TBR CH103

Project Alpha’s containment chamber is constructed from a special carbon-silver alloy, cast as a single piece with no blind spots. Even the manufacturer cannot easily destroy the finished product, ensuring maximum stability for Project Alpha. The door, made of the same material, is directly linked to the Institute’s internal security system, the only method to open it. (Current research has not yet confirmed whether Alpha possesses the strength to breach containment measures.)

—From the construction report on Project Alpha’s containment measures, authored by a special materials expert hired by the Institute.

The dream is black, and Asta knows clearly it’s walking in a dream.

Leave, it thinks, but the bone-deep exhaustion from shattering the “cocoon” drags it deeper into the dream, toward its core, where a pure black light burns—a power that must never be touched.

Right now, Asta doesn’t care about that. It only wants to wake up soon.

It must wake up quickly—Isidor is still out there. At the thought of that name, the monster pauses in the dream, and a burst of light suddenly appears before it.

At the end of the light, a familiar human stands in a pristine white researcher’s coat, exuding a harmless, gentle aura. He smiles, extending a hand, blinking his emerald-green eyes.

“Asta,” he says, puzzled by the monster’s abrupt halt. “What’s wrong?”

“Who are you?” Asta asks slowly, staring into his eyes.

“I’m Isidor, of course,” he replies, his eyes crinkling. “The human who’s been with you for seven years, the friend who’d never deceive you. I’m just an ordinary person—that’s the version of me you truly like. You know that, don’t you? Though I’m only a figment of your imagination, wouldn’t it be better to stay with me than with that deceiver out there?”

The monster broke the “cocoon,” and the temporary dormancy is its punishment. Its physical lethargy tries to trap it in the dream, shaping it into an ideal form.

This Isidor before it has nothing to do with the “Kingfisher,” Asta senses clearly.

Gentle, harmless, simple, compliant.

Asta falters briefly, as if seeing through him to the blood-soaked human outside—adept at lying, determined to sacrifice everything. Those emerald-green eyes briefly overlap with the dream figure’s, then reveal a stark difference.

That resolute, unwavering gaze, like a plant dampened by breaking through ice.

“Isidor” stands in the dream’s backlight, taking Asta’s hesitation as wavering. His eyes shimmer with deep and shallow joy, softened by the gentle light. He steps lightly toward the monster.

“That’s right,” he murmurs. “The me outside feels the same. Instead of asking you to save him, he’d rather you remember me like this forever. Stay just a little while—he’ll understand your choice. You don’t need to feel uneasy.”

“You…” Asta doesn’t move, narrowing its eyes slightly, studying this approaching “Isidor.” Suddenly, it asks, “Aren’t you tired of this?”

“What?”

Like a perfect sculpture cracking, the dream-crafted Isidor’s eyes widen slightly, his expression betraying a flicker of confusion. He keeps smiling, but his steps falter involuntarily.

“I know you’re an illusion from my past memories,” Asta says, its voice unexpectedly calm. “He was at his best when he hid everything. But you’re different—you’ve stripped away all the traits that make the real Isidor.”

“Isn’t that right?” the dream figure asks.

“No, because you’re not just different from reality—you’re different from the past, too.”

Asta lifts its gaze to meet his, unsurprised to see hesitation and sorrow in “Isidor’s” eyes. He clutches his shirt’s hem tightly, like a creation abandoned without shelter.

The monster sighs, knowing he understands.

“Even if you’re deceiving me, you’re still the complete you.”

This time, it’s Asta who walks toward the dream’s human. He shrinks back, like a ghost fearing the light, as if trying to avoid being burned away. But he grits his teeth, standing his ground, his green eyes turning into a damp expanse of moss.

“Lately, I’ve been dreaming—dreaming of our seven years together,” Asta says. “At first, I only saw your deceit. Then I realized something: the human who’s been with me all this time fooled me completely, but his lies were so clumsy. Every time he looked at me, his desire to protect me shone brighter than the sun.”

It finally reaches “Isidor.”

Behind it, the dream cracks, revealing slivers of real light.

Compared to that light, the dream’s glow pales.

Asta says, “Even a dream tries to deceive me. Don’t you think that’s exhausting, Isidor? The dream conjures the version I supposedly like, but you don’t believe that, so you forcibly strip away the real parts of yourself.”

The dream’s human chokes up, his crafted gentleness and calm vanishing.

He sees the real light behind Asta, and as it touches him, his shadow fades, like a painting dissolving in water. In his final moment, he seems to struggle to say something, but his voice vanishes.

“…Why do you always apologize?”

Asta mutters, as if to itself.

The illusion is the Isidor in the monster’s eyes, and it can guess what he would’ve said.

Then, without hesitation, it turns away. The dream shatters before it, crumbling with its steps. The real Asta opens its eyes, a fleeting gold flickering through its dark gaze.

It sees the inky green sea, coiling tendrils, and the human wrapped in them, staring with emerald-green eyes.

Noticing the monster awaken, the human’s eyes tremble.

Asta raises a hand, and the tendril covering his lips withdraws swiftly. Isidor looks at it with hesitant unease, not speaking immediately. Sensing its low mood, he seems eager to do something but feels helplessly useless.

From Asta’s collapse to waking, about twenty-four hours have passed.

During that time, the tendrils wrapped around him steadily channeled healing power into his wounds. When Asta wakes, the human hasn’t moved an inch.

Perhaps from being covered so long, his lips are redder than usual, like a bruise from heavy pressure.

Asta’s gaze lingers there for two seconds before dropping. Its inhuman, mesmerizing eyes look down at the human, its voice still cold and emotionless.

“I think you have a lot to explain to me.”

Even on the day they thought they’d part forever, Asta’s attitude was never this cold.

The oppressive weight of its harsh demeanor achieves the desired effect. Isidor sits uneasily before it, draped in a fluffy blanket.

The blanket was thrust into his hands by a stone-faced Asta, claiming it didn’t want to “waste the energy spent healing him.” But its warmth does bring a sense of comfort.

Isidor tucks himself deeper into the blanket, the soft fuzz brushing his neck, making him shiver slightly.

In truth, after a day and night of being wrapped in tendrils summoned by a displeased Asta, his body bears deep and shallow marks where they withdrew.

Isidor finds this mildly troubling, especially since the red marks are hypersensitive. Every touch feels starkly vivid.

Asta glances at him, frowning, and reaches to touch his neck.

It’s overwhelming.

Isidor nearly bites his tongue but quickly says, “I’m fine.” Unsure if the monster believes him, it withdraws its overly long fingers, cool yet faintly warm, the sensation fleeting. Isidor regrets his hasty explanation.

But Asta’s mood seems to worsen… Did he say something wrong?

Asta stares at the human, now tidied up and looking healthier despite unhealed wounds, finally rediscovering its anger. He’s always like this—even at his worst yesterday, he had to say “I’m fine.”

Does he think it can’t see through such an obvious lie?

It flips its palm, and a swarm of tendrils slithers forward from its wrist, each carrying a small paper scrap. They work deftly, soon assembling a complete sheet before Isidor.

His expression shifts from confusion to vague disbelief, then to the embarrassment of being exposed.

“Your will,” Asta says.

Asta lightly moves its fingertips, and the tendrils recede like a tide. It speaks flatly, “Any thoughts?”

In the monster’s hands is not only the will Isidor instructed to be shown only after everything was over, but the paper itself is visibly waterlogged, torn into scattered fragments. Presenting it directly to the human is both a question and a raw confession of its own emotions.

Isidor’s expression is filled with the embarrassment of being caught doing something wrong, mixed with a lack of confidence in his “deluded” intentions.

He opens his mouth quickly, but Asta adds slowly, “No apologizing.”

It sounds unreasonable, but it’s clearly effective on Isidor.

“I wasn’t…” he blurts out, then hesitates, averting his eyes. He chews over his words slowly. “I didn’t expect you to see this letter now. I… this wasn’t the timing I imagined.”

Isidor clearly wants to apologize but desperately restrains himself.

Asta taps the armrest of the chair lightly, its tone neutral, neither warm nor cold. “I know. This letter was meant for after you’d died for me. By the time I read it, I wouldn’t be able to find you to settle accounts, nor hear you admit it yourself.”

The human freezes, his emerald-green eyes locked by Asta’s icy gaze. He can’t bear to look away until the sting forces him to blink slowly. His most secret, insignificant thoughts are laid bare before the monster, exposed when he least expected it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, breaking the rule with an apology. “I shouldn’t disturb you anymore. I… I don’t deserve to see you again. But what I wrote in the letter was truly my final words. It must seem annoying, and I was still deceiving you, so it affected your mood, I…”

Asta almost laughs in exasperation.

“Isidor,” it interrupts, its tone brooking no argument. “Those pointless words aren’t necessary.”

The human’s voice cuts off abruptly. He bites his lip, realizing his words have angered it again.

Isidor isn’t entirely clueless—he just doesn’t dare believe. He stubbornly pulls every possibility toward the opposite conclusion, and only in moments like this does he betray a breathless, all-or-nothing anticipation.

He doesn’t expect forgiveness, but with his star so close, he can’t help the illusion that he could reach out and touch it.

That illusion could shatter him again.

“Did you think we’d never have this chance to meet again?” Asta says, each word deliberate, its anger condensed into the sentence. Every syllable is taut, like a bowstring ready to snap. “In your plan, you’d die yesterday, and I’d never find you again. Isidor, you said you’d do anything for me—so what if I wanted to see you one more time? In a hundred or ten thousand years, you’d never appear by my side again. And in the end, you’d still be a liar? Did you think meeting me was such a terrible thing?”

Isidor snaps his head up, staring at Asta in a daze. “How could that be?”

“Then tell me,” Asta leans closer, casting a shadow over Isidor’s eyelids. “All your feelings, everything you want to say to me. I don’t want to read them in a will—I want to hear them from you.”

How to begin? Isidor is at a loss, as if countless words clog his mind, overwhelming his ability to speak. In those deep, reflectionless eyes, he sees himself for the first time, centered in the pupils like an embedded emerald gem.

“I…” He hesitates before speaking. “I didn’t actually plan to die yesterday.”

The words catch even Asta off guard. The monster leans back quickly, and Isidor, sensing he’s found the true reason for its anger, hardly dares believe it.

It no longer looks so cold, only raising its eyes in skepticism.

Isidor observes it quietly. “Rather, I wanted to avoid dying as much as possible. I didn’t want you to bear the weight of anyone’s life. As long as I had the slightest chance of living, I’d keep going. So if you ever needed me, I could be there for you.”

“Then why did you let yourself end up like that yesterday?” Asta says, not hiding its emotions, as if deliberately letting them show so Isidor can see without doubt.

Those emotions reach Isidor, igniting stars in his eyes.

“Compared to a dead Isidor, a living Kingfisher is more valuable to the Institute. They wouldn’t kill me outright—they still need information they can pry from me. I anticipated this, so I held back a fraction of my strength to keep my healing system running.”

That much is true—Asta felt it yesterday.

The human’s lips curve slightly. Emboldened, he meets the monster’s eyes. “I won’t die. Don’t worry about me.”

He uses the word “worry,” a harmless probe. Asta doesn’t object, confirming its concern. Isidor feels as if he’s stepped from darkness into paradise in an instant, struggling to hide the trembling in his fingers, praying his emotions aren’t noticed too soon.

But Asta isn’t so easily convinced. It sharply catches the key point. “And then?”

It asks, “What happens after the Institute takes you?”

Isidor falls briefly silent, then, with a touch of unease, speaks honestly. “I’d probably be interrogated. But that’s fine. You know who I used to be, Asta. I’m not really afraid of pain.”

The monster hears the expected answer, looking at the human with reproach but, unusually, without the urge to sigh.

“And after that?” it asks tersely. “Tell me what you plan to do next, and why you left me that will.”

No matter how much Isidor explains, nothing carries the weight of that single sheet of paper.

The human’s emerald-green eyes shimmer so close, filled with the joy of something nearly lost and regained, mixed with his own hesitation and unease. His next words seem to embarrass him, not for any other reason but because baring these thoughts might hurt the monster.

Because he finally, clearly senses that Asta still cares for him, unchanged.

…Asta wonders how it ever risked letting him go.

It’s already pieced together most of the details.

For instance, Isidor couldn’t control every variable. Every step he took was on a knife’s edge—one misstep could have shattered him. He could have died in the special forces’ ambush, during interrogation, or in his next secret plan—the one to get Asta out of the Institute.

The last step is the most likely to kill him. Even one step shy of seeing the light outside, he wrote that will, pronouncing the path his fate might take.

Asta suddenly recalls what it knows about the “Kingfisher.”

He has never seen the sky outside the Institute.

“…Forget it,” the monster says, briefly lost in thought, cutting off Isidor’s words. The human looks into its eyes, as if desperately seeking something, yet fearful of an unwelcome outcome.

But he stares unblinkingly, his emerald-green eyes shimmering with anticipation, trembling like a butterfly about to break from its cocoon.

Asta says, “I don’t want to be angry with you anymore, Isidor—you’ve probably noticed. I still care deeply about you—you must hear that, too. So no more doing dangerous things on your own.”

“Okay,” Isidor answers immediately.

“I care about the whole you—whether it’s the gentle researcher Isidor who’s always been by my side, or the ‘Kingfisher’ who deceived me for dangerous reasons. There’s no need to keep pretending in front of me. It’s exhausting, and I don’t like it.”

“Okay,” Isidor says softly.

Asta’s words are like a key, unlocking the knot in his heart. Reflected in its eyes, from beginning to end, is the human himself. Isidor and the “Kingfisher” slowly merge into the person he is now, fully accepted by the monster, with no need to hide anything.

How could such an unbelievable possibility exist?

The human thinks, but his star is just that wonderful.

Asta says, “One last question. You can’t lie to me this time.”

It reaches out before speaking—an audacious move. Isidor trembles, knowing he can’t refuse it, can’t refuse this version of it. He finally blinks.

As if pressing the world’s switch, their hands touch lightly, and the light turns on.

It’s practically a spoiler for the question to come.

Isidor nods, holding his breath, boldly intertwining his fingers with the monster’s slender joints, grasping its hand after so long.

“Do you love me, Isidor?”

It could’ve stopped at the first half, but it indulges, calling his name. Isidor panics, feeling like he’s in an unending dream, yet reassured. His star is always like this—even when feigning coldness, it can’t help letting gentle, intimate starlight slip through. The starlight he thought he’d lost forever now falls on him again.

“Mm,” he says, afraid his trembling voice might be misunderstood.

Asta curves its lips, pulling him closer with a slight tug. The fluffy blanket nearly slips, but it catches it, its fingers brushing his neck again.

“And me?” it asks deliberately. “Do you think I love you?”

Isidor feels every sense focus on the hand grazing his neck, then stroking his hair. He barely registers the question, dazed, only thinking his star’s gentleness makes him want to cry.

“You don’t know—” he manages, regaining a sliver of clarity, clutching the slipping blanket. “I’m sorry, I never explained what ‘love’ is. Maybe I should’ve clarified first, so you could decide.”

He says this, but he has no desire to break the moment’s spell.

Every time, it’s he who’s been willful.

He thinks, stubbornly holding on to its hand.

Asta smiles. “Isidor, I’ve heard of a way to test if it’s love. Mind if I try?”

It did hear this—when chatting with John, who assumed they were lovers, offering a slew of bizarre tests, some brazen but perhaps effective.

Isidor murmurs another “mm,” tightening his grip on Asta’s hand, betraying his nervousness.

“It’s like this,” Asta explains, leaning closer, filling his vision. The human hears his own heartbeat, vivid and rhythmic, ceaselessly pulsing. A heart that should’ve stopped long ago keeps beating for the being before him, having seen everything he never regretted.

Should he close his eyes?

The monster gazes at the human, their faces so close it can see the watery sheen in those emerald-green eyes. Isidor doesn’t close them. Asta doesn’t grasp human notions of beauty, but those eyes make it hear its own racing heartbeat.

As the blanket slides to the ground, it leans in and kisses him.

For the first time, Asta tastes the mingling of lips—sweet, like its favorite cream croissant.