Hinode had once had a lover. That lover had been an Eastern dragon with beautiful red scales and warm eyes. Aphelion hadn’t liked the lover.
Hey, you can guess what happened next, right?
One day, when Hinode had gone out, Aphelion took his friends—now known as the Council—and ambushed the lover. The fight was long and fierce, but Aphelion had already asked someone to distract Hinode. By the time he realized something was wrong, it’d been too late.
Hinode had ran back home, constantly shifting between fox and human form as his mood fluctuated. Aphelion had been awaiting him, smile kind. His words when Hinode asked for his lover sent a chill through the air.
‘Oh,’ Aphelion had said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. ‘That bastard? He’s dead. I scattered his Energy Condensation across the world. Hinode, you won’t have to cater to him ever again.’
That lover. His name… it’d been—
“—Yugure.”
The man stared at him, head tilted to the side and a frown set onto his face. “How do you know my name?”
Hinode hesitated, “That—” Oh, he was back in his human form. When had that happened? For that matter, how had he ended up on Yugure’s lap? “—is a great question. One which I’m going to be refraining from answering. Bye!”
He turned away stiffly, heading away from the curious stare of his not lover. When Hinode rounded the corner, he gave up walking and fucking ran. Ran from his lover’s lookalike. Ran from the memories crowding his head. Ran from the beautiful, beautiful eyes that haunted his dreams and every waking moment. Hinode ran.
***
“We have to go back tomorrow for further negotiations. In the meantime, though, Ephemeral Dreams has been barred from the public. Those damn humans are being unnecessarily stubborn,” Aphelion said, collapsing onto the couch in exhaustion.
“What did you expect?” Hinode asked, only half-listening. “Humans… yeah.”
“…that man is not your lover.” Hinode flinched at the dark tone. He glanced at his brother, who was glowering down at the table and gripping his pants in a white-knuckled grip. “He cannot be. It was my mistake in thinking you’d be gone, and even further my fault for letting him out of the room before confirming your absence.”
Hinode shrugged staring out the window towards the fading sun. “I never said he was. Feeling guilty, brother?”
It was mean of him, Hinode knew, but even after a million years, the loss of his lover weighed heavily on his mind. After Yugure’s death, the relationship between him and Aphelion had never been the same again. It had taken about five thousand or so years for Hinode to talk to his brother again, and even to this day he had not forgiven Aphelion. Adding to that, Aphelion still refused to admit his wrongdoings.
“He cannot have reincarnated, I made sure of it,” Aphelion insisted, ignoring Hinode’s words. The mood in the room plummeted.
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’m sure you did,” Hinode said icily. “But, well, dragons always have been mysterious creatures even to us, haven’t they? Who knows how the Heavens work?”
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***
“Vajs bea tfgf,” Cqtfilbc bgvfgfv, rabqqlcu Llcbvf ogbw fcafglcu atf wffalcu gbbw.
Hinode resisted the urge to growl—Supreme chirped loudly in offence for him—and instead stormed away from his brother and back to the lobby. Fine. Whatever. It wasn’t like Hinode had wanted to listen to humans talk on and on about something-or-other again.
He slumped angrily onto the couch and nearly tore open his bag to look for his snacks. He ripped open a packet of chips and started on them with vigor. Idiot brother, no wonder their parents had adopted Hinode! Aphelion was stupid!
“Woah, what did those chips ever do to you?”
Hinode rolled his eyes so hard he thought he saw the back of his head. He paused in his anger-bingeing and turned to the speaker with a toothy smile. “Mind your own business, human.”
The woman laughed; she was clearly disturbed in the head because she not only sat next to him but stole one of his chips as well. Then, under his disbelieving gaze, she popped it into her mouth.
“What?” she asked when she saw his look. “Can’t spare a few chips? Ooh, these are good. Where’d you get them? What’s your bird’s name?”
“Nowhere you would know. None of your business. Who even are you?”
“Aria Horne of the U.F.C!” Why did she sound so proud of that? “And you? You’re one of those… Arcane, aren’t you?”
“Sugar, the world’s greatest Investigator.”
Horne looked at him, wide-eyed. “Really now? That’s cool, kid.”
“Do not call me kid. I am older than every human in this building combined. You’re practically a baby to me.”
“You’ve got sass.” She sounded approving. “Nice. No wonder Captain is so interested in you.”
Hinode furrowed his brows. “Who? And stop stealing my snacks!”
He was ignored. It’d been happening a lot lately. Horne waved a hand. “You know… red hair, super tall, gold eyes? Jawline looks like you could grate cheese on it?”
“Yugure?”
“You know our Captain?”
Hinode hesitated, then said, “No. At least, I don’t think so.” He groaned and rubbed at his head. “It’s weird. He feels like and looks like someone I once knew, several thousand years ago, but—why am I even telling you all this?”
Horne smiled at him sympathetically. “Sometimes, we all need to talk to someone who won’t judge.”
“…that’s creepy.” Hinode got up, Supreme letting out a noise of complaint when it was jostled. “I’m going now. See you never, I guess.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that!” Horne called after him when he walked away. “Just you wait!”
He ignored her. See how she likes that.
***
They met again.
Hinode felt irked as Horne waved at him cheerfully. Then his eyes slipped towards her Captain, and he felt like crying. The hell, why was this happening?
They, meaning Aphelion, a team of humans from the U.F.C, and a team of the best Investigators, were gathered in a room. The Investigators, including Hinode, obviously felt wronged when they saw Aphelion had gathered humans as well.
“President,” an Investigator called Eyeless said hesitantly, “Do we really need… well, even so, humans can’t enter Cases in the first place.”
Aphelion smiled grimly. “It would seem that real-life rules about handling Malevolents do not apply in Ephemeral Dreams, as our human friends have tested without telling us. They can also harm the Malevolents, though only in the game.”
Hinode sent a sharp look towards the group of humans. They’d done what?
“Besides that, the human over there has an overly large amount of Energy Condensation, even for an Arcane, as you may all have noticed.” Aphelion shot Hinode a warning glance. “The human leaders… insisted they be in this team as well.”
Out of the corner of his left eye, Hinode saw the humans bristle as they were talked about as is if they weren’t even there. Horne even opened her mouth to say something but was stopped by Yu—her captain.
Hinode continued to stare for a minute longer and only looked away when the captain glanced towards him, chewing lazily on his popcorn.
“When do we enter?” Hinode asked. “Teams or singles? And if the Cases nor Malevolents work in the way we’re used to, will our usual gadgets work?”
“It should,” Aphelion said. “But we’re sending a few Investigators ahead of you just in case.”
“When you say, ‘just in case,’ do you mean to say you’re sending ‘expendables’ ahead as sacrifices to gather information?” a human suddenly asked, frowning.
Aphelion didn’t even give him a glance. “It is. Besides, even if they die, their Energy Condensation will be set free once the Cases are solved, thus allowing them to enter the reincarnation cycle.”
“Ok, one: the hell is energy condensation? Two: reincarnation is real?” Horne interrupted.
Investigator Peaches shrugged, eyeing her in distaste, “Energy Condensation is what you humans call souls. And what happens after death is complicated. Not like humans could understand anything.”
“Oh, that is it!” a male human snapped. “What is it with you bastards and us? Got a problem? Yeah, we’re human, so what? You heard your boss, we can help. Shouldn’t that be all that matters? Saving the hostages and ridding the world of ‘Malevolents’?”
“That’s what you think,” Eyeless muttered.
“Got something to say, cyclopes?”
“I said, that’s what you think! We’re not doing this because we want to. It’s our job to save helpless little humans like you because the Arcane Laws state so!”
“Then you can shove your laws and go crawling back—!”
The room erupted into shouts and threats. Aphelion was left scrambling for order and Hinode sighed loudly. He tossed the rest of his popcorn into the trash and started on a couple of candy canes. While the rest were arguing, Hinode took up the folder Aphelion had left on his desk and flipped through it.
Ephemeral Dreams… information on the Arcane sent first into the Cases… the files on the humans and Investigators in the room… guesses on the Malevolents inside the game… the letter and information on the ‘war’ sent by the self-proclaimed queen… guesses on who the ‘queen’ was… things Hinode could’ve guessed by himself.
He was so caught up in the files that he didn’t notice the human by his side until a voice spoke right next to his ear.
“Anything you didn’t know already?” Deep and as smooth as velvet; like the best of chocolate paired with rich, expensive wine.
For a moment, Hinode was thrown back into his past, remembering the times he’d fallen asleep listening to that exact same voice reading a story aloud. The rustle of leaves swaying gently and the burble of a stream to his left. A firm thigh beneath his snout and his tails swaying gently with every stroke down his spine.
Ah, how he missed the past.
I suddenly like big bro aphelion less than before
I decided i already love ML tho (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)
Thank you for the chapter!!! ❤️❤️
😢sounds really sad
cant wait to know more about Yugure👀 thanks for the chapter!
thanks for the chapter <3
I need to know what happened and why Aphelion seems to hate the ML so much…
Thanks for the chapter 🍆
Omg. Brotherly love can be such a cruel thing. I can already sniff out how Sugar is going to have lots of sweet flashbacks and ends up falling head over heals for Yugure again. Besides I kinda like the sassy Horne. 😏
big bro whyd you kill him ha?
thank you for the chapter 💖