Moon Theory (ABO)Ch64 - therapy, on speed dial

“I will calculate whether or not it is worth it. Until then, Noah, will you allow me to stay for a little longer?”

—Or so, is what Yang Rong had said a week prior. Now, however, as he sits on the edge of a pristine white bed (with newly washed sheets, because he knows that the resident some doors over is a stickler for cleanliness despite not being in the vicinity so sue Yang Rong if he caters), the colonel can only sigh in defeat. d836Es

By the bedstand is a zinc handgun currently taken apart. The grip panels are removed for cleaning and Yang Rong works a bore brush several times through the barrel. He does it as meticulously as always – applying solvent, thoroughly scrubbing, swapping patches – and it’s easy to tell how many times he has done this before.

Truth be told, it has been a while since he’d properly cleaned his firearms. The rifle, lubricated just a few minutes earlier, also lies conspicuously atop the small nightstand and contrasts with the whiteness of the room. Yang Rong himself is also a domineering sight – black shirt and a darker pair of trousers that don’t match any of the things here.

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A knock on the door interrupts him.

“—Colonel Yang,” comes a pleasant female voice. 9JSkXU

Allaire. He can recognize her very easily now. The woman hadn’t bothered him for most of the week, minus the few times he’d seen her in the pantry downstairs. She’d always be interacting with the… hotel guests – some infected folk from the slums that Yang Rong has zero attachments to. It is odd, to say the least, how he finds Noah to be different from them all.

He answers without looking up. “I’m here.”

Allaire is also not one he cares for – though he does spare her time for she’s Noah’s… caretaker, for lack of better classification. The young woman opens the door without much regard – and by that, he means Allaire basically wrenches open the door loudly, uncaring if he’d ever given her permission to do so. Not that he has any say in this because he is freeloading off their property after all.

A part of him thinks it’s absurd how he’d fallen to such a state – sheltered in the slums, surrounded by infected folk he’d be poised to get rid of if he were his more rational, pragmatic self. There really is little merit to hosting women, men or children if they show obvious symptoms. One decade and a half in the field (perhaps more, but he’d forgotten by now) and Colonel Yang has become no stranger to the radiation.

There really are close to zero individuals who’ve survived the intensity of it. Yang Rong may have been the only one – until he found Noah, the strangest, most entrancing, prettiest person he’s ever seen, not at all like the half-hybrids with bulged eye sockets, awkward limbs, deranged minds. And he can say with certainty that Noah’s mind is not deranged in the slightest – in fact, if he delved deeper, Noah is intelligent all the way through. From his sharp tongue to sharper eyes to… just about everything, really, that has Yang Rong questioning himself into mental collapse.

And crap, has Yang Rong really fallen to such a state to be this engrossed?

The answer is… probably, when he’d been so distracted he misheard Allaire talking about something right in front of him. The woman holds a suspicious gray transceiver in her hands and is in the process of explaining some things to him, though all he selective registers are a few words.

“What?” Yang Rong says, his expression blank as he takes the device from her. “Why would I need to use this to contact Noah? Is he no longer willing to talk with me face to face?” d8Z2tQ

Allaire blinks her long lashes a few times before letting out a chuckle. She taps her freshly-painted nails against the bedstand and says, “Colonel Yang, if you’ve heard a single thing I’ve said the past minute, you wouldn’t be this confused. I don’t mind, however. Incredulity is a good look on your handsome face.”

Colonel Yang frowns as he plays with the radio device. It’s a very familiar model – very familiar colors, very familiar setup, very familiar design that all reminds him of one—

“This is Shi Luo’s,” he announces sourly. “I’ve seen the shady doctor play with this enough times to recognize it at a single glance. Why is it here?”

“It’s Noah’s,” Allaire corrects him cheekily. “They’re matching. Shi Luo always gives him extras to contact him with if anything unexpected occurs—cute, isn’t it?” NmXqLy

“It isn’t,” he replies. He looks at her and raises a sharp brow. “And? Why are you giving it to me?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“I am not giving it to you, Colonel Yang,” she says – and there it is again, the slight tease in her tone that inexplicably peeves him. Yang Rong, after all, is one to do the teasing and not the other way around. Allaire repeats herself once more with a smile, “Little Noah told me to tell you to use it to contact your, hm, half-brother in case you’d need a bit of backup. Unfortunately, this device is only modded to go through Shi Luo’s personal line and not to your Nexus friends, so you’d have to contact him then subsequently contact the Nexus and then subsequently follow up with the military and your squad.”

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Outside the room, distinct voices have started to accumulate – Allaire is talking to Noah who is replying with small hums (Yang Rong can tell from the timbre of his voice anywhere). They’re speaking so softly Yang Rong cannot hope to eavesdrop even with his enhanced alpha hearing. Some short seconds later, the voices disperse and light footsteps follow.

With a sigh, Yang Rong stares at the gray transceiver in his hands, taps a few buttons (at the very least, he had heard the most important instructions from Allaire) and sets the frequency to connect. CY927i

“…Fuck,” he groans to himself as he waits. He slides a palm on his dark hair. “This is worse than a breakup and I have yet to even get into a relationship with you, Noah.”

“—What?” comes a sudden voice followed by a crackle of static. The call had connected in less than a second – and if Yang Rong weren’t irked before, he is definitely pissed now. Shi Luo, for all his scholar and his poshness, does not stutter even once when he proceeds to interrogate coldly. “Who are you and how have you gotten ahold of this device?”

“…” Yang Rong has seldom heard such a tone coming from a man who is so pressed to maintain a clean reputation. “It’s Yang Rong.”

“…” Shi Luo goes silent for a few seconds – of course he should, considering how he’d inadvertently admitted to forgetting the voice of his own half-sibling. He recovers instantly, however. “Yang Rong, where are you and where is Noah?” H6NiRw

Back to that same, fake gentle tone. Yang Rong is just about to hurl the phone out the nonexistent window. “Gone.”

“What do you imply?”

“I said the little kitten has just gone out for a walk,” Yang Rong says as he leans backward, assuming a more dominant posture. Back straightened, one arm on the table, tapping incessantly on the zinc pistol. “He has left me with this nifty device which I am currently using to contact you, my trusted affiliate.”

“…” Shi Luo can be heard taking off his glasses and placing it on the table. Yang Rong had grown accustomed to the doctor’s mannerisms – he can even see those neat eyebrows twitching from hundreds of miles away. “What are you planning, Yang Rong? A missing man like you comes up on radar to simply give me a call? And you are with Noah, of all people—surely you hold immoral thoughts in that insatiable head of yours?” 15tUKx

Shi Luo isn’t wrong per say, but to hear that out of him only makes Yang Rong more irked. Not to mention, the doctor took all of five seconds to figure out his exact predicament, his motive, his association with Noah – everything, really, and as much as Yang Rong loathes the other’s brain capacity, it certainly makes explanations a lot simpler.

He could potentially hold an argument with the doctor from his refuge five hundred miles away, but Yang Rong holds more to his maturity (or at least, he tries to). He only sighs and says, “I have been declared dead after all?”

“The military has an ongoing manhunt for you, Colonel Yang,” comes the clearly unamused voice. “Not exactly a manhunt as it is a rescue mission, I suppose, though they haven’t the slightest clue where to start looking – not after your First Unit gave some rather inadequate clues to your whereabouts.”

“Inadequate clues,” Yang Rong repeats. “Such as?” STOB3i

“First it was that you’d gone under a tidal wave only to be sunk deep into quicksand, never to be recovered again,” Shi Luo says monotonously. “Then it was that you’d been swept through the Paramus and later carried via… ‘Lochness transportation’ and subsequently flew a startling three-thousand-meter altitude, displaced by a massive hurricane. Command looked into it and confirmed there were no such unnatural disasters at the time of your disappearance – they did pinpoint the sea wave, however.”

“Fucking—” Colonel Yang swears. “Those fucking fools! To think their daddy would be swept away so unheroically—who the fuck thought of such a lame narrative?!”

“So?” Shi Luo is probably giving him that look again – the one he associates with absolute judgment. Eyes lidded halfway, lips pursed. He’s likely leaning against one arm too, that cocky bastard. “What exactly happened to you, Colonel Yang—or do you no longer bear the status of colonel? Dereliction of duty, fugitive on the run, escorting an omega hybrid instead of directly reporting him to the Nexus – you do understand that such matters are criminal?”

“And you, Dr. Shi?” Yang Rong raises an eyebrow in provocation – it is unfortunate that the other can’t see. “To have relations with that very same omega hybrid and to keep him under wraps for two decades – is that not criminal?” KaG4uC

A slight pause is followed by a light chuckle. Shi Luo says, “Of course it is. In fact, it is also criminal for General Xie and I to conceal your infection. Such things aside, I believe you have a reason to reach out to me like this?”

Yang Rong hums. “Originally, I was to have you procure a vehicle for me to regroup with my unit.”

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“Originally?”

“My plans have changed,” Yang Rong replies. He plops his back onto the mattress – the bed strains underneath – and he sighs. “I rephrase, my plans are in disarray, Shi Luo. I need advice.” 1dHRL4

“…” The doctor says concisely, “Yang Rong, I am a doctor and scientist, not a therapist. If the latter is what you are looking for, I am afraid that mental health support isn’t a priority and the Nexus does not provide funding for such an outdated—”

“You see,” Yang Rong cuts him off crudely and spirals into a monologue of his own. “There is a certain person I have taken quite a liking to – I’ve confessed and all – and when I’d thought things were going swell – we’ve kissed and gone through some other intimate engagements, nevermind that most of them were not… entirely consensual. The problem is, I have a job to do and this individual is wholly unsupportive of it. I, a grown man with a substantial career, am due to be rejected. That isn’t all. This person—”

“Noah,” Shi Luo interjects with mild aggravation in his tone. “You may say his name, Yang Rong. I am no blockhead.”

“Noah,” Yang Rong says precisely, “is a half-hybrid who may be of substantial use for the Nexus’ research. A fertile omega like him may be able to birth radiation-resistive children. Logically, his existence should not be kept a secret but Shi Luo, I…” GO0qdD

“You personally like him,” Shi Luo says with a drawn-out sigh. Yang Rong could practically see the doctor rubbing his nose bridge tiredly. There is some commotion on the other end – they may have to cut the call short. “Yang Rong, there is a lot you do not know about Noah, I’m sure. I have been with him for almost all his childhood while you were tossed into whatever military duties, uncaring of anyone around you. I can assure you that Noah’s existence has been hidden since he was born, and a good portion of that is due to his father.”

“General Xie,” Yang Rong says. “I am aware.”

“Then you must also be aware that they do not share the most… functional of relationships,” Shi Luo responds. “The rumors go that General Xie’s son and beloved wife have died in the border breach twelve years ago. In actuality, it is that he permitted his infected wife to escape to hide in the slums.”

“Noah said his mother has died.” P0x9 c

“She has died,” Shi Luo confirms. “The true story goes: in an animalistic fit, Noah’s mother mutated into a crazed anomaly who can no longer be saved. An eight-year-old child had nearly made it out of the city before his mother, a bloodthirsty carnivore, dug her claws into his stomach. The child, unable to control his hybrid, morphed to kill her in self-defense.”

Yang Rong listens in silence.

Shi Luo doesn’t need to be prompted to continue. “General Xie threw his son out to the slums.”

The colonel only blocks his eyes with the back of his hand, shielding himself from the bright ceiling lights. “Why are you telling me this, Shi Luo?” 41My9c

“I do hold certain… feelings for Noah,” Shi Luo says. “Beyond a senseless scope of love, that is. Yang Rong, if you let him be detained in a laboratory other than mine, then I may send you to an early grave.”

“…A laboratory other than yours,” Yang Rong points out, his tone kept unexpressive. “What exactly is it that you feel for him? Affection or… something else I cannot fathom in your pursuit of science?”

“I am interested in aberrants,” Shi Luo says simply. “Consider it a patient-doctor relationship.”

“Hm.” CQr5qX

“Additionally, due to his infection, there is little possibility of a functional, more intimate relationship with me. Theoretically, I may die from simple contact.” Shi Luo follows up with a low chuckle. It doesn’t carry mirth as it does resignation. “But Yang Rong, no matter how skewed my intentions are, I must inform you of something.”

“Hm.” Yang Rong closes his eyes. “Do tell.”

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Shi Luo lowers his voice and says into the microphone, more seriously than Yang Rong’s ever heard out of that sophisticated mouth of his, “I have done more to protect him than you ever will.”

The doctor speaks clearly and concisely, “Colonel Yang, you are starting to remind me of a certain general I hold ill regards for – perhaps you have spent too much time training with Xie Liwei that your similarities only ooze more and more.” K2mVhI

“Are we really that similar?”

“In the simplest of words, yes,” Shi Luo responds. “The two of you are ruthless and cold—General Xie more of the latter, but you, Colonel Yang, lack empathy.”

Yang Rong chuckles slightly. “Coming from you, Dr. Shi, who has set his sights on him solely because of his irregularity? The thought is rather unnerving.”

“Indeed… but I do empathize,” the man says. “With him, at the very least. I wouldn’t harm him—in fact, I’m mesmerized to keep him.” xFd79u

“As a personal science subject,” Yang Rong says. “I am unsure whose mind is more twisted, Dr. Shi – mine or yours.”

The commotion gets louder on the other side – a few knocks on the door, a few muted calls for the doctor to answer. Shi Luo tells them to hold for a moment.

“A few more words, Colonel Yang,” the doctor says, changing the topic abruptly. “The city is temporarily shutting its scanning systems for inspection today. If there is maintenance to be held, I will have to reissue and repatch your ID. Call me before you enter the city so we may get through security. As for the other matter…”

He spoke very quickly, but his next words are glazed in ice. In a low and dangerous tone – the doctor is an alpha after all, definitely one worthy of status too – Shi Luo says into the microphone, “If you have wavering thoughts, perhaps the better course of action is to get out of his sight permanently.” jstJfo

“…” Yang Rong can only sigh softly. “I will ponder on it.”

The call is cut off.