterscotch sauce drizzled on top and the little crispy bits around the edges where the sugar had caramelized into something close to magic.

The thought of it made his stomach growl audibly. He should visit. It had been a while. Jasmin was probably furious at him for not calling. His mother was probably worried sick, even though he had sent a letter last week. He could sneak out right now, take the afternoon coach to the Iron Rose District, and be eating pudding by three o'clock. The problem was that leaving the couch required effort. And effort was, as a general rule, against his religion.

"I could go," Ken mumbled to the ceiling.

"Or I could stay here and think about going. That is basically the same thing." The ceiling did not respond. It was a ceiling. It had no opinions. Ken sighed deeply and shifted his weight, settling deeper into the cushions. He would visit his family soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Definitely at some point in the foreseeable future. Probably. The pudding would still be there. His mother was not going to stop making pudding just because her son was lazy and terrible at writing letters.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs drew his attention. Not the sharp, aggressive footsteps of Naomi. Not the rhythmic, precise footsteps of Ira. These were soft, shuffling, slightly unsteady footsteps, accompanied by a long, jaw-cracking yawn that echoed down the hallway like the call of a very sleepy whale. Luna appeared in the living room doorway. She looked better. Significantly better. The blue veins that had crawled across her skin during the Blue Decay crisis were completely gone.

Her complexion was healthy and warm. Her silver-blue hair was still messy, but it was the good kind of messy, the kind that came from rolling around in bed rather than from fighting for your life against mana poison. She was wearing an oversized sleep shirt with a faded moon printed on the front, and she was rubbing her eyes with both fists like a small child who had just woken up from a very long, very satisfying nap.