Chapter 310
It was not Ilux's mocking laughter, nor Erietta's irritated one.
It was a shared laugh instead, light, clear, and free.
That laughter released all the tension, all the calculations, all the small dramas in front of the claw machine.
They laughed at the amusing failures, at the imperfect success, at the absurdity of the situation, and perhaps at their own complicated yet resilient friendship.
Amid the ever-spinning glitter of the carnival, the two teenagers laughed, with two dolls won and one dream left hanging, yet with a bond that had grown stronger than before.
"So it's kind of tiring to play every game at this carnival. How about we find something more relaxing to do?"
"Agreed."
The booming laughter slowly faded into relieved sighs and lingering smiles at the corners of their lips.
The air around them felt lighter, as if cleansed by the laughter that had just passed.
Ilux, with one hand still holding the remnants of the dolls he had not fully managed to win, rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back of his other hand.
A pleasant fatigue crept into his bones, not from physical exertion, but from the emotional intensity and high concentration he had just endured.
His eyes swept across the surroundings, scanning the sea of game stalls that were still crowded and noisy, each promising new excitement at the cost of different coins.
With a voice heavier yet decisive, he expressed his weariness.
Not physical exhaustion, but sensory fatigue from the glitter and challenges the carnival offered.
He proposed an escape, an activity that demanded neither muscle tension nor quick reflexes, but instead allowed the body and mind to sink into passivity.
His words were an invitation to move from a world of active interaction into one of passive reception, from the arena of play into the space of watching.
Erietta replied briefly, then nodded once—firmly, without hesitation.
The disappointment, resentment, and finally the relief and laughter had consumed enough of her emotional energy.
The idea of sitting still in a dark room, letting moving images tell a story, sounded like heaven.
Without further discussion, a tacit understanding formed between them.
They turned away, leaving the clamor of the carnival's center behind, their steps falling into the same rhythm.
The two figures walked side by side, following a path lined with flickering lights that were slowly left behind.
Their destination was the silhouette of the cinema building at the end of the road, its dim projector glow piercing the darkness like a lighthouse for seekers of calm.
"Even though you never say it, sometimes your eyes speak far more, Aldraya."
Erietta's and Ilux's footsteps gradually vanished, absorbed by the crowd and the fading lights at the end of the road, forming silhouettes that merged with their own long shadows.
Behind them, Theo and Aldraya remained standing like two pillars amid the flowing current of people.
Theo halted his steps, a subtle instinct telling him that staying too close would disturb the teenagers' private space, or perhaps disrupt the quiet space he was maintaining beside the entity next to him.
When he turned, his intention to warn Aldraya to stop for a moment was already about to be spoken—yet the sentence caught, frozen in his throat.
Aldraya did not notice their departure.
He did not even seem aware that Theo had stopped.
His entire being was fixed, locked onto a single point within the receding clamor.
His perfect, static body faced the same direction, unmoving by even an inch.
His gaze, usually empty or fixed upon Theo, now pierced through space and crowd, focused with a terrifying intensity on one specific location.
The claw machine stall.
Not its attendant, not the flickering neon lights, but the machine itself, the glass box that now stood quiet, where a teddy bear with a red ribbon remained caught at the edge, untouched.
"Do you want a doll like that too? If so, I can ask RWIA to continue the surveillance while we try this machine."
Theo's voice drifted softly, almost swallowed by the carnival's distant roar, cutting through the static silence surrounding Aldraya.
The question was simple, yet layered with complex meaning.
He offered a worldly solution to a longing that might be transcendental in nature.
In his mind, the scenario unfolded quickly.
With brief trust placed in RWIA—a creation born at the edge of consciousness—he would hand over monitoring duties for a moment, steal a few seconds to approach the machine, insert coins, and test his luck.
A small act, a small gift, for a being who had once ruled the skies.
"No. The toy necklace you gave me back then is far more valuable than any cheap doll."
The shift happened gently yet decisively, like a camera's focus moving from a wide background object to an intimate subject.
Aldraya's gaze, fixed on the small world behind the glass, slowly pulled away, turned, and finally settled fully on Theo standing beside him.
The colorful carnival lights reflected on the surface of his unblinking eyes, creating shallow glimmers that failed to penetrate the depth of contemplation beneath.
He blinked once, a mechanical action that felt more like punctuation in a silent sentence than a biological reflex.
Then his head moved slowly from left to right in a meaningful shake.
The gesture was simple, yet carried a firm rejection of Theo's worldly offer.
When his voice finally emerged, it was flat and clear as crystal, cutting through all the surrounding noise.
He reminded Theo of another gift, a toy necklace that might hold no material value in anyone else's eyes, exchanged during their moment of date-like closeness the day before.
That object, in his view, carried true worth, far surpassing piles of plush dolls available to anyone with a few metal tokens.
His statement was a declaration of loyalty—to memory, to the symbolic bond that had formed, to something given with specific intent, not to an object obtainable through a game of chance.
After the sentence hung in the air, Aldraya's attention drifted again.
His head turned once more, and his sharp eyes fixed themselves back on the claw machine.
'You're jealous, aren't you? Seeing Erietta get a doll, while we only watch from afar.'
"Aldraya, once this surveillance mission is over, I have a small souvenir for you. Something that might make your heart flutter just a little."
No further pressure came from Theo's lips.
He accepted Aldraya's head shake as a final decision, a boundary respected through understanding silence.
Yet within his own quiet heart, a different narrative took shape.
Through the sensitivity he had honed in reading every silence and empty gaze of the former angel, he caught a subtle emotional resonance.
Not jealousy in a shallow, human sense, but a subconscious desire to also be part of that ritual of giving.
Not for the physical object itself, but for the moment of attention, for the gesture that symbolized being considered within Theo's world of thought.
With a voice lower than the carnival's murmur yet clear enough to cross the space between them, Theo finally spoke.
His words did not directly address the hidden feeling, but instead opened a promise for the future.
He spoke of a "souvenir," a "small gift," reserved for the time after their surveillance duty ended.
The phrase about "making your heart jump" sounded deeply human, almost childlike, deliberately chosen to contrast with Aldraya's existential seriousness.
It was a sentence designed to spark anticipation, to shift focus away from what could not be obtained now toward something special already prepared for later.
To be continued…