At Arc City International Airport, the arrivals hall of Terminal 3 buzzed with noise.
Over the loudspeakers, a crisp, precisely enunciated female voice announced that a flight from Europe had just landed safely.
In this transit hub that swallowed and disgorged countless joys and sorrows, absurd reunion dramas played out every single day — so often, in fact, that they'd become just another unremarkable feature of the city.
There were sweat-drenched men clutching ninety-nine red roses, people towing bundles of rainbow-colored balloons, others hauling eye-searingly gaudy banners, and on scorching-hot days, someone kneeling on one knee in a bulky mascot costume to propose.
There were even lines of men wailing in unison, "Baby, I was wrong!"... To the well-traveled crowd waiting at arrivals, none of these tricks were worth so much as a second glance.
But Su Yu's favorite pastime was always cooking up something new.
As the saying goes, though, a good bit should stay grounded — not veer into the realm of the uncanny.
Today's welcome ceremony, admittedly, had a bit of an underworld vibe to it — like Ox-Head and Horse-Face flanking a grinning King of Hell.
Su Yu stood less than three meters from the automatic doors, gripping a red wooden pole.
Hoisted atop the pole was a sturdily made silk banner — crimson background, gold velvet trim, and in the center, in blindingly bright yellow lettering:
"Welcome Home, Dr. Su, the Miracle Physician!"
If that were all, it would have counted as, at most, a retro-style prank.
The problem was, this thing had a matching set!
Half a step to his left, Kiana stood with the posture of someone wishing the floor would swallow her whole, pinching a second wooden pole between just two fingers.
The banner in her hands was even more unrestrained: "Dr. Su, Miracle Physician, Your Peerless Skill Saved My Wretched Life."
Ten minutes ago, Kevin had been holding this very banner, steady as Mount Tai.
Then, just as the notification popped up that the flight had landed, the ice-faced boy's phone had suddenly buzzed.
It was an unavoidable business call from miHoYo. Kevin flashed Su Yu a quick gesture, promptly dumped the hot potato onto the nearest bystander gawking at the scene — a veritable Paramecium in this situation — and slipped off to a quiet corner to handle work.
So Su Yu, who'd originally planned to drag his buddy into publicly embarrassing their friend fresh off the plane, ended up standing there with Kiana instead — the brightest, most eye-catching sight at the arrivals gate.
Kiana kept tugging her baseball cap lower and lower.
Several uncles waiting nearby cast curious glances their way, and a couple of kids pushing luggage carts even pointed and giggled.
"Hey, Su Yu." Kiana lowered her voice, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the polished marble floor. "What exactly is going on with you guys' friendship? Are you two really good friends? Are you sure you weren't sworn enemies in a past life?"
Su Yu, who'd been looking down at his phone, glanced up from the screen at that.
"What do you mean?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Kiana pursed her lips, glancing down at the red banner in her hands proclaiming she'd been 'saved from a wretched life.' "What kind of good friend does this to another the second he walks off the plane?"
"And I've noticed before — in that group chat of yours, you're either trying to claim you're each other's 'dad,' or scheming up ways to prank each other. You guys are so weird."
Su Yu laughed.
He switched the banner to his other hand and turned slightly to face her.
"That's what you call a frenemy. There are different kinds of friends — some you open your heart to, some you borrow money from, and then there's our kind, whose whole purpose is mutual suffering. You wouldn't get it. It's a romance exclusive to men."
"Who says I don't get it!" Kiana shot back.
A moment ago she'd been thinking how bizarre this kind of relationship was, but the instant the words left her mouth, an image popped into her head — a certain short girl with spiral twin-tails who loved calling her "Idiot Kiana" to her face.
Kiana blinked, caught off guard.
"Huh?" She blinked her mismatched eyes, her grip on the banner loosening slightly. "...Huh, I guess it kind of is."
Wasn't Bronie the textbook definition of a frenemy?
That girl was viciously sarcastic, constantly steamrolling her with raw skill, and whenever they played games together online, she'd deliberately lead her shots to lob a flashbang right at Kiana's feet.
But the moment real trouble hit, no one typed faster than her.
And besides...
Kiana pictured, just for a second, the day she'd finally out-scheme Bronie so thoroughly that the girl would be left speechless, blushing furiously, forced to grudgingly admit defeat and call her "big sister."
The Paramecium who'd felt so mortified a moment ago suddenly found herself understanding exactly why Su Yu had gone to the trouble of making this big red banner.
What was this called? This was total psychological dominance!
"I see." Realization dawned on Kiana, and even the brim of her cap tilted up a notch. "I get it now, Su Yu! There's really no difference between boys and girls in this — every kind of friendship just has its own way of working, right?"
Watching her sudden epiphany, Su Yu gave in and raised his free hand to flash a thumbs-up.
"Congratulations, Miss Kiana. Not only have you seen through the true nature of human relationships, you've successfully evolved into a philosopher."
With that praise, whatever awkwardness Kiana had felt vanished completely.
She lifted her chin, the messy little cowlick atop her head perking up along with it.
"Of course! When I actually put my mind to it, figuring out grand truths and deep meanings is a piece of cake!"
She even gave the "peerless skill saved my wretched life" banner a couple of deliberate little waves.
Su Yu watched her, tail practically pointed straight at the sky, and chose not to burst her bubble.
He just felt like the air in the once-dreary arrivals hall had gotten noticeably lighter.
He glanced back down at his phone.
The last message in the chat window was still from a few minutes ago.
Su Yu: [Kevin and I have been waiting outside for ages. The second you walk out, you'll spot your two handsome dads right away. Get ready to be baptized in fatherly love.]
The reply took a while to come.
More than a minute later, a pixel-art Shiba Inu sticker finally popped up — nostrils flared enormous, with one blunt word underneath.
[Crawl.]
Su Yu stared at the sticker, his grin spreading wider and wider.
He locked his phone and pocketed it, looking up at the crowd already streaming out past the glass doors with their luggage carts.
At that same moment—
On the other side of the automatic doors, Su pushed a silver twenty-inch carry-on, moving with the flow of the crowd.
The closer to home, the more anxious the heart.
That old saying fit the moment rather well.
In his coat pocket sat a copy of the briefing Otto had given him — about the illegal drugs circulating in Arc City's underground black market.
Its weight kept his nerves taut.
The drugs' distribution routes, the unknown dangers of their composition — problems that should have been solved in a research lab, but instead had to be rooted out in the city's shadows.
And yet, at the same time, he felt light.
Past that door, he'd see Su Yu and Kevin again.
Those two unfilial sons, still fretting over rent and instant noodles, not even fully aware of the true nature of their own jobs.
Su took a deep breath of the fresh air in the arrivals hall, a mix of air conditioning and coffee.
In the deep sea, sealed inside a capsule where the only sounds were the cold ticking of monitoring equipment and maddening low-frequency white noise, he had endured for months on end.
Hearing this chaotic, disorderly human noise again now brought him an overwhelming sense of relief.
As he pushed his suitcase along, he replayed Su Yu's message in his head.
"You'll spot your two handsome dads right away."
That insufferable tone was, without a doubt, pure unfiltered Su Yu.
Su had already braced himself.
Knowing those two, there was no way they'd hold up a normal welcome sign.
They'd probably gone for some tacky red-and-white banner, or maybe were holding up an embarrassing photo of him dozing off during a college lecture.
Whatever it was, it would definitely be ridiculous.
With the composed attitude of someone who'd already seen through everything — "let's see what you two have cooked up this time" — Su stepped through the automatic doors.
The lights in the arrivals hall were bright.
Su's gaze swept through the crowd, and without much effort at all, landed on a blaze of eye-searing red at the most prominent spot — Exit C.
Good.
Not a banner. A silk flag.
Su Yu was holding the wooden pole with one hand, that signature mischievous grin on his face — the one that meant he was waiting to watch someone embarrass themselves.
Su's steps faltered for a moment, and he shook his head helplessly.
He let go of the suitcase handle, about to walk over.
He'd already worked out his comeback lines in his head.
Should he start by roasting Su Yu for his taste regressing into something painfully tacky over the past half year, or mock the banner's shoddy trim for being unworthy of a "sea turtle" — a returnee from Europe — like himself?
But then his gaze, following the line of Su Yu's shoulder, drifted half a meter to the side.
The helplessness on Su's face, along with the gentle smile that hadn't fully formed yet, froze solid in place — as if someone had hit pause.
There were two banners.
The second one was being pinched between two reluctant fingers.
It was a girl.
White hair spilled over her shoulders, the ends curling slightly, a bit unkempt.
She kept tugging her baseball cap down, standing next to Su Yu with a look of pure reluctance — the kind of awkward, life-has-lost-all-meaning expression you'd expect from someone dragged into this.
Su's breath caught for a beat.
He stood frozen, his fingers unconsciously tightening around the suitcase's plastic handle.
Five minutes ago, Su Yu's message had said, clear as day: [Kevin and I have been waiting outside for ages. The second you walk out, you'll spot your two handsome dads right away.]
"Two... handsome... dads...?"
Su opened his eyes again, his gaze lingering for two seconds on the face half-hidden by the cap, then slowly traveling downward.
Something was wrong.
What decent girl would stand in a public airport, next to a lunatic like Su Yu, holding up a moronic red banner that said 'saved my wretched life'?!
Even the closest of opposite-sex friends would've fled the scene the second things got this humiliating!
The only kind of person who could stand beside someone like Su Yu without a shred of shame — who even carried that faint air of "reluctantly resigned to this fate"... was one kind of person.
A close brother who had a fatal secret held over his head.
White hair... Arc City...
A memory from not long ago — in Otto's office, something about a "school festival maid café" — came rushing back into Su's mind like a bursting dam!
"There was a white-haired masked Vigilante over there earlier..."
"The anime-obsessed maid café at the high school festival... their star performer, Kevin..."
"For the sake of justice... Kevin was absolutely the type who'd do something like this..."
Su Yu was here, holding the banner right here.
And where Kevin should have been standing, there now stood a white-haired girl — one who bore a striking resemblance to Kevin in expression, even down to the exact angle of her cowlick.
In that instant, a wave of absurdity unlike anything he'd ever felt surged from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
He'd sooner believe some unknown monster was going to level Arc City that very night, sooner believe Otto secretly moonlighted as a crossdresser under the alias "Madam Green Lily," than accept the damned conclusion currently forming in his head!
Could it be?!
Was this the "surprise" Instructor Otto had deliberately been keeping under wraps?!
Kevin... had he... really, in order to fight crime in Arc City... or maybe under the crazed influence of that scheming mastermind Su Yu...
Not only was he an Office Slave by day and Batman by night... but also—
A tidal wave of something like heartbreak crashed over Su's chest.
Brother, I know you're an upright hero, one who can endure pain for the sake of justice.
But did you really have to go this far?
Was it because of some mission? An accident? Or maybe—
Does that girl, Mei, know you underwent this kind of era-defining physical transformation?
And that bastard Su Yu actually made you dress up in women's clothes and show your face in public holding a banner?
Still oblivious, Kiana kept waving the banner, giving Su Yu's arm a puzzled poke.
"Su Yu, that's Mr. Su, right? Why does he look like... he's short-circuited?"
"Probably too moved by the sight of his handsome daddies to speak."
Su Yu was shaking with suppressed laughter, and whatever came out of his mouth made no sense at all.
Meanwhile, in Su Yu's field of vision, a translucent red pop-up window only he could see was flashing wildly above Su's head.
[Anomalous Emotion Points fluctuation detected in target "Su"!]
[Current Emotion Points output: +500! +1000! +2000!!]
[System Notice: Target is undergoing a severe collapse of personal values and worldview. Due to the double-output state, congratulations, Host — you have obtained massive amounts of willpower!]
Su Yu stared at the numbers, momentarily stunned, the gleeful grin frozen on his face slowly morphing into a question mark.
What was going on?
He'd only meant to embarrass Su a little, put on a show of accepting the banner in public — by rights, that should've been worth a few hundred Emotion Points at most, just for the gag.
Could it be... that the words on the banner packed that much punch?
Or had Su spent so long in Europe that he'd become this pure-hearted and easy to rattle?
Kiana, for her part, had no idea about the bizarre battle of wits playing out between the two men.
Since she was already here, she figured she should at least act a bit more enthusiastic — after all, this was Su Yu's best friend.
And besides, what Su Yu had just taught her about the "true meaning of frenemies" did seem to make sense.
"Welcome back, Dr. Su!"
When Su still didn't move, Kiana went ahead and took half a step forward, lifting the "saved my wretched life" banner even higher.
Watching Kiana step closer, hearing that "Dr. Su" again, Su's breathing went ragged.
He felt like his entire medical training was being put through an unprecedented catastrophe.
This... this way of greeting someone, like they already knew each other well...
Kevin!!!
My poor brother!!
What on earth happened to you?!
"Su Yu..."
Su finally spoke, his eyes not on Kiana but fixed on Su Yu's guilty, grinning face.
"You'd better give me an explanation. Right now."
"Explanation? For what?"
Su Yu blinked, more confused than ever, but he didn't lower the banner.
"Aren't you the miracle physician? I had a real calligraphy master write these characters — top-tier quality. Look how hard Kiana's working to welcome you."
Su took a deep breath, his gaze sweeping over to Kiana again, his tone carrying a gentleness that sent a chill down Su Yu's spine.
"Kiana... is that this girl's name?"
Even as he spoke, his mind was already racing through post-surgical recovery plans and how to tactfully ask about the stability of her current hormone levels.
"Um... I'm Kiana!"
Kiana played along readily, freeing up a hand to give a wave.
"You're Dr. Su, right? Su Yu told me you're amazing. Please take good care of me from now on!"
Su's eye twitched again.
Take care of her?
Of course he would.
As a doctor, as a close friend, his only thought right now was to take this girl—
No — Kevin — straight to Arc City University's affiliated hospital for a full-body examination.
"Su Yu, you two unfilial sons really opened my eyes with this welcome. What a surprise, truly."
Su snatched the banner from Su Yu's hands, pulling so hard the fabric let out a faint tearing sound.
"So big, in fact, that I might need to start writing a thesis right now — 'The Effects of Acquired Mutation on Personal Identity.'"
Su Yu: ...
This time, a genuine question mark slowly formed in his mind.
What thesis?
What mutation?
What kind of drama was playing out in this guy's head?
Just as this three-way standoff sank into an inexplicably awkward silence, Kevin's voice drifted over from the direction of a vending machine in the distance.
"Su Yu, I finished the call. The paperwork went...uh..."
Kevin walked back, still carrying the prank prop he hadn't had the chance to bring out yet.
But the moment he caught sight of the man's back at the arrivals gate — and the red silk banner gripped tightly in his hand — Kevin's steps came to an abrupt halt.
In that instant, his expression, rarely enough, matched Su's exactly.
And upon hearing that familiar voice, Su turned his head, somewhat stiffly.
Their eyes met.
The air beside the barrier in the arrivals hall died completely.
Su looked at Kevin, completely unchanged, not even a different hairstyle, then glanced down at the snow-haired girl beside him, watching him with open curiosity.
Su: "?"
Su Yu: "?"
Kiana: "?"
Kevin: "..."
Kevin: "No need to explain. I understand everything now. Su, you're sitting at the same table as my dad tonight."
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