The sliding door hissed open.
Valerian sat at the control console, the light from his wristwatch casting blue and silver across his sharp features. His fingers moved across the holographic interface with practiced precision. He didn't look up when she entered.
Luna's chest tightened. Her eyes softened at the sight of him, so composed, so untouchable. She swallowed hard, gathering the courage bubbling inside her. Her heart screamed, Tell him. Say it. Be honest for once.
She took a step forward, her voice trembling but loud enough to break the silence. "Valerian…"
His eyes flickered toward her briefly, but his expression remained unreadable. "What is it?"
Her fists clenched at her sides. Her cheeks flared bright red again. Say it, Luna. Say the truth. Tell him your heart.
She inhaled shakily, eyes locking with his stormy ones. And then—her mind betrayed her.
"No… it's not like that."
The words slipped out, small, weak, betraying everything her heart wanted to scream. Her voice cracked halfway, and her smile twitched nervously at the corners.
She wanted to die right there.
Valerian's gaze lingered on her for a moment, unreadable, before he turned his attention back to the glowing holographic panel. "I see," he said simply, his tone flat, as though her words carried no weight at all.
Luna's chest twisted painfully. She wanted to scream at herself, Why?! Why did you say that?! Her hands fidgeted with the hem of her coat, her face still crimson, sweat sliding down her temples.
She stammered, trying to cover herself. "I-I mean… you misunderstood earlier, it's… just nerves, you know? Hehe… I-I get nervous all the time! Even with girls sometimes! Haha…" Her laugh was brittle, breaking into silence.
Valerian didn't respond.
Her smile faltered, her shoulders slumping as she backed away a step. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I really… I really didn't mean to…"
Her heart sank as she turned slowly, exiting the control room. The door closed behind her, sealing her back into the emptiness of the hall.
She pressed her back to the wall, sliding down until she sat on the cold floor, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. Her half-moon earrings glinted faintly under the light as her purple hair framed her flushed, exhausted face.
"…Why do I always mess it up…" she whispered to herself, biting her lip until it trembled. Tears didn't fall—but the weight pressing on her chest was heavier than anything she had ever carried.
Her heart kept whispering the truth she couldn't say aloud. I like him. I really like him. And he'll never know… because I'm too much of a coward.
The sliding door closed behind her, cutting her off from Valerian and the blue light of the control room. Luna's feet carried her weakly back into the hall, every step shaky, like her legs had lost their strength.
The sofa greeted her like a silent friend, and she collapsed onto it with no grace, slamming face-first into the cushions. Her muffled voice came out broken and uneven:
"Why… why didn't I say it?!"
Her hands gripped at the fabric tightly, her knuckles pale. Her flushed face pressed harder into the sofa, hiding from the world, from herself. Her chest ached, her heartbeat refusing to settle.
"I like him," she whispered, then corrected herself with a bitter laugh muffled by the fabric. "No… no, it's more than that. I… I love him."
Her body shook with nervous giggles, the kind she always used to patch over cracks in her heart. But this time, the laughter only echoed back hollowly inside her.
She flipped onto her back, her hair spilling over the edge of the sofa, light purple strands swaying against the floor. Her bright eyes—always described as a lantern in the void—now shimmered with a heaviness she didn't show anyone. She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead, staring upward, spiraling.
"What would he have done if I said yes?" she asked the empty air, her voice trembling with both longing and dread. "He would have ignored me. Just like he ignores everything. He… he doesn't see me. Not like that."
Her lips quivered as she spoke faster, nervously laughing again between words. "He'd probably think, 'pathetic little girl, weak S-rank, acting careless, unworthy, unprofessional.' He'd… he'd hate me more."
She curled her knees up to her chest, hugging them, her long light-purple coat wrapping around her like a fragile cocoon. The faint sparkle of her half-moon earrings caught the hall's dim light, trembling with each nervous shake of her head.
"I can't risk that," she whispered to herself, her voice cracking. "I can't… lose even this. At least now… he's my partner. At least now… he talks to me, even if it's cold, even if it's only about the mission. If I told him…"
Her throat tightened. She forced a laugh to chase away the sting in her eyes. "He'd never talk to me again."
Her gaze slipped sideways, unfocused, her lips twisting into a shaky smile. "So that's it, Luna. Final decision. No matter what happens… you'll never tell him."
Her fingers tightened around her knees, nails digging into the fabric of her uniform. Her chest burned with the weight of those words, heavier than any burden she had carried as a Mooncreast.
"I'll just… stay with him. As long as I can. Until the mission ends. Until our paths split again. Until destiny tears this away like it always does."
She laughed softly, but it wasn't her usual cheerful laugh. It was cracked, uneven, filled with nerves and sorrow.
Then, almost childishly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small packet—her emergency stash of blueberry cakes. Her trembling fingers opened it, and she popped one into her mouth.
The sweetness melted on her tongue, but it didn't soothe the sharp ache in her chest. Still, she smiled—because that's what Luna Mooncreast always did. She smiled through everything, even now, even when her heart was bleeding in silence.
Her voice was a faint whisper between bites, half-nervous, half-broken. "Ah… so this is sadness…? This is why people break, isn't it?"
Her laugh slipped out again, awkward, trembling, almost desperate. She covered her face with her hand, her cheeks flushed, her smile quivering but refusing to fade. "It hurts… but it's fine. I'll just… laugh it away. He'll never know. He doesn't need to know."
She closed her eyes, clutching the small cake packet to her chest as though it could hold her fragile resolve together. Her breath steadied, but her smile remained—bright, nervous, and heartbreakingly fake.
Deep down, she knew the truth. Her decision cut her deeper than any blade could.
But Luna Mooncreast—the Radiant Heart of ISA—would never let that pain show.
Not to Valerian. Not to anyone.
The control room hummed with quiet precision, screens shifting across the transparent panels at his command. Valerian sat rigidly in the pilot's chair, his wristwatch unfolded into a lattice of holographic data: trade routes, suspicious movements in Universe 03A, the registry of ships passing through the Shinobi Trade Expanse.
His stormy eyes scanned without pause. Every detail mattered. Every second wasted was a thread Flame Stormbringer's kidnappers could exploit.
And yet—his focus frayed.
The image of Luna clung to the edges of his mind, intrusive and unbidden: her flushed cheeks, her crystal-white smile trembling with nervous laughter, the way her hand had gripped his wrist earlier. And worst of all, the words she had flung at him—carelessly, cruelly—cut deeper than any enemy blade.
"Damn, you're good at ignoring. Probably because you've been ignored since birth."
He exhaled sharply, jaw tightening. He wanted to dismiss it, to bury it like all the other echoes of his past, but the truth was—it had unsettled him. She had glimpsed too close to the wound he kept buried beneath silence.
And when he confronted her about her feelings… her denial had been too rushed, too forced.
"No, it's not like that."
His mind repeated her words with surgical precision, dissecting every syllable. She hadn't sounded convinced. If anything, she'd sounded betrayed by her own tongue.
Valerian leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Ridiculous," he muttered under his breath, though no one could hear him. "I don't have time for her feelings. I don't have time for… anyone."
Yet when he closed his eyes for the briefest moment, he saw her again—her flushed face, her nervous hands fidgeting, her relentless smile that refused to die even when she was crumbling.
It unsettled him.
It frightened him.
And so, Valerian did what he always did. He shut the thought away and drowned himself in the mission.
Meanwhile, in the hall, Luna lay sprawled across the sofa, her arms hugging her knees as though to shield herself from her own spiraling heart.
Her laugh came out again, nervous and hollow, echoing in the empty space. "I'll never tell him… nope, never. He'd just hate me more. Think I'm weak. Think I'm unprofessional."
She pressed the half-empty packet of blueberry cakes to her chest, her flushed cheeks still stained with cream. Her purple hair fell across her face in messy strands, hiding her trembling eyes.
"Why… why does it hurt so much?" she whispered to herself, voice thin and fragile. "Is this… love? Or just foolishness? Luna Mooncreast, youngest S-rank, radiant heart of ISA—and you can't even say three stupid words to the boy you—"
Her voice cracked. She buried her face into the cushions again, laughing nervously, trying to smother the sob that threatened to break through.
Her body ached with exhaustion—not the physical kind, but the heavy, suffocating weight of emotions she had never allowed herself to feel. Her lineage demanded radiance. Her people demanded warmth. Her squad demanded strength.
But here, in this lonely hall, she was just a girl with burning cheeks and a heart tearing itself apart.
Her breaths grew uneven, slower, softer. Her laughter faded into whispers, and then into silence.
Finally, Luna's exhaustion dragged her under. She curled sideways on the sofa, the packet of cakes clutched to her chest like a child holding onto a toy. Her half-moon earrings shimmered faintly in the hall light as her eyes fluttered shut.
Even in sleep, her lips curved into a trembling smile, as though she couldn't stop pretending—couldn't stop being the radiant Luna Mooncreast, even when no one was watching.
In the control room, Valerian's wristwatch pulsed, signaling an update from the ISA network. He tapped it, pulling up coordinates, tracing trade lanes. His expression remained calm, calculating.
But for the briefest moment, he turned his head toward the hall.
He thought he heard something—like a faint laugh, soft and cracked, drifting from the other room.
His brows furrowed, and his lips pressed into a thin line. He didn't move to check. He didn't ask if she was alright. He forced himself back to the data, burying everything under duty.
And yet, the sound lingered.
A nervous laugh that hid sorrow.
A sound that refused to leave him.
The hum of the engines shifted into a heavier vibration, and then came the grinding metallic thrum of docking clamps engaging. Luna's lashes fluttered as her eyes opened, groggy at first, then widening as the heavy sound reverberated through her chest. The spacecraft's hull was now resonating with thousands of other vessels crossing nearby lanes.
She pushed herself up slowly from the sofa, her purple hair messy over her face. For a second, her hands pressed against her burning cheeks. Her heart was still dragging the weight of earlier—Valerian's cold question, her own cowardly denial, the vow she made in silence that she would never confess.
"I'll just… stay with him," she whispered to herself. "That's enough."
Her reflection in the metallic panel by the door showed a tired girl with swollen eyes and cream still faintly at the corner of her lips. She quickly brushed it away, adjusted her long light-purple coat, tugged the nano-fabric pants smooth, and straightened her blue undershirt until every fold disappeared. She even tapped her half-moon earrings, making them glimmer again, as if their soft glow could hide the redness of her cheeks.
When she stepped into the control room, Valerian was already there, hands moving across the flickering holographic panels like a pianist over keys. His storm-gray uniform gleamed faintly in the ambient light, the silver storm insignias pulsing as the ship transitioned into the docking network. His storm-blue eyes barely flicked to her.
No greeting. No reaction. Just silence.
Her radiant smile trembled, but she held it firmly in place.
Before she could even think of how to break the silence, her wristwatch buzzed and projected a thin, neon-blue holographic tab over her palm. Text scrolled rapidly across it:
"Landing Port Gate 235 confirmed. Two ISA officials will meet you upon arrival. Proceed to designated uplink channel for further directives."
"Valerian," she said softly, turning the panel toward him, "they want us at Gate 235. ISA officials are waiting. We'll need to uplink there first."
He glanced at the projection, gave a curt nod, then synchronized his own wristwatch with hers. The devices pulsed once in harmony, registering their joint mission link.
And then… nothing more. No word, no warmth. Just the storm again.
The spacecraft's thrusters roared, slowing as the massive neon-green highways of the Mechanical Trade Expanse opened before them. It was a universe unlike anything Luna had seen in her endless travels—a colossal lattice of living machinery.
Massive transport freighters, the size of small cities, glided along slow gravitational lanes. Between them, families of androids, cyborgs, and Synthborn strolled casually across transparent neon skyways, pets made of nano-alloy bounding at their heels.
Above and below, malls spiraled upward like helixes of chrome and glass. Entire skyscrapers walked along tracked foundations, shifting their positions like migrating animals. Bright holograms projected products, games, and battle simulations directly into the air, overlapping until the sky itself was a jungle of colors.
Valerian's hands never shook as he threaded the spacecraft between the larger vessels, tilting slightly to join a lane marked with emerald glyphs. His stormy expression never wavered as he guided them with perfect precision to Gate 235, a circular docking aperture pulsing with neon circuits.