Archive of Our Own

Mornings aboard the aircraft carrier—the front line of humanity’s salvation—were always freezing cold and tinged with a strange sense of urgency.

By the time I let myself be swept along by the hectic stream of people and finally stepped into the conference room, Stratt was, unusually, nowhere to be seen at the head of the table.

“Huh? Where’s Stratt?”

As I took my usual seat—right beside hers, the so-called “VIP seat” everyone had unofficially, forcibly designated for me—Dimitri offered me a coffee. I thanked him and took a sip from the rim of the paper cup. The bitterness jolted me awake. It was way shorter on cream and sugar than how I usually take it, and the caffeine hit my tongue like assault.

“I heard from Martin that she got called to London.” Shapiro said. “I imagine he’s accompanying Ms. Stratt.”

“Wait, what?” I blurted out. “London? What kind of meeting? ”

“Probably the usual progress briefing,” Dimitri replied with an amused shrug. “I can practically picture Stratt’s miserable expression already.”

The leaders of every nation constantly demanded updates and budget reports on Project Hail Mary, that planet-scale gamble to save Earth. We released information to the press on a regular basis, but that never satisfied them. Stratt rejected most of their demands outright, though once every ten times or so, as a political compromise, she reluctantly attended the briefings and parties they organized. Surprisingly enough, Stratt was the sort of person who, if she decided it was faster to give in, would grudgingly compromise while hurling complaints the whole way. She was stubborn and eccentric, yes—but even more than that, she was devoted to the demon called efficiency.

“Rare, though,” Ilyukhina said with a grin. “Stratt taking someone other than you.”

“Seriously,” Dimitri added. “At this point it’s harder to remember days when you weren’t attached at the hip.”

At Ilyukhina’s and Dimitri’s grinning remarks, I nearly sprayed coffee everywhere. The bitter liquid caught in my throat, and I broke into a spectacular coughing fit.

“No—look, it’s not like that between us—” I cleared my throat a little too dramatically, trying to reset the mood. “I told you already. I’m just another scientist, same as the rest of you. Whoever Stratt decides to bring with her is none of my business.”

I snorted for emphasis. Dimitri and the others were still smirking.

I honestly didn’t understand what they found so funny, but whatever. I straightened up and quietly celebrated inside my head. Stratt could be surprisingly considerate once in a while. Today, I was completely free. Which meant no one would interfere with me, and I could devote as much time as I wanted to research and experimentation. Pure bliss.

“...Anyway, since everyone’s here, let’s start the daily briefing—or, uh, are we really okay with me running this? ”

Yáo looked at me and gave a slow nod. It had become a habit ever since that one morning Stratt didn’t show up, and the entire team, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, had collectively turned their eyes to me for orders. For some reason, they all seemed to think I was the project’s number two. Ridiculous overestimation. Seriously.

…And that sort of thing had happened—repeatedly, just recently.

Stratt’s schedule was always visible to the rest of us through the shared calendar.It was packed wall-to-wall with every conceivable appointment. Just looking at it was exhausting, even just as a bystander. According to this calendar, in the past week alone Stratt had attended three international conferences. There had also been five more casual briefings—and if you counted the smaller internal ones, too many meetings to keep track of. She hadn’t taken me along to a single one of them. That had never happened before. As a result, my own schedule now had conspicuous blank spaces where before there had been none.

I kept tapping through old entries in the scheduling app—surely one of the most pointless activities imaginable. The names listed as accompanying personnel varied. Some were familiar names, like Dubois and Shapiro. Others belonged to people I had never even heard of.

There was only one reason Stratt dragged me from meeting to meeting: science. In other words, she needed a scientific adviser. Stratt was extraordinarily talented, but she wasn’t exactly versed in fields like biology or physics.

Which meant that this decision of hers was, well… rational. The right person for the right job. Project Hail Mary had more brilliant personnel than it knew what to do with. There was no reason Stratt needed to bring me everywhere she went. Honestly, it was weird she hadn’t started doing this sooner. Really, the strange part was the way she’d spent all this time acting like I was some omniscient fucking laptop who could instantly explain everything from biology to engineering on command.

Sure, I was the leading expert on astrophage, but that was practically an accident of circumstance. And at the end of the day, I was still just a middle-school teacher who’d spent years away from serious research work. God only knew how many times during meetings I’d wanted to raise my hand and say, “Sorry, dumb question, but…”

And besides, now that I wasn’t being dragged into meetings every five minutes, I finally had more time than ever to devote to what I was actually supposed to be doing. My research was progressing dramatically. It was wonderful.

—So why did I still feel so unsettled?

“—Grace. Dr. Grace.”

At the sound of Yáo’s voice, I suddenly snapped back to reality. My toe bumped against my coffee cup. The cold liquid inside gave a faint slosh.

I’d been holed up in the lab since morning, but I hadn’t been able to focus at all, so I’d come to the break room to take a breather. Dazzling evening sunlight streamed in through the windows.

“…Ah, sorry. I was spacing out.” I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, then closed the lid of my laptop.

“Grace,” Yáo said, staring intently at me. “You look pale. Are you feeling unwell?”

“Nope. I’m doing fantastic, ” I said, pushing myself upright from the back of the chair. “Lately I’ve been able to stay in the lab from morning till night. There’s no greater happiness for a scientist than that.”

The words came tumbling out in one breath, almost reflexively, and I regretted them immediately. The second half had obviously been unnecessary. I cursed myself silently.

“…I see,” Yáo said quietly. “Well, that’s good, then. But if you can spare the time, perhaps you should try getting some sleep tonight.”

Yáo was practically a saint. He looked at me with concern, but kindly chose not to press any further. If it had been Dimitri or Ilyukhina, things definitely wouldn’t have ended there.

“Thanks, Yáo,” I murmured weakly. No wonder the guy was the most popular man on the ship.

“As for Ms. Stratt, it seems she’ll be back around eight tonight. Word came that she’ll attend the evening science team briefing.”

“Oh. Thanks. Then I guess I should start getting ready too…” I let out a sigh and stretched hard, trying to keep my voice even. Whether I was succeeding or not, I couldn’t tell.

After Yáo left, I opened my laptop again. On the screen was the personnel database for Project Hail Mary. For some reason, I now knew even the citation counts of the researchers accompanying Stratt at today’s conference in Geneva. Well. “For some reason” my ass. I’d spent the last half hour typing their names into search engines.

A young American astrophysicist. A French expert in space medicine. Every last one of them had a glittering career, and above all, none of them looked like the kind of guy who’d gotten blacklisted from academia for verbally abusing his doctoral advisor.

Why had I been looking that stuff up?

Hell if I know.

“Dr. Grace.”

That night, just as I dragged myself out of the lab and started heading back to my room, I ran straight into Stratt in the hallway. Oh, for fuck’s sake, I thought. I might’ve actually said it out loud.

During the briefing earlier, I’d deliberately hidden myself in the very back corner of the room. I’d felt… awkward, for some reason. Without her having the faintest clue, I’d been overthinking things. —something completely and utterly ridiculous. Thanks to that—or because of it—I’d managed to get through the entire day without making eye contact with her even once.

All I wanted was for today to end quietly. But against the unstoppable force of Eva Stratt marching directly toward me, that tiny wish never stood a chance. She grabbed my arm, and I reluctantly stopped walking.

“…What?”

Even I was surprised by how sharp my voice sounded. Like rust scraping off an old door forced open after years of neglect.

Stratt either didn’t notice the hostility or simply chose to ignore it. She kept tapping away at her tablet with her usual businesslike focus. The pale blue glow from the screen cast cold light across her face.

“I’m sharing the Geneva meeting minutes with you. Read through them.” Her voice was flat, though rougher than usual.

I looked down at her face, barely four inches below mine. The usual knife-sharp intensity in her eyes had dulled. Her gray gaze looked faintly clouded, exhaustion bleeding through the edges of her expression.

It struck me that this was the first time in a while we’d stood this close face-to-face. And it had been.

Stratt was busy. I was busy. We used to sit beside each other at every meeting and briefing by default. Lately, that hadn’t happened once.

…There it was again. I shook my head slightly, trying to kill the direction my thoughts were drifting in.

“Yeah, got it,” I said. “But can I please just sleep tonight? Research has been going so well I basically hyperfocused myself into exhaustion.”

I kept the “thanks for not dragging me around everywhere” part to myself. Though judging by my tone, it probably leaked through anyway.

Stratt immediately looked up from her tablet and stared at me hard. Her expression tightened.

“I’m glad you’re immersed in your work,” she said. “But don’t overdo it. We can’t afford to have you collapse.”

And whose fault do you think this mental state is?  The words made it all the way to the back of my throat before I barely managed to swallow them.

Stratt kept looking up at me. She was acting exactly the same as always. For some reason, that irritated the hell out of me. —Irritated? Yeah. I was irritated. Or maybe shaken up. Either way, I was losing my mind.

Back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and opened my laptop. I should’ve been exhausted, but my mind was painfully awake. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep.

After skimming through the meeting notes Stratt had shared, I checked the shared server logs—and stopped cold. Someone unfamiliar had edited my Astrophage thermodynamics simulation. The edit history showed the name “J. Hamilton.”

I recognized it. The American scientist who’d accompanied Stratt this time. Beside the revision was a short comment: ‘Approved. — Stratt’

Something heavy and unpleasant settled deep in my stomach. I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled slowly. A few weeks ago, she’d pressured me nonstop to finish that data set because she needed it urgently. And now someone else was modifying my work.

Granted, the entire thing had always been meant as a rough draft—a foundation to build from. I knew this was the correct process. There weren’t even any obvious contradictions in the revisions. That was science. No doubt the data had come up during today’s Geneva conference.

Okay. Let’s go with this, then. I could practically hear Stratt saying it in that brisk, decisive voice of hers. I’d always heard those words from right beside her. Over and over again.

But today, she’d said them somewhere I wasn’t. At a meeting she’d gone to without me.

“…Time to sleep.” I slammed the laptop shut hard enough to echo through the room, then crawled into bed like I was running away from something.

I was being entirely too sentimental.

This was getting ridiculous.

Something was seriously wrong with me.

The phone I’d left sitting on the edge of my desk in the lab suddenly erupted into a shrill ring. Muttering, “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” under my breath, I hurriedly pulled my hands out of the glove box. Maybe because I’d been working for so long, my palms were slick with sweat. I wiped them on the T-shirt under my lab coat and answered the call.

“Ryland Grace speaking!”

A voice cut in almost before I’d finished. “Can you come to the helipad right now?” It was Stratt. Behind her, wind roared loudly through the receiver.

I left the lab staff to handle things—by now they were so used to emergencies like this that they merely nodded without changing expression—and hurried up to the aircraft carrier’s deck. Absurdly enough, we lived in the middle of the goddamn ocean. I’d only recently started getting used to the insane lifestyle of having to take helicopters everywhere.

“Stratt!”

She was already standing there in a travel coat, clutching a stack of documents. Military personnel behind her kept checking their watches restlessly. The helicopter, too, looked completely ready for departure—it had all the signs of leaving any second now.

“What’s going on?” My voice naturally grew louder to compete with the endless roar of the wind.

“You read the meeting minutes I gave you the other day, right? The Geneva ones.”

“Yeah, I read them. The meeting with Dr. Hamilton, right? What about it?”

“I need to confirm something.”

Stratt stepped closer and thrust a clipped stack of papers toward me. Stratt, unexpectedly, had very little sense of personal space. Though that hardly mattered right now.

The wind whipped the pages violently about. Moments like this really made you appreciate tablets. Together, Stratt and I desperately pinned the papers down with our fingertips while exchanging a few rapid comments. Stratt scribbled something in the margins with her pen.

“And here?” she asked.

I followed the tip of her pen with my eyes. “That part is…”

Stratt was looking at me with complete seriousness. The howling wind numbed my fingertips, and my lips had gone pale from the cold, yet a strangely nostalgic warmth welled up inside me. Being bombarded by her questions, arguing back and forth over details—it had been fun. I would die before admitting this to anyone, but Stratt had been… a good student. Intelligent, eager, and possessed of an unwavering respect for intellect.

Sure, she was a little too arrogant and forceful, but still.

“That’s all.”

With a click, Stratt snapped the cap back onto her pen and slipped it into her breast pocket after a short breath. So much for my brief moment of enjoyment.

“You seem in a hell of a rush,” I said. “Where’re you headed this time?”

Stratt stuffed the documents into her bag and shrugged. “Paris. Looks like we’re getting rain later, so takeoff was moved up by two hours.”

“Ah,” I nodded. Weather was the great enemy of air travel. “…Going alone?”

“I’m meeting the science team there. The ones accompanying me from here are them.” She casually jerked a thumb toward the Chinese officers waiting behind her.

"Again…" A small, self-deprecating sigh escaped my lips. It felt as though cold water had been dumped over me, snapping me back to reality.

“Oh,” I said carefully. “Safe travels, then.”

I made a conscious effort to smooth out my tone. The last thing I wanted was for her to notice whatever the hell this feeling was.

My part was finished. She had summoned me with a single phone call, I had rushed over as top priority, carefully resolved her concerns, and sent her off with a pleasant smile. How dutiful of me. My replacement—someone on-site, no doubt—would perform admirably in my stead.

I was about to head back inside the ship when I felt someone watching me and looked up.

Stratt was staring directly at me. The expression on her face was unusual. Calm. Almost… soft enough to be mistaken for a smile.

“…What is it?”

Unable to decipher the meaning behind her gaze, I asked the question aloud. For a brief instant, Stratt narrowed her eyes. The expression was almost feline.

“Nothing,” she said. “It just feels… strange, somehow, having you see me off.”

One of the military personnel waiting behind her leaned in to whisper something. Stratt glanced back and gave a light nod.

“Now then, back to work, Dr. Grace.” She flicked a curt glance at me, her face already returned to its usual sour expression. It was as if I’d imagined the whole thing. Turning on her heel, she strode toward the helicopter without hesitation.

—And at that exact moment, somewhere in my brain, the circuitry responsible for logical thought shorted out.

A breath caught in my throat. It felt as though I’d been holding it all this time without realizing.

Before my brain could even register the thought, my hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Her slender wrist fit entirely within my palm. The skin beneath my fingertips felt surprisingly cold. These were the hands that bent the world to her will, I thought. Those thin arms carried the fate of humanity—and refused to let go of it.

“…Dr. Grace?” Stratt frowned suspiciously and looked at me. I had no idea what I was doing either. Behind her stern expression, I could see the faintest trace of confusion in her eyes.

That Stratt—the woman who never faltered before anyone—had fallen silent because of a single rude touch from my fingertips. Seeing uncertainty flicker in her eyes, seeing her momentarily at a loss for words, filled me with a strange sense of triumph.

Got you, some reckless part of me thought. An inexplicable impulse surged up from deep inside my chest.

“I’m coming too.” Driven by emotions I couldn’t even understand myself, I stepped forward. “There’s room for one more, right?”

I said it while staring directly at one of the stunned Chinese officers beside us.

I was not in my right mind. My blood pounded violently through me, and the fingertips that had been numb from the cold suddenly burned with heat.

I’d always been like this. Once an impulse took hold, it swallowed up my reason like a dam collapsing under floodwater.

“Have a seat.”

The moment the briefing ended, Stratt summoned me to her hotel room without giving me any chance to object. She pulled out one of the chairs by the window slightly and gestured toward it with her hand.

“…No, I’m—”

“Have a seat.”

There was no resisting that tone. It reminded me of our very first encounter. She had a commanding presence. She carried herself like a commander giving orders on a battlefield.

I stopped in my tracks and obediently sank into the chair. It was far superior to the one I’d once been forced to sit in back in the observation room—though that already felt like a lifetime ago—and the cushioned seat gently cradled my exhausted body.

After making sure I’d sat down, Stratt slowly lowered herself into the chair opposite me. Dim lighting filled the hotel room, moonlight faintly spilling in through the windows.

“Let’s take this one step at a time, Dr. Grace.”

To be completely honest, the moment I’d boarded that helicopter on pure impulse, I’d already begun bitterly regretting my actions as soon as the aircraft lifted off.

Just the two of us in that cramped cabin. The trip, switching between helicopters and military jets, lasted well over ten hours.

—Ten unbearably awkward hours.

It was entirely my own fault, but I’d lost count of how many times I silently begged the heavens to let me off anywhere, anywhere at all. The only saving grace was that halfway through the trip, Stratt became absorbed in phone calls and online meetings with important officials.

Worse still, about two hours after takeoff, it finally occurred to me that I had completely abandoned my lab. Panicking, I sent a message to the Mongolian brothers, and almost immediately received a concise reply: Cleanup’s already done.

I’d have to bring them back the finest pastries Paris had to offer.

And this was truly irrelevant, but while on-site I also had the chance to meet the one and only Dr. Hamilton in person. He’d been included among the scientific personnel Stratt had assembled.

He was… an energetic, pleasant-looking man in his mid-thirties. He greeted me with a bright smile and an offered handshake, telling me with a laugh that he couldn't believe he was meeting me here of all places and that he’d heard so much about me. Meanwhile, I stood there looking like I’d just swallowed poison, forced to endure an endless stream of glowing praise from him. “Excruciating” didn’t even begin to cover it.

“First of all,” Stratt said, “perhaps you should explain what possessed you to pull a stunt like that?”

Her voice sliced sharply through the silence of the late-night hotel room.

Seeing me completely deflated in my chair, Stratt raised an eyebrow as though observing something amusing. It was the familiar expression she always wore—that slightly mean-spirited look.

“Uh, well… I’m really sorry.”

“I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked why you did it.” 

The exchange reminded me vividly of our first meeting. Back then, she’d bombarded me with endless questions about astrophage—the name itself, now that I thought about it, had been something she’d hurried me into choosing.

Was she planning to interrogate me the same way today, only about my pathetic feelings instead? Could Stratt really have any interest in idle emotional nonsense that had not even the slightest connection to saving humanity?

Personally, I would have preferred very much if she’d simply left my foolish behavior and emotions alone.

Apparently, though, Stratt had no intention of speaking until I started talking. For several long minutes, the only sound in the room was the low hum of the air conditioner. I could feel her gaze fixed directly on me the entire time.

I simply couldn’t bring myself to look at her face.

“Every day…”

Unable to bear the silence any longer, the words finally slipped out. At this point, I’d lost control even of my own body. Stratt’s eyes lit up like she’d spotted prey.

“Yes,” she echoed immediately. “Every day?”

Jesus. It felt like an interrogation.

“Every single day, you dragged me all over the place without even asking what I wanted. Even when I said I didn’t want to go… when I told you I wanted to focus on my research, wanted to go back to the lab, you just ignored me…”

My voice faltered there, trembling faintly at the end.

Stratt had burst into my life like a whirlwind. She’d painstakingly dug up the bitter past I’d wanted to forget, shoved me into a laboratory practically by force, and worked me like a guinea pig. She was relentless, constantly pressing me for answers—"What have you found so far? What does it mean?"

Things only got worse after we began living aboard the aircraft carrier. I traveled through conference rooms in every kind of facility around the world—if someone had documented it all, it could have made a respectable photography book—and attended every imaginable meeting. I witnessed extraordinary things: Antarctic ice groaning as it collapsed in massive sheets before my eyes, prison wardens shining flashlights into my mouth during security inspections…

And through all of it, she was always there.

From closer than anyone else, I watched Stratt wield her extraordinary authority and reshape situations one after another as if by magic.

It had been a disaster. A nightmare.

And yet, I remembered those days with astonishing clarity. Again and again, I found myself tracing the outlines of those memories in my mind, as though they were precious treasures. Especially lately.

“I see,” she said quietly.

I cautiously raised my head. Her expression was gentler than I’d expected.

Something about that gaze made my chest burn with unbearable heat. The emotions I thought had finally settled began bubbling violently back to life.

“But lately—” I continued, the words rushing out faster now, “it’s not like that anymore. You’ve been flying off to London and Geneva and God knows where else with other people without even telling me.”

I barreled onward before I could stop myself. “And thanks to that, my research has progressed unbelievably well. Since nobody’s interrupting me, I finished an entire paper in just one week. Huge help, really. Best working environment I’ve ever had!”

Even as I said it, I knew I sounded completely incoherent. Was I trying to be sarcastic? Did I just want attention? At this point, even I no longer understood what I was trying to say. What I did know was that this ranked among the most pathetic moments of my life.

And yet Stratt didn’t move.

Normally she despised rambling conversations and inefficient explanations more than anything. Usually by now she would already have cut me off with a sharp “Dr. Grace, get to the point.” But Stratt merely sat there with her arms folded, watching me. Patiently.

Yes, she was impatient and arrogant—but she was also unbelievably patient.

Even so, the atmosphere surrounding her now—something almost like gentleness—was unlike anything I had ever sensed from her before.

“You said it felt strange to have me see you off,” I said quietly. “I don’t know what you meant by that, but—” A bitter little laugh escaped me, and I clicked my tongue. “I also—ah, damn it.”

The thoughts racing through my head were so childish they made me cringe at myself. But I couldn’t stop anymore. Somehow, I felt that the woman sitting before me now would accept whatever I said.

My voice weakened as the words tumbled helplessly from my mouth.

“I also… can’t get used to seeing you off. No matter how many times it happens.” The sound of my breathing echoed emptily through the hotel room. “So. So, yeah… next time…” I swallowed hard. “Take me with you.”

I removed my glasses and obsessively polished the lenses with the hem of my shirt. Without them, her face blurred softly out of focus.

Gathering what little courage I had left, I forced the words out.

“No matter who else you bring… I’d be more useful than them.”

Several seconds of silence fell between us. Then it was broken by a quiet sound—like air escaping—a stifled laugh.

“...What?” Startled, I jerked my head up.

I shoved my glasses back on and saw Stratt finally losing control of her composure entirely. Her shoulders shook with quiet laughter. The sheer unexpectedness of her reaction robbed me of all momentum, and an awkward dry laugh slipped out of me too. “Hey, Stratt!”

“What?” she said between chuckles. “Grace, were you seriously pouting this entire time?”

“I’m not pouting! I’m protesting!”

“That’s the same thing. —God, you are hilarious.” Stratt wiped lightly at the corner of one eye. It was the first time I had ever seen her laugh so openly, so unguardedly—like an ordinary young woman.

Not wanting to lose, I cleared my throat loudly, as if trying to force the embarrassment lodged there back down.

“…Very well then. Your turn, Stratt." I pointed at her accusingly. “Care to explain why someone who used to work me to death suddenly decided to abandon me?”

Stratt blinked, looking slightly caught off guard for once, then answered slowly.

“Surely you haven’t forgotten what happened a month ago, Dr. Grace. When you collapsed in the lab.”

“Huh?” The sudden change in direction completely derailed my thoughts.

But yeah. I certainly remembered. It had been at the end of a week of severe sleep deprivation. I was in the middle of research in the lab when I abruptly stood up, trying to shake the fog from my head. The next instant my vision flashed violently, and I was hit with crushing dizziness. A vasovagal response, basically.

I went down hard without even managing to catch myself. Fortunately, I hadn’t smashed my head against the corner of a lab bench or wiped out some horrifyingly expensive equipment and samples in the process.

“Oh, that,” I scratched my cheek awkwardly. “I mean, that was just… overwork, basically. Researchers do that kind of thing all the time. Once you’re close to a breakthrough, it’s hard to stop.”

As I spoke, I remembered waking up on a stiff bed in the infirmary and seeing Stratt beside me, wearing an unusually grim expression while furiously hammering away at her laptop keyboard. Honestly, at the time I’d been terrified she was about to yell at me.

I gave a vague smile and shrugged. Stratt responded in a cold voice.

“No, you’re simply an idiot. I heard you hadn’t slept for two full days.” From behind her folded arms, she shot me a piercing glare. “After that, everyone around me kept pestering me to let you rest. Eventually I gave in and relented. Understand?”

At her words, my eyes went wide.

“…Uh. So…”

I muttered under my breath, trying to organize the thought forming in my mouth.

“So… You’re telling me… you basically forced me onto medical leave? ”

“Yes.” Stratt nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “ I’d rather not have you collapse again at some critical moment and ruin the schedule.”

As I processed her words piece by piece, Stratt merely nodded matter-of-factly. I was so stunned my throat tightened, leaving me speechless for several moments.

Could it really be possible that Stratt—the walking definition of efficiency—would alter schedules out of consideration for someone else’s physical condition?

My sluggish brain finally began turning again as I slowly digested her words.

Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered her saying something similar the night we’d run into each other in the hallway. Only now did I finally understand the expression she’d worn then. If the person you’d intentionally ordered to rest appeared to be getting worse instead of recovering, of course you’d find that suspicious.

Gradually, an indescribable warmth welled up from deep inside my chest.

This was—Yes, something very close to joy.

And suddenly, the image of myself sulking around alone, convinced I’d been cast aside without realizing any of this, became unbearably ridiculous.

“Maybe tomorrow the sun will rise in the west.” I spread my hands theatrically as I spoke, deliberately exaggerating to hide my discomfort. Partly, too, it was my own tiny act of revenge for how thoroughly she’d been teasing me all this time.

“Oh, shut up.”

Stratt shot me a glare, but then her expression loosened. She leaned back against the sofa with a slow, deep breath. Her narrowed gray eyes fixed directly on me.

“…Honestly, you reminded me of the day you barged into my facility,” she said. “You stormed in just as bluntly that time too, and then, of all things, you said:‘It’s my lab. Tell your guys to stay out of my way.’”

A faint smile tugged at her mouth. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but at the time I truly never imagined you’d come back.”

Her gaze drifted toward the dazzling nightscape beyond the window. There was something calm in her eyes now, as though she were fondly revisiting a distant memory. By coincidence, it seemed she too had been thinking back to the day we first met.

“…You were surprised, huh?”

“I’m not sure why you sound proud of that, but yes.” Stratt shrugged in exasperation.

I scratched the back of my head. “To be honest, so was I. Even now, I still wonder what the hell I was thinking.”

—When I thought about it, I really had come a long way.

The day I abandoned my classes, ignored every traffic law in existence, and impulsively went to see her—Eva Stratt.

Not long before that, I’d been nothing more than a middle-school teacher grading quizzes in a shabby little classroom while listening to the noisy voices of students. My days had been spent covered in chalk dust, thinking up quiz questions for the next day’s lesson.

Who could possibly have imagined that from there, I would end up crossing the open ocean, participating in an unimaginable mission to save Earth and all of humanity?

“Do you regret it?”

Stratt’s voice gently pulled me back from my thoughts.

I immediately shook my head.

“Unfortunately for you, no.”

“I see,” she whispered softly. For some reason, it sounded almost like relief.

Stratt’s gray eyes had softened into something molten and indulgent. Her translucent pale skin was faintly flushed with warmth.

—The two of us alone in a dim, quiet hotel room.

I was probably looking at an expression no head of state, no military commander—perhaps no one else at all—had ever seen on Stratt’s face. A strange and intoxicating sense of exclusivity slowly spread through my chest. With such a peaceful expression, she looked surprisingly young. Fragile, even. It was impossible to believe this was the woman who currently held more power than anyone else on Earth, who manipulated humanity’s fate with the movement of a single finger.

—I don’t want anyone else to see this face.

As though unwilling to waste even a blink, I burned the sight of her profile into my memory.

The heaviness that had lodged in my chest for the past two weeks dissolved away. It felt as if a fog had finally lifted. Energy flooded through me, bright and almost intoxicating. I felt absurdly capable, like I could suddenly do anything. I am a remarkably simple creature.

Stratt would shake me awake in the middle of the night, and I'd stumble onto the aircraft carrier deck rubbing sleepy eyes while muttering curses under my breath. Meetings, meetings, meetings—dragged along by Stratt, I'd fly from east to west, north to south, all across the globe. I'd continue signing approval forms for what felt like an endless mountain of paperwork.

Just imagining it sounds miserable.

But that was fine.

—No, that was exactly how I wanted it.

I actually liked this life quite a lot.

“So you finally reconsidered your approach.”

At the end of the briefing, Ilyukhina lightly jabbed Stratt in the side with her elbow while Stratt continued typing away at her laptop with relentless focus. Her voice carried unmistakable smugness.

“What are you talking about?” Stratt replied without looking up. Her slender fingers continued moving across the keyboard in a perfectly steady rhythm.

“Your golden boy, of course! He’s been absolutely pitiful these past two weeks.”

For the first time, Stratt’s hands stopped. Slowly, she lifted her head and fixed Ilyukhina with a piercing stare. “…If I remember correctly, this was your suggestion to begin with.”

“We suggested giving him some rest, Ms. Stratt,” Dimitri cut in from the side, shrugging with a wry smile. “You know—saying a few kind words, bringing him coffee. Not canceling every single one of his scheduled assignments for the next two weeks and effectively placing him under house arrest in the lab. There is such a thing as moderation.”

“I dislike half-measures.”

“You’re just incapable of moderation,” Lokken muttered bluntly from the corner of the room while packing up equipment.

Stratt flicked a glance toward her and raised one eyebrow in irritation. But she didn’t deny it.

“Honestly, can you believe it?” Ilyukhina laughed in exasperation. “A human being whose condition gets worse after having work reduced and free time handed to him. What exactly is wrong with that American of yours?”

“Even Yáo seemed genuinely bewildered,” Shapiro added with a nod.

“We were grateful as well,” Dubois said solemnly. “Traveling alongside you and discussing matters with researchers from other countries was an invaluable opportunity…scientifically speaking, at least.”

As though trying to physically silence the roomful of chatterboxes, Stratt released a long, heavy sigh.

Right on cue, the briefing room door burst open. The very man at the center of the conversation poked his head inside.

Dr. Ryland Grace.

“Stratt? You still busy? Looks like the helicopter’s ready.”

Instead of his usual worn-out sweater, Grace was wearing a black travel coat. Excitement radiated from his face despite his obvious attempts to hide it.

“No, we’re done here.” Stratt shut her laptop with a snap and shoved it into her briefcase. “Go ahead and wait on the deck.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hurry up, okay?”

At Grace’s pointed reminder, Stratt merely nodded lightly. The door shut behind him, and only after the sound of his footsteps faded down the corridor did she slowly rise from her chair.

She picked up the coat draped over the back of her chair and slung her briefcase over one shoulder.

“…Still,” she said at last, “I suppose you were right. I understand now what I should do. Next time, I’ll handle it a little better.”

For someone like Stratt, the faint upward curve of her lips was almost startlingly obvious. Then she strode briskly out of the conference room.

The remaining “chatterboxes” all looked at one another simultaneously. After several seconds of silence, someone snorted with laughter, and suddenly the entire room dissolved into grins.

“Look at them,” Ilyukhina grinned. “It’s like they’re finally back in their natural habitat.”

“Yeah. Both of them,” Dimitri replied.

On the freezing morning air, as the two of them walked toward the aircraft carrier’s helipad, the scientists’ amused laughter swept after them like a tailwind.