Crunch-!
The crispness of the apple’s flesh exploded forth with a sweet and tangy taste inside Sirius’ mouth. He did not say much, intent on watching Herta peel an apple with ease. Her nimble fingers made short work of the red skin as they fell onto the table.
“So, aside from the old mentor, you had no other visitors? Count yourself lucky, then.”
He was accustomed to Herta’s high-landish remarks. If it were others, it might have been embarrassing. But not for Herta. It did not take long before the piece of apple turned into a perfect swan sculpture.
‘How am I going to eat it now?’
Under Sirius’ watch, Herta left it alone for a second before taking its head part out. She did not hesitate to put it inside her mouth. The crunch was noticeable due to the silence between them—awkwardness, even.
“Do you want me to feed you?” She gestured to the plate. “Or are you too embarrassed to admit it yourself, hm?”
“...No.”
Sirius shook his head rather awkwardly as he chose one of the swan’s wings. He then remembered the drunk man they encountered and asked about him. Herta did not mind narrating his sob story, occasionally making sharp remarks on how a person could fall to that extent.
Herta stared at the boy, not knowing what he was thinking. She was more than familiar with him, still, hence she saw clues.
‘The shaking of his mouth’s tip. Stopped blinking for five seconds. The shrinkage of his irises by about five percent…’
The more she listed out Sirius’ microexpressions, the more she validated the fact he was thinking about something negative. It is his biggest flaw, something not even Herta could diagnose the reason for. Only Sirius himself knows about the answer…
Which was why she treated it as a puzzle game.
“Did he have any family?”
His head looked back up as he asked her.
“No. At least not now. The background report sent over by those uninteresting bunch stated he was divorced. He lost custody of his children and never met them again.”
Failing marriage, failing career.
Sirius swore he never saw something this fucked up since birth. The disbelief and incredulousness showed on his face.
“What a fucked up life…”
“Fucked up, indeed.”
“..?!”
Only then did Sirius belatedly realize he cursed right in front of Herta. More shockingly, she followed suit and cursed too!
Seeing the shock plastered all over his face, she harrumphed before asking:
“Am I not allowed to curse?”
“...Of course not. It’s just… many would be shocked when they hear you do so.”
His flustered look gave her a twisted sense of satisfaction.
“Does it matter in the end? The opinions of others will never concern me.”
Herta’s dismissive attitude was something that could never be faked. Sirius saw the glaring difference between them—the differences of their outlook in life.
‘Two lifetimes… and I am bested by a ten-year-old girl.’
Most people would find themselves affected by public opinion one way or another. Even if they know it is something that should never happen, they find themselves getting hurt, tired, and validated by the words around them. Their constant need to seek self-validation ultimately ends up in a self-destructive manner, something he understands very well.
He is doing the same thing now, after all.
Herta truly never cared about the others’ thoughts. The world might as well turn against her and she would never bat an eye. She would even find amusement in saving it from cataclysmic disasters several times, reveling in the conflicted and desperate looks they would give afterward.
Of course, as the treasured jewel of the Federation, the greatest genius since the inception of mankind on The Blue, that event would never happen.
‘And she would still save this planet more than twenty times… maybe she finds it interesting to resolve global cataclysm?’
Sirius looked at Herta and saw she was back to making another sculpture over an apple. He looked at the eyes he could never understand, at the face who did not leak a hint of her true thoughts, as he questioned his years of supposed progress.
He sought to discover Herta’s human side, something he never saw beyond the tiring glow of blue light emitted by the screen. Such was an achievement comparable to finding a universal cure for all diseases. Sirius wanted to validate himself through these actions… and prove unto himself that this second chance granted to him by whatever cosmic power is not useless.
However, the unbridgeable gap between the two made him doubt himself. Sirius could not view things through her lens, making it difficult to pull off such a feat.
‘When will I truly… understand her?’
*****
Sirius’ three days at the hospital was the last ‘long break’ he took. After being discharged, he went straight back to work. He fulfilled the obligations tied to his role as Herta’s research assistant—from organizing official paperworks down to helping her with the experiments themselves. The Federation held strict limitations for experiments pertaining to biological sciences, hence most of its workforce’s focus lay on material sciences.
Herta’s specialization that spanned only nine years far exceeded what most researchers in their old age could come up with. Their experiences bore little meaning in the face of someone as absurd as her.
As time went by, his previous guesses were confirmed. Herta’s discovery of imaginary energy from the flower, helianthus marianum, was the starting point. Her academic attainments in normal physics were so high she pierced through the metaphysical side of the universe. She did not require any external intervention—Aeons and the likes—to achieve such a feat.
The moment she submitted her findings to the Federation, they no longer withheld any other resources from Herta. Monthly salary was but a formality at this point. One word from her and they would send over the materials she requested. This resulted in their schedules being more packed than before. The prodigies of her age no longer held any qualifications to work with her on a project. The veteran researchers—all of whom have been prodigies since their youth—lined up to become Herta’s co-researchers.
In such a manner, eight years had gone by.
“Countless eyes have littered the hallway…”
Sirius’ eyes shot wide open the moment his body heard the familiar melody. The warmth of his pillow and the snuggly blanket covering his entire body longed for sleep. His blurred mind and heavy eyelids shackled him to the confines of his bed.
“The parts we play, will they end in decay…”
His consciousness resurfaced amidst the familiar song playing as his alarm. The gentle, soft voice sang in perfect tune, causing a tide of chills to sweep through his entire body.
“Hm…”
Sirius hastily grasped the approximate location of his phone before locating it ten seconds later. He pressed on its power button once, snoozing the alarm. His eyes remained dazed as he looked at the ceiling with a blurry vision.
‘I… asked her to sing it.’
He slowly returned to reality and recalled the events behind this song. In his previous life, there was a fan-made song specifically for Herta, String Theory. Out of his whims, Sirius worked on restoring the song. He planned to find someone who could take his crooked note sheets and rhymed lyrics to life… until Herta found out about this endeavor and did it herself.
The result was absolutely mindblowing. Herta singing a song meant for her and her alone struck differently. Hearing the first line alone was enough to send Sirius to a trance. He didn’t say anything until the song ended. Herta tried probing for his reactions, only to earn a comment of it being heavenly. His emotions were chaotic to the point any attempts to diagnose him psychologically ended in failure.
What she did not know was that Sirius’ daze lasted until he returned home. His tense heart dropped, now knowing the reason behind others’ fanaticism for the universe’s peerless gem.
“...She turned it into a fucking masterpiece.”
Sirius later discovered that hearing the first phrase from the song would trigger his body to wake up, thus it turned into his everyday alarm. Herta did not upload that song anywhere else, keeping it as a secret between them. In short, he is the luckiest bastard on Earth… and on The Blue.
“How on earth did I let it finish..?”
A single line of the song was enough to wake him up; half of the song at worst. His fatigue this time far outweighed all his previous all-nighters.
He shook his head as he stood up from the bed, not allowing sleepiness to linger any further. Sirius did his usual stretch, standing barefooted on the carpeted floor, before heading to the bathroom for a quick shower. The cold drops of water trickling down his body woke him up completely. He swiftly finished applying shampoo and scrubbing his entire body together with soap. A five minute shower was done just like that.
His hand swiftly took the towel before stopping in front of a bathroom mirror. It reflected his figure. His shoulder-length black hair had long been overdue. Its sides were cut irregularly, creating a messy hairstyle that somehow did not look bad on him. It looked a tad bit like a wolfcut, but slightly worse.
His face did not have any blemish. Its sole flaw was its tendency to be more oily during the day. His wide shoulders and well-developed muscles looked pleasing to the eyes. The result of multiple activations of [Heaven Sometimes Rewards Hard Work] brought Sirius to the forefront of this world’s humans in physical aspects. While he could not pull off superman-like feats similar to flying and lifting an entire building alone, he could come out on top against professional athletes. Even surpassing them by a large margin, depending on which sport it was.
Being reminded of it did not bring much joy to him, only frustration.
‘Relying on luck is a desperate attempt…’
Sirius’ usual schedule did not prevent him from furthering his refinements of the Herta Space Station blueprint. His green-rated talent is activated by constantly working towards one’s goal. As long as effort is exerted to achieve it, heaven sometimes rewards his hard work.
Unfortunately, heaven does not seem to be on his side this time. Its activities all yielded several other sectors of the blueprint. The first to come was the antigravity systems, followed by its navigation systems, fixed-orbiting principle, and so on.
These discoveries are massive to say the least… but they did not lay on his expertise.
Seeing no luck in obtaining the thruster blueprint, he decided to switch to the navigation field. It took a long time to digest the knowledge he obtained from his talent, something he hasn't completed even now. All Sirius could blame was his skill issue.
He glanced at the wall clock after coming out of the bathroom. The glaring “8:15” made him almost jump out of fright. The five-minute-shower ate up fifteen minutes of his time!
Recalling the scheduled test run scheduled at 8:30, Sirius became swifter in his actions. He created a peanut butter and jam sandwich, rubbed butter on it, and threw it into the air fryer for five minutes. The technological advancements of The Blue did not phase out the almighty air fryer. It was something that saved him in his brief time at college, and it will continue to do so now.
During these five minutes, Sirius fixed his outfit for the day. It was nothing more than a black long-sleeves, slacks, a nifty leather belt, and a light gray necktie. He never saw the point in wearing a lab coat, and so did Herta. Sirius’ look in the bathroom mirror was devoid of the sleepiness from earlier. The shower also helped clear up his mind, signalling a good day ahead.
Before leaving, he did not forget to grab the still-hot sandwich from the air fryer. The temperature almost burnt his fingertips.
Click.
Making sure the house was locked, he started walking towards his destination with a crispy peanut butter and jam sandwich in his mouth. The tanginess of the strawberry jam and the sweetness of the peanut butter was heavenly. Add to that the crisp brought by the butter and the air fryer and a perfect five-minutes-breakfast was made.
No cliches of highschool girls bumping onto him occurred. However…
Rumble-!
“An earthquake?!”
…he seems to have been caught in a natural disaster.