“Yes, sir. And then he flew off. As for where, I don’t know; ‘Pacific’ has set his movements to a very high level of confidentiality.” He Yan reported in a low voice. “Next, we just need to handle the public relations issues... The corporate representatives are already protesting, claiming we intercepted their trade secrets...”
“...” Angye remained silent for a moment before saying, “Do as he says. In the future, if there are similar incidents requiring his intervention, tell him the target’s location directly once the situation is confirmed.”
“Understood.” He Yan obeyed the order without question.
The communication cut off.
Angye leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the gap between the top of the wall-mounted bookshelf and the ceiling.
After a moment, he sighed. “Truly a talent seen only once in a millennium...”
“Indeed,” another voice sighed in agreement. “Breaking through the Ring World coating’s restrictions head-on... To be this powerful at his age is truly astonishing.”
The voice came from the vintage wooden desk in front of Angye. He looked down at the small, pitch-black thing sprawled on the desk and quipped, “If you had been this strong back then, you wouldn’t have turned black.”
“Wait, Apton, have you gone senile?” The little thing jumped up in shock. It was actually a tiny, black, scale-covered dragon. “I am your esper summon! I *am* you! The reason I turned this black...
“...is because of you! You’ve turned into the kind of monster your twenty-year-old self would have beaten to death on sight!”
***
In the high-end hotel of the ‘Marigold’ Trade Building, the protesting corporate representatives had angrily retreated to their assigned rooms.
There was nothing they could do. The Police Department was dead set on not letting them leave the building today. They had even braved the pressure to block all personal information terminals from the Starry Network. Their optical computers had been reduced to mere paperweights, good for nothing more than playing built-in offline mini-games.
At that moment, Enan Valen was leaning against the headboard of his assigned room. He had drawn the curtains and was humming a tune while reading a physical book that had been placed in the room as a decoration.
Before long, a figure quietly emerged from the wall opposite him. The figure rippled like a wave, passing through the wall, and within moments, it stood inside the room, shifting from a watery phantom into a solid form.
Golden ponytail, azure eyes, and a sturdy frame over 1.8 meters tall—he had already taken off his coat.
It was Essengar Kang. In the Federation’s records, he was merely an ordinary person with no esper abilities.
Upon entering the room, the CEO instinctively scanned his surroundings.
“No eyes,” Valen said casually. He was at an exciting part of the novel, and his leg, propped up by the window, shook rhythmically.
Essengar breathed a sigh of relief, stretched, and walked toward the handsome man with black hair, blue eyes, and a slightly weary expression.
...Then, he grabbed the book, threw it aside, seized Valen by the collar, and swung a high, heavy punch right into his face!
*Thud!!*
A long while later, when Valen finally caught his breath, he slowly muttered, “...Fuck!”
“You deserved that punch. You bastard.” Rage finally flared in Essengar’s eyes as he spoke through gritted teeth. The hand gripping Valen’s black hair trembled. “Enan Valen, is it? Was it cool using my childhood fantasy as a fake identity? You son of a bitch, faking your death without a word, not coming home for ten years, I’ll fucking...”
He cursed his scoundrel of a brother in a low, articulate hiss, but suddenly paused mid-sentence.
“Forget it, damn it, none of those insults feel right...” Choked by their blood relation and the fact that the man before him was an Omega, he threw the other back against the headboard, grabbed a nearby pillow, and slammed it hard against that strange yet familiar handsome face.
“You dog, drop the disguise already!” he roared in a low voice. “Do you think I wouldn’t recognize that face? It’s the protagonist from my manga! Did you pay the copyright fees?! I swear... you’re going to be the death of me!!”
“Tch...”
His knuckles became more defined, and subtle scars appeared on his arms as he rolled up his sleeves. Evenheiler pulled the pillow—which was so soft it didn't even hurt—off his face. His soft, beautiful, straight golden hair shimmered brightly under the lights.
The great legendary figure, ‘Starflow,’ had reappeared in the world. His azure eyes looked at the CEO before him with dissatisfaction. His frame, broader and sturdier than ‘Valen’s’ but with a narrower waist, filled out the common office worker’s clothes—
...And then he promptly flopped back onto the bed.
“Fine, disguise dropped,” he said lazily. “Hit me or scold me as you like.”
...
Essengar exhausted every ounce of patience he had accumulated over forty-eight years to keep himself from lunging forward and trying to strangle this S-class esper.
*That’s your brother, that’s your brother, that’s your brother...* He repeated the phrase he hadn't used in ten years over and over to himself: *That’s your brother. Even if it’s just to avoid getting a beating from the old man at home, you can’t hit him again. Besides, you can’t beat him anyway; this guy cuts through interstellar battleships like tofu...*
“Also, if we’re talking copyright fees, you should be paying me...” Evenheiler grumbled. “My salary is peanuts right now. Some kids earn more than I do. I actually regret not going back to inherit the family business and running off to war instead... though I’d choose the same thing if I had to do it all over again.”
...
*Yeah,* Essengar thought.
A war hero, a world-renowned powerhouse of the galaxy, the protector of the Federation, the blade that maintained the Federation’s peace, a great legend, a man who never lived for himself—his brother... ‘Starflow’ Evenheiler Kang.
To others, he was ‘Starflow.’ But to Essengar, he was ‘Evenheiler.’
Essengar sighed and walked to Evenheiler’s side.
Then he punched him again.
“...Hey! Why did you hit me again?!” Evenheiler was genuinely shocked this time.
“What if I did? If you’re so capable, why don’t you turn me into stardust particles and scatter me?!” Essengar grabbed his collar and let out a low, mournful howl. “Do you know... do you know how much we missed you...?”
Burning tears fell from those blue eyes so similar to his own. But in an instant, the warmth vanished, turning into a chilling coldness.
“...”
Evenheiler slowly closed his eyes.
“...I know,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Even though the man still hadn't shed a tear, Essengar threw him back again.
The CEO stood up, took a deep breath, and asked in a heavy voice, “Why did you come back? What are you planning to do?”
“Nothing,” Evenheiler said, staring at the ceiling. “Just checking on you all.”
“Checking on us? Do you think I’d believe that?” Essengar sneered. “Do you think I’d forget that you betrayed the Federation back in school, getting far too close to those people who started the Resistance?”
“Eh—why bring that up again—” Evenheiler scratched his head, his beautiful golden hair flowing through his fingers. “We finally meet; if you must settle old scores, why not bring up things from even further back?”
“Further back?”
Essengar was almost driven to a laugh by his anger. “Further back? Do you want me to help you remember the times you pinned me down and beat me?”
“Well, you just hit me back, didn't you... Wait, don't change the subject. You aren't trying to dodge the image copyright fees, are you?”
“Don’t change the subject!!”
“Who exactly is changing the subject here?!”
The two men, both trying to divert the conversation, bickered for a while before falling into a resentful silence. But perhaps it wasn't just for the sake of the diverted topics... well, it wasn't *only* for that...
“I still remember how we were when we were kids,” Evenheiler said. “Back then, you dreamed of being a manga artist, and I wanted to be a traveler. When we played in the garden, you’d look at a flower and imagine it reproduced on a canvas. I’d look at it and think of more flowers.”
“So you looked at us and thought of the poor,” Essengar said hoarsely. “Get this straight, Evenheiler: you were the one who abandoned us first.”
“No. You were the ones who abandoned ‘humanity’ first.”
Evenheiler stood up with ease. His tall, oppressive figure was now truly displayed before his brother.
His handsome, mature face bore no trace of anything that had just happened, but a thunderstorm seemed to be brewing in the azure eyes beneath his golden hair. Essengar looked up at him, suddenly realizing it wasn't that he didn't want to cry, but that for a powerhouse like him, tears were the most useless form of expression.
*How could those be tears?* he thought. *How could this man have tears?* Even as an Omega, his military career and experiences in war had hardened that heart beyond anything else.
It was said that in some extra-galactic systems, planets had been discovered where it rained heavy water; perhaps that was how such people cried. Even the most tender and fragile expression of emotion would be a disaster if it fell upon an ordinary person.
“Essengar, neither of us belongs to the past; we belong to the future,” Evenheiler said softly. “When will you finally understand that?”
Essengar stumbled back. At this moment, he finally realized that for someone who ranked among the top in the galaxy, no matter how restrained or gentle they were... to those who hadn't reached that level, they were like gods.
Now, he truly was reminiscing about their sacred and beautiful childhood.
Thinking back, the sanctity of childhood came from its nature of being ‘early.’ Almost everyone in this world had to go through a good portion of their lives before they learned to truly think, and when they looked back at childhood, they found it nostalgically simple because, in those days, they hadn't experienced anything yet.
“We’re all old,” Essengar said deeply. “Even though we haven't even hit seventy.”
“No,” Evenheiler said softly. “We aren't growing old year after year; we are being made new day after day.”
As he spoke, he patted his brother’s shoulder, stepped back, and sat on the edge of the bed. He used a trail of starlight to bring his book back to him. While smoothing the pages, he said gently and mildly, “Do me a favor. Apton Angye suspects my identity. He will definitely question you after today. Make him believe a negative answer, Essen.”
Essengar stared at him intently.
“From the moment you chose to betray our class, there was no turning back for us,” he said hoarsely.
“...” Evenheiler closed the book and placed it on the nightstand.
He let out a weary sigh. At this moment, the tomb of memory seemed ready to bury this blade that the Federation had once been so proud of.
“It’s hard for me to explain to you that doing this is for the Federation’s own good,” he said softly. “War is about to break out again, Essen. If Angye wastes resources trying to find me, who do you think loses in the end?
“A hint—it certainly won't be me.”
Essengar remained silent for a moment before answering, “I will help you this once. Only this once. And I will only cover for you for three years. Once Lucas graduates, if they ask me again, I will tell the truth—and I’ll tell them you were using Lucas to threaten me.”
“Thank you,” Evenheiler nodded politely.
After that, they said no more. They simply sat at opposite ends of the room, one reading and the other staring into space, not even taking a long-overdue photo together as brothers.
The night passed like this. When the faint morning light began to peek through the gaps in the curtains, Essengar stood up, his form blurring into watery ripples.
Before leaving Evenheiler’s lavish room, he suddenly turned back and asked, “You know perfectly well that it’s likely a futile effort. But why?”
Evenheiler, who had been tinkering with a small gadget in his hand throughout the latter half of the night, didn't even look up. He answered calmly, “I know that the ‘ways of the world’ have always been dictated by the few... but knowing that doesn't stop a person from dreaming, does it?”
***
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