Geno's home.
Watching Twiggy sit there on the sofa while he himself sipped the coffee she had brewed with her own hands, Geno couldn't shake a feeling of unreality — as though all of this belonged to some other lifetime.
It felt like he hadn't been back here in a very long time.
"I see. Quite a complicated situation."
"And what do you plan to do about the engineer?"
"The engineer? You mean Grace?"
Twiggy gave a small nod. An unexpected development — but for Twiggy, perhaps not an unwelcome one.
It at least confirmed that some of her theories were viable.
"I don't know, really. I saved her because I didn't want her to just die like that. As for what comes next — I haven't thought that far."
Geno stared at the calm surface of his coffee, his expression difficult to read.
Just as he'd said — he'd acted on instinct, pure and simple. What consequences that might set in motion, he hadn't stopped to consider.
"Ah, well — leave it to the big shots to worry about, I say. It's not our problem to solve. But speaking of which — don't you still have something you want to say to me?" She skipped past the subject of Grace and looked up at Geno — only to find that he had vanished.
"I'm sorry! I know I was wrong!!"
Still puzzling over where he'd gone, Twiggy turned her head — and found him already kneeling beside her in a textbook-perfect dogeza, forehead nearly to the floor.
On closer inspection, there was a keyboard under his knees. The man had apparently gone out of his way to make the experience more painful for himself.
"What on earth are you doing..."
The corner of Twiggy's eye twitched. She was really struggling to keep a straight face in the face of Geno's antics.
There it was. That familiar feeling, all the way back.
They say that even the most devoted couples have a few days each month when they could happily throttle each other — but for Twiggy, that urge visited her just about every single day.
It was only during the stretch when Geno had been away in Weifeidi that she'd finally had a rare taste of peace and quiet.
"About the engagement between me and Alice — the truth is, I..."
Geno lifted his head, wanting to explain himself — to make it clear that he hadn't exactly been eager to accept the arrangement.
But just as the words were about to leave his mouth, a certain image of Alice — soft and utterly adorable — refused to leave his mind no matter how hard he tried.
And then, faintly, he could have sworn he felt the ghost of that fresh, carrot-sweet taste on his lips again — and whatever he'd been about to say quietly retreated back down his throat.
"You and that little rabbit? Don't worry about it. I don't mind."
"What!? Are you breaking up with me?!"
The moment Twiggy said she didn't mind, Geno went into a flat panic.
Don't mind = don't care = don't love you anymore = it's over.
The moment that elegant little equation assembled itself in his head, it hit him like a thunderbolt — all the energy drained out of him at once.
"How did you possibly arrive at that conclusion?"
She couldn't take it anymore. She simply could not take it anymore.
Twiggy had absolutely no patience left for her boyfriend's spectacular mental gymnastics. She got to her feet and gave him a firm knock on the head.
The familiar sensation that bloomed from the top of his skull instantly settled him right down.
"Sorry. I think I short-circuited for a second."
"In any case — I'm not the type of girlfriend who gets hung up on these things. As the person I intend to spend my future with, I can make room for a wandering heart."
Hm? What? Is this really how the script goes?
Geno stared at Twiggy blankly, as though he'd just heard something earth-shattering. It was only then that Twiggy remembered — as an Ethereal, he had essentially zero familiarity with New Eridu's laws and customs.
After a brief explanation, Geno finally caught up — but the bewilderment in his heart hadn't budged even slightly.
"Twiggy — are you really not even a little bit bothered?"
His own girlfriend's boyfriend had gone and gotten publicly entangled with someone else, and broadcast it to the whole world on top of that — surely any woman alive would have something to say about that?
"What's there to be bothered about? The more capable a person is, the more they attract the attention of others. Look at any of the TOPS capitalists — which one of them doesn't have a whole household of wives? Where do you think all those children fighting over inheritances come from?"
Twiggy had thought it through clearly. She was never going to be able to keep Geno tethered to her side forever — not for practical reasons, not for emotional ones. She would never hold on so tightly that she crushed the life out of whatever they had.
She wanted Geno to grow into himself on his own terms — not to always be leaning on her for everything.
Even if that meant he would hand out pieces of a love that had once belonged only to her.
…Ugh. Thinking about it like that did sting a little, actually.
But Twiggy wouldn't regret it. Her body wasn't going to hold out much longer.
'If things don't go the way I hope — at least he won't grieve quite so much.'
She shook the wandering thoughts from her head, took one look at the still slightly dazed Geno, and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him toward the door.
"Wait — are we going out? Do we need to pick something up?"
"No. I want to show you my new laboratory. Come with me."
Hm? New laboratory?
Oh — was this the one she'd arranged with Grandpa Tai? They'd broken ground already?
They took the car. The drive was short — their home was close — and within a few minutes they'd arrived.
Looking at the workers laying the foundation and preparing to raise the frame, Geno couldn't help but marvel at how swiftly the Timefield family moved.
"Good progress. Another week or so and it should be more or less finished."
"Quite right, my lady."
Arnold, the head butler, had appeared at Geno and Twiggy's side without either of them noticing, and bowed with quiet deference.
But that was almost beside the point — what had Geno's full attention was the way Arnold had just addressed Twiggy.
"My lady? Who, exactly?"
"Miss Twiggy, naturally. As your girlfriend, Young Master Geno, Miss Twiggy is the young mistress of the entire Timefield household."
Geno's mind went blank. What kind of logic was that? Shouldn't he be an outsider to this family? When exactly had he become the Timefield heir?
Then, suddenly, it came back to him — back in the hospital, Old Master Timefield had said something about having Geno call him Grandfather and officially acknowledge him as a grandson.
Surely he hadn't been serious? Geno had assumed it was just a polite pleasantry!
"Indeed. The Master has formally announced to the outside world that you are to be adopted into the Timefield family, with inheritance rights equal to those of Miss Alice."
Arnold laid it all out for Geno — which only made him more thoroughly stupefied.
Was this really something a sane person could just go ahead and do?
This was even more absurd than pulling a secret love child off the street and handing them the family legacy!
Yet regardless of whether Geno accepted any of it, it had already become fact. There was nothing he could change.
"And what about Alice?"
Geno raised a new question — after all, if he was now adopted into the Timefield family, that would essentially make him Alice's older brother. Didn't that render their engagement null and void?
"The engagement will of course proceed as planned. New Eridu's laws and statutes have never explicitly stipulated that a man may take only one wife — so your marriage to Miss Alice presents no conflict whatsoever. And as the Master himself put it: why let good fortune flow out to strangers?"
Arnold delivered this account with perfect composure and impeccable courtesy, while Geno's face took on the expression of a man attempting to comprehend the fundamental philosophy of the universe — overwhelmed by an avalanche of information, utterly at a loss.
In the end, there was only one thought he could manage to form.
Well. I suppose I really must thank you for all of this.
____
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