It had been one month since rehabilitation training began. Luka was now able to go about his day for roughly half a day at a time wearing a proper prosthetic body — not just a sample unit. The captain’s efforts had played an enormous role in making that possible.
Every time Luka was in pain, the captain would calm him with the scent of juniper. When his hypersensitive body trembled uncontrollably, the captain would soothe him with gentle oil massages.
At times, the captain would fill the entire captain’s quarters with thornless yellow roses to preserve Luka’s peace of mind. When Luka wasn’t wearing his prosthetic, he relied on the captain even to eat, and needed his hands for other bodily needs as well.
The month of rehabilitation had been filled entirely with the captain’s consideration and devotion. And the more that continued, the more naturally Luka came to depend on him.
He needed the captain more than anyone. A wretched habit had taken root in him — a faint unease that crept in whenever the captain wasn’t by his side. As a result, he had also developed a hobby of closely observing the captain, who had come to occupy the largest part of his world.
He seems cold toward the other crew members… but warm only to me. It’s not that I mind being treated specially, but… hmm….
The captain Luka had been watching would lie resting on the sofa or bed, only to receive calls from the bridge at all hours without warning. Every time, the voice Luka heard carried a cynicism he had never encountered before.
“No, I’ll check it myself tomorrow. Leave it alone and don’t touch it. Right, just have the report organized.”
There was no room for argument. He issued only precise orders, and cut off unnecessary reports with a simple “Summarize it and send it separately.” Yet the moment that same man caught sight of a hesitant Luka, his eyes would soften in an instant, and he would call out to him warmly.
“What’s wrong, Luka?”
At first, Luka couldn’t adjust to that stark difference in temperature and found himself deeply confused. Truthfully, he was still confused even now. It was clear that the captain expressed affection toward Luka — but he couldn’t pinpoint the exact nature of that affection.
Affection came in many forms, after all. The love between family, the fondness for a friend or colleague, and so on. He didn’t even know which kind he was receiving. That, in truth, was what he was most curious about.
The way he’s always stroking me… sometimes I wonder if he thinks of me as a pet….
The captain would occasionally ruffle Luka’s hair with a gentle shake. And yet whenever Luka’s senses grew hypersensitive from the prosthetic overloading, the captain would ask without missing a beat, “Should I disconnect the prosthetic for you?”
Watching that, it didn’t seem like being treated as a pet was the whole of it. It felt far more intimate than that — something closer to wanting to take care of every last thing about him, even the release of another person’s body.
It is affection. But it’s an affection that wants to hold every single part of me, down to my very depths….
Luka thought about the fact that he and the captain shared the same name, and let himself consider one particular possibility.
…Could it be that I was made from this person’s genes?
The universe called that a “parent-child relationship.” The last human from Earth, a person from five hundred years ago. Whatever his story was, if he had lived that long, surely his seed had been scattered across the far reaches of the cosmos. Perhaps Luka himself had some secret of birth hidden away.
But there’s not a single thing about us that resembles each other.
He had observed carefully for nearly a month, and found not a single clue that would lead him to suspect the man of being his biological father. He was a perfect stranger.
He said he’d answer anything I asked, anytime. Maybe I should just ask.
He had hesitated out of worry that he’d be bothering an already busy captain, and so a sluggish month had passed without him ever bringing it up. Now he’d even started watching for signs of the captain’s mood.
He was already receiving help with nearly every aspect of daily life — wouldn’t pressing him with questions on top of that be too much, even for the captain? He might start to find him a nuisance and pull away, no longer wanting to give him any attention.
Even he found his own thoughts absurd.
When did I ever care about what other people thought of me?
At the academy, he had never given a second thought to the opinions of those around him. When he performed sword dances before royalty and nobles, even as they showered him with enthusiastic praise, the only thought that crossed his mind was a crooked one: They only care when it suits them. How irritating.
Someone who loved the sword but thought priests were hypocrites. Who disliked people as a whole, yet loved his one and only father and a small handful of friends. A person full of contradictions — that was Luka. And now that very person was anxiously reading the captain’s moods, dreading the thought of being disliked.
Ugh, this is so annoying….
Even as he despised himself for growing weak, the contradiction of inevitably finding his gaze drawn back to the captain burned at him from the inside.
Perhaps it was because he had been sprawled alone on the sofa, groaning to himself. A pair of golden eyes, sensing his stare, turned to look at Luka. The moment their eyes met, Luka flinched — afraid his inner thoughts might have been found out. The captain set the pad he’d been holding down on the table with a soft thud and turned his body fully toward Luka.
“What’s the matter, Luka. Do you have something to say?”
He dropped everything he’d been doing and asked warmly. The old Luka would have said “No” bluntly. But having spent a month living in these captain’s quarters, he had grown somewhat attached to him. So he answered honestly.
“No, it’s just… you always seem like you’re working.”
“There’s a lot to keep an eye on when it comes to a ship.”
“…That much?”
“Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever properly explained the Nautilus to you. Would you like me to tell you more?”
“…If it’s going to take up your time, I don’t need to hear it.”
“Why are you tiptoeing around me? It’s not like this kind of conversation takes that long.”
“…….”
Luka fidgeted with his hands before speaking carefully.
“Then… I want to know.”
Luka answered primly, lifting his eyes — two bright, glimmering points of light peeking out from beneath dark hair. His hair had grown quite long during his time on the Nautilus, shaggy enough to fall across his face.
It was fortunate, then, that his hair hid the particular kind of cuteness unique to Luka. If that cuteness were on full display at every moment, the captain wouldn’t have been able to hold himself back — he would have rushed to Luka and covered him in kisses.
Tap.
The captain reactivated the hologram pad he had set on the table. A translucent blue screen rose into the air, rendering a three-dimensional full-body model of the Nautilus.
“This hunk of metal is bigger and more sensitive than you’d think.”
The ship spread out before Luka’s eyes was intricate and magnificent — a Bastion-class siege cruiser stretching two kilometers in length. It was less a simple means of transport and more a vast steel fortress drifting through space.
“There are 3,100 crew members alone. From combat personnel to technical staff, medical teams, and the service workers responsible for their meals and daily lives — over three thousand lives hang on my every decision.”
With each movement of the captain’s fingers, key facilities across the ship blinked red on the display.
“The thing I’m most attentive to is the ‘Bio Dome’ on the lower decks. It’s a massive greenhouse that produces the oxygen and food our crew needs. If the nutrient concentration in the hydroponic systems is off by even 0.1%, the ship’s entire food supply chain falls apart. That crucial work is handled by Ceres.”
Ceres. The Botanist. Every time the captain brought yellow roses, he never failed to mention “Ceres gave these to me.” Luka had quietly felt a sense of closeness toward them, yet had never actually seen their face. Most likely, as the head of what the captain called the most important facility on board, they were practically living locked away inside it.
The captain’s explanation continued.
“The ‘Aethernos Reactor’ — the ship’s heart — also needs its output checked every hour. Even the slightest imbalance and the Nautilus could be reduced to cosmic dust in an instant.”
The captain flipped through the status reports for the external wall surveillance sensors running around the clock, and then for the supraspace jump engine kept on standby against the possibility of pursuit by the Reaper of Aegis.
From energy allocations for each sector to psychological state reports for the crew, the documents awaiting his authorization were endless.
The sheer volume of work — far greater than Luka had imagined — made his lips part slightly. No one had ever explained it to him before, so he simply hadn’t known. He hadn’t realized that the man before him was this remarkable.
“Every one of the crew lost their homeland and followed me here. The moment I take my eyes off things even briefly, people grow unsettled. That’s why I create the rules — and why I’m the first one to hold the line at the edge of those rules.”
The captain finally switched the pad off completely, having stared at it for so long. Then, looking Luka directly in the eyes, he whispered low.
“But Luka, no matter how busy I am, my most important duty is something else entirely.”
He moved a little closer to Luka. Before long he was sitting right beside him, and naturally lifted him into his arms.
“It’s checking how many times the little patient in my room smiled today, and whether his time adapting to the prosthetic has gotten any longer. To me, that matters far more than the engine output of this entire ship.”
