?

  Adrian is trying to order his thoughts for the next meeting, his fingers absentmindedly working the buttons of his shirt. He is only halfway done when a soft knock breaks the silence. He pulls the door open and freezes, his hand still resting on his chest. Mira is standing there. Her eyes are still red, lashes damp, the clear trace of tears left behind. A sudden weight of guilt pressing in so hard it steals the air from his lungs. Had she endured that much, only to finally break the moment she saw her mother? Every instinct tells him to reach out, to brush the dampness from her cheek, but he forces his hands to stay at his sides.

  He steps aside and lets her in. The room suddenly feels too small, charged with the scent of her and the raw, vibrating tension between them.

  “Can we talk a bit?” she asks after sitting at the chair near his desk. “Are you leaving?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Could we go shopping another time, maybe tomorrow evening?”

  “The same meeting with my mother?” Mira asks.

  He nods, watching her closely.

  They both start to speak at once. Mira reacts first, lifting her hand and motioning toward him.

  “You go first.”

  “I’m sorry,” Adrian asks, the apology clawing at his throat. “Did I make you feel uncomfortable?”

  He leans forward, both forearms resting on his knees, his posture lowering naturally between them.

  Mira meets his eyes. After a moment, she nods and speaks at the same time.

  “Yes. But you’ve helped me a lot when things felt overwhelming, and I truly appreciate that.”

  She pauses, fingers resting together in her lap.

  “I know you never meant to carry this for me. I feel grateful for everything you’ve done. What I’m still sorting through belongs to me.”

  And… Mira draws in a breath. Adrian senses the effort it takes for her to hold herself together.

  “What you said in Tokyo,” she asks, “about waiting for me—does that still stand?”

  Adrian gives a small nod, waiting for whatever comes next.

  Mira breathes in, fingers curl tight in her lap. “You must know that I’m quirky and childish. I say the silliest things sometimes. I’m incredibly competitive and my studies always come first. I’m far from the typical feminine girl. My life is still a mess, I don’t even know what I will become, and I can’t think straight with all of these strange things happening. Even so—will you wait for me?”

  He looks at her gently. "Especially then."

  Mira’s gaze slides toward the window, fixing on the pale light there instead of his eyes as she squeezes her hands together to gather all of her strength, her cheeks starting to flush.

  “Is it too late if I say I want us to figure things out as a normal couple?” she continues. “We may be at the beginning. I will learn too. I think we could try together.”

  She turns back to him, her voice rising this time.

  “And I don’t want to call this exposure therapy. I don’t want to be a patient under your care.”

  He draws breath to answer, but Mira rises before he can speak.

  “Please stay still. Don’t say anything. Don’t come over,” she says, lifting both hands toward him. “Just give me time. I’ll be fine.”

  She moves toward the door at once, urgency in every step, as if she has set her terms down and withdrawn immediately to keep herself standing.

  The declaration floors him. He expects to be the one to step forward first, with the plan and the scientific understanding he believes is necessary to guide her. He had pictured something much slower—a long, agonizingly drawn-out process of slowly, safely growing closer through controlled intervals.

  His rigid logic always trusts data far more than the messy volatility of feelings. If she is actually in love with him, the natural release of dopamine and oxytocin will stabilize her fragile cells more effectively than any clinical, formal therapy meant to suppress the amygdala’s primal fear response. But the mere thought of telling her that loving him is the cure feels like a cruel, manipulative form of biological blackmail. He promised to wait for her and he cannot bring himself to ask for her love again while she is in this vulnerable state. He wants her to love him as a completely free human being, not because his physical presence is the only medicine keeping her at her normal size.

  He has chosen to hide behind the role of the cautious scientist because he is secretly terrified that if he fails as a boyfriend, he might lose her life literally.

  He has thought that if he can only use controlled logic to habituate her nervous system to his presence, her recovery would become a permanent, structural change in the brain—something stable and reliable that exists entirely outside of the unpredictable way they feel about each other on any given day.

  What he truly never expects is how Mira can violently flip all of his carefully constructed dilemmas out the window with one single sudden clean shot and runs, leaving him confused behind, realizing he never stood a chance of keeping up once she made up her mind.

  He should have known from the moment he was first drawn to her chaos that Mira is never a variable he can control by any means, and especially not by logic. She has always wanted to stand on equal ground with him. From the first debate they ever shared, even when it comes to this, even when it comes to love.

  A laugh escapes him, short and helpless, bordering on breathless.

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  His fingers press at his temple, tightening there until his knuckles turn white. The urge rises fast, violent and consuming—to tear the door open, to cross the short distance between their rooms, to pull her into his arms and claim her as his. To bury his face in her neck and tell her that she never has to be his patient, only his partner.

  He doesn’t move.

  It takes every ounce of willpower he possesses to keep his feet planted on the floor. His muscles lock with the strain of it. Because this time, the only way to meet her properly—to honor the courage she just showed him—is to let her go first.

  ?

  The meeting is held in a secured subterranean laboratory beneath Vermillion Crown Academy, a facility reserved for restricted, cross-institutional coordination. Entry is controlled by a security system developed by Adrian and recently approved under a Geneva Defence Ethics Board contract, later termed the Cognitive Boundary Firewall Protocol. The system replaces standard biometric safeguards by anchoring access to individual neural architecture: a unique combination of brainwave patterns and structural signatures that cannot be copied, altered, or replicated, even through surgical intervention.

  The report was circulated a week ago; there is nothing new to discuss. The true objective of this meeting is the strategic monopolization of the resource and the assertion of jurisdictional command. Fungi are already deployed to solve critical problems—plastic remediation, nuclear site stabilization, contaminated land recovery—but scaling them has always failed at control. It is predictable that what happened at Vermillion would trigger immediate national and international claims of involvement. If replicated, it could shorten development cycles by years and cut costs tenfold. Adrian’s gaze sweeps the room to dissect the players. As the senior mycologist representing the International Mycological Research Consortium, Clara says nothing during the meeting, never once glances his way, acting as if she doesn't even know him. It is clear her purpose there is simply to see him. Nearby, the representative from the National Academy of Sciences Biodiversity Council maintains a mask of skepticism and dismisses the event as a statistical anomaly unworthy of their full institutional weight.

  Then there is Dr. Marcus Vellor, the Principal Investigator for Applied Systems Biology at the Helix-funded Joint Research Consortium—already pressing aggressively for co-research, framing Vermillion as a launch point for rapid international scale-up. Adrian knows the architecture of the venture and the fact that Lucian is the primary benefactor funding it. Although the Helix project has been halted for strategic reconsideration, the sudden pivot into general applied biology research is a transparent cover that fails to hide Vellor’s predatory interest in this incident. It remains unclear whether Lucian invited him here as a controlled counterweight or if Vellor forced his own entry to challenge Vermillion’s proprietary autonomy, or perhaps there is another purpose for his arrival that has not yet surfaced. He will have Nate investigate these profiles later just to be sure.

  Marcus’s statement changes the atmosphere of the meeting in an instant. Several participants turn toward the Vermillion representatives, Professor Elliot Marwood, Director of Environmental Systems & Spatial Stewardship. At seventy-five, Elliot remains sharp and attentive with his short white beard and modest height. He is a biologist in the fullest sense, one of the few who worked alongside Adrian’s grandfather during his lifetime and has remained at Vermillion for more than forty years. That’s why Adrian chose him. After several exchanges following Elliot’s speech, the meeting dissolves. No external collaboration is accepted and no scale-up of the research is approved. Without a word, Adrian follows Elliot Marwood back to his office.

  Out of the secured wing and into the older part of Vermillion, where the walls show their age and the air carries the weight of long use, Elliot’s office sits behind tall windows, its shelves crowded with field notes, dried specimens, and worn volumes whose spines have faded from decades of handling.

  The moment Adrian is fully settled in his seat, Elliot asks.

  “Your parents will be visiting campus this Friday to meet scholarship recipients and top scholars from all levels, ahead of Vermillion’s thousand-year ceremony. Will you be attending?”

  “Is attendance mandatory?”

  “It is optional,” Elliot replies. “Though attendance will be noted. So will an absence.”

  A beat passes.

  “I won’t be on campus on Friday,” Adrian says.

  “You’ve completed all your research and coursework for the PhD. Why are you still postponing the administrative process to finalize it?” Elliot looks at him for a moment, then adds, “Is there a reason you’re keeping yourself here?”

  Adrian waits, evaluating Elliot. The man has always maintained clear boundaries, never prying or directing Adrian’s choices. Trusting Elliot remains a risk Adrian hasn't finalized. Even with the internal pressure to uncover the truth about his grandfather, he refuses to lead with a request. He will not provide Elliot with the leverage of knowing exactly what he seeks.

  He speaks, turning the inquiry back.

  “Is there anything you think I should know before I leave this place?”

  Elliot rests his hand on the desk, maintaining an open posture. “What’s your reading of the Mushroom Center incident?”

  “It isn’t relevant to my work.”

  Elliot watches him for a long moment, measuring the answer.

  “There’s something your grandfather left in my care,” he says. “I was meant to give it to you after you finish the formalities. If you ever decide to tell me the truth, come to my house.”

  Elliot’s simple request snaps his mind into full alert, sending thousands of questions surging at once. Why now, and why this sequence. How much Elliot actually knows about the Mushroom Center incident, and how much is inference. Why his grandfather is mentioned at this precise moment. What was left in Elliot’s care, and whether the offer is genuine or a calculated test. And if it is genuine, whether going to Elliot would resolve uncertainty or create consequences he cannot yet contain.

  Adrian straightens his back, unsure how to process the sudden information. He looks at Elliot again. The old man appears completely at ease. Adrian leaves the office shortly after, his mind occupied with layers of information and newly formed assumptions, already beginning to reorganize what he thought he understood. Just then, a soft buzz comes from the phone in his pocket. Adrian glances down, and the name on the screen clears the cloud in his head at once.

  Mira: Are you done with your meeting?

  Mira: I’m making something simple for dinner. Want to come eat and study after?

  Adrian stops at a window in the hallway and looks toward the dorm, his long fingers pressing against his lips to hide a savoring smile. The message remains open on his screen as his thumb hovers over the glass, reading the lines again and again. Their last message exchange occurred three weeks ago regarding a club errand, as they rarely share anything beyond class projects; yet only an hour after she declared her terms, she has already put this new policy into effect. A restless energy takes hold of him, making it difficult to stand still while he resists the urge to run forward. He feels a deep uncertainty about how to handle her now, wondering exactly how much he should let go and how much he should hold back.

  It is only 3:30 pm, making it far too soon for dinner. Adrian returns to the dorm and pauses before his own entrance, looking at the door opposite his while wondering what she is doing inside. He eventually steps into the bathroom and catches his reflection in the mirror, only to realize he is still dressed as the man who usually keeps her at a distance—the rigid researcher, the cold scientist, the obsessive workaholic.

  His closet is a monotonous rows of white shirts, sharp suits, tailored trousers, and black sweaters. He has never spared a second thought for his wardrobe, preferring his clothes to be uniform to eliminate the mental energy of choosing or considering an outfit. Everything he owns is designed to serve a singular purpose, acting as a functional package for work, meetings, and research. The challenge of selecting a simple outfit for a normal dinner suddenly requires his intense focus, forcing Adrian to realize he must adapt to this new routine alongside her.

  He closes the bathroom door, hoping the water will lower his temperature and calm his restless mind. But the warmth and the solitude only leave him more unsettled as he remains trapped with his own anticipation.

  ?